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4 Unexpectedly Awesome Indie Games


I’m relatively new to the video game scene. I didn’t get to have a game system growing up and until I found Steam in adulthood, there weren't many ways to find out about interesting PC games. But even in my limited experience, I’ve been impressed by the creativity and variety I’ve found in the indie games I’ve tried out. A lot of times, these games will take a premise that sounds completely laughable or boring and turn it into something unexpected and remarkable. Some of them mess with our preconceived notions about video games and storytelling themselves.

Here’s 4 video games that do these things and do them with gusto. This list serves as an introduction to each game and discusses how they're a lot more than what they seem to be on from the description blurb. I’ll point to each game’s strengths and also potential drawbacks. All of these games are heavy on story- in fact, a couple of them are simply visual novels. None of them require an abundance of gaming skill (as I can personally attest) and only one of them has challenges that require decent reflexes.  So, if you only want action and dodging stuff from your games, most of these won’t satisfy you. However, if you’re into stories and role-playing, you might discover a game you’re interested in!

I know these are only a few of the cool indie games out there and this article only dips a toe into the pool of them. So feel free to talk about your own favorite surprising indie games and leave suggestions for a new list in the comments. 

  1. Long Live the Queen

    A quick glance at “Long Live the Queen” may give the impression that it’s a game about living a cutesy, carefree life as an anime princess with a side of magical girl shenanigans.  While you are definitely a cute anime princess, the game is anything but carefree. Long Live the Queen is a game where you desperately struggle to avoid being brutally murdered in a variety of gruesome ways before your coronation day. You have to navigate cut-throat royal politics, choose who to execute, deal with impending war, uncover family conspiracies and fend off attacks from bloodthirsty demons.

    The conceit of the game is you have a choice to take various classes each week to sharpen your skills in various subjects. Your skills will unlock options and also help you rule in certain areas and survive the games events.

    There are many ways to approach being a Queen-in-training- you can become a ruthless power-hungry despot who murders even her own family, a silver-tongued woman who manipulates the situation perfectly, a ridiculously powerful sorcerer, a warrior goddess, or something else entirely. But the best way to survive to the end is to find the right balance of skills. Your “boring” princess skills like “courtly manners” may end up saving your life, while focusing too much on being good with a sword might leave you vulnerable to more subtle forms of attack.

    Long Live The Queen screenshot

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    The game is really fun in how it mixes cute with horrifying. Your various gruesome deaths are represented by chibi cartoons and you can change into a frilly magical girl costume to better roast your enemies alive. Moreover, the world of the game is fairly complex- your history classes teach you all about the relationships between your family, allies and countries and they’re full of betrayal and intrigue. There’s also a multitude of magical creatures, lore, royal customs and secrets to discover.

    There’s a huge amount of achievements to unlock and those alone tell you how outrageous the game can get. Among these achievements is “getting blessed with the favor of cats”, “perform a human sacrifice”,  “save the day with the power of music”, “became an evil minion” and “poison a chicken”. You can get 20 different epilogues based on what you encountered, how well you ruled and who you romanced. The game has great replay value and it will be a long time before you’ve unlocked everything.

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    However, it can get fairly tedious and incredibly difficult after a while trying to balance all of your skills to unlock various things, especially since you’ll have to repeat a lot of dialogue. The game has a fast forward button that cuts down on that a bit. It also relies entirely on strategy and figuring out what actions trigger invisible events, so if you’re weak on that it can get especially frustrating. But walkthroughs can help you if you just want to enjoy the story.

     It should also be noted that while you can romance quite a few women and enter a permanent relationships (not to mention you have lesbian side characters), you can only marry one in the updated Steam version, and you have to do a lot of stuff to get there. Also there’s only one dark-skinned person in the game I can recall and he’s…not very nice.

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    You can buy the game or try out the free trial version here or you can purchase it on Steam.

  2. We Know the Devil

    We Know the Devil is horror visual novel and also a great example of how fantasy and magical story elements can serve as hard hitting social commentary. A glance at the description may lead a reader to believe it’s a simple, low-budget superhero dating sim with horror overtones, but it’s a lot more than that.

    WKTD stars three students at a camp for wayward magical superheroes- Jupiter, Neptune and Venus (and yes, the Sailor Moon reference is confirmed as intentional). The camp is clearly reminiscent of bible camps fundamentalist parents force their kids to go to so they can “pray away the gay” or otherwise be steered back to a fundamentalist’s idea of a “godly” path. Only the camp takes this way more literally- these kids are made to literally fight the devil, lest it take them.

    We Know The Devil screenshot

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    The game is very much not the dating sim it claims to be. Instead it’s a disturbing game about exclusion, isolation, brainwashing and the abuse kids who break the “rules” of society face. Hooking up two characters is not a happy event because it leads to devastating consequences to the character who was left behind. It’s best to play all three routes to get the full scope of these three flawed, heavily conflicted teenagers and then try to unlock the cathartic “true ending”. The game is likely to have resonate with you especially if you’re part of the LGBT+ community, but anyone who’s ever experienced being a teenager who had trouble fitting in can connect to the characters.

