The Top 10 BEST Indie Game Hidden Gems of the Year 2020

2020 has been an astonishing period for brand spanking new indie games although with many games
coming out monthly , it’s impossible to stay on top of everything worth playing.
Welcome to urge Indie Gaming and our personal top 10 underrated indie games from 2020, our
hidden gems and unsung hero’s we believe thus far , haven’t gotten the eye they
deserve.
And so at number 10 let’s begin with Carto which came out towards the top of October
on PC and consoles.
This delightfully innovative puzzle game sees you play as Carto who in somewhat unfortunate
circumstances has been separated from her Grandmother who finds herself alone, initially
at least, on an island seemingly within the middle of nowhere.
As you depart to seek out your Grandmother, you soon discover sections of the Island’s Map
about the place and with these pieces, you’re ready to splice together sections of the
World and in so doing, define how the general map and arrangement of the island looks.
Now it’s this mechanic of map organisation and reorganisation that’s the central part
of the puzzling.
As you play you meet numerous people and it’s up to you to assist them with their problems,
issues, wants and wishes .
It’s genuinely a cathartic experience and while the puzzles in themselves aren’t that
difficult, what makes Carto so enjoyable is that the overall story and a spotlight to detail
the writers have given the characters and their associated back stories.
Carto is undoubtedly different and uses the map altering mechanic with finesse, and while
it’s easy sometimes to overthink the riddles you face here, it’s one among the foremost fun and
easy-going puzzlers out this year almost gone.
Up next and at number 9, The Supper launched in late January and comes from Octavi Navarro
who many of you’ll recognise his pixel art from such games as Thimbleweed Park.
It’s super short at under 30 approximately minutes of playtime and yet within it, we’ve a devastatingly
witty and thought provoking check out the darkest reaches of what people are capable
of.
As it’s so short, an excessive amount of detail would spoil the game’s surprises and overall storylines
and yet once they come, the payoffs are supremely rewarding and hey, did we mention The Supper
is also free?
Well that perhaps should seal the deal and like all the games during this countdown, you
can find a link to its Steam page down within the description.
At number 8 and somewhat perhaps controversially, we’ve Prodeus which came call at Early Access
in October.
Traditionally we’ve ruled out adding Early Access games from our end of year rundowns
and yet with this one, we took the choice to overturn such precedents.
Given how it’s , you’ll rather be forgiven in thinking we’ve gone back a couple of years
and generations with this looking so obviously and quite deliciously old school with what
it’s doing.
And what it does is so gosh darn visceral, it’s supremely fast and wonderfully so in
your face with its re-imagined person shooter experiences with modern rendering
methods and techniques.
Put simply for those folks sufficiently old to recollect , Prodeus seems like let’s imagine the first Doom
or Quake, and yet plays just like the very recent Game Awards nominated Doom Eternal.
Expected to remain in Early access until the center to late 2021, the developers hope
to use this point to not only fine tune the sport and in fact to feature additional content
such as editor tools and a greater specialise in multiplayer with the game’s community being
front and centre within the continued development.
At number 7 and on paper something we didn’t think we’d enjoy such a lot .
Hypercharge Unboxed a mixture and mash from a tower defence game, a primary person shooter
and, well it’s the movie franchise that’s Toy Story.
Essentially this kinda cute and cuddly tribute to the decision of Duty Zombies sub game sees
you do battle against wave upon wave on bad tempered toys.
You play as could be expected as a tough and toughened GI figure as you defend zones from
across the map in what really underneath the hood may be a brilliant tactical game that needs
as much as careful planning and strategy, because it does having you to be an honest shot
and the ability to carry your nerve struggling .
For everything thrown at us in 2020, Hypercharge Unboxed is silly and yet captivatingly charming
with it available via PC and therefore the Nintendo switch with perhaps other platforms to follow
over the course of next year.
Coming up next and at number 6, during a year where we’ve played tons more visual novels
than is common , Necrobarista is up there amongst the simplest of the lot.
It is straight up a visible novel, unlike other similar games of this past year, there are
no drink making or coffee berry grinding mini game, it’s pure story and character driven,
inspired by equally by anime and film, with it employing a mixture of lopped still shots and
animated sequences which feel fresh and novel within the visual novel lexicon.
Necrobarista may be a delightful 5 approximately hours and given the standard of writing and presentation
overall, feels a shame it’s seemingly not loved by half as many people because it should be.
At number 5, Art of Rally was one among the games we most enjoyed playing all that point ago
when game showfloor visits were such a thing at EGX in London back in October of 2019.
