Free, awesome indie games

[Giaddon]

Post free and awesome indie games here as you discover them. I always like finding something new and interesting to check out. So post here so I can play them!

Here's one I've started playing recently

Momodora 2 (http://www.elektrobear.com/rdein/momodora2.html) - Metroidvania where you fight one-eyed monsters with a maple leaf. Very Cave Story-like. Good stuff!

[Icarus]

Eversion. (http://zarat.us/tra/offline-games/eversion.html) Great little freeware platformer in the vein of Super Mario. Lasts a couple of hours, more if you try to get all the gems.

[sonicblastoise]

ok, this might seem a little douchey but here: http://mediocritycodex.blogspot.com/2011/07/indie-credthe-pegs-and-tigs-all-jammed.html

i post new games i find every week. if you click the label in the left you'll see all the previous games i've mentioned too.

i'd like to highlight spelunky (http://www.spelunkyworld.com/) and transcendence (http://neurohack.com/transcendence/index.html) though. both free, and incredibly fun/addictive

[Peter Radiator Full Pig]

Transcendence didnt do it for me, dont know what it was.
Spelunky, on the other hand, is pure brilliance. Such impressive stuff.
Battle of Wesnot, good hex based fantasy advanced wars, open source too.

[sonicblastoise]

ah, well, transcendence reminded me of an online game i played called "infantry zone" mixed with the aesthetics and setting of star control, so I spent a lot of time learning it because I was enamored with the style of it all. but yes, from another perspective it can be pretty dry getting into it. thankfully there's a huge mod community which varies up the gameplay a bit.

i just go turned to battle of wesnoth recently too, you should prove the link! or maybe I WILL (http://www.wesnoth.org/)

[Vexing Vision]

I don't exactly understand the love for Battle of Wesnoth.

The one campaign, Under A Burning Sun, is absolutely brilliant as a tactical RPG. The rest is nice, but I really don't like games where a couple of poor random results force me to reload, because if all my experienced units are wiped out, that crushes my hopes of winning the campaign.

Oh well. It IS quite nice, but... the percentile hit-chance is, for me, a cause of utter frustration.

If you liked Wesnoth's mechanics, you could do worse than checking out Vantage Master (http://www.falcom.com/vantage/index_e.html). Unless it's the Writing that attracts you to Wesnoth. In which case, stay clear of VM.

[Giaddon]

Ooooh, I've never hard of Vantage Master, that looks really cool. Thanks!

Here some older games:

Cave Story (http://www.cavestory.org/downloads_game.php) - One of the best. Side scrolling shooter/exploration game. Retro, cute, clever, fun fun fun, everyone needs to play this.
Knytt Stories (http://nifflas.ni2.se/?page=Knytt+Stories) - Not a better game than Cave Story, but I like it more anyway. This one would rank super high on my personal list of greatest games ever. Super-simple, super-atmospheric platformer. The level-making community is still putting out levels. Here're (http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=439) some good ones.
The Spirit Engine 2 (http://thespiritengine.com/) - Side-scrolling RPG that was originally released commercially, but performed so poorly the designer made it freely available. :( One of the more interesting mutations of the JRPG battle system I've seen, very much worth a look.

[Berzee]

At the risk of using the most obvious examples, here are two of my favorites:

1) Desktop Dungeons free version, wooo
2) The demos of the Avernum games. Sure you will not be able to finish them without paying, but the demos alone will give you 60+ hours of text-heavy RPG goodness. =P The character customization in those games is some of my favorite, simple but distinct.

[sonicblastoise]

this just popped up on my twitter. looks fun, tried it for a bit, but still at work, so no extensive time. might be nice! And free

http://www.frankiesmileshow.com/station37/

From the TOJam indie dev jam

[Peter Radiator Full Pig]

Station 37 is interesting, is it complete? I think I finished it, but I never had the oppertunity to upgrade anything, and there is an option for it. If I load my savegame, I just get the credits.

[Berzee]

Speaking of Wesnoth, I think it was the same group that also made Frogatto (http://www.frogatto.com/), which is a easy-but-nice Metroidvania-lite kind of a deal (not quite so open ended as those, it seems, but maybe I didn't play it enough). The pixel art is especially good (the only art I have liked better in recent days is Iconoclasts)

[sonicblastoise]

ah yeah, station 37 is only one level for now. sorry about that :(

and yes, now that someone has mentioned iconoclasts, check out joakim sandberg's work at www.konjak.org (http://www.konjak.org). at least 2 free titles there. some puzzle games too, but thos aren't really my thing

[cosmicolor]

Vantage Master seems like an interesting game but christ is it ever hard. Even on the easy mode, it seems.

[CWalker]

Soldat (http://soldat.thd.vg/en/), a kind of 2D mix between Liero and insanity. Has an optional subscription, but is perfectly playable without it, and is brilliant fun, to boot.
I Wanna Be The Guy (http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/) is a famously bastard-hard platformer, proudly following in the ridiculous tradition of super hard platformers. It will always be dear to my heart because I can't get past the first bloody screen.
Finally, La Mulana (http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=lamulana), a metroidvania style platformer that is lovely. I am terrible at explaining things.

