Hmm... I think 2013 was a great year for smaller, cheaper games that didn't take 10+ hours to complete. I won't call all of these "indies" (as one of them was released by a major publisher), but here are my favorite "smaller" games that I completed in 2013, in order of preference. Not all of these were released in 2013, but I beat them all this year so I'll make them count
1. Brothers: Tale of Two Sons - By far the most enjoyable game I've played all year. I loved the game's unique premise of controlling each brother simultaneously by using both joysticks and triggers (single-player co-op), but I was most surprised at just how much that gameplay mechanism figured into the story. Speaking of which, the story is quite good in a fairy tale sort of way (hence the title), and the visuals were breathtaking for such a small, inexpensive game. Sit at each bench to take in the vistas
Brothers probably only lasts 4 or so hours, but it was definitely the game that gave me the biggest smile all year.
2. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger - Okay... so this isn't exactly an indie title. But I've played one of the other CoJ games and hated them, as I'm not much of an FPS player, and those games are somewhat lacking even as FPS. But Gunslinger tweaks the genre just enough with a small mechanic that could have become an annoying gimmick if used irresponsibly. Driver: San Francisco did the same thing for me with driving games (which I also usually hate) by integrating its weird mind shift mechanic into the gameplay and story. In this case, Gunslinger rolls with an incredibly unreliable narrator, which isn't too unfamiliar on its own... but the game goes even further by changing the world to fit the narration. In some ways, Gunslinger reminded me of Bastion (another of my favorite small games), but in Bastion the narrator reacts to the changing world, while in Gunslinger, the world reacts to the changing narration. I guess it doesn't hurt that I'm a huge fan of spaghetti Western drama, but I found the actual shooting mechanics and skill trees quite good in their own right.
3. Mark of the Ninja - If you enjoyed Gunpoint, I feel like MotN will be right up your alley (if you haven't already played it, since it's also not a 2013 title). Those 2 games, along with Dishonored, were the only stealth games that made me feel like I had all the information I needed to do whatever I wanted... in a sneaky fashion
There was never a single intended path for the levels, and the added challenges gave each level lots of replayability, since they unlocked new gear to suit your playstyle. The story was also surprisingly interesting, since I generally ignore story in these Klei games (Shank, I'm looking at you).
4. Guacamelee - I actually completed this on Vita, not Steam but... it's the first Platinum I'd ever obtained! Silly achievements generally mean nothing to me, but I enjoyed this game so much that I immediately started a new game on hard difficulty after completing it just so I could continue playing. I'd never have thought that a Metroid-style game that focused on melee and throws would become one of my favorite games of the year... silly me for doubting. While some of the internet memes get kind of old (though Casa Crashes did crack me up at first), everything else about this game has a flavor of its own that never makes me tired to pick up and play some more. The platforming can get challenging, especially for the secret orbs, the combat is fluid with responsive controls (especially important in harder difficulties where you can die in a couple hits), and the skill progression works well with the expanding world. In fact, I feel like this is one of the best "Metroid" style games I've played in years. One of the things I love about Guacamelee compared to other Metroid-likes (i.e. Dust) is that the path-opening skills also serve double duty as combat skills, unlike boring double jumps or keys that unlock doors. They threw in some ideas from the DMC series by requiring you to use different skills to defeat tougher enemies, and the boss fights were unique and proved as a good "exam" for everything you'd learned up to that point. I loved the story and music too, as unobtrusive as they were. I'll probably double dip on Steam once this hits 75%, as I'd already purchased it at full price on Vita. There I said it, a game that was so good I paid full price... and had no buyer's remorse!!! (hands over my CAG badge)
5. Defender's Quest - My first sleeper surprise this year. Hardly anyone sings praises of Defender's Quest, with its basic visuals, repetitive music, and seemingly cloned gameplay. I'm sure other games have tried combining RPG and Tower Defense (just as Puzzle Quest did with RPG and match 3 puzzles), but I was sucked into this game quicker than I imagined. The story is dumb but you come to like the silly dialogue and characters, and the stages tend to change just enough (at least on higher difficulties) so you have to keep on your toes. Some levels will remove your archers for example, while others may force you to prioritize on certain enemies rather than the collective. This is a great game for people who enjoy Tower Defense with the loot collecting and skill customization of RPGs.
