Recent 'pixely' small fun games?

[circ]

Genre inconsequential. But something 'fun', exploration, adventure (not the infocom/Sierra genre), pixelated or near enough, indie whatever but no silly agendas. Don't care about story, as long as it's not the worst story ever.

Recent being 2010+. Small, eh 2 gigs and under or thereabouts uninstalled. No triple A 50 gig stuff.


Some examples, not necessarily good games:

Kingdom - repetitive, but had it been developed properly eh, interesting idea though.
Underrail.
3030 Deathwar.
Shadowrun/DF/HK.
DOS.
FTL.
Undertale - haven't played it, don't want to. Oh - No RPGMaker games.
Subterrain.
The Final Station - nice art, seems kinda crap gameplay.
Papers Please - eeh, would like a little more running around than none.
Ronin.
Dex.
Mark of the Ninja.
Enter the Gungeon - repetitive junk, but interesting concept.
Dungeon of the Endless - seems too repetitive, nice art and music though.

 

[anus_pounder]

The Final Station is absolute shit. Do not touch.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Convoy -Kinda flawed FTL knockoff, but has RTwP car fights.
Death Road to Canada - FTLish roadtrip game in zombie apocalypse.
Broforce.

 

[Maggot]

IVAN started up development again recently

 

[The Fish]

Hyper Light Drifter

 

[sullynathan]

does Furi count? I didn't finish it but it was indie, and it had only boss fights. The boss design is questionable at times but the game is hard and challenging.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Broforce
Lakeview Cabin (first episode is free, so try that first)
Bit Blaster XL - perfect coffee break shooter
Finding Teddy

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Does the whole Wadjet Eye catalog count?

adventure (not the infocom/Sierra genre)

I suppose not then.

 

[CryptRat]

Titan Souls
Mystik Belle
Voidspire Tactics
Serpent in the staglands
The Momodora series
Bleed
They bleed pixels
Noitu 2 Devolution
Shovel knight
Teslagrad
Valdis story

 

[Palikka]

Stardew Valley
Binding of Isaac

 

[circ]

Hyper Light Drifter

I've been looking a bunch of these up on youtube and some just seem remotely pixelated with no adventure or exploration, not that those were necessary criteria but still. And some look like Playstation 1 rejects.

But anyway, HLD. This seemed a little more interesting if only because of the stylized art. Budt. Budt. Locked at 30 fps. As a fast paced action game. LOOOL. How aboot no.

Furi is just boss battles. Very pretty ones at that and the combat looks diverse but I dunno. Boss battlu only? Not sure if want.

Death road to Canuck and Broforce I'll maybe look into a little more. Shame that... I completely forget what I was talking about. Something about there being a sizable amount of indie pixel games but most of them are total crap. Maybe.

 

[Siveon]

But anyway, HLD. This seemed a little more interesting if only because of the stylized art. Budt. Budt. Locked at 30 fps. As a fast paced action game. LOOOL. How aboot no.

They actually just patched 60 FPS for the PC port.

 

[Turisas]

 

[Siveon]

Butcher is amazing but Slain! was pretty crap, or so I've heard.

 

[Turisas]

Butcher is amazing but Slain! was pretty crap, or so I've heard.

Yeah it got a lot of criticism for the original release but the Back from Hell relaunch apparently addressed at least some of those concerns. Worth a try at least.

 

[Neki]

Hobo Simulator.

Spoiler

AKA:NEO Scavenger

 

[Gragt]

Crypt of the Necrodancer. I’m not a fan of rythm-based games but that one is the exception.

 

[circ]

Looked at a let's play of Crypt of the NecroDancer. Looks like autism on drugs.

 

[circ]

Ok I got this game called MegaSphere, played for maybe an hour. It's kind of like Metroid/Strider, but with smaller sprites. Really cool pixel graphics, great particle effects, cool ass upgradeable gun - got a ricochet laser, rpg, gravity gun and grenade launcher, dunno if there's more. Unique enemies, good music. It's in early access alpha but short of some small glitches it seemed more stable than other games at release.

