An editorial guide from The Gaming Nest to indie games from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, MENA and Oceania — each with original notes and a link to its store page.
These are editorial pages. The developers and publishers are not affiliated with The Gaming Nest unless explicitly stated.
Scrap Garden is a puzzle platformer following Canny, a solitary robot who wakes up in a ruined world where every other machine has stopped working. The player guides him through platforming stages and environmental puzzles while trying to learn what happened to the city and whether anyone else survived. Egidijus Bachur and Alexey Davydov are credited as developers, with Flazm publishing; the team is from Lithuania, and the Steam release arrived in 2016.
SCUM is an open-world survival game pitched as a prison riot scenario, where convicts are dropped onto a hostile island. Staying alive means looting, crafting, hunting, building and fighting, and detailed character customization shapes the prisoner you play. Croatian studio Gamepires made it in Unreal Engine 4. It entered Steam early access in 2018 and reached its full release in June 2025.
Sea of Stars is a role-playing game from Canadian studio Sabotage Studio, released in 2023 as the team's next project after The Messenger. Players control Solstice Warriors Valere or Zale, who wield sun and moon powers to hunt monsters called Dwellers across a fantasy archipelago. Its isometric pixel art recalls Super Nintendo era RPGs, combat mixes strategic and real-time elements, and it won Best Independent Game at The Game Awards 2023.
Released in 2011, Serious Sam 3: BFE is a first-person shooter from Croatia-based indie studio Croteam, published by Devolver Digital and running on Serious Engine 3.5. A prequel to Serious Sam: The First Encounter, it is set in 22nd-century Egypt as Mental invades Earth. It offers 16-player online play plus a four-player split-screen co-op campaign, and it later arrived on OS X and Linux.
Serious Sam 4 is a first-person shooter from Croatian studio Croteam, published by Devolver Digital and released in 2020. It belongs to the long-running Serious Sam series and is set before the events of Serious Sam 3: BFE, continuing the franchise's first-person gunplay. The project was first revealed in 2018 as Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass, runs on Croteam's Serious Engine, and later received a standalone expansion called Siberian Mayhem.
Serious Sam's Bogus Detour is a twin-stick shooter that takes the Serious Sam series into a top-down format, with one to four players fighting enemy waves across Egypt, Greece and the Moon. Weapons are found in levels, and stars earned by exploring or gaining experience buy character upgrades. Deathmatch and survival modes support up to twelve players. Swedish studio Crackshell made it with approval from Croteam, and Devolver Digital published it in 2017.
By Gungrounds (Macanga Games j.d.o.o.), Croteam · Croatia
Serious Sam: Tormental is a twin-stick shooter with a rogue-lite structure, made by Croatian developer Gungrounds with Croteam and published by Devolver Digital in 2022. One or two players fight through procedurally generated stages set inside the mind of Mental, the series' villain, each carrying two weapons and upgrading the primary gun with mods. Characters can dodge roll and use a special ability, and defeat sends you back to the beginning.
Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope is a 2017 virtual reality first-person shooter from Croteam VR, a specialised division that Croatian studio Croteam set up to explore VR development. Alone or with a second player, you hold off waves of enemies and bosses across five themed planets, dual-wielding weapons within a limited play space as foes close in from a 180-degree arc. Devolver Digital published it after an early access period.
SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell is a first-person platformer from Croatian developer Pine Studio, released on Steam in July 2016. Players dash through levels against the clock, relying on an assortment of power-ups to shave time off each attempt. Its design takes cues from speedrunning in games such as Quake and Super Meat Boy, and the odd name comes from ColloSEUM, the working title used during development.
Shadow Blade: Reload is an action platformer starring Kuro, a ninja racing through trap-filled stages and cutting down enemies along the way. It is the PC counterpart of the mobile game Shadow Blade, and its developers planned additional levels, a full story campaign and Steam features such as leaderboards and workshop support. It was developed and published by Dead Mage, a studio based in Iran, and released in August 2015.
Shadows of Doubt is a first-person detective game with stealth elements from British developer ColePowered Games, published by Fireshine Games. Its genre labels include immersive sim, cyberpunk and neo-noir, and critics praised its open-ended design while pointing to repetitive stretches and bugs. It entered early access on Windows in April 2023 and left it in September 2024, arriving on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 at the same time.
