Throughout December, Gamespot is celebrating the biggest and best games of the year. But for every blockbuster like Elden Ring or God Of War: Ragnarok taking center stage, there are thousands of smaller games waiting in the wings that are just as worthy of attention in their own way. From pizza delivery spies and deck-building relationships to sword-wielding spiders and books about plants, 2022 offered countless weird and wonderful games that thrived outside the mainstream.
We've rounded up 20 of the best games from independent developers and boutique publishers, all of them released this year across a staggering range of genres and on various platforms from PC to all major consoles and even mobile, that we feel deserve a little extra time in the spotlight. Indeed, 2022's bench was so deep that only one of these games made it onto any of our other Best Of lists. We simply had to find a way to spread the love even further.
Beacon Pines
Developer: Hiding Spot
Publisher: Fellow Traveller
Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox
Beacon Pines is a novel reimagining of the choose-your-own-adventure formula where the malleable story doesn't so much branch as split into multiple versions of itself, each one potentially twisting back in time to recontextualize earlier events. The adorable children's illustrated storybook presentation belies a surprisingly sinister tone where the cute deer and fox pair of protagonists frequently meet with death.
Betrayal at Club Low
Betrayal at Club Low
Developer: Cosmo D
Publisher: Cosmo D
Platforms: PC
From the developer of Tales From Off-Peak City comes a similarly unhinged espionage adventure where you go undercover as a pizza delivery man attempting to extract a compromised fellow agent from a ludicrous nightclub. Imagine Hitman but played as a role-playing game where the success of your chosen actions is determined by dice rolls against your skills of deception, observation or, um, cooking.
The Case of the Golden Idol
Developer: Color Gray Games
Publisher: Playstack
Platforms: PC
An ingenious detective adventure, The Case of the Golden Idol takes the classic Clue framing ("It was [so-and-so] with the [murder weapon] in the [specific location]") and demands you fill in the blanks to solve a series of increasingly fiendish murder mysteries. While the visual aesthetic may require some acclimating, the labyrinthine design--part Return of the Obra Dinn, part classic point & click adventure--is whipsmart and immediately fascinating.
Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum
Developer: nodayshalleraseyou
Publisher: nodayshalleraseyou
Platforms: PC
The mysterious solo developer who goes only by the name nodayshalleraseyou promises that their debut game is all style and no substance. This is nonsense. Beyond the exquisitely minimal presentation mimicking a CRT display from some high-res alternate history 1980s, Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum is a deep and intelligent immersive sim, a kind of top-down take on Deus Ex mixed with Tom Francis' Gunpoint and Heat Signature.
Dorfromantik
Developer: Toukana Interactive
Publisher: Toukana Interactive
Platforms: PC, Switch
From the German "dorf" meaning village, Dorfromantik is a beguiling puzzle game about constructing idyllic hamlets across the sprawling European countryside. Tiles appear at random and can only be placed next to other tiles, with adjacency bonuses for pairing like terrain types boosting your score. There's a high-score challenge, but much of the enjoyment comes from making a lovely little place, so much so the developers added a stress-free Creative Mode for the full release this year.
Dread Delusion
Developer: Lovely Hellplace
Publisher: Dread XP
Platforms: PC
Nodding to the Elder Scrolls with its setup--you begin as a prisoner recently released and now free to explore a large open world--Dread Delusion has something of a selective memory when it comes to drawing inspiration from '90s PC RPGs. It relishes the weird and wonderful, borrowing the bits that linger in the memory because there was always something odd about them. Also, it refers to experience points as "delusions," which is itself a mystery you must get to the bottom of.
The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
Developer: Cloak and Dagger Games
Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
Platforms: PC
Folk horror is fertile ground for games, with its penchant for subterranean suspense and the collision of the fantastic and the mundane. A surprisingly tense adventure, The Excavation of Hob's Barrow certainly nails the atmosphere, as you get your hands dirty digging up its earthy layers of mystery as an antiques evaluator visiting a small village in the north of England.
Frog Detective 3: Corruption At Cowboy County
Developer: Grace Bruxner, Thomas Bowker
Publisher: Worm Club
Platforms: PC
The third--perhaps final?--chapter in the Frog Detective series is as charmingly silly as ever with the titular detective assigned to crack the case of the missing (cowboy) hats in Cowboy County. Also, how do I put this… all the horses are missing and the cowboys have resorted to riding scooters instead. The puzzles are light and breezy, designed always with a view to making you smile rather than making you think, and the jokes have a hit-rate nearly as high as Frog Detective's own case clearance.
Islets
Developer: Kyle Thomson
Publisher: Armor Games
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox
While we wait… and wait… for the Hollow Knight sequel we ordered years ago to arrive, Islets proves to be a plentiful appetizer ahead of the main course. Despite a whimsical atmosphere buoyed by vibrant characters and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, Islets still delivers an inventive platforming challenge as you backtrack to explore previously inaccessible areas and literally connect the world back together.
