To those who say there are no good indie games

cool shit

Quite incorrect. Doujin are games made by hobbyists in their spare time, they almost never end up supporting a livelihood and often they're even freeware. You never see doujin developers quitting their day job to finish a game. Because of this, doujin developers focus on game design because that's the whole point of creating one for them.

Indies, short for developers independent of a publisher, on the other hand, are always trying to make a buck. They are much more capitalist in their intentions, always aping the latest shit trends on Steam and in general having zero clue about game design due in some part to their incestuous cliqueish culture in the West. Indie games are always about what sells best, never with game as the central focus. And of course, by definition, they're never freeware, because the meaning behind publisher independence is that you shouldn't overlook our game because. Now there certainly are some good Western freeware games, but you won't find them in the indie game scene.

*shouldn't overlook our game because we didn't get publisher funding

NIGGA THEY'RE BOTH INDIE, STOP TRYING TO SPLIT HAIRS YOU FUCKING WEEABOO

on the topic of speed games how was hover, the jet set radio like game?

What would fall within the indie game scene? Would that just be the IDGF, san fran clique?

Haven't played Hover, sorry.

From Mangafox, I presume?

yeah. not my proudest achievement

Not everyone who makes a Doujin game is Japanese, retard.

Normally Steam, here or on a website with a collection of RPG Maker games. I try going through a couple of pages.
I like RPGs, life simulators, horror or fighting games.
The only indie games I enjoyed were Hotline Miami, LISA, The Shivah, Project Nimbus and FTL but they always had something lacking or missed the mark of what I desired in a game.

I'm hard to please because I essentially want more games like Yakuza, Shenmue or Persona. Hell, I wish there were more kung fu wuxia games as well. But I can't find shit or anything that meets my needs or desires.

I miss the good old days of last-century shareware games. The general spirit behind shareware was the closest Western equivalent to the Japanese doujin scene.

I always assumed the whole "no good indie games" meme was a distraction to keep casuals out of them and fucking it all up like they did with everything else.

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Indie games were cancer from their very inception. We already had the shareware scene, but the new wave of pretentious faggots intentionally used the word "indie" to distance themselves from the old guard, and to associate themselves with the idea of indie movies for maximum normalfag cred.

So you're looking for games that have a lot of content in combat and outside of combat as well? I can see an indie game aping persona turn based combat but I don't see any 3D beat em up with the complexity of VF coming anytime soon.

I bring this up because it always does come up in serious conversations, when a good game does get mentioned people always go "that's an exception". I just want to know how hard people look for good indie games and they can really make the claim that "all indie games are shit".

like who? I thought doujin meant that the game came from japan.

I play free games or mods I find on obscure websites.

I don't even give a shit about the rest but right there. That hurt me.

It's been a very long time since I've heard that name. I didn't even know it got pushed out.

Go back to Reddit and kill yourself.

Pretty much. I don't ever see any 3D beat em up with the complexity of Virtua Fighter.
Keep in mind, I don't think all indie games are shit but a vast majority are.

It's still Early Access but it's still got an impressive amount of content compared to most Early Access trash on Steam.

I just go on Steam or itch.io and check the new releases and go by what looks like actual effort was spent on it. You don't find that many great games doing that but whatever i pirate everything so i don't really care. Enter the Gungeon was the last game i remember being so close to being great it actually hurt. A lot of indie games lately seem to have a problem where they don't really design games but rather just shove buzzwords in and hope something good comes out.

Isaac is textbook example of garbo game design though. Also all his games have absolutely insufferable humor

It's honestly kind of sad that the most innovation "indies" have ever had are in shit like altgames and walking simulators. Games like Braid or Bastion when you analyze them aren't exactly that original or interesting. Also indies made me hate the terms roguelike and lovecraftian tbh.
Recommend some doujin games dear user?

You aren't going to find games like fucking yakuza in indies pal. Played Yokai Watch yet? Seems like it may be right up your alley

Best to ask that in the current Comiket thread.

>>>/reddit/

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Life is suffering. Best girl will forever be incomprehensible to me.

I just wait to see what bubbles to the top of the shit pot in popularity, and then filter by reviews, gameplay demos, and piracy.

The vast majority of indie games are pure garbage. People can point to hundreds of "good" indie games - and some of them are actually legitimately good - but they underestimate just how many thousands of mobile tier shovelware gets thrown out there.

And even among the "good" indie games, a lot of times you have level design and balancing fuckups, poor pacing, simplistic graphics/poor art style, or suffering from designers being too up their own about their "I'm so clever" innovation that they sell their game on that and never bother to make it really work in gameplay. These people are, largely, amateurs after all.

