In-depth looks at the indie games worth your time.
A randomly generated dungeon crawler about a naked crying child fighting his own mother in the basement. Twelve years and four expansions in, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is still the foundation everything else in the genre is built on.
MoonHood's award-winning dark fantasy adventure is one of the most visually stunning indie games ever made. The Switch 2 port makes it portable for the first time, and the results are gorgeous.
Cellar Door Games turned permadeath into a family tree in 2013, and the result helped define an entire genre. Thirteen years later, Rogue Legacy's generational loop still hooks you for one more heir.
Jonathan Blow's time-bending puzzle platformer launched the indie revolution in 2008. Eighteen years later, the Anniversary Edition makes the case for revisiting one of gaming's most important experiments.
Five games for the price of one. Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove is the complete collection from Yacht Club Games, the Kickstarter success story that proved retro platformers could stand alongside anything on the market.
A precision platformer about anxiety, self-doubt, and climbing a very tall mountain. Celeste sold 1.7 million copies and won two Game Awards for good reason. Eight years later, it is still the standard.
Collector's Cove puts a farm on a boat and sends you island-hopping with a dinosaur companion. Here is whether it is worth your time.
A rhythm roguelike where every move must sync to the beat. Crypt of the NecroDancer fuses dungeon crawling with dance music into one of the most original indie games ever made.
A roguelike cult management sim where you play as an adorable lamb building a flock of devoted followers. Cult of the Lamb blends dungeon crawling, base building, and dark humor into one of the most memorable indie games of the decade.
A brutally difficult 2D platformer about a cube of meat saving his girlfriend. Super Meat Boy defined a generation of indie games and taught millions of players that dying 500 times on a single level is actually a good time.
A card-based speedrunning FPS from the creators of Donut County. Neon White turns every level into a puzzle where the answer is always 'go faster.' It took me 20 hours to beat it and another 40 to chase every shortcut.
A Korean indie team built one of the tightest grappling hook platformers ever made, then wrapped it in a cyberpunk story that actually earns its emotional payoff. At $15, SANABI is almost unfairly good.