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it was humble published and debuted with a monthly, which explains why there was no publicity. which is weird, because you'd think that there would be more marketing from arguably the biggest name in indie games, but no one gives a shit about the humble store

[Bad_Dude 2017]

whats niffles

[Schoq]

Nifflas and ultimortal are both too pure for this world

[Raptor85]

never heard of uurnog until now, looked it up and looks like just another platfomer collect-a-thon from the knytt guys, and since i didn't particularly like the knytt games i doubt i'd like it.

Rain World I'd heard of but it looks like just another moody dark physics platformer, which there's a zillion and one of on steam, It might very well be good, i don't know, but just with a million and one games that basically all look alike i've been sick of the genre for years.

Future Unfolding, top down puzzle game, couldn't really tell what's going on from the trailer.

Seems like the past few years about 99.9% of new indie games (not including the pure trashware cash-in horror/survival/copycat games as i've talked about in the steam thread) are a dark moody platformer with fantastic art and music, where you play as some sort of cute creature, generally colored white to draw out it's contrast to the environment, which is predominantly dark and black, and you have to wander the world platforming and exploring between checkpoints to collect powerups needed to accomplish some goal at the end.  Most of the world will be dark and bleak, and there's spikes and traps everywhere.

Indie games that are actually interesting are few and far between, and generally they do get big threads in the games section or talked about in a similar thread. A recent indie game i've sunk a ton of hours into is Blackwake, though being multiplayer there's not really much to start a thread on about it, but it's fantastic. Yooka-Laylee just got released too, since im mid moving havent had time to play it but if it's nearly as good as it's demo was  I'm sure discussion on it will kick up soon,

[gimymblert]

Seems like the past few years about 99.9% of new indie games (not including the pure trashware cash-in horror/survival/copycat games as i've talked about in the steam thread) are a dark moody platformer with fantastic art and music, where you play as some sort of cute creature, generally colored white to draw out it's contrast to the environment, which is predominantly dark and black, and you have to wander the world platforming and exploring between checkpoints to collect powerups needed to accomplish some goal at the end.  Most of the world will be dark and bleak, and there's spikes and traps everywhere.

Mic drop?

[airman4]

never heard of uurnog until now, looked it up and looks like just another platfomer collect-a-thon from the knytt guys, and since i didn't particularly like the knytt games i doubt i'd like it.

Rain World I'd heard of but it looks like just another moody dark physics platformer, which there's a zillion and one of on steam, It might very well be good, i don't know, but just with a million and one games that basically all look alike i've been sick of the genre for years.

Future Unfolding, top down puzzle game, couldn't really tell what's going on from the trailer.

Seems like the past few years about 99.9% of new indie games (not including the pure trashware cash-in horror/survival/copycat games as i've talked about in the steam thread) are a dark moody platformer with fantastic art and music, where you play as some sort of cute creature, generally colored white to draw out it's contrast to the environment, which is predominantly dark and black, and you have to wander the world platforming and exploring between checkpoints to collect powerups needed to accomplish some goal at the end.  Most of the world will be dark and bleak, and there's spikes and traps everywhere.

Indie games that are actually interesting are few and far between, and generally they do get big threads in the games section or talked about in a similar thread. A recent indie game i've sunk a ton of hours into is Blackwake, though being multiplayer there's not really much to start a thread on about it, but it's fantastic. Yooka-Laylee just got released too, since im mid moving havent had time to play it but if it's nearly as good as it's demo was  I'm sure discussion on it will kick up soon,

OMG Proud to be one of those 0.01%
We need to hunt the 99 % guys

[JWK5]

If you said Metroidvanias or Roguelikes I might be inclined to accept the hyperbole somewhat but really you can do a Google image search of the phrase "indie games" and you'll see tons of images of a variety of recent indie games and only a few of them might come close to matching your description. The majority of them go for a fairly vibrant color scheme and aren't really all that moody.



Edit: I can't type or spell today.