But, that's where the positive impressions end. The environment is partly destructible, including walls, roofs, floors. But you have no idea where you're going or why, the areas seem to be pretty huge, like in Metroid, and like in that you get lost. I also recycled (destroyed) a gun slot because well tooltips would be helpful. Well it was no big deal because I got better stuff later. Also it really needs a controller for playing because M&K is shit. But controllers are for consoles so. Also there's no real way to avoid enemy attacks other than running, jumping and a kind of air dodge - most of the damage is dodged with your face. And well, an rpg in a tight space with player damage from it - bad idea.



edit:

Also tried Neon Chrome. Crap. Looks like a 90s german game, top down shooter with wonky controls, asset recycling overload. Cheap cash grab.

edit 2:

Played some Halfway, a turnbased tactical lite-rpg. Not much for stats - HP and Agility which you can perma-boost with syringes. I got half a dozen because I don't know if I get more team members (3 right now). 2 AP per turn, really just 1 AP because characters can't hit shit so have to use aim every turn. Combat skills are pretty basic, but there are active and passive skills, grenades, medkits. Pretty much like Shadowrun. Pixel graphics that look nice, pretty nice detail too although there's some asset recycling too. Story? Eh I dunno, haven't gotten that far but so far nothing special. AI switches between crafty and are you retarded. One issue though; ammo is kinda sparse, but it's made worse by the fact that reloading uses the full clip. Why? 3 rounds short of a full clip, AP to spare and nothing to use it on? Reload? Fuck that, wait 'till it's empty. Fucking stupid.

Oh it also comes with some kind of modding tools integrated. Shrug.

edit 2 some more:

Also played Seraph, a platformer with shootans. It recommends a controller, and it really means it. Kinda unplayable with keyboard - mouse doesn't do anything. Nice animations, but though the art is otherwise sleek - not pixelated btw, it's really sparse with barely any detail. Really lazy work. Level design is garbage. Decent gunplay and skillset, a little rpg'ing but the interface for crafting/upgrading is pretty ass. Wouldn't recommend, might be a better game with a controller.

 

[Alfgart]

Chroma Squad is pretty decent

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Chroma Squad is pretty decent

+1.
Halfway is another squad based tactical game.

 

[Siveon]

Chroma Squad is pretty decent

+1.
Halfway is another squad based tactical game.

Telepath Tactics as well.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Death Road to Canada is one of the best releases of 2016. It's not that deep gameplay-wise, but it's pretty fun, especially if you can play it in coop.

 

[circ]

Chroma Squad is pretty decent

+1.
Halfway is another squad based tactical game.

Can't recommend it after maybe playing through most of it, feels like the end is near after some reveals. The story's nothing original but it works. Characters could use balancing work. After getting all eight, there's no reason to bother with half of them ever again. Weapon type visual effects are diverse enough, with shotgun, AR and sniper rifles offering pretty different graphics in some cases. But the functionality isn't there for shotguns. AR can offer short bursts, but SR still outdamages it. SR's just not very good at CQ. But there's no reason to choose shotgun especially when you get the worst clip sizes with it, and reloading uses up an entire ammo clip. You do get plenty of energy (money) later to keep clips restocked, but with small inventories it's still not worth it.

Level design is not good. The only reason it doesn't become immediately tiresome is because of the visual touches, but that doesn't last. Enemy AI is on second thought completely retarded. Two modes - rush with melee or popamole from cover. Later enemies get shields, aka EZ mode balancing, aka HP padding. Crap design. But the worst design feature comes into play between encounters. Some idiot didn't understand balancing in the slighest, so they decided to add teleporting enemies, sometimes up to 4 waves of about half a dozen enemies after an encounter. If you don't understand the first thing about encounter design, don't get into game design. It does get woven into the story, but it could have easily have been instead worked in with a tmer if it's that essential. Also because of the idiot AI, enemies cluster up, and grenades being fairly cheap, and having an AOE big enough, completely destroys those clusters. What's the point?

I compared it to Shadowrun earlier, and though SR is not perfect, not even close, atleast it does encounters and AI not quite so inanely.

 

[Zewp]

Retro-Pixel Castles isn't half bad if you're into that kind of thing.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/328080/

I had a couple of hours of fun with it. I check back every few months to see how development is coming along.