Welcome to the April version of the Indie Appreciation Thread!

Before to start, I'll briefly explain the criteria followed in these threads. Basically, a game has to meet at least one of these three conditions:

1) Being developed (not necessarily published) by an indie company, or a small or medium-sized one (whether it's properly independent or not).

2) Being relatively unknown, that is, not being a big and easily recognizable brand or belonging to an already established franchise.

3) Not having a big budget.

As you can see, the criteria is pretty simple, but also kind of subjective, so if you feel that a certain game shouldn't be here or notice that there's some other lacking (or there's something wrong), please tell me.

Now, with that out of the way, let's go straight to the point: this series of threads consists on two parts: one that I'm responsible of, which is an ongoing list of all the games released during the month, and another one (suggested by Mnementh) that only you, fellow VGChartianz, will make possible.

As for the first part, I'll post the list when I create the new thread (the first day of each month) and will be updating it from time to time, as new games or Metacritic scores are released. If you have any question about that, just ask me.

Now, regarding your participation, it's quite simple: you just have to post up to five indie games that you would recommend to other gamers, in the order that you'd like to recommend them. Example:

1. Magnificent Indie Game

2. Superb Indie Game

3. Excellent Indie Game

4. Awesome Indie Game

5. Splendid Indie Game

The games you choose to recommend will get up to five points based on the order they're placed: the first one will get 5 points, the second will get 4, and so on. Those games will then be included in a table in the OP that I'll be updating as new users post their recommendations. The game with the most points at the end of each month will be the Indie of the Month and won't be eligible in future threads, but will still be featured in them as a recommendation.

Games that won't make it as indies of the month won't be forgotten, however: the five most voted runner-ups will automatically become recommendations in the next thread, getting a few "free" points based on their order: the second best will get 5 points, the third best will get 4 points, and so on. This way, games that got the most votes in a certain thread will get extra visibility in the next one, but since that advantage will be rather small, any new recommendation will still have a lot of chances to become the Indie of the Month.

All that said, it's important to mention that this is not (necessarily) a list of your favorite indie games, but a list of recommended games. So for example, if your favorite indie game has no options to be the indie of the month, but there's a game that (while not being your favorite) can make it and you think it deserves it, you can place it first on your list for that specific month. Also, it'd be nice if you explained why you recommend those games, or briefly review them, or tell some anecdote related to them, or whatever. This is optional, of course, but it would be pretty cool.

And that's all. Now have fun!

Note: if you want to know what the text format in the Platforms section and the abbreviations in the Genre section mean, just take a look at the introduction thread.

User Recommendations

Indie of the Month

2021 Indie Releases

Previous Months

April releases

Highlights

Other games

Thanks for this thread or series of threads, I didn't even knew this was a thing. I don't tend to buy most indies on release but soome time later often on a sale. From the ones this months, I already had an interest in Lost Words and Dungeon&Puzzle. I never heard about We are the Caretakers, but it looks interesting as well.

This is a thing since only a couple of days ago, actually. =P In fact, I'm still thinking of ways to efficiently improve it for the next months, I rushed the threads a bit and I feel like there's too much info condensed there. Also, I'm glad you found a game here that might interest you; that alone makes this worth the time.

Yeah, if you are open for ideas, I could throw some out. For instance, we probably don't know anything about new games here. While I appreciate this list of upcoming indies, all I ever could say is: looks like it might be interesting. One major difference of indies and AAA is the marketing budget. For AAA games we know months, sometimes years in advance that we should get hyped for them and many will buy them on launch. Indies you often know near to nothing before launch and encounter them often years down the line and only in playing them realize how cool they are.

So I would recommend that everyone can recommend an indie he likes each month. For me that would be Graveyard Keeper, play that. I don't have time at the moment to write a more elaborate text about the game, but then I did that already: https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9248829

We could also vote each month for the games recommended last month by participants in the thread. Maybe allow only voting if you also recommend a game in the same post and maybe allow something like votes in the most anticipated game thread, meaning vote for five games with 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point each. I guess in the first months we will cover the most well-known like Hollow Knight, Undertale and Stardew Valley, but I guess we will get to lesser known games later on. The thread starting post could list all the winners of past months.

I think especially the recommendations may bring some more discussion into these threads.

Yeah, I'm open for ideas. I actually made a section in the first thread for past games that other users recommended, but your idea of voting for those is better. I'll edit the thread tomorrow to include that, along with a couple of new announced games and dates. Thanks!