Five Game Recs: Random Indie Faves

Random faves:

Pure laughter. Can’t get enough of it.

Remember 5th grade band? You will soon!

This game is Guitar Hero for Trombones (now the name makes sense).

The menus and visuals are a great match, well executed for what you would expect.

AND there are fun secrets - like smashing too many times on slightly hidden buttons to unlock new interactions and secrets…. you can tell they had a ton of fun making this one.

A dithered and deductive detective story.

The ship has returned to port with no one left to tell the tale - how did it happen?

The goal is to name every victim and how they died, using a tool for revisiting the moment of each character’s death.

Oh and there are 60 of them!

The visuals are a very stylish 1-bit pixel art style, which makes the whole thing work.

A game of minigames, presented mostly in a golf context. Enjoy the chaos!

Hilarious through and through. I bet these devs are just pleased with themselves. I know I would be.

I love the minigame style, the irreverant humor, the number of times a horse runs around on it’s hind legs or a man’s head is shot at an apple.

The battle mode is quite fun too!

Ape Out is like Birdman meets Hotline Miami.

It’s a topdown, silhouetted escape story, from the perspective of a would-be King Kong.

The action is great, but so are the colors and textures, the visibility, the mechanics. It’s addictive, punishing, rewarding.

The SOUND. The drums! The credits rolling in chaotically, the way every move is a beat, every big moment is a cymbal crash.

Proud to say I completed this one. It’s stunning and impressive and I’m jealous and inspired by it.

Some games I like too much to add to just any old list… but when I see Indie Faves, I can’t let this one go, for it is near and dear to my heart.

But I’m excited to capture it early, and start accumulating all the little things I love.

In a future pixel art or couch brawlers, I’ll list Towerfall - and Celeste can’t be mentioned without it.

Towerfall is certainly great, and I’ll never get enough of it - but Celeste is such a masterpiece. Of game feel, of level design, of pixel art, of engineering. Of storytelling! Of honesty and humanity.

Maddy Thorson led a stellar team to creating a difficult and rewarding game that makes all of us feel like a badass, and amazed and just what we can do.

The levels and world are all percisely designed for multiple play styles, with treats that give back as much as you are willing to reach for. (“Strawberries are optional!” is just the beginning. You should see what the end-game super hoppers can do.)

Celeste is one of the few games I’ve actually finished, and gladly so. I look forward to the next climb!

See also: Celeste64, and the og pico Celeste.