The best indie games you have to experience this year

Inspired by the legacy of renowned artist, H. R. Geiger, Scorn is a glimpse into an utterly alien world, where biology and technology are one.

Players experience the vast, stark, and atmospheric hellscape of Scorn as a humanoid creature - goalless, helpless, alone and afraid, players must press on, complete puzzles, and avoid Scorn's twisted inhabitants.

Scorn is a fresh, unique vision that's a culmination of some incredible development teams unafraid to push the boundaries of gaming as we know it.

Everybody wants to be a cat - and it shows. Stray's popularity exploded earlier this year, and gamers still can't get enough of this indie classic.

Roam the streets as an unnamed, unowned stray cat who must unravel the mysteries of a dystopian city. Stray incorporates a blend of stealth and puzzle-solving to tell a simple, yet engaging story that's a welcome change of pace from your typical indie game.

For exciting gameplay, a fun story, and gorgeous level design - Stray is the purrfect game for you.

A blend of Links Awakening and a tougher Souls-like, Tunic is a wonderfully cute isometric action-adventure game that harkens back to a golden age of top-down exploration games that let the environment tell the story.

Tunic's core gameplay is thrillingly addictive as players explore, fight, and upgrade their armour and weaponry, a tried-and-tested mechanic that remains brilliant to this day, and the Tunic Team truly nailed it.

Tunic is free on Xbox's Game Pass right now, but if you're on PC, it's still worth picking up.

After being executed for heresy, Lambert is resurrected by a demonic god known as the Ominous Stranger and must repay his debt by amassing a cult of loyal followers to slay the non-believers and avenge his own death - growing your flock as you convert the land to the worship of your god.

Cult of the Lamb is a wonderfully addictive combination of procedurally-generated dungeon crawlers, decision-making, and base-building - culminating in one of the most thrilling gaming experiences of the year, brought to you by the ever-wonderful developers at Massive Monster and Devolver Digital.

From indie developer, Daniel Mullins and Devolver Digital comes one of the most twisted, atmospheric, and gripping deck builder indie games ever made. Combining the gruelling roguelike, the blood-pumping deck builders, and the hair-raising atmosphere of psychological horror, you find yourself trapped in a mysterious cabin, illuminated barely with candlelight.

Inside, you face a host of terrible creatures in a battle of strategy, win and you may escape, lose and confront your own terrible fate.

And yet, as you journey through, game after game, you'll find that Inscryption is constantly reinventing itself, testing the boundaries of the deck-building genre, and finding new ways to surprise the player.

This isn't a game that you'll want to pass up on.

Combining manic run-and-gun gameplay with golden-age American animation and thirties-inspired big-band jazz, Cuphead has a surplus of energy and style. As a titular Cuphead and brother Mugman, you fight your way through increasingly surreal levels, fighting down enemy swarms and overcoming huge, deadly bosses. A tough but highly rewarding game. Plus, even when you fail, Cuphead looks and sounds so good that you won’t mind.

Studio MDHR recently released a huge DLC for Cuphead; cleverly named the Delicious Last Couse, and it's even more challenging than the main game.

More Run n' Gun, more mind-melting bosses, more high-octane, more hip-shaking jazz from Kristoff Madigan, it's a gamer's dream come true, and then some.

Hades is an award-winning roguelike that not only refines the genre but arguably defines what it will mean going forward. As Zagreus, Prince of the Underworld, you’re attempting to escape Hades and reach the dizzying heights of Mount Olympus. There's a considerable amount of hellish and mythical badness standing in the way, but luckily young Zag’ has got some gods on his side. Plus, he's immortal - when he dies, Zag’ can crawl back into existence, right back in the lowest realm of the underworld, ready to start the fight all over again.

