WIG (Weird Indie Games!)

[Cryptie!!]

I am fuckin pumped about indie games, i LOVE EM! yknow what i love even more?!?! WEIRD indie games!!!! Its my favorite artsy subgenre of multimedia, any time a game does something completely off the tread path, I love to see it, even if the experience of playing the game isnt good!

Post your favorite weird indie games below! What counts as a weird indie game can vary from person to person, but my definition basically conforms to what i like to see in a video game. this includes

Novel artistic designs such as Pizza Tower
Novel mechanics like Cruelty Squad's reload system
And the dev team being small or solo, obvs

Weird indie games can vary in:

-Popularity
-Playstyle (Obscure games are encouraged but if you wanna gush about ENA: Dream BBQ or something, don't let me stop you!)
-difficulty
-enjoyability
-the things that comprise them
-depth/length
-price
-and other things i didnt think about adding to this list!

You can also post multiple if you want! Go crazy!

I hope to see some eye-catching, mind-smashing stuff from you guys!!!

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Oh boy subscribing to this topic right now  because if there's one thing I love is WEIRD

I think Hylics is a must in a topic like this. I've never seen anything done the way Mason Lindroth makes his art projects, and Hylics is the only game where I can say I don't get 90% of what's happening on the screen is supposed to be yet I love it.

[candycanearter07]

Oh boy, I get to talk about my favorite obscure indie game, terrorbane :D

In essence, its one of those meta games where the narrator talks over everything, this time in a generic fantasy rpg, but the dev is so bad at coding they accidentily made the npcs sentient? also theres (intentional) bugs everywhere, and the meta objective of the game is to catalouge every single one in there. the way its split up is also somewhat interesting, theres 3 acts kinda with each having 3 areas, but theres multiple ways to pass an act without visiting one of the areas, and sometimes you can only go to one of the other two in a playthrough. for instance, in the first act you can either end up completing the "proper" storyline (skipping the other two areas completely), end up in a glitched "ghost" version of the starting town and have to go through a maze section, or crash the game completely and end up in a text adventure. (technically the last act has two areas, but those two are different enough gameplay wise i think its fine)

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

I love rather absurd indie games outside the commercial scope. I call them "underground games", and I've a blog dedicated to reviewing them.

I've posted here about a few of them. My favorite ones are Agentia, a game were you write a poem by exploring your world. Its great.

Another long time favorite of mine is HyperRogue. It emulates a strange, vivid world through that you might roam. I don't know any video game more fantastic.

There are some titles I didn't review there, because they are a bit to "big" for my usual scope, but that I love - and that might fit here. The first one is Judero. It is a action-adventure with great writing, a smashing soundtrack, and very elaborate handmade elaborations - set in a bizarre, celtic-inspired world.

The other one is The Sea will claim Everything. Whimsical graphic style, good OST, touching story, and a great sense for detail - every mushroom, every book has a unique and sometimes very elaborate description. Its great!

[Kie]

Oooh I'll be following this topic closely for sure! I bet some really cool recs will come out of it  I'm gonna talk about Hypnospace Outlaw

Hypnospace Outlaw is a point-and click browser simulator inspired by the '90s internet. You play as what's basically a moderator, and you are tasked to strike unlawful content on webpages. You are given a list of rules to enforce, a fake desktop, a browser, and free reign to explore! You can customize your desktop, download random stuff from the internet (like virtual pets, or software that may or may not come with viruses), and hunt for collectibles throughout webpages.
You'll be visiting fake personal websites, and the characters behind them have so much personality! You'll be meeting all kinds of people, from elementary school teachers, to cospiracy theorists, to middle schoolers making edgy comics. The game also features a time skip, so you can see the pages evolving over time as stuff happens in the lives of the characters behind them!

The game leans heavily into surrealism, mixed with a good dose of early internet nostalgia. There is some minor gore and disturbing images in certain sections of the game, so be warned!
It's availablle for both consoles and pc, but the controls were clearly designed for the latter! The game is meant to feel like you're using an old computer, so playing it on pc is way more immersive.

Here's some pictures of the game and its promotional materials:

Spoiler

[close]

The trailer gets the vibes of the game across really well too

[BasilABST]

HELL YEAH I get to talk about Disillusion ST!! That game has inspired me artistically so much and even gave me the push to mess with 3D modeling. So:

It's. I have no idea, honestly. Think of it like Yume Nikki if it was an early 3D dungeon crawler? It's a solo project and I have only came across people mentioning it online twice. It's such a vibe and has this like... afterlife exploration deal going on, kind of? It's not too clear for me yet as I am still trying to figure it out and I did not finish it yet. But still.

       


Can I offer you an egg in this trying time?

[virtualpet2001]

WIG...!
my go-to indie games that i plug at people are Mosa Lina and Fractal Block World both of which i learned about from youtube videos. grayfruit's video on Mosa Lina in particular is very very good

Mosa Lina is a very weird puzzle platformer game where you use various randomly-assigned tools to collect fruit. thats the gist of it! its insanely fun though i havent played it in a very long time. tools have lots of different uses and its satisfying to match them up to the situation at hand. it reminds me a lot of the indie games I used to download from itch.io back in the day which may be part of why i adore it so

fractal block world defies explanation, in a sense..... it's a weird cousin of Minecraft (derived from Infiniminer, which minecraft was originally developed to clone) where you explore a voxel-based world where you can shrink indefinitely small. you explore areas to collect upgrades and defeat monsters. its very outside of typical video game conventions in the way it is designed, it has a very specific "voice" to it. i also find it very fun though if you don't like exploration-based grinding you might get tired of it...