The best in indy gaming

August 19, 2007 10:13 PM

The top 100 Indy games of the last three years as selected by GameTunnel, which offers in-depth reviews of independent games (also useful are their best of 2006 and best of 2005). On the other side of the indy gaming world, ModDB does the same thing for the best mods of 2006 chosen by their editors and players, along with a full database of other mods. [You may also want to see my previous post on free games.]
posted by blahblahblah (20 comments total)

My personal favorite indy games take existing genres and boil them down to their essence. The best of these are Weird Worlds (demo here) with its take on space conquest, and Oasis (also with a demo), which riffs on Civilization.

Speaking of Civilization, as for mods, you can't beat Fall from Heaven II for Civilization 4 - it is what a modern Masters of Magic would look like.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:18 PM on August 19, 2007

Usually we use "Indy" for "Indianapolis", and "indie" for "independent". Rule of thumb, 'cause when I read this post, I thought you were talking about car racing.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:22 PM on August 19, 2007

And I'm very interested in the #1 game on that gametunnel list...
posted by mr_roboto at 10:23 PM on August 19, 2007

That would be too many games about car racing.
posted by jonson at 10:23 PM on August 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Damn. I was being too indie with my use of indy. Feel free to fix, mods.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:26 PM on August 19, 2007

I was expecting casino games.
posted by Poolio at 10:27 PM on August 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Also, a good download for those who want an Indie Indy.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:30 PM on August 19, 2007

jesus christ, 100 games based on the indiana jones franchise? that's fucking crazy.
posted by andywolf at 10:45 PM on August 19, 2007 [3 favorites]

Beware of the Starforce copy protection that trackmania uses.
posted by jeblis at 11:03 PM on August 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Note: this only includes the games reviewed by Gametunnel, which only reviews games that are for sale, and not freeware games. See the thread at this forum. Note that Cave Story, indie darling, appears nowhere on the list, a rather egregious error.

Still, I'm all for independent games getting more press, to increase the market for experimental and non-big-company games.
posted by zabuni at 11:36 PM on August 19, 2007

Why is the Cave Story Deluxe download (which includes PC and MAC) a Windows-only .exe binary?

THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY PEOPLE. WE'LL NEVER GET HOVERBOARDS THAT WORK ON WATER IF WE KEEP ON GOING LIKE THIS.
posted by public at 5:47 AM on August 20, 2007

I kiss you, blahblahblah, both for this and for your previous post that I managed to miss. I love that there are lots of things here that aren't shoot-'em-up and conquest oriented.
posted by taz at 6:03 AM on August 20, 2007

I can attest to the fact that Iron Grip, is indeed, awesomeliscious.
posted by eurasian at 7:31 AM on August 20, 2007

Fantastic games, but some of the worst-written reviews I've seen yet. Glad to have the list though.
posted by agregoli at 7:57 AM on August 20, 2007

This is good timing, because I had just finished scouring this link and this link for free indie games.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 10:15 AM on August 20, 2007

Whhiiiich you already covered in your link to your previous post. Whoops.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 10:19 AM on August 20, 2007

Dawinia is rated shamefully low there.
posted by Artw at 11:39 AM on August 20, 2007

Beware of the Starforce copy protection that trackmania uses.

I don't see any games called Starforce or trackmania on the list.
posted by jaronson at 3:02 PM on August 20, 2007

Trackmania is in BBB's Indie Indy link.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 6:16 PM on August 20, 2007

Public, there are ways to crack open a self extracting zip on a Mac.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:38 PM on August 20, 2007