#indie-games

#indie-games

Games Done Quick, the biannual charity speedrunning event currently going on right now, not only helps organizations like the Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders - it helps indie games get noticed, too. Indie game developers face an incredible uphill battle not only getting their projects funded, completed, and launched, but discovered as well. Events like GDQ can be a boon to developers, exposing tens of thousands of viewers to little-known games like Bat to the Heavens, Small Saga, and more.

It's certainly true that Strange Jigsaws came out as long ago as August, and it's also very much the case that the game has a blistering "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating on Steam with a remarkable 99 percent of player reviews giving the game a thumbs-up. But somehow, this stunning follow-up to 2024's lovely 20 Small Mazes has not received a single published review, and has gone forgotten in end-of-year lists.

Between the launch of a new console and multiple first-party releases, 2025 was a pretty big year for Nintendo. The Switch 2 got off to a roaring start, but the original Switch family of consoles wasn't forgotten about this year, as Nintendo ensured several of its biggest releases were also playable on it. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokemon Legends: Z-A were playable on the older hardware,

Clair Obscur, the first game from small studio Sandfall Interactive, tells the story of a group of characters battling seemingly impossible odds in a post-apocalyptic universe with a distinctively French visual style. It has been nominated in a record number of categories and will square up against heavyweights like Death Stranding 2 from industry legend Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame, or Nintendo's Donkey Kong Bananza starring the eponymous gorilla.

After indie narrative horror game Horses was banned from Steam two years ago, it put the studio, Santa Ragione, at risk of closure. Studio cofounder and Horses producer Pietro Righi Riva had to make a difficult phone call to the game's director, Italian filmmaker Andrea Lucco Borlera. "I was terrified for him," Riva said in an interview with The Verge. "This was his first game and he put so much work, so much passion, so many years, and it was supposed to be his big breakthrough."

Santa Ragione said Epic notified the studio of its decision just 24 hours before the game was released on Tuesday, despite approving Horses for sale on the Epic Games Store weeks earlier. "Once again, no specific indication of problematic content in the game was given, only broad and demonstrably incorrect claims that it violated their content guidelines," the studio wrote in an FAQ. "Our appeal was denied twelve hours later without further explanation."

in the end, no longer means anything at all, and as such the fights over what is allowed to call itself one are mostly futile. It's best just left alone. But then along come the annual awards reserved specifically for whatever an indie game actually is, and suddenly the whole contentious topic is thrown into a harsh light, along with which comes a realization:

Steam is currently running its "Steam Scream IV" sale and while it's a little light on big AAA headliners (don't expect any Resident Evils on sale, or the recent Silent Hill f), there's a solid chunk of older titles you might've missed, as well as dozens of cool indie games available for pocket change (actual pocket change, mind you). The criteria for the "Scream" sale is also quite wide, so not all of these are horror games strictly speaking, but hey, a discount's a discount.

The October spooky season might be over, but there's one last jump-scare with the realization that 2025 is almost over. As we head into the endgame of the year, we're also looking at a month full of big releases like a pair of exclusives for the Switch 2, mind-bending puzzle-adventures, and novel indies that put a new spin on familiar ideas.

This is a supernatural detective mystery game in which you investigate a woman's disappearance in 19th century Ireland. To solve the case, you'll have to interrogate suspects and keep track of environmental clues and other evidence. You'll encounter strange goings-on as you conduct the investigation amid a gathering of mystics who are looking to speak to the dead on All Hallow's Eve. The art style is quite fetching, and the vibes remind me of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes and Blue Prince.

It adopts the narrative-heavy, dialogue-driven gameplay of Telltale's games, with your choices having a bearing on how everything plays out. Dispatch has a packed cast as well, as it includes the likes of Aaron Paul, Laura Bailey and Jeffrey Wright. I really dug the demo, so I'm hoping to carve out some time to play Dispatch soon. As with many of Telltale's games, AdHoc Studio went with an episodic approach for this one, but the developer is releasing them on a weekly basis.