2021: An Indie Odyssey
(Image credit: The Farm 51)
Year of the Indie
While 2021 saw more delays from major gaming studios, independent developers facing the same conditions stepped up and created beautiful games. This year’s selection of indie games shows up strong in almost every genre, with many focused on unique art styles or gameplay that make them stand out. The Load Screen covers their favorite indies this year, including the title they consider the best indie for 2021 so far.
Many third-party developers presented games that focus on artistic graphics instead of realism, although there were some photorealistic ones. Several creators chose a cell-shaded look to make their game stand out. Shedworks did this throughout their game Sable in its desert scenery, hoverbikes, and ruins which benefit from simplified textures. Another indie developer using limited graphics is Beethoven and Dinosaur in The Artful Escape focusing on shaded visuals and the dazzling lights of a rock show. Its music components are far more essential and are mechanics in every sequence. The art style of Death’s Door by Acid Nerve concentrates on limited details for the adventures of their soul-reaping crow in a classic overhead Zelda-designed world.
(Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
Other artful indies showed up this year but had higher levels of details in graphics. One of our favorites for beautiful characters and design is Kena: Bridge of Spirits from Ember Lab, since it leans into a Pixar art style, but the combat system is deceptively challenging. Another title with more significant detail is It Takes Two from Hazelight Studios, but it also has issues with its two-person gameplay. Then Luis Antonio’s Twelve Minutes has a vibrant world for their protagonist to loop through. However, the game’s top-down isometric view, incredible voice acting, and death mechanics minimize the impact of the graphic details.
Black and white or limited color games made an impact on indie developers this year. The psychological horror Mundaun by Hidden Fields adds to the drama through its greyscale palette despite using detailed hand-drawn textures. Also in this category is Feral Cat Den’s Genesis Noir with its limited color scheme. However, it uses yellow for highlighting and emphasizing during the point-and-click mixed puzzle action. Death’s Door is worth mentioning in this group since it switches from a black and white universe for the afterlife to a vibrant color system used in the living world.
Several games stood above the heavy field of indies released in 2021. One of those titles is Chernobylite from The Farm 51, and it converts 3D scans of Chernobyl into a haunting location for a psychological horror RPG filled with dimension and time control. Despite having complex survival and building mechanics, the game spaces the different systems across parts of the day while expecting player failure as part of the time manipulation. The challenging FPS survival aspects and confusing narrative manipulation lower the impact of this fantastic indie.
(Image credit: Zoink Games)
The best indie of 2021 for The Load Screen team is Lost in Random from Zoink Studios. The game mixes a cartoon art style with fighting mechanics that avoid the constant button mashing found in other third-person action-adventure platformers. The creative narrative tightly weaves through the six distinct lands of Random as the young girl Even teams up with Dicey to rescue her sister Odd. He is a strange living die that acts as a game mechanic and occasional weapon thrown at enemies. The boss fights are intense and unique, while players complete several sequences through oversized board games instead of direct combat.
2021 was a good year for indie developers since many AAA studios saw delays and pushbacks to their games and featured content. The indie titles cover everything from FPS to third-person platformers and even include time looping mechanics like Twelve Minutes and Chernobylite. Enthusiastic gamers could see the list entirely differently and rank other titles well above our pick since there were so many good indies this year. In fact, Lost in Random was not the most played indie by the Load Screen, but Valheim by Iron Gate Studio hangs in Early Access, so it did not make our indie list.
