External Discovery
926 indie games in this list, released 2012–2025, from developers such as Picroma, Massive Monster, Weather Factory. 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 Picroma · Germany
Cube World is an action role-playing game with dungeon-crawling elements, developed and published by Picroma in Germany for Windows. Designer Wolfram von Funck started work in 2011, and his wife Sarah later joined him. An alpha arrived in 2013, but updates were so rare that many wrote the project off as vaporware, until the full game finally launched on September 30, 2019. Steam lists it under adventure and RPG, and it remains a Windows release.
By Massive Monster · Australia
Cult of the Lamb is a roguelike that splits its time between combat and community building. As a lamb spared from execution by an imprisoned god, you raise a devoted cult and head out on crusades through dungeons to defeat four bishops, then return home for calmer stretches of managing your followers. Made in 2022 by Massive Monster, a studio from Australia, with Devolver Digital publishing, it was nominated three times at the 19th BAFTA Games Awards ceremony, Best Game among them.
By Weather Factory · United Kingdom
Cultist Simulator is a card-driven simulation from UK indie studio Weather Factory, built in Unity and released for Windows, macOS and Linux in May 2018. Set amid 1920s Lovecraftian horror, it has players move cards across a tabletop to gather followers, occult texts and tools while chasing one of several routes to immortality. Staying alive means dodging starvation, despair, madness and dangerous enemies. Reviewers liked the writing, while others criticized its pacing.
By Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc. · Canada
Cuphead is a run-and-gun action game from Canadian studio Studio MDHR, released in 2017. One or two players guide Cuphead and his brother Mugman through a string of levels and boss battles after the pair strike a bargain with the Devil over gambling debts. New powers unlock along the way, though only a few can be equipped at once. Its hand-drawn look recalls 1930s rubber hose cartoons, backed by a big band score.
By OnSkull Games · Greece
Curious Cases is a detective adventure that can be played in virtual reality or on a desktop PC. Across three chapters you step into the role of Detective Thomas Moore, a seasoned investigator known for cracking cases others could not. It was developed and self-published by OnSkull Games, a studio based in Greece, and released on Windows in April 2019. Steam categorizes it as adventure, casual and indie.
By Locomalito, Gryzor87 · Spain
Cursed Castilla, originally titled Maldita Castilla, is an action platformer conceived as a tribute to Ghosts'n Goblins. Its world draws on Spanish myths, wider European folklore and tales of chivalry, delivered through side-scrolling action. It was developed by Locomalito in Spain, with Gryzor87 also credited, and first released in December 2012; this expanded EX edition came to Steam in October 2016 through Abylight Studios.
By Mad Mimic · Brazil
Dandy Ace is a roguelike action dungeon crawler about a magician trying to break out of a procedurally generated world. He fights using magic cards that trigger attacks and abilities, and pairing different cards produces different effects. Brazilian studio Mad Mimic developed it and Neowiz published it for Windows and macOS in March 2021, with console ports later that year. Critics received it positively and often compared it with Hades.
By InterWave Studios · Netherlands
Dark Matter is a science fiction Metroidvania with survival horror elements, combining exploration of interconnected areas with tense, horror-tinged encounters. It was developed by InterWave Studios in the Netherlands and published by Iceberg Interactive. The game launched in 2013 for Windows, Mac and Linux. It stands as an independent attempt to mix the backtracking structure of the Metroidvania genre with a darker, horror-driven atmosphere.
By Red Hook Studios · Canada
Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike RPG from Canadian studio Red Hook Studios, released on PC in 2016 after a year in early access. Players manage a roster of heroes and send them into the dungeons beneath an inherited gothic mansion, moving in real time and fighting in turn-based battles. Each hero builds up stress while exploring, and high stress can bring afflictions that hinder or occasionally strengthen them.
By Epic Llama Games · Argentina
Darkestville Castle is a comedic point-and-click adventure in which the player takes the role of a sarcastic demon. Progress comes from solving puzzles and tricking the gullible characters around you as you try to restore mischief to the town. Argentine developer Epic Llama Games created it, and ESDigital Games released it in 2017 for Windows, Mac and Linux. Steam lists it simply as an indie adventure.
By Stormling Studios · Turkey
Stormling Studios, based in Turkey, made this first-person horror adventure in 3D, shaped by the writing of H. P. Lovecraft and running on the CPAGE engine. As police detective Howard E. Loreid, the player investigates the killing of an occult-linked rich man in the fictional town of Wellsmoth, with a vanished private investigator as the prime suspect. Lucid dreams and paranormal events blur the line between reality and hallucination.
By Psychic Software · Ireland
Darkwind: War on Wheels is an online multiplayer game of armed cars, where races and road battles are resolved in turns rather than in real time. Its post-apocalyptic world draws on the Car Wars tabletop game and the Mad Max films while keeping a setting of its own. Created by Irish developer Sam Redfern under Psychic Software, it opened to players in 2007 and has kept receiving updates, arriving on Steam as a free-to-play release in 2014.
