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https://twitter.com/SuperBlizzard/status/1338996097260220416?s=20 Welcome to the I'm endlessly fascinated by small games that only take an hour or two to complete, that are made by only a handful of people (if not just a single developer). These games often tend to be experimental, unconventional, and all-around weird! Since they're almost always the result of someone being very passionate about something, you wind up with a wider variety of experiences and stories provided by AAA games. Lots of them are about LGBT experiences, mental illness, and dealing with life in general. They're not all down and depressing though! Lots of them are weird for the sake of being weird, and can be quite funny and entertaining. Maybe a developer thought of a fun mechanic and just wanted to build a small game to play around with it, who knows! The experimentation is part of the draw of these games. There's also something special about playing something so small and personal. Even making a small game is no easy task, and so every tiny game is something that someone dedicated a not insignificant amount of their life to. While some small dev indie games hit it big (Undertale, Stardew Valley, etc) I find it interesting to play the ones that DON'T see widespread recognition. It's kind of a weird feeling playing a game that maybe only a few hundred other people have played, if that. It's like reading an old diary you found in an abandoned house or something. Anyways, what games "count" as tiny indie games? There's not really any hardcore rules, just post about small games you don't see talked about much! The best place to find these sorts of games is probably https://itch.io. Itch is basically bandcamp but for game developers. Lots of these games are the result of Game Jams, which are events held to create a game from scratch over the course of a few days~weeks. Many are free, but some also cost a few bucks - I highly encourage tossing some money to some of these devs if one of the games looks interesting to you! To get the ball rolling, here are some of my personal favorite games that I think fit the bill. Since these games tend to be very personal as well, I encourage you to share your favorites! I'll try to keep the OP updated with popular games for others to check out. Paid games (some may be pay what you want): Townscaper - build a cute town on the water! A Short Hike - Go on a short hike! 10S - Super ping-pong combat action Haque - a glitchy roguelike with quite a lot of content Witch Way - a puzzle platformer with some creative puzzles to solve Dujanah - a claymation adventure game that's about...a lot of stuff Free games: Friday Night Funkin - DDR+Parappa+Newgrounds VG Person's translations of Japanese horror games - A collection of various Japanese RPG Maker horror games. Most notable are Witch's House and ib Super Jump and Dash Man - a platformer all about dashing and jumping The Only One - an adventure game where you return to the start every ten seconds The Midnight Bakery - own a bakery that's visited by some strange characters Dungeon In A Bottle - a neat little platformer with a focus on wall-jumping, with surprisingly smooth animations Monologue - quick! Deliver a dastardly monologue before your prey escapes! Octarine - a wand zappin' roguelike with a wide variety of available powers Nearaway - a game about taking time to heal Loading Story - an adventure game about triyng to get the game itself to finish loading Adventures with Anxiety - a narrative game about dealing with one of the two wolves inside you CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Dec 27, 2020 |
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Dec 27, 2020 00:32
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Idk if this is exactly the same thing but there is or was a thriving japanese indie RPG maker horror game scene and some of them are pretty good. Witch's House and Ib are the best of the lot. Witch's House has an updated version on steam, otherwise you can get the old version (and the only version of Ib) here.
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Dec 27, 2020 00:43
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There's probably a ton of games from the big 750+ game pack from summer that could apply to this. I know off the top of my head that A Short Hike was part of that.
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Dec 27, 2020 00:44
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Fartington Butts posted:There's probably a ton of games from the big 750+ game pack from summer that could apply to this. I know off the top of my head that A Short Hike was part of that. Absolutely, the vast majority of those games definitely apply. There's so many good games in there it's hard to narrow them down. Looking over the list, Dujanah is one that sticks out to me as really cool that I don't see a ton of people talking about - it's a claymation adventure game that's about...a lot of stuff cheetah7071 posted:Idk if this is exactly the same thing but there is or was a thriving japanese indie RPG maker horror game scene and some of them are pretty good. Witch's House and Ib are the best of the lot. Witch's House has an updated version on steam, otherwise you can get the old version (and the only version of Ib) here. I think indie RPGs definitely count, even ones made in RPG Maker! There's lots of creative stuff going on in the RPGM community, I had no idea about that collection site you posted! I loved Witch's House, haven't played lb though, I'll check it out!
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Dec 27, 2020 00:53
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Don't poo poo Your Pants is a fantastic tiny game. Though the "survival horror" aspect of it might be getting Flash to work in the year 2020.
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Dec 27, 2020 00:58
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Is this a good place to mention Seedship? It's a mobile game that's also playable in a browser. It's a text adventure game where you take on the role of an AI in charge of finding a new home for humanity. You can finish a game in a few minutes. It's a great little time waster when you just want to play something.