6. Gunpoint - Well, this is already on your list, but I absolutely loved this game, for all its technical faults. Gunpoint has some weird technical glitch (memory leak?) where it starts lagging pretty hardcore after playing for 30 minutes or so, forcing me to constantly reset the game whenever the FPS drops... and yet it's a testimony to the game that this hardly hindered my enjoyment. Sure, the story is dumb in a noir way, but the jazzy music, somber atmosphere and open gameplay made me love the world anyway. I particularly enjoyed the fact that you could gain abilities in pretty much any order, so the stages had to be intelligently crafted in such a way that there was never a single expected path for you to follow. Heck, you could even get a gun at one point (pardon the pun), but it comes with so many drawbacks that I hardly ever used it. Nothing like shooting your way through a level, feeling like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, only to get shot by a sniper when you try to exit by subway...
7. The Swapper - Gunpoint may have worked my brain pretty hard in some stages, but nothing tested my mind as much as The Swapper (well, perhaps Antichamber... but we'll get into that later). The Swapper uses a limited amount of controls to craft some fiendish puzzles, similar to Portal. Your character can move left and right, but the titular mechanic reveals itself in the way you can create clones of yourself in nearly any location, and with another click you can switch to that clone. Levels gradually introduce other challenges, such as areas of light that do not allow clone creation or swapping (or both), some larger areas that have you treading familiar territory like a Metroid game, and gravity puzzles because why not. Overall, I enjoyed the game (again with a surprisingly deep story), but I also didn't like how certain later stages basically only had one intended way of success that can take a long time to figure out. Then again, those "Eureka" moments when you do figure out a solution after an hour is pretty great... until I realize I spent an hour playing one puzzle
8. Skulls of the Shogun - I used to love turn based strategy games (FFT especially), but they've gotten pretty stale for me as of late. I didn't think I would enjoy Skulls too much, but I checked it out on a lark... and I'm so glad I did! Skulls seems to be a casual take of a turn based strategy game at first (similar to what Swords and Soldiers HD did for real time strategy), but there's a surprising amount of depth in its options and gameplay. New stages gradually introduce the player to classes, helpful spirits, environmental dangers and skill sets. Actually, I think this gradual integration of mechanics continued until the very end! The Cartoon Network-style visuals turned me off at first, but they grew on me and now I find them charming haha... same with the dialogue. Don't expect anything deep from Skull's narrative, but it's fun and not as heavy handed as most strategy games out there. Skulls can be quite brutal at higher difficulties, and I shamefully admit I had to reduce the difficulty to casual on some of the later levels... enemy AI can be tricky so much strategy and prior planning is necessary.
9. Gone Home - I know some people knock this title for being a non-game, but I loved the experience I had with this (along with my next choice, The Stanley Parable). Some compare Gone Home to Dear Esther, but coming from someone who was incredibly disappointed with DE, I'm happy to say Gone Home gives you enough player agency that you never feel like you're just listening to a tour guide on rails. As a teenager in the 90's, there was something magically nostalgic and familiar (and creepily voyeuristic) about the exploration of a large house that simulated the period so well. Sure, some of the story elements are pretty contrived, but overall it was great to organically see the story come alive for me through all of the notes, receipts, diaries, etc in the house. You could pick up pretty much any object in the house, each lovingly rendered in 3D for you to inspect and rotate, even if most of these were not impactful to the plot. I actually found the narrative to be pretty disappointing in the end, but Gone Home was more about the journey for me than the destination.