[Auchwert]

0space (http://teknopants.com/games/0space/) is probably one of my favorite games to come out of any of the TIGSource compos ever. It's an awesome zero gravity 'Battle Room' style fighting game for up to 4 local players. I really wish there were more games that let me jump off ceilings to knife my opponents the way 0space does. So much fun!

[sonicblastoise]

Soldat (http://soldat.thd.vg/en/), a kind of 2D mix between Liero and insanity. Has an optional subscription, but is perfectly playable without it, and is brilliant fun, to boot.
I Wanna Be The Guy (http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/) is a famously bastard-hard platformer, proudly following in the ridiculous tradition of super hard platformers. It will always be dear to my heart because I can't get past the first bloody screen.
Finally, La Mulana (http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=lamulana), a metroidvania style platformer that is lovely. I am terrible at explaining things.

Woah uh La-Mulana is AMAZING. It also looks like some kind of prehistoric cousin of Spelunky. I'm working my way through this one now. Thanks!!

[Vexing Vision]

Vantage Master seems like an interesting game but christ is it ever hard. Even on the easy mode, it seems.

The manual is horrible at explaining things as only a thing written in Chinese and translated by a Kisuhali-only-speaking Dutch who never played a game in his entire life into English can be.

You want to attack critters with critters from the opposing element - the whole thing is about placing your troops and covering every possible enemy move, very much like chess.

It's a lovely game, but I admit it gets really, really hard at around map 12 if I remember correctly. (It's been a while.)


For strategy games, I remain a fan of Titans of Steel (http://www.titansofsteel.de/) (Warring Suns), which is official freeware since 2004 or 2005 and is as indie as it gets. Turn-based Mechwarrior with 1 second turns and a rather nice RPG and development system.

Mhmm. I just convinced myself to start a new squad in ToS. Damn. NO TIME.

[Giaddon]

Chalk (http://www.konjak.org/index.php?folder=4&file=9) is by Konjak (of Noitu Love). It's like a side-scrolling shooter where instead of shooting you use the mouse to draw chalk lines between enemies to defeat them. Gooooood.

[EnterTheStory]

Are we allowed to post out own games? My first game is now freeware. I don't know if it's awesome, but some people liked it a lot. Being a first game it definitely has its weaknesses and quirks, but I guarantee you won't have played anything like it before. :)
direct download: http://enterthestory.com/games/Les_Miserables_Setup.exe
about the game: http://enterthestory.com/games.html

[Berzee]

I have been meaning to play Les Miserables! It's on my desktop but I feel like it deserves a long and quiet stretch of time, which I haven't found yet. =) I am especially interested in it because I like to see how people turn "non-gamey" material into games.

[cosmicolor]

The manual is horrible at explaining things as only a thing written in Chinese and translated by a Kisuhali-only-speaking Dutch who never played a game in his entire life into English can be.

You want to attack critters with critters from the opposing element - the whole thing is about placing your troops and covering every possible enemy move, very much like chess.

I find that what happens is that I try to keep my main dude back, but enemies make a beeline for them, kill them in two hits and the entire stage is lost. All this time me and my opponent are both summoning things and making the battle take even longer. From the looks of it I don't have a unit to take advantage of all the types.

[EnterTheStory]

I have been meaning to play Les Miserables!
I hope you like it :) Like I said, it was my first game (and the next two were even more experimental) and the latest one is a bit more polished.

I am especially interested in it because I like to see how people turn "non-gamey" material into games.
That was a big reason why I chose that as my first game. I chose the hardest book I could find, to see if it was possible. Some of the challenges were:
1. In the book you don't see the main character till many chapters in
2. The book covers many years, with flashbacks to even earlier
3. The main characters is not sympathetic and his motivation is not simple
4. Several characters do things that the player would not do - I had to abridge the lengthy Fantine section because anyone who knows the story would spend their time stopping her!
5. There are lengthy asides in the book (e.g. about sewers and slang)
6. Some of the conflicts don't make as much sense to modern readers (e.g. some of the last chapters)
7. There is no obvious Hollywood ending
I also experimented with some features that made designing and coding it a real headache and I dropped them over the next four games (jumping between games, clues in heaven, allowing any character to think of any other character), etc.
But all in all I'm pleased with the result. :)

[sonicblastoise]

Why not post your own games?!? We can turn this into some kind of bastard child of a showroom for indie devs. It's a great place to get exposure AND critical feedback.

PS keep your games free and you'll get more of both. Haha jk. Seriously though.

[Wolfenswan]

Just found this:
100 (not quite but expanding) Freewaregames. (http://www.freewaregames.net/list.asp), with Screenshots & quick descriptions.

Iji's on that list too, it's a great platform game.