406 indie games in this list, released 2012–2025, from developers such as KillHouse Games, Toukana Interactive, Red Thread Games. Pick one to read our editorial note and jump to its store page.
These are editorial pages. The developers and publishers are not affiliated with The Gaming Nest unless explicitly stated.
Door Kickers 2: Task Force North puts special forces and paramilitary squads under your control for counterinsurgency missions across Nowheraki, a fictional Middle Eastern country. It builds on the 2014 original with similar core play and many fundamental improvements to its real-time tactics. Romanian studio KillHouse Games developed and self-published it, entering early access in 2020 and fully launching in February 2025 to generally positive reviews.
Dorfromantik is a strategy puzzle game in which you lay hexagonal tiles to build a peaceful rural landscape. Matching edges and completing fields, forests, villages and quests earns points and fresh tiles, and a creative mode allows free building. It was made by Toukana Interactive, founded in Germany by four students from HTW Berlin, and fully released in 2022. A board game version won the Spiel des Jahres in 2023.
Dreamfall Chapters is an episodic 3D adventure focused on conversations with characters, exploring the world and solving puzzles. It continues The Longest Journey series, following Zoe Castillo across the cyberpunk Earth of Stark and the magical realm of Arcadia. It was made by Norwegian independent studio Red Thread Games, founded by series writer Ragnar Tornquist, and funded partly through a Kickstarter that raised more than 1.5 million dollars.
In Driftland: The Magic Revival, players build up an empire across a fantasy world that magic has badly damaged, in a real-time strategy design that borrows ideas from 4X games. Polish studio Star Drifters developed and published it in 2019 using Unreal Engine 4. Steam lists it under strategy, simulation and RPG, and it holds a Metacritic score of 76.
Dude, Stop is a comedic puzzle game that knows exactly what the right answer is and dares you to ignore it. Every stage can be cleared the normal way, but the fun comes from finding wrong solutions that trigger unique results, secret achievements and an increasingly exasperated narrator. It was made and self-published by Latvian developer Team HalfBeard and launched in June 2018. Critics liked it and often compared it to WarioWare.
Éalú, whose title means escape in Irish, is a stop-motion point-and-click adventure. It is conceived as a spiritual successor to Tomcat Disposables, a song by American musician Will Wood, from In case I make it, his 2022 album. The game was created by Beyond The Bark, an indie studio in Limerick, Ireland, with Orr Games also credited, and arrived on Windows on October 2, 2025.
Earn to Die 2 is a driving action game in which players push a vehicle through zombie-filled cities, aiming for checkpoints and the finish line of each level. It follows the original Earn to Die, a flash and mobile title, but trades that game's desert backdrop for urban streets. It was developed by the Russian indie studio Toffee Games and published on Steam by Not Doppler in 2016.
ENA: Dream BBQ is an episodic adventure focused on exploration, starring ENA, a humanoid figure trying to reach a mysterious character called the Boss. Players roam strange environments, talk with other characters, complete tasks, navigate mazes and solve puzzles. It was made by ENA Team in Peru, and its first chapter, Lonely Door, launched in March 2025, with more chapters planned. Reviewers widely described the experience as surreal.
Epistory - Typing Chronicles is an action-adventure in which typing words is the core way to act on the world. Players follow a young girl riding a three-tailed fox, while the story mirrors an author's creative process, unfolding like sheets of paper and voiced as the writer's inner thoughts. Belgian studio Fishing Cactus launched it in early access in 2015 before the full 2016 release on Windows, macOS and Linux, and it was later followed by the spiritual successor Nanotale.
Escape Simulator is a puzzle game played in first person, developed and published by Croatian studio Pine Studio, released in October 2021. Built around the escape room format, it has players solve puzzles to find their way out of locked rooms. Steam lists it under Adventure, Casual and Simulation, and it holds a Metacritic score of 82. A sequel, Escape Simulator 2, followed in October 2025.
Euro Truck Simulator 2 is a non-linear truck simulator set across a compressed version of Europe. Players haul cargo between cities in articulated trucks, then expand into a business by purchasing more vehicles and depots and hiring drivers. Czech developer SCS Software built it on its own Prism3D engine and released it in 2012 as a sequel to Euro Truck Simulator; the intro reports over 22 million units sold.
Event[0] is a science fiction adventure played in first person, from Ocelot Society, a developer in France. An astronaut headed for Europa takes shelter on a run-down leisure ship after a disaster, finding only its AI, Kaizen-85, still aboard. Play centres on exploring and repairing the vessel while holding long conversations with the AI in hope of escape. It launched in September 2016 for Windows and macOS to positive reviews.