10. The Stanley Parable - Speaking of enjoying the journey rather than the destination, this axiom applies even further in The Stanley parable. I'm honestly not quite sure how to describe this game without spoiling anything, but it basically reminds me of Antichamber without the mind bending puzzles and with better narration. I felt like I was an unwilling partiicpant in the Truman Show, and you can "beat" the game in 15 minutes or so, but the true joy and payback in The Stanley Parable is by finding just how you can break the narration and go in different paths. I think I found over 10 endings, each sillier than the last, and I'm not even sure I've found them all yet. It's surprising to hear just how pretty much every small thing incites some monologue from the narrator; even the same break room that you walk through a dozen times will trigger new narration each time. There's no real gameplay here, and honestly it seems to buck trends of the video game industry in a very self-referential way, but unlike some games lower on my list (such as Evoland and DLC quest), the winking is clever enough and has enough substance to say that it feels intelligent rather than pandering. If you think about much of the structure of this game after the fact, you'll realize that there is a very meta form of commentary on current video game design and player expectation overall. But even without any of that pretentious jibber-jabber, The Stanley Parable was truly enjoyable for the few hours it held my attention
11. Penny Arcade 4 - The Penny Arcade games underwhelmed me almost immediately with its first two entries, but once Zeboyd Games got its hold on the license, I've loved every minute of the last two games. Penny Arcade 3 and 4 calls back the nostalgia of older JRPGs, especially of FF and CT, but they introduce so much originality that you could hardly hold them for relying on rose tinted glasses alone. Compared to the JRPGs of yore, PA4 requires very little grinding, and you recover all HP after each battle. Also, you are welcome to use skills as often as you like, as your MP resets to 0 with each battle (MP grows steadily every turn or with special skills). This lends each battle a uniqueness of its own, as there is very little mindless button mashing. Enemies are difficult and even random battles CAN kill you if you don't think through your strategy. These games also include a ton of customization with the myriad of classes and monsters you can unlock... there are even secret items, classes and monsters for the inquisitive to find, along with the requisite JRPG secret boss that is much more difficult than the normal story boss. The dialogue is nonsensical and pretentious, and I found myself ignoring much of it... I'm not really a fan of PA's humor anyway, and these RPGs hammer that into my head by taking itself just a little too seriously. Still, PA3 and PA4 were great games for me, purely out of its gameplay and mechanics alone.
12. Stacking - Stacking is another game that won me over with its gameplay, while also having enough visual charm to stand out from the crowd. I'm a pretty big fan of Double Fine games such as Psychonauts and Costume Quest, but I wasn't sure what to expect out of Stacking. Thankfully, the game keeps the quirky humor behind Schafer's other games while introducing a mechanic I've yet to see in any other game. I suppose the mechanic of using NPC abilities for your own purpose has been used before, but not while combining it with Russian matryoshka dolls! This gives a different layer of puzzles as you can only stack into dolls one size larger than you, and sometimes you need to be sure to stack into several particular dolls so you can use their abilities one after another. Overall, Stacking is not too difficult unless you intentionally decide to seek out the extra challenges, and the narrative is pretty cheesy and unmemorable (which was a disappointment after Psychonauts). The charm and the unique gameplay won me over though!
13. FTL - Ah... roguelikes. I have such a fascination with this genre, but I hate feeling like I wasted my life when all progression is lost after a careless death. My first experience with roguelikes strangely resulted from playing the Ancient Cave secret dungeon from Lufia 2... and my first experience of roguelike-induced shock and despair came when I died after playing the dungeon for 3 hours to an unlucky dice roll in a later floor and thus losing the entirety of my progress. FTL takes this familiar feeling but introduces so much randomness and unexpected events that narratives just seem to form out of each playthrough, making even the worst deaths memorable. I think the only reason FTL drew me in was due to this organic form of story telling rather than its gameplay. Still, FTL is definitely worth playing, even if the final boss is a total PITA that forces you to change your playstyle completely.
14. Hotline Miami - Oh man, I am so torn on this game. On the one hand, the outright blood, gore, and brutality just puts me off instantly... and yet, why do I keep playing? The gameplay is fun, the music is a blast, but I still pause sometimes and ask myself if I'm even enjoying the game. I think the fact that you can retry instantly (a la Super Meat Boy) was part of the "one more time" factor, but otherwise I guess I just never played a game that married the instant gratification of picking up weapons and bashing doors in with the strategy of looking around the entire building in order to not get shot. Oh yeah, did I mention you die in one hit? The story goes totally off the rails and the lone stealth section really tried my patience, but I found the game overall enjoyable. I'm a bit tired of games using ultra violence in order to have a 4th wall breaking stance against violence; it was done well in Spec Ops: The Line, but after the first time, the shock loses its value.
15. Giana Sisters - Before I played Rayman Origins and Legends, I was starved for some good old-fashioned platforming. I've played most of the Mario games on DS and 3DS (3D Land, New Super Mario 1 and 2, etc), but somehow they just never scratched the itch. Giana Sisters is beautiful with memorable music, and yet its challenge was the biggest draw for me. The game quickly escalates in difficulty, but it's the kind of difficulty that results from a necessity for precision than a lack of good control, so it always seemed fair. Combine this with a seemingly innocuous mechanic of switching between worlds to match up colors... we saw this in games like Outland and Ikaruga, but Giana Sisters somehow finds ways of using this mechanic in creative ways up until the last stage. My one complaint is that the music, while enjoyable for a while, really starts to grate on your nerves as there are really only two songs playing throughout the entire game.
