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HowSway @lemmy.world

What are the best Independent Studios in your opinion

In light of Microsoft closing in on the Activision acquisition, I feel is apt to highlight some of your favorite independent studios

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  • New Blood Interactive. Published games like ULTRAKILL, Dusk (made by same guy as Iron Lung), and Amid Evil. Also, iirc the owner is pro-union.

    Additionally, these aren't studios, but my favorite games lately have been The Long Drive, Voices of the Void, and Cruelty Squad.

    Cruelty Squad is a stellar immersive sim that's also about as visually offensive as you can get, which only makes it better. The premise is that you're a hitman in a gig economy that exists in a world overrun by wall street investors and cryptobros. Death isn't permanent, morality doesn't exist, and everyone is evil. Cruelty Squad is fucking art.

    Voices of the Void is a game where you play as a astronomer at an isolated radio observatory, looking for messages from the sky. It's good. It's fun. It's spooky. It's silly. There's a ton of secrets and places to explore. It's also free. You have no excuse, check it out.

    The Long Drive is "streamer-bait" which also happens to be the best driving game I've ever played. No, it's not the best racing game, nor the best car game, but it is the best driving game. No, seriously, it really is. It's a survival game where you get a letter from you mother asking you to come to her house. There's only one problem. She's 5000km away and you have a shitty, beat up car that can barely hit 60km/h. Oh, and the world ended in 1979. So it's you, your car and 5000km of road with the occasional pit stop for supplies and better parts. My favorite thing is that any car/bike can fit any engine or wheels. You can absolutely pull a diesel out of bus and put it on a moped.

    Edit: oh, if you like horror games:

    I've heard Chilla's Arts makes really good lo-fi horror games.

    If you want low-budget slasher movies in game form, check out Puppet Combo. Just make sure to turn your sound down because sometimes the jumpscares are loud. When I say loud, I mean loud.

    If you wanna see what the indie horror scene is up to in general, check out the Dread X collections.

    Edit 2: oh, I've also been looking forward to Team Reptile's Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. It's a spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio and will be featuring new works from THE Hideki Naganuma.

    • Cruelty Squad is such a bizarre beast. It's an ugly, unpleasant, and overstimulating game that feels hostile to somebody trying to play it. And despite that, it lives in the back of my head as one of the most unique gaming experiences I've had in ages.

      The game fucking rules. 10/10 I am a flesh automaton animated by neurotransmitters

  • What exactly are we counting as independent? Like a developer whose game is published by a publisher, but they aren't like one of the REALLY big publishers. Or is it just purely independent, self-published studios?

    Dwarf Fortress, technically speaking, the Steam version isn't independent, but it seems ridiculous to not include them here.

  • I have a soft spot for "one man kiosks" like Hempuli (Baba Is You), Lucas Pope (Papers Please, Return of the Obra Dinn), panstasz (World of Horror) and Miro Haverinen (Fear & Hunger).

    Gotta shout out Larian and The Game Kitchen as well, their work is phenomenal.

32 comments