By Madruga Works · United Kingdom
Dawn of Man is a survival city-builder from Madruga Works, a UK developer, released in March 2019 after a closed beta that began in October 2018. It blends settlement building with survival play, and its genre listings also point to business simulation and a historical setting. On Steam it is available for Windows and macOS under the simulation and strategy categories.
By Invader Studios · Italy
Daymare: 1998 is a survival horror game played from a third-person perspective. It was developed by Invader Studios of Italy on Unreal Engine 4 and came to Windows on September 17, 2019, with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions following in April 2020. Its prequel, Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle, followed in 2023. The game holds a Metacritic score of 62.
By DoubleBear Productions · United States
Dead State: Reanimated is a turn-based survival role-playing game set during a zombie apocalypse. Players lead a group of survivors sheltering in Splendid, a fictional town in Texas, and must keep them alive as the outbreak unfolds. DoubleBear Productions in the United States developed it together with Iron Tower Studio, releasing it in December 2014 after an early access period. An enhanced edition in May 2015 gave the game its Reanimated title.
By Placeholder Gameworks · Estonia
Released in 2020, Death and Taxes is a simulation game by Estonian indie developer Leene Künnap, released through their company Placeholder Gameworks. Players act as a Grim Reaper working through paperwork at a desk, deciding which humans will live and which will die. Aligned with the death-positivity movement, it approaches mortality with a light touch, and in March 2020 its source code was published on GitHub under the MIT License.
By NeocoreGames · Hungary
Deathtrap mixes tower defense with action RPG combat: a lone hero travels to a frontier realm inside an alternate dimension known as Ink to protect ancient strongholds from waves of invading monsters. Players set up traps, rotating blades, and other killing machines while fighting alongside them. Hungarian studio NeocoreGames released it in 2015, sharing its gothic setting with its Van Helsing games, and it carries a Metacritic score of 77.
By Gibier Games · Japan
Deeeer Simulator is a comedic sandbox game in which the player is reborn as a deer and can either wander a stylised city or wreck it with a range of supernatural powers, including a stretchy neck that works like a grappling hook, while hunting for secrets. Taking cues from Goat Simulator, it was developed by Gibier Games in Japan and published by Playism, leaving early access in November 2021.
By Snowhound Games · Finland
Deep Sky Derelicts is a dungeon crawler that blends classic role-playing structure with the card-driven systems of roguelike deckbuilders. Players assemble their own crew and send it to search abandoned spaceships, scavenging whatever the wrecks still hold. It was made by Snowhound Games, a studio from Finland, and published by Fulqrum Publishing. The game launched in 2018 and reached consoles two years later.
By KeokeN Interactive · Netherlands
Deliver Us Mars is a 2023 science fiction action-adventure and the follow-up to Deliver Us the Moon. It comes from KeokeN Interactive, a studio in the Netherlands, and was published by Frontier Foundry. Its genre listings point to a post-apocalyptic setting and puzzle elements alongside the adventure. Beyond these basics, public sources give few specifics, so the store page is the best guide to its structure and story.
By KeokeN Interactive · Netherlands
Deliver Us The Moon is a science fiction puzzle adventure about a solitary astronaut sent to the moon after Earth has run out of natural resources, in an attempt to save humanity from dying out. Play mixes exploration with environmental puzzles in a bleak near-future setting. It was developed by KeokeN Interactive from the Netherlands in Unreal Engine 4, first self-published in 2018 as an episode called Fortuna, then expanded for a 2019 release.
By tobyfox · United States
Deltarune is a chapter-based role-playing game following Kris, a human teen, together with the monster Susie and Ralsei, a prince of the Dark World, on a quest to save the world. Fights are turn-based with bullet-hell dodging, and encounters can end peacefully or violently, now with a full party. Toby Fox, an American developer, created it in GameMaker as a parallel to Undertale, with the paid release arriving in 2025.
By Daedalic Entertainment · Germany
Deponia is a comedic point-and-click graphic adventure following Rufus, who lives on a planet made of junk and dreams of escaping to Elysium, a city floating above it. His plans shift when he ends up helping an Elysian get home and stumbles onto a scheme endangering Deponia itself. Daedalic Entertainment of Germany developed and published it in 2012, and it opened a series continued by Chaos on Deponia, Goodbye Deponia and Deponia Doomsday.
By Darius Immanuel Guerrero · Philippines
DERE EVIL EXE is a horror-tinged platformer from Filipino developer Darius Immanuel Guerrero, released on Windows in July 2018 through publisher AppSir Games. You guide the knight Knightly on what looks like a classic rescue-the-princess quest, but the rules soon bend, and the game warns you not to trust its own developer messages or the helper AI called AIDE. Drawing on creepypasta about haunted retro games, it tells a self-aware story that repeatedly breaks the fourth wall.