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Dec 27, 2020 01:23
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I love the Frog Detective games. Adorably twee, and I love the kooky animal friends you make as you solve their mysteries. Well worth the hour to play through.
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Dec 27, 2020 01:56
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Walla posted:Is this a good place to mention Seedship? It's a mobile game that's also playable in a browser. Hell yeah Seedship owns. I've played it more than almost any other mobile game. Speaking of which, any good recommendations for other tiny mobile games? I think lots of indie devs shy away from mobile cus it's so hard to make anything off of it. I've also heard of some solo game devs with patreons that release games monthly, but unfortunately I don't know of any. If anyone has recs for those too, I'd love to hear them!
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Dec 27, 2020 02:24
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Double post but it's my thread and I say double posts are fine Everyone go check out Friday Night Funkin, it's DDR+Parappa+Newgrounds
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Dec 27, 2020 02:29
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A Hero and a Garden is a great little VN/ gardening simulator that's free on mobile. It's also on the Switch. A hero attempts to rescue a princess from a witch and is cursed with being a gardener. It even has multiple endings.
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Dec 27, 2020 02:36
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CodfishCartographer posted:Hell yeah Seedship owns. I've played it more than almost any other mobile game. Pretty much anything by Odencat Inc. sounds like the type of game you're looking for. Most of their games are short pixel-art adventure games, light on actual gameplay but charming and story-rich. They're usually free to try (but ad-supported), with a small fee to remove ads and unlock the rest of the game. I've been playing Fishing Paradiso and Bear's Restaurant recently, but all their games are in a fairly similar vein. On the opposite end of things. Data Wing is a game about racing a triangle through a series of obstacle courses while chill music plays. This one is entirely free, so it's worth checking out if you're even slightly interested. Will look through my history later, I tend to go for big pricey titles or digital board game apps (which for the most part, don't really fit the focus of this thread) but I'm sure I've got a few.
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Dec 27, 2020 12:52
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So, Errant Signal has a good series called "Blips" which talks a lot about tiny games, and he even has a video straight-up called "Talkin bout tiny games". In one video he mentioned some game devs have patreons that release (semi) monthly games. I thought it was a cool concept and wanted to get more info about it, so I DM'd him on twitter asking about it. It sounds like it's not particularly common, but he did provide info on a few of them:quote:So the big one that has been perhaps the most prolific and successful about regularly making content is the Sokpop Collective ( https://patreon.com/sokpop ) who release games for patrons but then also occasionally get their games up on Steam. He also linked me to an article from The Verge that touches on this which is definitely worth a read and links to a bunch of patreons as well.
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Dec 28, 2020 08:12
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AUTOCANNIBALISM
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Dec 28, 2020 08:15
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12 Orbits. Simple, fast paced local multiplayer. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.romanuhlig.twelveorbitsfree&hl=en_US&gl=US He made a switch version as well.
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Dec 30, 2020 05:11
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I’ve always been partial to Mamono Sweeper - it’s minesweeper, but with different strengths of “monsters” that you have to levels up and beat.
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Dec 30, 2020 16:33
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Tower of Heaven is a cool take on the platform hell genre, although it's easy enough that you might not even consider it one. Great music and art style too. Looks like you can play it from your browser if you're still running flash.
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Dec 30, 2020 17:13
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9:05 by Adam Cadre is a short text adventure game that takes advantage of the assumptions the player makes about the world.
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Dec 30, 2020 17:44
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Sagebrush is a game about exploring the remainder of a former cult compound. It comes with a content warning for just about anything you could imagine a game about that might need, but it's got a really strong story. The final set piece in particular is delivered in a way that really creatively makes use of the video game medium. Lately I've been speedrunning Pocket Watch. It's an adventure game heavily inspired by Majora's Mask where you play as a duck who wakes up on an island doomed to be destroyed when the volcano erupts at midnight. Everyone on the island has their own little routine you need to figure out as you eventually start resetting time back to the morning to take another crack at saving it. Also you get to wear a fez and feed coconuts to a penguin. SeXReX fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Jan 10, 2021 |
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Jan 10, 2021 11:58
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https://stuffedwombat.itch.io/qomp Play as the pong ball with v6-like flipping controls as you escape your eternal rectangular prison
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Feb 4, 2021 13:24
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Refunct is a first-person game about running around a little collection of islands hitting checkpoints. It's barely a game but the movement was fun enough I didn't mind spending a dollar on it for the Switch version.
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Feb 5, 2021 19:59
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Cats Organised Neatly is cats, organised neatly. You neatly organise cats.
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Nov 18, 2021 10:27
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Skate or Don't is a massively multiplayer arcade downhill skateboarding game
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Nov 18, 2021 13:56
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