Stardew Valley is a farming sim that sees you take over your grandfather's farming plot just outside a sleepy town. With only a few coins and some inadequate gardening equipment, you set about cultivating land and friendships. Throughout, Stardew Valley is charming, absorbing and highly rewarding, mixing up its traditional framing simulator roots with cave exploration, fights, marriages and fishing sprees. Developer ConcernedApe is one of the good ones, too, as he continues to offer significant free updates to the game to improve the experience and add new features.

In Hollow Knight, you travel to the world of Hallownest and take control of an insectoid knight, to explore and uncover the secrets of an ancient kingdom. You can proceed through the game as they see fit, thanks to a welcome amount of freedom. Its sensibilities are of the Metroidvania ilk, the combat involves a mix of melee and magic, and the narrative is in part driven by NPCs encountered during the journey. Get this one played before Silksong, the hotly anticipated sequel, lands later this year.

Little Nightmares II - last year's wonderfully creepy sequel to one of the most stirring, innovative, and gorgeous indie games ever made, Tarsier Studios brings back all the beloved horror, atmosphere, and intense puzzle-solving of the original game in a larger world with even more mechanical goodness than ever before.This short, but oh-so-sweet puzzle platformer is perfect for horror fans, and is a truly unforgettable experience that you'll revisit time and time again.

Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number are top-down, trippy shooters and certified cult classics. Visually, the series has a distinct style, laced in retro and psychedelic appreciation. Similarly, the OST is notoriously wavy, trance infused. When it comes to gameplay, Hotline Miami is all about accurate and fast-paced violence, where one mistake sends you back to the start. Bonus trivia: In a particularly memorable scene from The Last Of Us Part II, one unsuspecting guard can be seen playing Hotline Miami on a PS Vita.

Disco Elysium is a detective RPG with sprawling potential. It’s also one of the best games ever made. The main thrust is that you’re an amnesiac detective investigating an unusual death; from here, what happens is anyone’s guess - there are dozens of skills, tools and psychoactive cocktails to delve into as you develop your ultimate character. This flexibility carries into an expansive dialogue and narrative tree, and a fictional world with a rich and heated political history. While the original release is super, Final Cut fleshes the game out with full voice acting and new political side quests.

Inside is atmospheric and highly stylised, building on the accomplishments of Playdead’s previous game, Limbo. The game is rendered in a high-contrast 2.5D style, with the narrative needing to be interpreted through events as they unfold. While on paper Inside can seem like a pretty straightforward platformer, to play it is to be taken on a journey like no other. Don’t look up the plot, just play it and thank us later.

In Celeste, you control Madeline, a young woman climbing a mountain and facing down her darkest demons. The gameplay is classic side-on scrolling, with dashes and abilities coming into play to overcome obstacles and foes. As is the way of indies, there’s a whole lot more going on here than just good gaming. The story develops well and carries a surprising amount of emotional weight with it. Simply, every facet of Celeste is excellent.

In Undertale, you play as a young child who has fallen into the Underground, a magical realm of monsters. As you attempt to return to above ground, you will be faced with various enemies and moral choices. Since its release in 2015, Undertale has had an unprecedented impact on the world of indie gaming. Its critical reception was flawless, and it has earned a lasting fandom through not only its multi-stranded and unconventional RPG gameplay, but its warm storytelling, humour and memorable characters.

Outer Wilds is as much an experience as it is a game. Part sci-fi, part mystery and part open-world explorer, you’re trapped in a solar system that’s destroyed every 22 minutes by a supernova. As the planets crumble and change around you, you explore, looking for clues to the root of the looping death. And then you die. And then you start again, armed with nuggets of information uncovered in your previous life. Not only is the gameplay innovative and the narrative compelling, but it has a gorgeous soundtrack.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps sees you embark on a magical journey through wonderful worlds and intense gameplay. A sequel to 2015’s Ori and the Blind Forest, this instalment offers a great deal more than the first, with new combat mechanics and player abilities adding to the already accomplished fare. In an industry where roguelikes have been on point, Ori still stands tall as a clear highlight.