Hi again, indie-game-playing friends! I am back with another indie game recommendation post. You can find my previous indie recommendation posts here:
As with my past two posts, this list is comprised of indie games I have played recently that I feel deserve more attention. Note that these recommendations are all based on my experience playing the games on Switch—with one key exception this time*, which I'll mention when I get to it. All relevant links to developer sites and eShop pages are also included.
Hooray for more Switch indies!
BZZZT (2024)
Developed by Karel Matejka (aka Ko.dll)
This no-frills 2D platformer is a blast to play from start to finish. I discovered this game from the developer's Twitter page, and I happened to find it right around the time of the game's Switch launch. After seeing a few brief gameplay clips and the fantastic pixel art, I decided to give it a shot. Here I am, a week or two later, with 100% completion.
In BZZZT, you play as robo-protagonist ZX 8000 as you journey through a series of focused, compact stages. As the game progresses, you'll earn a handful of upgrades to your moveset, each of which is implemented very intuitively. This results in a slick movement system that feels buttery smooth. And honestly? That's the main thing I look for in a good, replayable platformer.
Interestingly, despite the game's separation into distinctly numbered levels, once a new movement ability is unlocked in a later stage, that ability becomes retroactively available for all previous stages. This design decision comes into play for uncovering some of the game's hidden secrets and optional challenges.
BZZZT has just enough of these optional challenges to satisfy completionists like myself while still offering a complete experience otherwise. Each stage features two main additional objectives beyond reaching the goal at the end of the stage: reaching the goal under a target time limit and collecting every screw before reaching the goal. While both are fun in their own right, the real challenge is in getting a "perfect run"—achieving both objectives in a single run! The simplicity of these objectives makes them quick to pick up and understand, which places that much of a tighter focus on optimizing your run through each stage.
If you're a fan of 2D platformers, I think this is a must-play. It's a short and sweet adventure that'll have you fully engaged from start to finish, and that extra layer of challenge is there if you want it. Hats off to Karel Matejka (u/Ko_dll) for this awesome project!
Thumper (2017)
Developed by Brian Gibson & Marc Flury (aka Drool)
The developers of this game describe it as a "rhythm violence" game, and boy does it deliver on that promise. Playing Thumper feels like being relentlessly beat up over and over again to the soundtrack of your own worst nightmares.
And yet, somehow, this oppressive atmosphere manifests itself in such a captivating way that it becomes kind of addictive. In Thumper, you play as this silver beetle barreling down a metal track in what can only be described as an abstract, drug-induced, kaleidoscopic hellscape. As you speed down the track, you must contend with a handful of obstacles, all of which are thrown at you in-rhythm with the music. You'll be banking off walls, soaring over spikes, and slamming into the ground, sometimes all in the span of a single section. All of these moves feel very visceral, with large, cacophonous screeches blaring on any timing mistakes.
The game's original soundtrack helps to maintain this off-putting atmosphere. The music here is tense. Very tense. And it won't let you forget it, either, keeping its foot on the gas until you win or give up. While this does add an extra layer of stress to each stage, it also makes that satisfaction of conquering particularly hard stages that much greater. And there's a lot of satisfaction to be had, here, even just as a rhythm game fanatic—everything is telegraphed very well, and it's easy to sink lots of hours into practicing the game's patterns and timing.
Something about the specific combination of ideas on display here—the unsettling atmosphere, the carefully crafted sound design, the driving rhythm gameplay at the heart of it all—really comes together to make quite an exhilerating package. I have never really felt adrenaline playing a game with no explicit story or stakes as I have playing Thumper.
Thumper is relentless, and it can feel rather punishing at times. But if you're a fan of rhythm games and enjoy the satisfaction of overcoming a difficult challenge after repeated practice, I say give Thumper a try. I'm super stoked to see how Thrasher (the spiritual successor to Thumper) turns out!
Crypt Custodian (2024)
Developed by Kyle Thompson
If you're active on the r/metroidvania subreddit, you've probably heard of this game. That's where I found out about it, anyway! Solo developer Kyle Thompson follows up his previous two games (Islets and Sheepo) with an impressively fluid, consistently fun, and surprisingly heartwarming top-down metroidvania.
You play as Pluto, a cat who has died and awoken in the afterlife. After a brief introductory sequence where you get a feel for the somewhat Zelda-inspired core gameplay loop, you are assigned the job of "janitor of the afterlife," hence the game's title. Also, and I won't spoil it here, but the reason for this job assignment is genuinely so funny to me. It's the basis of the entire game, and it made me laugh for a solid few minutes. Such a great start to the experience.
From that point on, Crypt Custodian is an adventure through the realm of the afterlife as you search for fellow fallen friends and attempt to uncover the context surrounding your own demise. I really appreciate the amount of gentleness and heart in the story. There are some particularly touching moments throughout the course of the game that all feel very earnest, and I definitely teared up during some of these sequences.
What pulls the game together more than anything, though, is its kinetic movement and combat systems. Between an always-expanding core moveset and a straightforward-yet-customizable combat design, you end up with a rock-solid experience that's hard to put down. I often found myself trying out different builds, sampling different strategies to see what might work best, and even just fighting enemies I had already grown familiar with to see if I could find more efficient (or unnecessarily contrived) ways of taking them down. The enemy design makes use of a very clear-cut attack telegraph system, which overtly shows the player where certain attacks may end up. This helps make the more crowded encounters feel a lot more manageable.
I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the game's charming art style. Something about the color palette and the watercolor style texturing makes the game feel quite cozy, a decision that only serves to benefit the game's overall vibes and personality.