[raigan]

never heard of uurnog until now, looked it up and looks like just another platfomer collect-a-thon from the knytt guys, and since i didn't particularly like the knytt games i doubt i'd like it.

I guess when you judge a game based on visual appearance, you end up being really wrong a lot of the time!

Uurnog is a puzzle game crossed with a SMB2-style platformer (sort of like Lyle in Cube Sector); sort of a follow-up to his previous game FiNCK.

(Also, *was* Knytt a collect-a-thon?! I haven't played it much, but IIRC it was more about exploring and there wasn't really anything to collect)

Rain World I'd heard of but it looks like just another moody dark physics platformer, which there's a zillion and one of on steam, It might very well be good, i don't know, but just with a million and one games that basically all look alike i've been sick of the genre for years.

I can't think of another one, aside from Limbo (which IMO was pretty garbage -- just really boring linear "gotcha!" stuff, at no point did I feel like I was actually playing a game rather than just performing a series of cut-scenes that the level designer directed) and which also has a *very* different aesthetic (in both play and visually).

I haven't played it much but if you're writing off RW as generic.. I don't know. No other game I'm aware of has animation like this! Nor can I think of anything that has this sort of visual style, it's crammed with texture/detail. The whole setup of progress/levels is also quite unique (although so far I think maybe too punishing for me).

If you think that only a single "moody dark" game can ever exist, how do you feel about there being other industrial bands aside from NIN? This is a really weird perspective that I'm glad other devs don't share -- I *love* that eg someone made Hyper Light Drifter even though there are so many ARPGs already, because they did something different and new, they pushed the genre further. If everyone gives up because there's a single existing game in a certain direction, we're just going to endlessly wander around rather than progressing and iteratively improving on designs.

Future Unfolding, top down puzzle game, couldn't really tell what's going on from the trailer.

Lol.. are you trolling? Maybe I'm crazy, but FU looks very very unique, the visual style alone should tip you that this is something more special than whatever you think it is.

Seems like the past few years about 99.9% of new indie games (not including the pure trashware cash-in horror/survival/copycat games as i've talked about in the steam thread) are a dark moody platformer with fantastic art and music, where you play as some sort of cute creature, generally colored white to draw out it's contrast to the environment, which is predominantly dark and black, and you have to wander the world platforming and exploring between checkpoints to collect powerups needed to accomplish some goal at the end.  Most of the world will be dark and bleak, and there's spikes and traps everywhere.

Can you name any of them? I honestly can only think of Limbo. I feel like very few platformers are made lately, at least Rain World and Uurnog are the only ones I can think of OTOH. (Note: I don't really use Steam much so perhaps there's a glut of me-too early access stuff? I'm not aware of many good indie platformers lately, most of the big names are working in other spaces).

Maybe there are hordes of generic indie knock-offs in this genre that I'm just ignorant of, but I feel like you're failing to distinguish between crap shoveled out by idiots and truly interesting stuff built with love by thoughtful teams. No doubt there are tons of me-too platformers being made, but none of the games I mentioned are even remotely like that.

[Raptor85]

im too lazy to make a real list but this steam search captures quite a few of them, from gog/humble/steam and ps4 i probably own around 20-30 games like this myself, i swear every bundle i buy throws 1-2 games like this in just to fluff the package.

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?tags=1625%2C21%2C4166%2C492%2C1756

[rj]

i get that you're being purposefully inflammatory and it should be obvious from my immediate response that i agree with your basic thesis but limbo is good, even if only as a proof of concept for Inside, which,,,,what a fucking game

i mean who else besides playdead is doing the eric chahi style cinematic platformer these days? and as well? inside is the truest heir to the another world throne

[s0]

platformers and puzzle games are to indie what shooters and open world games are to AAA