16. Shank 2 - Klei disappointed me with Shank, so I didn't purchase its sequel until it was part of a bundle. Thankfully, Shank 2 improves in nearly every aspect from the original, resulting in some good, mindless platforming action. This game is much different than the type of platformer that requires thinking and precision (a la Giana Sisters or Rayman), and instead focuses on combat, dodging and counters. While I still prefer the thoughtful gameplay of the aforementioned platformers, or even Klei's other game Mark of the Ninja, I enjoyed my time with Shank 2 and loved experimenting with different skill sets and weapons. The story was laughable but inoffensive... for the most part, and the visuals matched the nonsense going on in the story.
17. Thomas Was Alone - I suppose games with heavy narration based on the player's actions is becoming more popular after the deserved success of Bastion. TWA offers some clever platforming puzzles by allowing the player to switch between different types of shapes, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and, believe it or not, personality. Funny how I felt more for these shapes by the end of the game than any characters in most AAA shooters. However, without the narration and story, I'd say the platforming puzzles would be fun but forgettable; it's the combination of all factors that makes this game stand out for me.
18 and 19. Dyad and Super Hexagon - Dyad is just insanity disguised as some Tempest-esque racer, while Super Hexagon is insanity disguised as .... dodging things in concentric circles? There's not much to say about these games other than few other games have lured me into a "zone" as quickly as these two. Perhaps it's the gameplay that requires your undivided attention and reflexes, or perhaps it's the energetic music pumping into your ears... whatever the case, these simple games offered hours of enjoyment without the need for any real carrot on a stick other than the old-fashioned high score. Not many games can do that for me anymore.
20. Rogue Legacy - Hm, I'm sure many people will disagree with my opinion here, but I found Rogue Legacy to be somewhat underwhelming. Or maybe I just don't enjoy rogue likes too much as I really hate the feeling that I wasted hours of my life by dying and starting from scratch. Then again, I enjoyed FTL more and it was even more "rogue-like" than RL, since its only form of progression was acquiring new ships, while in RL you could build up your RPG stats and unlock classes. I think the first 30 minutes of RL is quite enjoyable, but the problem is you eventually realize the gameplay is a bit stark and the control is never as responsive as you'd hope. Many of the skills seem pretty imbalanced or only useful for very particular situations. I did end up playing RL enough to beat the game once, so I must have enjoyed it to some extent... but overall I guess I was expecting too much for a game to combine the genres of Roguelike, Platforming and RPG seemlessly.
21. Antichamber - This game needs to be experienced at least once. It starts off like some type of Portal clone (Quantum Conundrum?) but you quickly realize the world has its own rules... rather, it follows no rules in particular. I found it enjoyable for 30 minutes, but perhaps due to my inferior mind I got stuck in several places and thus had to wait a couple days before trying new tricks to progress. Eventually, probably about half way through I gave up and used a walkthrough.... oh the shame....
22. Ittle Dew - Zelda style game with cartoonish visuals and loose controls. The dialogue was fun enough that I wanted to keep playing, but the gameplay grew stale a third of the way through. The world is pretty closed and there aren't many items to earn, but for people who enjoy Zelda style games, it'll do.
23. Half Minute Hero - I will refrain from making the obvious innuendos from the title. I first played this game on PSP and had no idea what to expect. HMH pokes fun at many of JRPG's long running tropes while also feeling like a pretty fun game due to its unique mechanics. In the main game, you only have 30 seconds to beat each stage while traveling from towns and obtaining items. Thankfully, you can pay money to extend the time, but the cost increases with each use, so eventually you'll run out of either money or time (a la real life). There's actually quite a bit of content here, as beating hero mode will unlock other modes that span different centuries in the same world (princess, sage, knight, etc), all culminating in an epic 300 second hero mode that brings all stories to a satisfying... climax. Oh yeah, and you can play 3 second hero mode once all that's done too. Is that really enough to earn the title "Super Mega Neo Climax" though?
24. The Cave - I love Double Fine games, but the Cave disappointed... even more so because the expected witty dialogue and dark humor permeated the entire game. I hated having to play through the same universal stages in order to get to the character-specific stages, as you can only play with 3 characters at a time while there are 7 total. This also means you'd have to repeat the universal stages THREE times in order to see all 7 character specific stages... ugh. I also wish there was a button that you could use to call your companions to your location so you wouldn't have to move all three through the same stuff... man, this game gets SO repetitive. The story and narrator are really its own redeeming factors.