    The game is an extremely short one and is entirely about the story- the only actions the player takes involved matching up the characters for various events. The setting and art style are fairly minimal as well. You also have to get a free account at the website to play it. However, it’s also very cheap at 6.66 (get it? Hardy har har.)

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    If you love symbolic stories, fantastical metaphors, social criticism, subtle writing and psychological horror, this game is for you. You can buy it here

  3. Undertale

    Critics have been raving about Undertale and they’re right to rave. I may be a gaming newbie, but even my friends who’ve played for years are calling in their favorite game ever.

     The premise of the game may sound simple enough- you’re a human who’s dropped into a world of monsters and you need to get out. You can do it without killing them! Nice!

    But Undertale is anything but simple- it’s a game that questions, subverts and overturns the commonly accepted mechanics of video games on every level. The fact the player can “die” and reset the game is incorporated into the world. Not only does the game remember your previous playthroughs, but the effect this has on the world is fully explored.

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    You get to take a look at the existential horror of being a video game character who knows their actions mean nothing because it can all be undone with one click of the reset button. You learn the consequences of detaching yourself from the cruel actions you commit because you believe you can just “start over”.  The connection between the player and the in-game character they control is examined in an eerie way, as are the downsides of mechanics like gaining experience points through violence. The game doesn’t allow you to see the monsters you encounter as faceless entities to mow down just because they’re not pretty or humanoid enough. Rather, it makes it clear they’re a race with complex lives and history.

    A game like Undertale is honestly incredibly important considering current gaming culture. The cyberbullying and harassment in the gaming and tech worlds show that many in the community feel like violence is a joke, that it’s okay to treat others poorly and like they don’t have to face any consequences for cruel actions. Many video game analysts have pointed out that the uniquely immersive experience of video games can really mold player’s minds in subtle ways . Undertale is a game that encourages the player to actually think about how their actions affect those around them and it does it without being preachy. It’s something many gamers can benefit from.

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    In addition to all that, Undertale has a diverse cast of loveable and funny characters, many of them with hidden depths. There’s also a constant twists and turns, intense backstory reveals, lots of clever pop culture references, a killer soundtrack, lots of psychological horror and an almost literally endless world. There’s so much hidden dialogue, character interaction and secret stuff you could replay several times and still never find it all. The game is also good about skipping through the more tedious sections upon replay, and depending on your actions and the previous playthoughs, no run through the game is the same (up to a point).  If you want a description that goes further into the strengths game with some very mild spoilers included, I’ve included one here.

    I cannot recommend this game enough, though I have to note if you’re not good at bullet-dodging, the encounters with the monsters can get fairly difficult and tedious. There’s some shortcuts you can take and special armor you can get to make things easier, though, so you can use walkthroughs if it gets too frustrating. If you’re prone to paranoia or being psyched out, the way the game breaks to fourth wall and messes with your head can be a little much too.  

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    Undertale is available on Steam here. If you’re still unsure about the game, there’s a free demo you can try here.

  4. Hatoful Boyfriend

    Hey you! Have you ever wanted to play a dating sim where you date PIGEONS??? …Probably not. But many would agree with me that Hatoful Boyfriend turns that premise into something not only endlessly entertaining and hilarious, but also surprisingly intense.

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    Hatoful Boyfriend screenshot

    The game first launched as freeware for an April Fool’s joke concocted by Hato Moa and her doujin (fan-manga artist) circle PigeoNation, but quickly became popular. Now an HD version is available on Steam.  The premise is you are the only human girl in an all-boys school for talking pigeons (and some other birds) you, uh, get friendly with them. The game is an affectionate parody of standard dating sims and often side-splittingly hilarious in its ridiculousness and self-awareness.

    But it’s more than funny. Surprisingly, there’s actually a backstory for why you’re a human stuck in a world of birds and it’s pretty violent. Speaking of violence, you can die in a couple different ways in the game. You can also fight an RPG style battle with an evil sorcerer and beat up a whole gang of pigeon thugs with mohawks and rub shoulders with a bisexual biker babe…sparrow.

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    If you unlock all the routes, you’ll get a “Bad Boy’s Love” route which ditches the dating stuff to be a straight up murder mystery (a BIRDer mystery, if you will) which includes dismemberment, warfare, killer robots, ghosts, spies and zombies….just for starters. Some of the soap opera plot twists in this game are downright tragic and moving…if you forget they’re birds.

    I also wanted to mention that in addition to the pigeons with their wide variety of wacky personalities (and sometimes unexpectedly dramatic backstories), the human girl you play as is a really enjoyable character as well. She’s a hotblooded “barbarian” who hunts and gathers for food in this bird-ruled world. Her gung-ho, berserker attitude is really funny and endearing.

    It should be noted that there’s one racist character (yes, a racist pigeon. I don’t even know…) and while it’s clearly intended to be character flaw, it really isn’t dealt with terribly well.  In one of the bonus routes, the main character even accidentally refers to her friend by a racial slur for some reason.  Also uh…there’s kinda-sorta cannibalism and somewhat disturbing serial killer stuff.  If you want to take more of a look at the game, I did a liveblog of it here (beware lots of capslocks and profanity).

    You can buy Hatoful Boyfriend here. The free demo is here.

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