Sherlock Holmes is a series of adventure games developed by Frogwares. The games are based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. John H. Watson. While the franchise is based on Doyle's stories, each game has an original plot and storyline.
Terraria is an action-adventure sandbox game developed by Re-Logic. The game was first released for Windows on May 16, 2011, and has since been ported to several other platforms. The game features exploration, crafting, building, painting, and combat with a variety of creatures in a procedurally generated 2D world. Terraria received generally positive reviews and sold over 44 million copies by 2022, making it one of the top ten best-selling video games.
Starbound is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Chucklefish. Starbound takes place in a two-dimensional, procedurally generated universe which the player is able to explore in order to obtain new weapons, armor, and items, and to visit towns and villages inhabited by various intelligent lifeforms. Starbound was released out of early access in July 2016 for Windows, OS X, and Linux, and for Windows via Xbox Game Pass in December 2020.
DreadOut is a survival horror video game from independent developer Digital Happiness for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and OS X. A port for PlayStation 4 was announced but never released. The story is about a group of high school students in Indonesia who come across an old abandoned town. There they are confronted with ghosts and paranormal activities, and one of the students, the protagonist Linda, begins to uncover the secrets of the town and its surrounding area. A sequel, titled DreadOut 2, released for Microsoft Windows in February 2020 and was subsequently ported to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in July 2022.
Cube Life: Island Survival is an indie open world sandbox survival video game developed and published by Cypronia. It was released for Wii U in June 2015. An HD remake was released for Steam in April 2018, for Android and iOS in August 2018, and for Nintendo Switch in December 2020.
Minetest is a free and open-source sandbox video game and game creation system with focus on voxel graphics. It is written primarily in C++ and makes use of the Irrlicht Engine. Minetest provides an API for users to write their own games and mods written in Lua. It is cross-platform, being available for Linux-based systems, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, MacOS, and Android.
The Well is a 2021 horror-themed adventure developed by Yames. The game was self-published and released on Itch.io on 20 September 2021. The Well is based on a poem by H. P. Lovecraft in Fungi from Yuggoth.
Who's Lila? is a video game developed by Russian independent game studio Garage Heathen, released in February 2022. Described as a "reverse-detective adventure", the game is an adventure game notable for using the manipulation of facial expressions as the means that the player uses to communicate with characters in the game.
The Case of the Golden Idol is a 2022 adventure and puzzle video game developed by Color Gray Games and published by Playstack for Windows and Mac. The game depicts a narrative spanning 40 years in the 18th century, in which players collect clues to piece together concepts, characters, and evidence to provide context to the story. The Case of the Golden Idol received praise for its use of deduction to present its narrative, and has been described as a spiritual successor to Lucas Pope's 2018 game Return of the Obra Dinn. The Case of the Golden Idol was cited as one of the best games of 2022 for its narrative and design.
Critters For Sale is a 2021 adventure video game by independent developer Sonoshee. Described as "a hybrid between (a) point and click adventure and visual novel", the game is an episodic collection of five short stories unified by themes including "time travel, black magic and immortality".
Dread Delusion is a video game under development by independent developer Lovely Hellplace and released for early access by DreadXP in June 2022. Described as an "open world" role-playing game brimming with strange places and dark perils," Dread Delusion encourages player exploration and discovery over the use of combat and grinding.
Sucker for Love: First Date is a parodic dating sim and horror-themed visual novel developed by indie developer Joseph "Akabaka" Hunter, and published by DreadXP. It was released on January 20, 2022 for Windows and December 19, 2022 for Nintendo Switch. The game revolves around a young man who obtains a pink version of the Necronomicon, and begins performing rituals to summon moe anthropomorphic beings from the Cthulhu Mythos, such as Ln'eta, a female version of Cthulhu, sacrificing his body parts and ultimately threatening the world with annihilation. The game received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised its writing, voice acting and artwork, but criticized its short length, glitches, and low emphasis on romance for a dating sim. A sequel further exploring the Cthulhu Mythos, Sucker for Love: Date to Die For, was announced later in 2022.
Mouth Sweet is a 2016 video game by L.O.V.E Games, the outlet of independent developer Mitchell Hall, created using RPG Maker 2003. Satirically described as a "realistic game about exactly what it's like to work as an office temp", Mouth Sweet is a exploration horror game that tasks the player with completing an increasingly bizarre and disturbing series of tasks in an office. The game received praise for its complex and unsettling themes of workplace depersonalization and novel audio-based combat system.
Stef Pinto is a Canadian independent video game developer. His self-published works, including Exit Mask and Cookies, are surrealistic and experimental horror games. Outside of his independent games, Pinto works with the Minneapolis-based video game studio WALLRIDE on commercial projects.
Fatum Betula is a 2020 video game by Texas-based independent developer Bryce Bucher. Described as an "atmospheric exploration game with light puzzle elements", the game is an open-ended adventure game inspired by the aesthetics of fifth generation video game consoles. The game was included in the 2020 horror game compilation Haunted PS1 Demo Disc by Irish developer Breogán Hackett. Following its release on Windows, Baltoro Games ported the game for release on the Nintendo Switch in 2021 and the Xbox One and Xbox Series in 2022.
Haunted PS1 is a series of video game compilations curated and published by Irish video game developer Breogán Hackett in collaboration with independent developers on the indie games website itch.io. The most notable releases, Demo Discs, are annual compilations of independent games from various genres influenced by the graphics and visual presentation of the PlayStation. The Demo Discs series received praise from several websites for their niche theme, variety of titles and novel method of distribution, with a number of games from the releases receiving sufficient attention to lead to further development and commercial release on their own merit.
Agony of a Dying MMO is a 2021 video game released by independent developer Salem Hughes. Described as a "narrative horror game", the game takes place in the final hours of a massively multiplayer online game before the servers shut down. The game was first released on the 2021 Haunted PS1 Demo Disc, a horror game compilation curated and published by Irish video game developer Breogán Hackett on itch.io.
Ode to a Moon is a video game under development by Colorfiction, the professional name of independent developer Max Arocena. Described as a "first-person thriller" with an "exploration focus, light action and puzzle elements", the game is a horror game with surrealistic visuals. Ode to a Moon was released as a demo in 2019 and appeared on the 2020 horror game compilation Haunted PS1 Demo Disc by Irish developer Breogán Hackett.
Pagan: Autogeny is a video game by Canadian independent developer Oleander Garden. Described as an "experimental first-person open-world role-playing video game set in the digital ruins of an abandoned massively multiplayer online role playing game", Autogeny is the third game in Garden's Pagan trilogy. The game received praise from several critics, with several raising attention to the unique exploration of themes around identity and gender.
Heartworm is an upcoming 2023 independent horror video game by Vincent Adinolfi developed for Windows and MacOS. Described by the developer as a "lo-fi retro horror" game, the game integrates elements of survival horror and psychological horror set in an abandoned house rumored to be able to revive the dead. A demo of the game was published on January 30, 2020, with a revised demo released on the 2020 horror game compilation Haunted PS1 Demo Disc by Irish developer Breogán Hackett.
