Even when AAA game releases wrap up until the next big release season, there are still plenty of yummy standalone items that can help you or even create your own tasty and uniquely flavored food.
This week we have plenty of indie games to suit everyone, from the monochrome horror of Silt to the dark and rogue action of Cult of the Lamb to the love letter of retro arcade games Arcade Paradise.
So if you're looking for some of the best PC games we play here at TechRadar, check out our list and dive straight into the buffet of delicious PC games.
Silt
Silt is described as a surreal underwater puzzle adventure game, in which you control a deep-sea diver as he explores the murky depths of the black ocean to uncover its mysteries. Its monochrome palette combined with its creepy yet almost childlike graphic style creates a unique combination of tension that stays with you long after the game is over.
Silt plays like a classic side-scrolling platformer where you mostly avoid obstacles and enemies while exploring a vast environment and uncovering hidden secrets. The environments and monsters are beautiful, with intricate detail and excellent contrast between light and dark to flesh out those details.
What is particularly impressive about Silt is the fluidity with which the diver moves through the water. The controls are tight and responsive, refreshing for a horror game as they derive the horror aspects of the atmosphere created by the visuals, music, and sound effects rather than poor controls.
Adoration of the Lamb
In the same vein as titles like The Binding of Isaac, Cult of the Lamb is a rogue that throws random events and enemies at you as you try to keep your cult happy, busy, and properly controlled. The trope of animals and people gives this game an even bigger kick as you see adorable animals wield terrifying powers or get violently killed.
For fans of the rogue-like genre, gameplay is fluid and frenetic with excellent animation that rarely slows down. Despite its adorable appearance, this game is tough and never fails to challenge at all. It's surprisingly robust, with plenty of ways to level up your character, as well as worship.
I really like the presentation. The vibrant colors, the details, the tight controls, the fact that I play as the cutest and most violent lamb ever. This game is bloody, to be sure, but it offers so much more than that, which is why it has been talked about so much since its release.
game paradise
The indie scene has really embraced the retro aesthetic, as many games are developed using 8-bit and 16-bit sprite art, N64/PlayStation polygon graphics, or even the 1-bit style of old Japanese PC games from the 80s and 90s. XNUMX. .
Arcade Paradise is its own homage to the arcade game craze that rocked the '80s and '90s in America. At first it looks like a first-person garbage collection simulator with a retro UI thrown in for flavor, but as soon as your character ventures to the back of the laundromat and into the hidden arcade, you can really see what is this game for?
Garbage collection and other aspects of life simulation are an excuse for you to drop coins into multiple retro-style arcade machines and play some of the most addictive and thoughtful mini-games I've ever seen. It's an absolute joy and I highly recommend it to any millennial looking to recapture the magic of their childhood, or even younger generations who might have missed out on the magic of old school arcades.
The Final Showdown: Aftermath
"Another rogue?" you say disdainfully And I correct you that he really is a roguelite with a smirk on my face. But it has a completely different style than Cult of the Lamb, which was a cute game with unforgivable gameplay, because Last Stand: Aftermath is a more visually realistic game with slightly more forgiving gameplay.
Aftermath, part of the Last Stand series, follows a group of people who survive a zombie apocalypse. It's a lot like Hades, including the fact that they're the same genre, in that the environments and enemies thrown at you are procedurally generated. There is a strong resource management element here, as well as many other gameplay mechanics that need to be followed as you defeat the hordes of zombies that are after you.
There have been many updates and fixes since launch and the two man team continues to work on polishing this hidden gem. But even now, the gameplay rarely gets boring and there's tons of new content to spice up the formula. Also, since it is a roguelite, it is much more friendly to new players who are not familiar with the genre.
cursed at golf
What if in Mario Golf, instead of having a good round of golf with your friends and enemies, you were stuck in golf purgatory and had to keep playing golf to become a golf legend and escape? Well, you can find out by playing a sprite-style roguelike called Cursed to Golf.
Cursed to Golf is a fully-fledged golf game that accurately reproduces the physics of golf, including swing angles and obstacles. It procedurally generates every environment in a game, each time creating a completely new and challenging puzzle to solve.
Having to master not only each type of club and using it to get the ball safely through some of the more difficult sections while avoiding water and sand traps can feel like hell at times. But the smooth animations and powerful physics engine ease the frustration and instead do what many roguish games fail at, making the difficulty rewarding in itself rather than another hurdle to overcome.