External Discovery
926 indie games in this list, released 2009–2026, from developers such as Vogelsap, Endnight Games Ltd, Mads & Friends. 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.
By Vogelsap · Netherlands
The Flock is an online-only survival horror game built around a shared, limited pool of player lives, meaning the game was designed to end once enough deaths had occurred. It was developed by Vogelsap in the Netherlands and launched for Windows in August 2015. Weak sales led the servers to be switched off before that death total was ever reached, making it an unusual experiment in finite multiplayer design.
By Endnight Games Ltd · Canada
The Forest is an open-world survival horror game in which players gather resources, craft weapons and traps, and build defences against cannibals and mutants whose unpredictable stalking behaviour keeps tension high. After a plane crash, Eric LeBlanc searches a peninsula's caves and hidden facilities for his abducted son. Canadian studio Endnight Games released it on Windows in April 2018 after four years of early access, and it had sold more than five million copies before 2019.
By Mads & Friends · Denmark
The Forest Quartet is a 2022 puzzle adventure by Mads Vadsholt, an independent Danish developer working as Mads and Friends, published by Bedtime Digital Games. Players control a spirit trying to bring her old band back together, drifting through three stages and interacting with objects to solve puzzles that light up the dark forest and extinguish fires. Its sound work earned the Excellence in Audio prize at the Independent Games Festival in 2023.
By Blue Brain Games · Slovakia
The House of Da Vinci is a 3D puzzle adventure from Blue Brain Games, an independent studio in Slovakia, first released in 2017. Players work through intricate mechanical contraptions, hunt for hidden objects and escape locked rooms while searching for their missing master. The fictional story takes place during the Renaissance, and the game went on to receive three follow-ups from the same studio, including a VR entry.
By Blue Brain Games · Slovakia
The House of Da Vinci 2 is a 3D puzzle adventure from Blue Brain Games, a studio in Slovakia, released in 2020. Players take the role of an apprentice to Leonardo da Vinci, solving handcrafted mechanical puzzles and uncovering hidden secrets across Italian Renaissance settings. Time travel is also part of the design, letting the player affect the environment around them as they work through each location.
By Blue Brain Games · Slovakia
The House of Da Vinci 3 concludes the puzzle adventure trilogy from Blue Brain Games, a studio based in Slovakia, and was released in December 2022. As in earlier entries, progress comes from solving a large number of fresh puzzles and brain teasers. Players also explore new, strikingly detailed locations with mysteries to uncover, continuing the series' puzzle-first approach on Windows and Mac.
By 零创游戏(ZerocreationGame) · China
This visual novel, The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty, takes place in a famine-stricken China. It follows a bandit who deals in human lives as he escorts four girls, one of them mute and bent on revenge, and the story turns toward redemption as secrets surface. Chinese developer ZerocreationGame made it and co-published it with 2P Games in 2024. It holds a Metacritic score of 79.
By NeocoreGames · Hungary
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is an action RPG that casts players as the young son of Abraham Van Helsing, the famous vampire hunter from Bram Stoker's Dracula. The adventure unfolds in Borgovia, a gothic-noir take on 19th-century Eastern Europe where monsters and mad science collide, with deliberately anachronistic gadgets and humour. It was developed and self-published by Hungarian studio NeocoreGames and released in May 2013.
By Hypnohead · Serbia
The King Is Watching puts the player in charge of a castle, placing buildings to gather resources, train units and repel invading enemies. It mixes real-time strategy and city-building with the randomized, run-based structure of a roguelike. It began at the Ludum Dare 54 jam in 2023 and was expanded by the Serbian indie studio Hypnohead before tinyBuild released it in July 2025, later becoming a D.I.C.E. Awards finalist.
By Hello Games · United Kingdom
The Last Campfire is a puzzle game from Hello Games, a studio based in the United Kingdom, which also published it. It first launched in August 2020 on iOS, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows and macOS, with the Steam version dated October 2021. Store tags place it in the adventure genre alongside its puzzle focus, and it holds a Metacritic score of 80.
By Channel37 Ltd · Finland
The Last Caretaker is a survival crafting game played in first person, from Channel37, a studio in Finland, which entered early access on Windows in November 2025. Players control the final active Caretaker, a self-governing robot that wakes up on a flooded Earth after the apocalypse. Its mission is to recover human seeds, bring the Lazarus Complex back online, grow new humans and send them into orbit so that humanity can endure.