Kickstarter and Early Access indies are a whole other breed of cancerous shit.

Last on I played that was really good was Momodora:RutM, and even that can't hold a candle to a good classic Castlevania game.

Closest thing I can think of is Urban Reign. Not indie, though.

No one really believes all independent games are shit, however that's a warranted generalization because every moron out there with dreams of being the next Notch flooded the market with shovelware made without any inch of passion where the bad vastly outnumbers the good - this oversaturation coupled with cliqueish-mentality and funding scams made people weary of it.
Go look store catalogues of indie games, here's what you'll see mostly:
Not that there's anything wrong with any of the above if it's well executed, but most of them are soulless, play badly and in general, lack polish, overall care and are just shit. It's hard to not become jaded over it - I'm one of those who became extremely jaded.
I still play independent stuff, mostly coming out of Japan through Playism or Steam, because the Japs at least only release in the West what they actually think it's worth selling - rather than whatever diarrhea they coded last week like it's done here.
I still play western games, but my bar to play that purchase button is far higher than before because my goodwill towards indies has been worn out.
I usually won't buy them without the recommendation of someone I trust, or a steam curator that's reliable. The game has to really be something, be from a dev I trust and/or appeal to my autistic niche preferences for me to pull the trigger without some push - and that's not after some research.

Terminal shit taste

Usually, a quick peek through the recent releases and upcoming releases on Steam is enough to find some really out-there indie games; otherwise, I check youtube channels that focus on that kinda stuff. Not like Let's Play viewbait youtube channels though I do watch shit like Splattercat sometimes but shit like Get Indie Gaming, Indiebuff - sites that are all about showing off new indie titles.
Sometimes the shit that's on the front page is actually good. Remember iCEY? That game came right out of nowhere when it was released last year, and that one was fucking great.
I also check Kickstarter and Indiegogo sometimes - rarely to actually back something, but mostly just to see what people are shilling. I think I discovered Heart&Slash that way, a very simple roguelite/stylish action game with Megaman Legends style graphics, and somehow that managed to become my favorite indie game ever.

Here's an anecdote: the last game I bought on Steam, a couple weeks back, was this thing called Eatwell. Usually I pirate first, but this was something that had no download links anywhere. This video here is basic viewbait, but it's the only gameplay video anywhere. And I just had to drop some money down in the end, just to see what the hell it was.
And what did I get? A weird roguelite Pac-Man game with terrible engrish and power-ups that summon fighter jets and schools of fish to kill enemies, let me turn monsters into giant snowballs right out of Snow Bros, or just straight up kill me. Sometimes a secret room is completely filled with spikes. Sometimes the entire map turns dark for no reason at all. It's like a Lovecraft cult's experiment in finding new ways to drive people to madness, and yet I find myself entranced by it. Is it a good game? God no. But I still love it.

It's weird, to be honest. I know a guy who's really really big about how cancerous let's players are, he'll go on and on about how jewish the entire scene is for hours. But one day, right, we're discussing the worst. I bring up Splattercat and say that although I agree with him on a lot of topics related to that, Splat's the one let's player that I actually watch. He goes silent for a second and says 'Yeah, me too sometimes.' I'm sure you don't understand the impact of that but it's a pretty big coincidence that you, him, me and a few other people I've seen complaining about indie games/youtubers say that they like to watch him, or that he's an exception. Wonder why.

I don't get it. I watched the first half of one of his videos and he just seems like your average Let's Play clown making goofy voices and acting like a child.

Legitimately, the only Let's Play channel I can stomach is KeepetClassy, mostly because they're just playing games and having a conversation. They're not trying to "put on a show", so it's not as fucking infantalized as others I've seen.

Watch some of his older videos, before he changed the thumbnails to xd randumb kid-bait and did series'. His Fallen London series', Darkest Dungeon series, that one old-school dungeon crawler that I can remember the name of that he played multiple series of, etc. I think he's assumed that the majority of his audience is kids so he's doubling down on the fast-talking xd random factor. Not for everyone still, I guess though. He's just always so goddamn happy.

can't*

Metroidvanias such as Hollow Knight, Elliot Quest, Finding Teddie 2, Environmental Station Alpha, La Mulana, Axiom Verge, and Pharaoh Rebirth +. La Mulana is the most labyrinthine, puzzling, and epic, hands down.

Dude, Elliot Quest is fucking garbage.

