The top 10 best indie games of 2017
As 2018 begins, we round up our favourite indie games of last year.
10. Brawlhalla
Brawlhalla is a classic, high-energy platform fighter you can play with your friends on a couch or online. Set in Valhalla, a golden hall filled with the greatest warriors from every time and place, Brawlhalla is the Grand Tournament Odin created in a vain attempt to keep his warriors from tearing Asgard apart. [Read our full write-up]
9. Oxygen Not Included
Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Manage your colonists and help them dig, build and maintain a subterranean asteroid base. You’ll need water, warmth, food, and oxygen to keep them alive, and even more than that to keep them happy. [Read our full write-up]
8. The Long Dark
The Long Dark is perhaps the most real, brutal survival game. You won’t find any zombies, monsters or any kind of supernatural foe here. Instead, your enemy is the awful power of nature itself. You’ll have to overcome the cold, wind, wolves, bears, hunger and more if you plan to survive. [Read our full write-up]
7. Sky Rogue
In Sky Rogue, you aim is simple: to destroy enemy planes, bases and aircraft carriers over land sea, and air. Unlike most flight sims, there’s no restarting at the previous checkpoint if you get wasted. You die, you’re done. [Read our full write-up]
6. Figment
You would be forgiven for thinking that screenshots of Figment, instead of looking like an action adventure game, instead seem more likely to come straight from the pages of a children’s book. It’s one of the most beautiful looking games we’ve played. (Disclosure: Figment is publicised by our sister company, Game If You Are, but they weren’t involved in the making of this list.) [Read our full write-up]
5. RiME
RiME is a single-player puzzle adventure game about a young boy shipwrecked on a mysterious island after a torrential storm. Players must use their wits to decipher the challenges and secrets of an expansive world strewn with rugged terrain, wild creatures and the crumbling ruins of a long-forgotten civilization. [Read our full write-up]
4. Deceit
Deceit tests your instincts at trust and deception in a multiplayer first-person shooter. You wake up in an asylum to the sound of an unfamiliar voice, surrounded by five others. However, one of your group has been infected by a terrible virus. There’s no immediate way of knowing who it is – so you’ll need either the truth and trust, or lies and deception to figure out who the infected is and deal with them before it’s too late. [Read our full write-up]
3. Rakuen
Rakuen is a story about a little Boy who lives in the hospital. His mother reads to him everyday from his favorite storybook, which is about a tribal child living in a fantasy world called Morizora’s Forest. One day the child wakes up to find that everyone in his tribe has disappeared. He soon learns that in order to escape danger, his tribe sailed away to a paradise isle called Rakuen. [Read our full write-up]
2. Cogmind
Cogmind is such a massive game that it’s hard to know where to begin describing it. You control a robot – basic to begin with, but soon becoming an engine of destruction. In typical roguelike style, you pick up equipment to modify and build your character in order to survive as long as you can before the nigh inevitable death. [Read our full write-up]
1. Cuphead
We hope that our list of the best indie games of 2017 has surprised you and made you fall in love with games that hadn’t yet encountered. Our choice of best game of 2017, however, probably isn’t much of a surprise. There couldn’t really be any other choice. Since its release in September this year, a mere three months ago, Cuphead has exploded with overwhelmingly positive reviews and multiple awards. [Read our full write-up]