By Edmund McMillen, James Interactive, Ridiculon · United States
The Legend of Bum-bo is a roguelike deck-building game that serves as a prequel to The Binding of Isaac. Steam files it under adventure and strategy, and it is also categorized as a puzzle game. Designer Edmund McMillen created it with programmer James Interactive, with Ridiculon also credited, in the United States. It launched on Windows through Steam in November 2019, later reaching Android, Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
By Yangyang Mobile · Philippines
The Letter is a horror visual novel in which seven people are caught up in a deadly curse and must struggle to survive it. The story places as much weight on the characters' own darker impulses as on the supernatural threat stalking them, asking how far each will go to stay alive. It was developed by Yangyang Mobile, a studio based in the Philippines, and released in July 2017 for Windows, macOS and Linux.
By Sever, Schisma Games · Russia
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante is a narrative role-playing game told almost entirely through text, where progress depends on the decisions the player makes. Each choice sends the story down a different branch, so the life that unfolds can change from one playthrough to the next. It was made by the Russian team Sever together with Schisma Games, published by 101XP, and came out on Windows in 2021. A follow-up about Prince Jerian arrived in July 2026.
By Mi'pu'mi Games GmbH · Austria
The Lion's Song tells, across four point-and-click episodes, the stories of artists and thinkers in early twentieth-century Vienna, each wrestling with creativity, ambition and what society expects of them. Decisions in one chapter link the four stories together and can change details that appear later. Austrian studio Mi'pu'mi Games grew it out of a Ludum Dare jam entry by designer Stefan Srb, and it took the indie game prize at the Deutscher Entwicklerpreis in 2016.
By Hinterland Studio Inc. · Canada
The Long Dark is a survival game from Canadian studio Hinterland, fully released in 2017 after an early access period that began in 2014. Players take on the roles of bush pilot Will Mackenzie and doctor Astrid Greenwood, stranded in the freezing Canadian wilderness after a geomagnetic storm. Development was backed by seed money from the Canada Media Fund and by a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2013.
By Red Barrels · Canada
The Outlast Trials is a first-person psychological survival horror game from Canadian studio Red Barrels, serving as a prequel to both Outlast and Outlast 2. Players take the role of test subjects drafted against their will into a secretive Cold War experiment. After a period of early access on Windows in 2023, it fully launched across PC and consoles in March 2024 and was generally well received by critics.
By Tale of Tales · Belgium
A psychological horror art game from Belgian studio Tale of Tales, The Path reworks the Little Red Riding Hood tale and broader folklore in a present-day setting. Players pick one of six sisters, each sent by their mother to visit a sick grandmother, and decide whether to keep to the path or stray into woods where wolves wait. It came out for Windows in March 2009 in English and Dutch, using the Quest3D engine, with a Mac OS X port arriving later.
By Color Gray Games · Latvia
The Rise of the Golden Idol is a detective puzzle game and the follow-up to The Case of the Golden Idol from 2022. Like its predecessor it centers on reasoning through mysteries by examining evidence and drawing conclusions. It comes from Latvian studio Color Gray Games, runs on the Godot engine and was published by Playstack in 2024. Reviews were generally positive, and four downloadable expansions arrived during 2025 to extend the story.
By Rare Reversee, Beaztek · Vietnam
The Scourge is a first-person horror game with puzzle and adventure elements, inspired by Vietnamese urban legends of the 1990s. Set in Ho Chi Minh City, it follows Nhat Huy as he is pulled into strange events in an apartment block while investigating his family's deaths. It was co-developed in Vietnam by Rare Reversee, which also publishes it, and Beaztek Studio, and released in March 2026.
By Sengi Games · Ukraine
The Serpent Rogue is a roguelike in which players take the role of The Warden, a plague doctor from an order of alchemists who guard the world against a consuming force called Corruption. Studying the surroundings lets the player brew many kinds of potions, and fights play out as real-time action. It was developed by Sengi Games in Ukraine and published by Team17 in 2022, and the team finished it during the Russian invasion of their country.
By Ares Dragonis · Greece
The Shore is a horror adventure in the Lovecraftian tradition that centers on exploring an isolated, mysterious island. The protagonist is a father who comes ashore looking for his missing daughter, and the unsettling environment drives the tension. It was developed by Ares Dragonis, an independent developer from Greece, who shared a demo in July 2020 before releasing the full game on Windows in February 2021.
By House On Fire · Denmark
The Silent Age is a point-and-click adventure from Danish indie studio House on Fire. It follows a janitor pulled into a mission to save humanity from an apocalyptic event, using time travel and glimpsing the future that awaits if he fails. Originally released as two episodes and later sold together, it reached Windows and Mac on Steam in 2015 and was positively reviewed by critics.
By Galactic Cafe · United States
The Stanley Parable is a story-driven game in which players steer a silent protagonist named Stanley while a British narrator, voiced by Kevan Brighting, describes what he ought to do. Ignoring those directions is allowed and gets folded into the story, leading down branching paths to many endings before the game starts over. Davey Wreden and William Pugh rebuilt Wreden's Half-Life 2 mod on the Source engine as Galactic Cafe, a studio from the United States, releasing it in 2013.