Evoland is a role-playing game from Shiro Games of France, built on the Heaps engine and first released in 2013. It borrows from Final Fantasy, Diablo and The Legend of Zelda and is packed with nods to film and gaming history. As you advance, you unlock new technologies and graphical upgrades that reference successive eras of the games industry. A sequel, Evoland 2, came out in 2015.
Released in 2013, Expeditions: Conquistador is a tactical role-playing game about squad combat in which players take charge of a Spanish expedition to Hispaniola and Mexico, set between 1518 and 1520. Alongside its tactical combat, it features resource management, a branching story and interactive fiction segments. It was made by Logic Artists in Denmark, partly funded through Kickstarter, and first released for Windows, Linux and Mac by BitComposer before THQ Nordic acquired the series in 2018.
Factorio is a factory simulation game from Czech studio Wube Software, which both developed and published it. After crash-landing on an alien planet, an engineer gathers resources and builds increasingly automated industry with the goal of launching a rocket, and play can carry on once that goal is met. It supports single-player and multiplayer, began as a 2013 Indiegogo campaign, and reached full release in August 2020 after early access.
Faeria is a digital collectible card game fused with turn-based strategy, played out on a shifting game board inside a fantasy world. Matches combine deck choices with positional play, since the board itself changes as the battle goes on. It was developed by Abrakam in Belgium and arrived on desktop in 2017, with console versions following in 2020. Critics responded well to it, and it holds a favourable aggregate score.
FAR: Lone Sails is an exploration adventure from Okomotive, a development company in Switzerland, first released for Windows and macOS in 2018. Players cross a dried-up seabed strewn with the ruins of a fallen civilization, keeping a one-of-a-kind vehicle running while getting past obstacles and enduring harsh weather. Its setting is post-apocalyptic, and a sequel, FAR: Changing Tides, followed in 2022.
Farlanders is a turn-based city-building strategy game about founding a colony on Mars, with puzzle elements on 2D grid maps that are procedurally generated. Every structure must link back to the base through wires, pipes or tunnels, terraforming is central to success, and limited space forces careful trade-offs between food, water and energy. It was created by Andrii Bychkovskyi in Ukraine, published by Crytivo, and released in January 2023.
Fear & Hunger is a survival horror role-playing game by Finnish solo developer Miro Haverinen, made with RPG Maker and released in 2018. Players pick one of four characters and descend into a deadly dungeon labyrinth in a dark medieval setting, searching for a man named Le'garde. Turn-based fights are harsh, with party members able to die permanently or lose limbs, while physical health, mental health and hunger must all be managed and saving carries risk.
Released in 2019, Felix the Reaper is a puzzle game by Kong Orange, a studio from Denmark, published by Daedalic Entertainment. Each level asks players to guide Felix through spatial puzzles while keeping him out of the sunlight, reshaping the environment to open safe routes. His job in every scenario is to set up fatal, often contrived accidents that claim a chosen character's life. The Danse Macabre tradition inspired the concept, and development spanned eight years.
Feudal Alloy is a 2019 platform role-playing game from Czech studio Attu Games, categorised as a Metroidvania. It pairs platforming with RPG elements inside the kind of interconnected world the genre is known for, and its Steam listing adds action and adventure tags. Attu Games developed and self-published it, releasing it in January 2019 on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Firewatch puts players in the boots of Henry, a fire lookout spending a summer in Wyoming's Shoshone National Forest. His only link to the outside is his supervisor Delilah on a walkie-talkie, and the dialogue lines the player picks shape how their bond grows while an old mystery surfaces. American developer Campo Santo made the game, co-published with Panic in 2016, and it later won Best Narrative at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2017.
Forced: Showdown is a bullet-hell brawler for one player, viewed from above and made by BetaDwarf, an independent developer from Denmark, and launched on Windows, OS X and Linux in March 2016. Framed as an ever-shifting galactic game show, it has players pick a champion, upgrade their abilities and fight through waves of minions while dodging incoming attacks. Each run combines a roguelike structure with a trading-card system that shapes how the champion grows.
Forgotton Anne, from Danish studio ThroughLine Games, is a cinematic blend of adventure and platforming that first launched in May 2018. Play mixes side-on platforming with adventure-game exploration, presented in a hand-drawn anime look and backed by an orchestral score recorded by the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra. A macOS version followed in June 2018 after the Windows release, and a follow-up game, Forgotlings, arrived in February 2026.