I Was A Teenage Exocolonist
Developer: Northway Games
Publisher: Finji
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch
Deck-building carries real emotional weight in this coming-of-age sci-fi story. Repeatedly live through a decade of the life of a teenager living on the fringes of the known universe; as you grow up, your deck grows in kind, new cards handing you new ways to deal with the challenges life in a far-flung colony throws your way. It's a relationship sim at heart, where the refreshingly progressive identity options allow you to play any card you like.
The Mortuary Assistant
Developer: Darkstone Digital
Publisher: Dread XP
Platforms: PC
A first-person horror experience that combines the rigorous procedure of a detective investigation with the expectant terror of the creepiest jump-scare thriller, as you conduct autopsies while trapped inside the world's most demonically-possessed morgue. The Mortuary Assistant is indie horror at its finest, committed to one core concept and resolutely determined to explore it to its fullest–and most frightening.
NeverAwake
Developer: Neotro
Publisher: Phoenixx
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox
Neotro is a small Japanese studio whose name portmanteaus "neo" and "retro," a philosophy exemplified by this thoroughly modern take on the twin-stick shooter. NeverAwake is an unsettling yet cartoonish peek into the nightmares of a young girl in a coma, with her trauma manifested in waves of enemies in bullet-hell-style shoot-'em-up levels. The action is spectacular but the mood is often disturbing.
Patrick's Parabox
Developer: Patrick Traynor
Publisher: Patrick Traynor
Platforms: PC, Switch
Patrick's Parabox may look like a simple box-pushing puzzle game, but its simple, uncluttered design hides layers of complexity. Infinite layers, in fact. Solo developer Patrick Traynor has posed a recursive series of brainteasers where boxes are pushed inside other boxes into yet more boxes and back into themselves. Impressively, it's delivered without fat, just screen after screen after screen of box cleverness.
Prodeus
Developer: Bounding Box Software
Publisher: Humble Games
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox
From former Raven Software veterans, Prodeus is a leading light of the jokingly-named "boomer shooter" genre, reviving the breakneck-paced feel of '90s FPSs like Doom and Quake with the spectacular, FX-filled look of a modern shooter. Levels are designed first and foremost as combat arenas rather than real places, and the explosive action foregrounds improvisational skill rather than scripted set-pieces.
Roadwarden
Developer: Moral Anxiety Studio
Publisher: Assemble Entertainment
Platforms: PC
A self-described "illustrated text-based RPG," Roadwarden is in some ways the most old-fashioned game on this list. Yet its sense of open-endedness, of letting you set your own goals, feels shockingly progressive. That pioneering attitude stems from the core concept: You're a scout, basically, exploring an uncharted land and reporting back. Exceptional writing and the growing realization there are countless story threads to unpick will encourage many a return journey.
SpiderHeck
Developer: Neverjam
Publisher: Tinybuild
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch
Though it features a single-player challenge mode and online play, SpiderHeck is best enjoyed in local multiplayer with several at least slightly competitive friends and a group of rowdy onlookers. Each player is a neon spider, slinging themselves across wireframe battle arenas, lobbing bombs, swinging laser swords, and blasting each other with rocket launchers. There's even an enjoyable co-op wave mode for when the competition gets overheated.
Strange Horticulture
Developer: Bad Viking
Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
Platforms: PC, Switch
Perhaps you wouldn't think that a game almost entirely about researching and identifying plants would be one of the year's best, but that element of leftfield novelty may well help explain why Strange Horticulture is so compelling. Every plant requested by your customers is a new case to crack and another opportunity to thumb through your beautifully illustrated book of botanical information to deduce the answer. It'll grow on you, trust me.
Taiji
Developer: Matthew VanDevander
Publisher: Matthew VanDevander
Platforms: PC
The influence of The Witness is obvious in this dazzling puzzle game set on a mysterious island, its curiously abandoned structures strewn with puzzle panels. Solutions are arrived at gradually, with each new panel ushering in greater complexity, wordlessly teaching you through an accumulation of incremental lessons. The riddle of the island's creation is the throughline, but it's the virtuosity of the puzzle chains that will hook you 'til the end.
Wayward Strand
Developer: Ghost Pattern
Publisher: Ghost Pattern
Platforms: PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox
A hospital for elder care housed on an airborne zeppelin tethered off the coast of Melbourne is the unlikely setting for one of the year's sweetest stories. Teenager Casey has to tag along with her mother as she works a weekend shift at the hospital. But what starts as a grudging obligation transforms into a tender tale of maturing as Casey learns more about the patients and staff, their life stories intersecting in affecting ways with touching moments of humor and poignance.
Wylde Flowers
Developer: Studio Drydock
Publisher: Studio Drydock
Platforms: PC, Switch, iOS
The farming life-sim is brewed with an extra dash of narrative intrigue in Wylde Flowers, a Stardew Valley-like where you play a young woman returning to her small island home town and quickly discovering that being a witch apparently runs in the family. There's a surprising amount of story to reveal in between all the potion-making, agriculture, mining, and inevitable romantic pursuits, all delivered by a delightfully charismatic and wholesome cast of characters.
0 Mga Komento