I really don't think there are any good games at all, so saying there are no good indie games is just an understatement. What I consider good is something that makes me have fun, and nothing has done that so far.

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I still will never get the appeal for Hollow Knight. I must have started it 3 times and quit every time before I even got to anything resembling a first boss.

I don't look anymore. I wait until I come across something in conversation or stumble across a game and then I watch footage of it. If I don't have anything I just go back to my PS2 backlog or play MP games

The genres I enjoy (FPS and RPG especially) are genres where shit design and shit taste rule now, so my only option is to git gud and make my own game

Good goy. In all seriousness though is it good? Its on my wishlist because grabbing a pixel rabbi "oy veying" would make a nice Holla Forums meme.

Have you played Gemini Rue, the Blackwells, Shardlight or Primordia? I only just finished Primordia and was very impressed. The enemy is an AI who is militant about assimilation and progress.

Anyone got recommendations for a puzzle game?

I've heard The Shivah is pretty good but I haven't played it myself.
You mean The Blackwell Legacy? I remember that also being really damn good.

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Metroid-like Castlevania-like eXXXperience

Cool definition for "indie" that you just made up with the intention of pretending that whenever anyone uses the term what they're actually referring to is what you just made up, user.

Assuming you've played most of Zach's games?

Yes, I want an actual puzzle instead of striving to optimize factory design(even though it's surprisingly a very fun idea).
Shenzhen IO a best.

whats the source on this? image search doesn't give me anything

that is what indie means. He's completely right.

that said, doujin developers do release their games a lot of times for a fee. Most of the time these games are produced by either amateurs, those who have found it profitable to live the lifestyle of a doujin developer, and many are usually doing it as a side-job to their game industry main job. Deadfactory (yohjo simulator), edelweiss (astebreed, sakuna) are some of those people who work in the industry and as doujin creators.

That being said, I don't think I've ever seen a doujin game priced at more than $15. Usually $10, very often $5.

Could somebody list me off some good indie or doujin

Dustforce DX, Downwell, and They Bleed Pixels
La-Mulana, Environmental Station Alpha, and Apotheon
FPS or STD? Devil Daggers for the first, Cho Ren Sha 68k for the latter.
The Void

Hopefully there's at least one you haven't played yet.

I think I remember talking about this in the Shenzhen threads back on release, still not sure what you're looking for in an "actual" puzzle game. Probably not something like The Witness.

Indie games aren't inherently bad, but because any retard can throw a shitty game together and call himself an indie dev, the majority of indie games are shitty, and so the term gets a negative connotation. I try to altogether ignore whether a game is "indie" or not and just decide if it's fun.

Yeah the Blackwell Legacy, they are pretty damn impressive. I enjoy Wadjeteye point and clicks, reminds my of the old Gabriel Knight and Broken Sword point and clicks from the 90s.

try google searching his pictures

but like he says the translations aren't finished yet

It seems like that's the case for everything nowadays. Was it an influx of more talentless people or the fact that the introduction of the internet meant we saw more of this?

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I watched a fair amount of Mr. Falcon a couple months back, when he was doing his playthrough of Lobotomy Corporation. Mostly because he was the only guy playing Lobotomy Corporation, and it looked like an interesting game. (It's a management game about running an SCP Foundation type company.)

There are some youtube channels that specialize in reviewing indie games, and of those, a couple of my personal recs are Defunct Games and Jake Mistake - the second especially because he goes into detail with performance, what's good or bad about games and the like. ACG does good reviews too, but their videos aren't exclusively about indie games. Besides that, I dunno, watch Super Bunnyhop, especially the Games From My Inbox series, or the Two Best Friends one-off episodes.

for indie games I also pay attention to VG_Purist. But he also plays a lot of blood bowl for some weird reason

that Environmental Station Alpha looks really good, I'll have to give it a play. Also are there any other fun trigger finger games like Hotline Miami?

doesn't necessarily have to be a top down either.

Have you given Bleed or Assault Android Cactus a try?

indie is not a genre.

True enough, it's rather subgenre I guess, Hollow knight or Salt and Sanctuary, etc games are good to play, but I am not sure if we can call them a seperate genre.

what

You wouldn't fuck a monkey, would you?

Me too user. I like the atmosphere and visual direction of it but mechanically it's so slow, so boring and so easy that I can't bring myself to play it. I'd say it's a great game to introduce new players to the genre so they don't get burned out or feel like they just suck at videogames, I find myself recommending it to non-gamers mostly.

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Bump to keep the dream alive.