If you're into metroidvanias or top-down 2D Zeldas, I think you owe it to yourself to give Crypt Custodian a try! I really enjoyed my time with it, and I think this is a project that Kyle Thompson (u/SheepoGame) should be very proud of.
SteamWorld Heist II (2024)
Developed by Thunderful Games
The SteamWorld series is undoubtedly pretty well-loved in the indie community, especially with fan favorites like SteamWorld Dig 2 and the original SteamWorld Heist. That said, I have not seen many people talk about this recent sequel, which is crazy to me considering just how far Thunderful knocked it out of the park.
The original SteamWorld Heist sees you commanding a crew of space-faring pirate bots throughout the galaxy. You'll take on various "missions," each of which comes in the form of a turn-based battle with a pretty large decision space. Each round, you direct your crewmates to carry out their turns one at a time, in any order you choose. Turns typically involve 1 movement action and 1 attack action, but there's a lot of variability with special abilities and weapon types and whatnot. The secret ingredient to this game is the focus on crewmate positioning and aiming your weapons. If you are using a Sniper weapon, for example, your line of sight will show how your bullet will ricochet of walls and other on-stage hazards. This creates opportunities to pull off some really cool multi-enemy takedowns, adding another fun level of depth to an already engaging system.
SteamWorld Heist II takes this core gameplay, streamlines some of it (i.e., no longer are there penalties on mission failures, which I always found to be kind of annoying in the original), and adds a few brand new elements on top of it. One of the biggest changes is overworld exploration. In this game, you and your crew explore the high seas on your trusty submarine. Unlike the first game, however, you may freely move around these regions, allowing for an added sense of exploration and discovery. You can find hidden secrets, chart different routes through the game's missions, and even engage in real-time battles with other enemy ships. This is so much fun and is such a welcome addition!
The other major change in Heist II is the introduction of the jobs system. With this system, any character can use any weapon type and can independently level up their corresponding proficiencies. When a character takes part in a mission with a particular weapon, they gain experience points specifically for that weapon type. For example, if I send Daisy on a mission with a Sniper weapon, she may level up her personal "Sniper" stat (called a "job"). In doing so, she will progressively unlock more and more equippable skills related to the Sniper job.
This is where things get really interesting—you can equip skills from these "jobs" even while you are not using a corresponding weapon type. Say, for instance, I send Daisy on another mission later in the game, this time with a Reaper weapon. When picking out crewmate skills and equipment, I can assign Daisy skills she unlocked previously as a Sniper to use in conjunction with her newly-equipped Reaper weapon. This allows for a staggering amount of build customization, especially considering the fact that there are six different weapon types and multiple character combinations possible in every mission. Each character also possesses a couple of character-specific special abilities, so no build across any two characters is exactly the same. What I really enjoyed about this system is that it encouraged me to not just use every character, but to experiment with builds for every character, as well.
All in all, I just find this game to be so clever and charming. From its lovely steampunk aesthetic, to its silly character interactions, to its groovy music, it's an all-around good time. I put roughly 35 hours into 100%-ing the main campaign, and I could easily see myself replaying it over again purely to try out new strategies or to try my luck at higher difficulties.
This might just be my personal all-time favorite turn-based strategy game. It's rich with tactics, overflowing with fun ideas, and offers a heaping amount of quality content for the asking price. After playing it, I now feel compelled to go back and play every single game in the SteamWorld series…
*Tinykin (2022)
Developed by Splashteam
Note: This is the one game that I did not play on Switch myself. I played it on PS5 (it's available as part of the PS Plus games catalog), but I wanted to recommend it here because my research leads me to believe that it plays well on Switch. There's a free demo available for it, just in case!
Tinykin feels like it set me up with the wrong expectations. Based on the title and the key art, I went in expecting an indie developer's take on the Pikmin formula, an experience I had been craving since getting into the Pikmin series last year. What I instead ended up with was a fantastic collectathon 3D platformer, enhanced with several supplementary mechanics coming in the form of the game's Pikmin-like creatures.
These creatures—the titular Tinykin—serve a dual purpose in each stage. Unlike in the Pikmin games, you will not be building up your Tinykin population by killing enemies and bringing them back to base; rather, you will build up a personal Tinykin posse by finding them scattered throughout the level. In this sense, they function as per-level collectibles (groups of Tinykin remain in the stage where you discovered them). On top of this, though, each type of Tinykin offers some added dimension to the gameplay, typically focused more on puzzle-solving or platforming mechanics than on the strategic gameplay of Pikmin.
With the Pikmin comparisons out of the way, I'd like to reiterate just how fun of a 3D platformer this game is. All of the stages take place in someone's house, but the main character and the Tinykin are all very, very small. This results in some really fun "regular-things-but-big" environments, including the likes of an appliance-laden kitchen and a bathroom with mountains of stacked toilet paper rolls. Stage navigation is supported by a really fluid moveset, complete with Tinykin-assisted moves like elevating yourself upwards with the green Tinykin or building temporary bridges with the yellow Tinykin.
Easily my favorite part of the moveset (and possibly of the entire game) is the soap surfboard. This mechanic more than any other in the game feels like it is really just there for pure joy. Rather than walk across a large living room floor, why not glide across it with gusto? Or, better yet, why not grind on the edges of dressers and tables as you speed your way around the whole living room? It's such a fun mechanic that adds a lot of replayability to the levels, especially when timed races get introduced a little later in the game.
Like I said before, don't go into Tinykin expecting a Pikmin game. Try to go in with an open mind and you're bound to enjoy your time with it. If you're a fan of 3D platformers and like the idea of lil guys following you around to help you out, this is the easiest recommendation I can possibly give!
That's all I have for now. As always, please share any indie games you may have played recently that might need more love. I always discover new games in these threads 🙂
Until next time!
by danielthefletch