Play These 22 Indie Video Games From Developers of Color Now

Indie games embody the creative, anarchic spirit of early arcade games. 502’s Arcade from 502 Studio collects multiple games into a single package that would play perfectly in your local pizza parlor. The games include ghost-hunting, potion-brewing, and alien-blasting action. 

Featuring a hero fresh out of the radical 1990s, CyroGX’s Advent Neon is a gorgeous, 2D platformer that dares you to keep up with the action. Attack with blinding speed, freeze time, and unleash all of your energy.

Many sci-fi stories draw parallels between humanoid machines and other types of marginalized identities. Belle Automata by Jellyfish Parade is another entry in this canon. In this visual novel, you take on the role of a discarded android questioning the validity of her own feelings.

Do not obey the title. Do Not Buy This Game is a comedy-adventure game from Kingblade Games that tries to make lemonade out of the lemon you’ve purchased. You were warned. It gives off a lot of Stanley Parable energy.

Discrimination isn’t just about one individual person being mean one to another person; it’s about vast ongoing social systems that lift up one group while disempowering another. Dot’s Home is a free adventure game from Rise-Home Stories Project that illuminates these systems as you travel through time in a Black family’s Detroit home.

With El Paso, Elsewhere, Xalavier Nelson. Jr and his team at Strange Scaffold deliver an intensely moody and stylish supernatural shooter like no other. Granted, the bullet time shoot-outs, retro visuals, and noir atmosphere intentionally evoke the Max Payne franchise. But El Paso, Elsewhere turns into its own beast thanks in part to original hip-hop performed by Nelson himself.

Let them eat cake! In Flannel Bear Games’ Gedda Cake, if you want your dessert prize, you must explore the game’s whimsical, Metroidvania-like world. Different characters have different moves that all come in handy as you look for the path forward.

Grid Force – Mask of Goddess does that beautiful video game thing of throwing together a bunch of awesome ideas into a delirious, new creation. Dreamnuts Studios gives us a real-time, tactical, bullet-hell, action-RPG about futuristic cyber deities. Don’t you want to see what that’s all about?

Another banger from Xalavier Nelson Jr. and Strange Scaffold, I Am Your Beast is a breakneck first-person shooter about revenge. Short, tense encounters push your reflexes to the limit as you strive to become as fast and lethal as possible. Despite their small sizes, levels encourage surprising and satisfying experimentation.

Free your friends, and the future, in the time-loop RPG In Stars and Time, from developer insertdisc5. It’s the hottest new repetition title for a world in which a pandemic is just one of multiple crises making you question if tomorrow will ever come.

Kabaret uses new technology to share humanity’s oldest stories. Witness myths and experience traditional games pulled from Southeast Asian folklore in this visual novel from Persona Theory Games.

Little Hellions is a long-awaited, indie fighting game where you use devilish schemes, not brute strength, to win. To attack, you fling yourself toward a stage hazard and use your Trick Hook to switch places with other players so they get damaged instead. No wonder the developer is named Schadenfreude. 

What better place to fall in love than a dystopian future city full of murder conspiracies and gods to fight? Here’s hoping developer Perfect Garbage does (or doesn’t?) live up to its name with Love Shore.

The modern world still has many ancient secrets. Project Anomaly: Urban Supernatural Investigator, by Dark Science, is a first-person, open-world photography game about solving mysteries happening right down the block. Plus, you befriend nifty cryptids.

You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you. With The Shadow Government Simulator, Chupacabra Games Studio offers you a peek behind the scenes at who really runs the world. Master the turn-based strategy, and that secret mastermind could be you.

Visual novels are the perfect genre for developers who put excellent writing and intriguing storytelling above all else. For a cyberpunk game that cares more about characterization and conversations than car chases, check out Solace State from Vivid Foundry Corp.

Puzzle games and chillwave aesthetics are a transcendent match. More than an awesome name, Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To from developer Soft Not Weak expands on the familiar block-matching formula with delightfully colorful and romantic story elements. The soundtrack features smooth, head-nodding grooves that back the action.

Card games are an urban tradition that predates video games. Street Shuffle from Slice of the Pie Games honors that legacy with tactical card combat. In it, you aspire to become the city’s best player while impressing the crowd using skill and strategy.

Voice actor Abubakar Salim heads up Surgent Studios, the team behind Tales of Kenzera: Zau, an Afrofuturist Metroidvania title and one of 2024’s best releases. The protagonist’s grief over a lost father becomes a powerful drive to reclaim the elder’s spirit as you search every inch of a lush world drawn from various African cultures and mythologies. Genre veterans may recognize concepts like double jumps and icy projectiles, but Tales of Kenzera: Zau’s passion and unique blend of influences deliver something you’ve never seen before.

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A funky fusion of 3D fighting game and beat ’em up, Urban Warriors from developer Chaotix lets four players throw down against enemy hordes or each other. Advanced mechanics add depth to the mayhem. Balance offense and defense, leverage weapons and your environment, and put street punks in their place.

While many of today’s modern dating games opt for an ironic premise or gimmicky mechanics, Validate from Veritable Joy Studios looks like a straightforward visual novel about dating as an adult. That’s more than challenging enough.

If you want to keep supporting a more diverse games and tech industry, there are plenty of ways to help.