3 Amazing Indie Games You Should Check Out Right Now

Super Crate Box
It may seem silly to include a small arcade-style game in my list of favourite indie games of all time, but I guarantee you, the hours I’ve poured into this thing are a great indicator of why I love it so much. I have an addictive personality, so things that don’t take too much attention really do it for me.

Super Crate Box is a game where you play as a tiny monster fending off an assortment of other monsters. That’s the entire premise. You run around the stage, collecting as many crates as possible. Each crate switches your weapon to another completely random one. You do this for as long as you can. The amount of boxes you get reflects your high score by the end of your round.

It’s a simple game that consumed over 150 hours of my life in high school and I regret none of it.

Night in the Woods
Night in the Woods is barely a video game. It’s a story driven side scrolling “walking simulator” about a young adult girl who abandons college to return home.

It’s not the gameplay that makes this game; it’s the fantastic story and the great characters. One of the reasons I love video games so much as a medium for story telling is because of how involved the person experiencing them becomes. This could have been a cartoon, but, without the exploration mechanics, I wouldn’t have been placed directly in the shoes of the main character and I wouldn’t have felt as involved as I did.

Night in the Woods takes a lot of unexpected turns that a lot of coming-of-age stories wouldn’t dare to. It’s a very worthwhile story for anyone who’s experienced the difficulties of being a lost 20-year-old.

Celeste
Celeste’s only been out for a couple years, so it’s funny to me that it already means this much to me. But this game perfects nearly everything it does.

It’s a platformer with a deep narrative about a girl trying to find herself by climbing a huge mountain. It borrows a lot from other games, but it refines what it borrows so much that it’s the best of its kind. The wall climbing with the platforming is reminiscent of Super Meat Boy, but it feels more than that.

If I had to pick reasons why Celeste resonates with me so much, though, it’s the story and the music. I feel like it’s rare that a video game covers mental health in such an effective way. And it blends with the gameplay so well. The music is beautiful and, at times, haunting. It does all these things in such a simple way that doesn’t demand too much attention. The gameplay takes focus, but everything else complements it wonderfully to make an unforgettable experience.

Dylan has been playing games since he was a wee lad. For the last 25 years, he has built up a terrifying backlog of games he claims he will get to “eventually.” Unfortunately, this backlog continues to grow because of his crippling Tetris addiction, and his horrible attention span.

His other interests include: thinking up Dungeons & Dragons characters he never ends up playing, watching compilations of sad anime scenes, and trying to be funny.

You can find him occasionally tweeting here: @dylanproy