[Raptor85]

i get that you're being purposefully inflammatory and it should be obvious from my immediate response that i agree with your basic thesis but limbo is good, even if only as a proof of concept for Inside, which,,,,what a fucking game

i mean who else besides playdead is doing the eric chahi style cinematic platformer these days? and as well? inside is the truest heir to the another world throne

oh and don't get me wrong, my point isn't that they're all bad or all EXACTLY the same, i actually enjoyed Ori for the most part (i thought the gameplay did get a little stale by the end), but this happens every time a fairly unique game gets popular, it becomes it's own subgenre of mostly uninspired clones until it hits the point where you can barely tell the games apart. just like the open world 2d building games as well, terraria became popular now it's basically a genre in itself, there's probably 100+ games on steam alone that are basically terraria with slightly different items. There could very well be some good games in there too there's just so much market saturation of extremely similar games.  My point isn't that these games are all bad or shouldn't be made or whatever, but this being the "flavor of the month" type game that everyone is making, well, it's hardly surprising each individual one of these coming out isn't getting much attention anymore.

[JWK5]

platformers and puzzle games are to indie what shooters and open world games are to AAA

*Watches silently as Silb drops the mic and walks off stage.*

[rj]

i get that you're being purposefully inflammatory and it should be obvious from my immediate response that i agree with your basic thesis but limbo is good, even if only as a proof of concept for Inside, which,,,,what a fucking game

i mean who else besides playdead is doing the eric chahi style cinematic platformer these days? and as well? inside is the truest heir to the another world throne

oh and don't get me wrong, my point isn't that they're all bad or all EXACTLY the same, i actually enjoyed Ori for the most part (i thought the gameplay did get a little stale by the end), but this happens every time a fairly unique game gets popular, it becomes it's own subgenre of mostly uninspired clones until it hits the point where you can barely tell the games apart. just like the open world 2d building games as well, terraria became popular now it's basically a genre in itself, there's probably 100+ games on steam alone that are basically terraria with slightly different items. There could very well be some good games in there too there's just so much market saturation of extremely similar games.  My point isn't that these games are all bad or shouldn't be made or whatever, but this being the "flavor of the month" type game that everyone is making, well, it's hardly surprising each individual one of these coming out isn't getting much attention anymore.

oh i disagree with you a million percent i meant the other dude but ive been too lazy to fix that post and quote because i'm with family for easter

there are shitty copycat aesthetics everywhere that nobody cares about, but they're obvious. the actually good things out there are easily discernible at a glance 90% of the time, including rain world and night in the woods and hyperlight, to name a few. all of these were also pretty big hits so i think this is pretty evident

[Capntastic]

Can't believe indie devs have the audacity to make games they are inspired to make

[rj]

imo if your response when seeing a gorgeous thing that clearly has confidence in its mechanics and narrative and world design is "ugh, not another INDIE game" maybe you are the problem

[gimymblert]

I personally miss the beginning where there were a genre explosion, now it has settled in predictable pattern and small twist.

[JWK5]

I personally miss the beginning where there were a genre explosion, now it has settled in predictable pattern and small twist.

People still explore, but now there are a lot more people trying their hand at game development so the explorers are kind of lost in the flood. I think that is pretty much how it goes with any niche activity that becomes popular. The pioneers find unexplored territory and then in come the settlers to cultivate it. You'll still find pioneers, but they are out on the overlooked fringe still searching for new territory.

[FrankieSmileShow]

Ugh, why do so many people here sound like very cranky old men?
The kinds of games you are whining about were not made by some committee of businessmen in suits cynically looking for the easiest way to cash in on the latest trends, they were made by individuals who are sometimes working from similar sets of inspirations, exploring genres and themes that speak to them, however they please. I find this dismissive attitude boring and a little gross. Shallow, worthless negativity. The kind of shit I normally expect to hear from outsiders to a genre, who might have a naive critical position based on ignorance, to whom it all "looks really similar" just because of a lack of familiarity with the subject matter. It feels kind of weird to see this sort of garbage here, in what I normally see as a mostly supportive creative community.

[rj]

strong biggo very agree