Last week there was some annoying discourse on social media about how no one makes innovative or experimental indie games anymore, but there’s actually a lot of greats folks pointing you to those games so I made a list of some.
This is going to be a very flawed list. I’m probably forgetting a bunch, unaware of others, I can only read English, and this is focusing on places and not specific people at places like PC Gamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun who are doing great work and can be followed on social media, so I want to apologize to you all in advance since it’s incredibly frustrating to see people lament that “(type of game) isn’t being made anymore” when you’re yelling about them every week. I just needed to cut the list off at some point. Hopefully someone smarter sees this list and puts together an even better one on their own site. But I hope this will give you some cool things to add to your RSS feed reader of choice and maybe some new podcasts to listen to.
I’ll also add that since I am an adventure game nerd, this list is going to be leaning more on that genre. Some of these folks cover experimental games than others, but I think they’re all worth a look anyway. I also couldn’t be bothered to separate TTRPGs and video games but you know what, maybe consider giving something other than D&D a try. You deserve better.
Like I said earlier, I know I missed a ton. Please leave comments with links to who you follow!
Name |
Format |
Description |
Adult Analysis Anthology | Magazine | Adult games |
Adventure Game Hotspot | Website | Adventure games |
Adventure Games Podcast | Podcast | Adventure games |
Alpha Beta Gamer | Website |
Alphas and betas of games in development
|
Bobbins’ Olde Tomb Of Videogames | Website |
Roundup of smaller indie games
|
Buried Treasure | Website |
Reviews of indie games that John enjoyed
|
CalamityNolan | Streamer | indie computer games |
ChoiceBeat | Magazine |
Free zine about interactive fiction and visual novels
|
Cressup | Streamer |
Adventure game streams and interviews with indie game devs
|
Debug magazine | Magazine |
Quarterly print magazine covering indies
|
Dirigitive | Streamer | Obscure and alt games |
Find Nice Games | Website | Highlights indie games |
Folio | Podcast |
Actual play podcast about solo & epistolary TTRPGs
|
Gamers with Glasses | Website |
Reviews, game crit, and interviews
|
Garden of Indie | Streamer | Variety of indie games |
HauntedPS1 | Anthology |
Free anthology of demos by folks in the HauntedPS1 community
|
Heart of Neon | YouTube |
Frequent interviews with indie game devs
|
I Am a Rat | Website |
Games on Itch and Interactive Fiction
|
Indie Games+ | Website | Reviews |
Indie Hell Zone | Website | Reviews |
Indie Hive | Website | Reviews, news |
Indie Mixtape | Podcast |
Highlights a batch of indie games each episode
|
Indie RPG newsletter | Newsletter |
Weekly newsletter about indie ttrpgs
|
Indie Tsushin | Website | Games from Japan |
Indiepocalypse | Monthly anthology |
Monthly anthology of experimental games
|
KRITIQAL | Website |
KRITIQAL is constantly interviewing experimental game devs
|
LotusLovesLotus | Streamer |
K-Pop talk. Indie games and demos, often from Itch
|
Museum of Screens | Website |
Current and retro browser games
|
Party of One | Podcast |
Podcast that plays a different 2-player ttrpg each episode with a designer or actual play performer
|
Press Play Gaming | Website |
Does a giant GOTY series focusing on a variety of very specific genres and types
|
Pursuing Pixels | YouTube |
Focuses on indie arcade games
|
Sidequesting | Website |
Reviews, podcast. Often retro related coverage too
|
Six One Indie | Website |
Showcases and interviews
|
Sloanysoft | Streamer |
Streams modern ZX Spectrum games
|
SummerB76 | Streamer |
Streams adventure games
|
TacoAdventure | Streamer |
Split between new and retro adventure games
|
Thinky Games | Website |
Puzzle and adventure games
|
Three Moves Ahead | Podcast |
Every episode covers a new strategy game
|
Uncrank’d | Magazine |
Print magazine and community for Playdate devs
|
VillainyVS | Streamer |
Streams adventure games, including ones from game jams
|
Virtual Moose | Website |
I do regular roundups of recent indie games
|
Weird Fucking Games | Website |
Regularly highlights experimental games
|
Wraithkal | Website |
Reviews and ScreenshotSaturday roundups from Mastodon
|
Zelda 👑 (Tap-Tap) | YouTube |
Playlist of alt game playthroughs
|
The KRITIQAL typo… ToT
ah fuck, thanks for the catch. Everyone pretend you didn’t see it