Shroom and Gloom is a first-person roguelike deckbuilder from Team Lazerbeam, a studio in South Africa, published by Devolver Digital. Players collect and grow cards across two decks at once, chaining large combos to defeat hostile fungal creatures in a moody setting. A demo was available on Steam in May 2025, and the full game entered early access in September 2026.
Sifu is a beat 'em up from Sloclap, a studio in France, built in Unreal Engine 4. Set in China, it casts you as the child of a martial arts master seeking revenge for their father's murder. A magical talisman revives you after each death but ages you, raising attack power while lowering health, and growing too old means permanent death and a level restart. It launched in 2022 and was reviewed positively for its combat, environments and story.
Signalis is a survival horror game from rose-engine, a studio in Germany. You control the android Elster as she hunts for her ship's missing pilot inside a hostile mining facility gripped by a supernatural event. Its visuals and play deliberately echo fifth-generation consoles, inspired by Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Released in October 2022, it won Best Narrative and Best Indie Game at the Fear Fest Horror Games Awards 2023.
SIMULACRA is a horror game played entirely through the phone of a woman who has gone missing. The player digs through her messages, apps and other content on the device, piecing together clues much like a detective to work out what became of her. Malaysian developer Kaigan Games made and published it in 2017, building it with Unreal Engine 4 and libGDX, and it reached Windows and Mac on Steam alongside consoles and mobile.
Sine Mora is a horizontal shoot 'em up in 2.5D, where movement is locked to two axes while the world around it is rendered in full 3D. Time is the central factor, feeding into a distinctive time-based mechanic alongside elaborate boss battles, and its diesel punk setting is populated by anthropomorphic characters. Hungarian studio Digital Reality co-developed it with Grasshopper Manufacture, and it holds a Metacritic score of 77.
Sister Other Paranoia is a visual novel drawing on the denpa style, created by Japanese developer HazeDenki, with Serenity Forge handling publishing. It is catalogued as a psychological horror adventure, so players should expect a text-driven story with an unsettling tone rather than action. The game came out on Steam in August 2026. Specific plot and gameplay details are not described in the available sources, which present it as a narrative-focused indie release.
SKALD: Against the Black Priory is a role-playing game with a retro visual style that looks back to the Ultima games of the 1980s. Players search for a missing friend across a cursed land crawling with Lovecraftian horrors. It was made by Norwegian studio High North Studios, with Raw Fury publishing it in 2024. Reviews were mixed to positive, praising its aesthetic and old-school atmosphere while questioning its combat and graphical readability.
SkyDrift is an airplane racing game where the focus falls on combat racing: pilots speed over detailed terrain while fighting rival planes for position. Several game modes are included, and players can unlock new aircraft and personalise them with racing skins. Hungarian studio Digital Reality developed it and released it in 2011; critics praised its responsive controls and online multiplayer while regretting the absence of local multiplayer.
Sky Racket mixes block-breaking with shoot 'em up action in bright cartoon worlds, a blend its creators call a Shmup Breaker. It began in 2015 as RacketBoy during Indie Vs Gamers, a 72-hour jam hosted by Game Jolt, and was later shown at PAX East 2019. Brazilian independent developer Double Dash Studios released it for Windows, macOS and Linux in October 2019.
Slay the Spire is a roguelike deckbuilder in which one of four characters climbs a procedurally generated tower, fighting enemies and bosses along the way. Combat is driven by cards, and new cards won from battles let players shape a deck strong enough to reach the top. It was made by Mega Crit, an independent American studio, on libGDX, released fully in January 2019, and is credited with popularising the genre.
Slay the Spire 2 is a roguelike deckbuilder where players pick a hero and climb the Spire floor by floor, gathering cards and using them to beat monsters. This follow-up to the 2019 original adds two new heroes beside three returning ones and brings co-op for up to four players. It is developed and published by Mega Crit, an American studio, runs on the Godot engine, and entered early access in March 2026.
Slime Rancher is a life simulation about running a ranch full of slimes, blending farming routines with first-person action and exploration. Players catch and raise the colourful creatures while building up their farm. It was developed and published by Monomi Park, an independent studio in the United States, which put it into early access in January 2016 before a full launch in August 2017. A sequel, Slime Rancher 2, followed.
Slime Rancher 2 is a farm life sim that brings back rancher Beatrix LeBeau, the heroine of the 2017 original, and sends her to explore Rainbow Island, a brand-new location. It is listed across adventure, simulation and open world genres, carrying the ranching life of its predecessor to a new setting. American indie studio Monomi Park developed and published it, entering early access in September 2022 before its version 1.0 release in September 2025.