The world of indie games has all sorts of wonders to offer players. With a lot of know-how and a bit of support, almost anyone can make a gaming experience to share with the world, turning the gaming world into a more interesting and diverse place.
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When developers have free reign to create whatever gaming experience they want, the sheer creativity of some will makeexperiences like nothing the Triple-A space could ever offer. However, the tendency of indie games to overload players with information on top of their complex systems results in many players being forced to use a guide to even complete them.
10Spiritfarer - Finding Souls In Need
Spiritfareris a very calm game. The manner in which it explores the themes of grief and acceptance of loss is meaningful because of how the game does its best to let the player take things at their own pace.
The game’s open-world great fun for those who like exploring, and for the most part, the game is quite adept at subtly guiding players to each new location. However,finding some spiritscan prove tricky, as finding the nooks and crannies of the map to find the island they’re hiding in can prove a bother, and it’s often more efficient to look it up rather than spending so much time searching.
9There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension - Meta Puzzling
One of the most innovative point-and-click adventures of all time,There Is No Gamepulls no punches when challenging players. The game plays with a very meta story about the nature of video games, and the puzzles are no different.
The game will have you solve puzzles by using elements of the UI as physical parts of the world, having game elements interact in ways that make no traditional sense, and even get “behind the scenes” by turning around the monitor. Naturally, this means some of the puzzles can be a bit obtuse and take several degrees of lateral thinking to work out without having to look up the answer.
8Towerfall Ascension - Weird Unlock Conditions
WhenTowerfall Ascensionreleased onto PC in 2014, a plethora of new content was added alongside the existing content from the Ouya exclusive version. New stages and characters were on the menu, all with unique ways required to unlock them.
For a few of these new features, it was simple. For example, unlocking the Towerforge stage required players to beat all of the main stages in the game, and the Cyan Archer required players to beat the Sunken City stage. However, those simple examples aside, the methods for unlocking all the other new content was hardly anything players would be able to work out alone.
7Spelunky 2 - There’s An Eggplant World?!
Roguelikes are a genrenotorious for being tough to beat, andSpelunky 2is no exception. In a world where everything is designed to kill players, surviving through all of the game’s standard worlds to get to the end is an achievement worth celebrating.
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Unfortunately, beating the game “the normal way” is not enough inSpelunky 2as there are not just one but two secret endings that players must complete a laundry list of tasks to complete. Be it carrying items from the start to the end of the game or enduring a punishing gauntlet of levels, working out how to do it alone is next to impossible.
6Celeste - Collecting Crystal Hearts
Like its older sibling,Towerfall Ascension, Celestedecided it wanted to challenge players when it came to unlocking extras. Upon clearing Chapter 7 of Celeste, the mountain’s core will open up, and Chapter 8 will unlock. Players may want to get going immediately, but this cannot be done, as a gate requiring the players to have collected four crystal hearts will appear.
Another gate, with a higher number of hearts, will appear when trying to enter Chapter 9 as well, but finding these hearts can prove a challenge. Some can be gathered by beating the B-side & C-side levels. Levels so difficult players may need a guide on how to beat them. However, the regular crystal hearts hidden in each A-Side level require players to complete somewhat obtuse puzzles to unlock them.
5FTL: Faster Than Light - Assembling An Armada
WhileFTL: Faster Than Lightis technically aspace-explorationroguelike game, it has no secret endings for players to find. The incredibly tough final boss is just that; nothing is hidden further along in the galaxy. However,FTLstill manages to give players confusing challenges to unlock new features in the form of new ships.
Each ship has its own quest associated with unlocking it, which requires players to perform a series of specific actions, many of which can be easily missed. Due to this, players should look these quests up ahead of time, so they can recognize what to do on the random chance they encounter them out in the galaxy.
Thankfully, in the Advanced Edition expansion, an alternate way of unlocking these ships (except the Crystal Ship) was added by way of beating the game with the previous ship in the list. However, this is such a tough feat that the quests may be the only practical way for newer players.
4Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night - The True Final Boss
Ever sinceCastlevania: Symphony Of The Night, developers making a Metroidvania-style game feel almost obligated to put in a “true” final boss. Exploring most of the world and beating the regular final boss isn’t enough for these games, and players must instead find obscure items &Skill Shardsto get to the real ending.
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Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Nightis no exception, requiring some extremely well-hidden Skill Shards to be used in very specific locations throughout the world. As some of these Skill Shards are rare drops from enemies, players may not even know such Skill Shards exist without having a guide inform them of what it is and where to find it. Let alone the locations where it can be used effectively.
3The Binding of Isaac: Repentance - 22 Ways To Finish
One of the deepest, toughest, and weirdest roguelike games ever created,The Binding of Isaac: Repentancefeatures no less than 22 different endings for players to find over the course of what is likely to be hundreds of playthroughs.
Achieving each ending consists of completing a massive laundry list of requirements, with many endings requiring players to have first got specific other endings. The unforgiving difficulty of the game makes getting even one of these endings a significant challenge, but to do go through a run while trying to meet specific requirements andfind the right secretsis a challenge that is impossible to complete without outside help.
2Opus Magnum - Miraculous Machinery
The development team at Zachtronics have created some of the most mind-bending and impenetrable puzzle games the world has ever seen. Their games focus on complex processes that need to be executed as simply as possible for the highest success rate.
One of the most acclaimed of these titles isOpus Magnum, where players must create machinery to create & deliver alchemical creations. Things start out simple enough, but as the game progresses, the complexity of the machines quickly becomes overwhelming for most players. While the game does technically allow players a lot of freedom in creating their machines, creating highly efficient machines will require a lot of learning and studying of the game’s systems.
1Terraria - A DIY RPG
WhileTerrariahas drawn many, many comparisons toMinecraftover the years,Terraria, in its modern form, couldn’t feel further from Mojang’s creation. Despite its sandbox nature and creatively open world, progression inTerrariais actually pretty linear.
To get better gear, attract new NPCs and defeat new bosses, players must complete tasks in a relatively fixed order. This leads to a brilliant RPG experience where everything feels open-ended despite being pushed through a series of linear events. The problem with this system is thatnew players often have no idea where to start, and there are only so many complex ideas that players can blunder their way into before they need to look it up for themselves.