25. Little Inferno - This game is just weird. I constantly feel like there's some joke going on that I'm not privy to for whatever reason. The gameplay is extremely simple and mindless at first, but you have to start picking your brain to come up with the right combinations to burn for the later puzzles. Unfortunately, since each item starts to cost more and more money and takes more time to spawn, it becomes quite punishing to get the puzzles incorrect in later stages. So yeah, I used a walkthrough for the last two stages. I will say that the game didn't end when I expected it to, and shifted into ... well, I wouldn't want to spoil it. There is something satisfying about the dark humor, even if it initially feels bad to burn "Low Self-Esteem Action Doll" and "Balloons" to unlock "Sorority Party." Call the cops.
26. Papo & Yo - Man, I wanted to love this game! After reading several interviews with developer Vander Caballero and how he poured his heart into this game as an allegory to his upbringing with an alcoholic father, I really bought into the hype. Well... yes, I was quite disappointed by the gameplay, but the story was touching, and the ending especially moved me. Those weren't tears though, I was chopping onions last night. Anyone who has struggled with a troubled childhood will be able to relate to the themes of this game. Just don't be put off by the slow and repetitive gameplay. It's no good when a game reveals its most clever puzzles in the first 30 minutes...
27. Sequence - Self referential dialogue combined with pretentious text scrolling minutes at a time do not a good combination make. Thankfully, it's possible to ignore the dumb story to play a great DJ Max clone combined with several RPG elements (I'd compare it to Beatmania, but the game is so simple it'd be a disservice to Beatmania fans). I just wish there were more songs and less grinding... after playing the same song 10 times on one stage to obtain a rare item, it hurts to have to play it 20 times in another stage for an ever rarer item... ugh!
28. Thirty Flights of Loving - What? What?? That was my first reaction after completing this 10-15 minute game. I think I have an idea of what the story was about, but I had to look up some plot analyses to double check. I was surprised to see I missed quite a few little details, but man... what a weird game and story. It's kind of a heart-breaking story... I think... but I'm not sure because I still really don't know what happened.
29. Knights of Pen and Paper +1 - Haha, this was such a dumb game, and yet I kept playing. Why?? I've been trained too well a la Pavlov's Dog by decades of JRPG repetition to blindly chase after stats, gear and rare loot. Knights has a good premise and the class combinations are pretty fun, but in the end the gameplay was too simple to really care about. I also think you earn gold at a really slow pace, probably to incentivize IAP. Ugh, IAP in a paid game... good thing I got it in a bundle.
30. Proteus - I had no idea what I was doing in this game at first, and just wandered around the world... soo... slowly.... I think I might have fallen asleep. I had to look up the "point" of this game, and even then it was weird. I'm still not sure what the point of this game is, even after having "beaten" it. Well, at least it's pretty, in a Minecraft pixel kind of way.
31. Dust: An Elysian Tail - Oh man, I know people will argue with me, but I cannot stand this game. The story takes itself WAY too seriously, especially for the Loony Tunes budget artwork. I know this was a passion project by a single person, and that alone is impressive; unfortunately, I don't base the level of enjoyment on the circumstances behind a game's creation but rather on its final product. Dust feels lazy and repetitive, the gameplay gets old SOOO incredibly quickly, and you can basically just repeat the same combo ad nauseum from beginning until end. Try Guacamelee if you want a FUN Metroid-style 2D game.
32. Evoland - The first 5 minutes are probably the best part of Evoland, and honestly that's all anyone should play. A trip down Nostalgia Lane is inoffensive... but man, when Evoland actually tries to take itself seriously and become a "real" RPG, it breaks down fast! I don't know why, but I finished the game and I have to admit it was one of the most tiring, monotonous games I've played in a long time. There really was no payoff or redeeming quality of the last half of the game. Stay far away.
99. DLC Quest - And stay even further away from this game. I'm noticing a trend of smaller titles whose selling points are their tongue-in-cheek critique of gaming tropes and cliches; when done well, these games can be very memorable. Unfortunately, many games (like Evoland, DLC Quest and to a lesser degree, Retro City Rampage) forget to make the core game fun too. Having unenjoyable game mechanics for the sake of reminding the player that said mechanics are not enjoyable is not a good idea. In the end, the player is STILL not having fun, with the added insult of the developer rubbing it in his or her face.
