Check out this list of five top indie games

All around the globe Indie companies’ products have been blowing up; with movies, games, TV shows, and so much more becoming increasingly popular.

What does the word “indie” mean? Well, indie is an abbreviated word for independent, made for small, independent developers.

Currently, indie games have been blowing up online.

Senior Clayton Huffman noted that “indie games are some of the most interesting games because a good chunk of them are made by small-time developers and are still fun and entertaining to play.”

WIth that in mind, it’s no wonder that even the oldest of indie games are still very popular, even the newest ones gain popularity fast because of how they remind gamers of older games (both indie and AAA games).

At number five we have Undertale.

When the game was released in September of 2015, within the same year, the game had become extremely popular, reaching half a million downloads on Steam. By 2018 the game had reached 3.5 million downloads on Steam.

Now, with the game’s lowered popularity, the game now holds an average of around 1,000 players a month.

Senior Grisham Hinze “used to love Undertale. This was the first game I ever played that had multiple endings, and it was one of my favorite aspects of it.”

In fourth place is Sea of Stars. Although the game is as popular as the other games on the list, it is still worth mentioning.

Sea of Stars is a single-player RPG game, developed by the indie gaming Sabotage Studio. The RPG was released as a prequel to Sabotage Studio’s game The Messenger, and it is the second game to be released by the indie gaming company.

The game was released on August 29, 2023, and since its release has sold over 250,000 copies. A week after the game’s release, it hit its high of the players that played that day, with nearly 9,000 players. Within the last 30 days though, the game had reached around 400 players per month.

Despite this, Sea of Stars boasts two different nominations for Game of the Year awards for 2023 and has won one of them. The RPG holds the title of The Best Indie Game of 2023.

As stated before, Sea of Stars isn’t really that popular, but still worth the mention. Huffman had watched “some trailers for Sea of Stars, it looks very interesting with dungeon crawler-type gameplay. If given the opportunity with a friend, I would give it a try.”

With a completely different view of the game though, Hinze compared it to previous games he had played.

The senior found that “The mechanic of interrupting attacks with combos reminds me of the Mario and Luigi RPG games, which are some of my favorite games.”

Despite neither seniors playing the game, they both dug around and had found it higher on their lists of games.

Entering the top three, we have the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, which was given the abbreviated name FNAF by its fans. The indie horror was released in early August 2014.

Now, the indie game has a franchise of 13 games (nine main and four spin-offs). Alongside this, there have been several books made, all of which have no correlation to the storyline of the games.

The total number of players per month for each game is very heavily dependent on when it was released. Currently, the two most played on Steam in the series are going to be the original game (with almost an average of 150 players per month), and the game ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach’ (a very fluctuating amount of players, with an average of around 500).

If you want an indie horror game series to play, the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise would definitely be the best to play, especially if you’re looking to play games with several different endings.

Huffman grew up playing story games, and despite the fact that he’s only played three of the 13 games within the franchise, he found that “FNAF is a game that has such a deep and intricate story to it, and the horror elements are always something I like to play, even if it makes my heart sink in my chest.”

Second to first is Roblox. Despite the fact that Roblox has reeled in more players than that of first place, it’s no denying that Roblox isn’t considered an indie game any longer, and hasn’t been considered one for a long time.

The development for the gaming platform started in 2004, with the name DynaBlox, and it wasn’t till the next year (2005) that its name would become Roblox, and it would debut into the world on Sep. 1, 2006, with that same name.

Since its debut into the gaming community, Roblox had a slow start. In its first year it only gained 53 players. Now, Roblox has over 5 billion downloads/players and an estimated 216 million monthly users.

Roblox’s developers, David Baszucki and Erik Cassel, had founded Roblox in 2004, and at the time were considered indie. Currently though, Roblox is owned by the same people, and is now a billion-dollar corporation.

Roblox has left a mark on not just the indie gaming community, but the gaming community as a whole. The sandbox boasts “one of the best markets for indie developers making online games get be able to get people to play those games while being developed,” Developer forum Roblox said.

In first place is Minecraft.

Currently speaking, Minecraft is no longer developed by an indie company, but, when it was first released it was in fact indie.

The only reason Minecraft is no longer considered an Indie game is because of its transition into being “a flagship title for Microsoft, losing its indie status but gaining global platform,” (Is Minecraft Considered an Indie Game? – Playbite).

According to several different sources online, though, Minecraft boasts around 162 million monthly players. Despite the lower monthly users being below that of Roblox, it is considered to be one of the best-selling games of all time.

Both Huffman and Hinze both immensely enjoy Minecraft, although they’re both on different sides of Minecraft players.

While Hinze enjoys playing the game with mods to give him more of a challenge, Huffman is fond of “the hidden lore that sits within the game. Whether you want to play survival and try to become the strongest you can by hunting resources and defeating strong enemies, or if you want to play creative and build to you heart’s content, with the only limit being whatever you can think of while listening to the absolutely stunning soundtrack and music.”