We kept returning to the demo time and time again over the three days we attended the
event and every time, it left us eager to play it even more.
If you weren’t aware Art of Rally comes from the developer who gave us Absolute Drift
and the genius of that game clearly shines through within this new offering.
Aside from the highly polished overall design with its muted colour palette that altogether
cases looks so very pleasing, we’ve one among the foremost enjoyable top down arcade racers
of the past few years.
Now while we love our racers, we’re altogether honesty not super fans of these super realistic
simulators we all know many people adore.
That’s just not us, with us subjectively enjoying something that’s just that tiny
bit more simple round the edges.
That said, this does nothing to require away the technical needs of playing and getting
good at Art of Rally.
To succeed you would like to regulate the cars, and there’s quite 50 of them starting from
a dinky Mini right up to the beasts of the A and B machines from the hayday of
the 80 and 90s, you would like a nimble finger and wrist skillset as you power on through the
straights and drift your way all the way round the corners.
Unlike most, if not all Rally centric games there’s also no co-driver so you don’t
have an audio barking out pace notes or driver instructions which again, feels an ideal
approach keep this one as simple as possible.
Now if you would like some complexity, you’ll fettle many of the cars parameters although we didn’t
bother messing around with those an excessive amount of , we just used the cars default settings and
had plenty fun with keeping things as they’re .
As a package Art of Rally feels an honest and great natured tribute and homage to Rally
Car racing and while for a few it’d be too casual, we hope it makes its over
from PC to consoles, especially on the Switch where in handheld, this might be a correct
unit shifter.
At number 4, and from the center of the summer, there’s No Game, Wrong dimension may be a really,
really clever proposition.
From the get go it positions itself as anything but a game with it having a narrator that
insists upon this over and over.
What follows is alongside Lair of the Cockwork God, a number of the funniest computer game writing
of the year.
It’s gag after gag with the sport sending up genre after genre with a parody after parody
of a number of the simplest and documented computer game tropes, one after the opposite .
In a game like this in doing what it does, it might are ever easy to possess gone
over the mark of something so self-referential and yet here in there’s No Game – Wrong
Dimension well it never does and at no time does it stop offering up laugh aloud material.
For some, well this could be slightly too meta with it perhaps trying a touch too hard and
yet honesty, for us a minimum of , this really doesn’t matter, it ticks the boxes in so
many areas and if you haven’t seen this one yet, please, go check it out with it available
via Steam.
At number 3 and far and away and away the sport in 2020 we spent the foremost time playing in couch
co-op.
Arguably the foremost documented game within the rundown, Moving Out came call at April and has found
a home on PC and every one of the standard consoles.
The comparisons to let’s say Overcooked are simple enough to form .
We get that and love that franchise dearly and yet side by side, we might as we come
towards the top of 2020 ninefold out of ten play Moving Out rather than the mad capped
game of cheffery and super health and safety unfriendly kitchen working environments.
There’s just that tiny little bit of extra spark of mania here, something that adds to how
zany and difficult it are often to play.
And that’s an honest thing, two players represent an honest chanllenge and with three and 4 ,
well that’s an entire new multiple layers of excellent natured stress and banter.
This can be offset by the games multiple accessibility options which range from adjusting the font
sizing to having longer to finish the missions and also having the removal van empty
itself when each item lands within its innards.
Moving Out is teriffic, we like it and cant wait to seek out a couch co-op game we like playing
more than this one.
At number two, Welcome to Elk may be a story driven game about the act and therefore the art of telling
stories.
It features a lady named after a Norse Goddess having arrived on an island where she’s
looking to figure under the wings of the local carpenter.
From the offset, as you play you get to understand the locals and listen in and partake within
their own particular stories and tales.
These are told though flashback scenes or interactive mini-games although what’s most
interesting, is how Welcome to Elk uses live action footage of individuals telling their stories
with talking heads pieces to camera.
Many of those stories, which off set the cartoon nature of the art style are supremely dark
and affect some harrowing instances of death, addiction and other really rather heavy
subjects and yet it never feels heavy handed or for want of a far better word, mawkish.
While sometimes a troublesome play, we enjoyed our time with Welcome to Elk and located it an honest
and deeply rewarding experience.
Welcome to Elk is yours to play on PC and therefore the Xbox One.
At no 1 and our indie game hidden gem and unsung hero of the year for 2020, we first
spotted The Pedestrian when it took to Kickstarter in January 2017 and featured it some time past
here on the Channel.
Many year’s later, it launched in January of the year almost gone and sadly seemingly
didn’t tickle as many people fancy as we’d have thought.