Recommend other good indie/early access games

[stefanstr]

Hey everyone,

I think we can all agree that RimWorld is an exception in the indie world and a huge chunk of early access games being released is not very good, or at least lacking in some vital areas (e.g., having few updates, unresponsive devs, or whatever). I have grown to be very apprehensive of buying such games.

So: are there any alpha games you can recommend? Also interesting: are there any you would like to warn us against buying?

To start this off, I can heartily recommend one game: Invisible Inc. by Klei Entertainment. It is on Steam Early Access, and it is a tactical turn-based game about sneaking into and robbing corporations (more or less). The difficulty level is very unforgiving, but I find it adds to the charm.

[Geokinesis]

Don't buy DF-9!

Do buy Broforce, pretty fun 80s action hero ott machismo game!

[Rahjital]

Factorio. It's not even on Steam yet, but it already has enough content to keep you hooked for a long, long time. There's a short campaign to teach your the ropes and then there's a 'free game' mode with random maps. The devs are currently working on multiplayer, and there's quite a lot of mods there that add even more content. It's the second best alpha game out there in my opinion, after Rimworld of course

[BetaSpectre]

Starbound

FTL: Advanced Edition

[Neurotoxin]

I recommend not buying Godus. I want to also recommend not buying towns as development has been really touch and go, that said I've gotten plenty of enjoyment out of it but the developer abandoned it, decided to go for it again and brought in a new dev who then quit because he wasn't being fairly paid and now it's kinda floating in limbo getting limited updates awaiting another studio to purchase the IP.

Recently out of early access I'd recommend Divinity: Original Sin if you're into RPG's. And Gnomoria if you are looking for something similar to Rimworld.

[keylocke]

Factorio. It's not even on Steam yet, but it already has enough content to keep you hooked for a long, long time. There's a short campaign to teach your the ropes and then there's a 'free game' mode with random maps. The devs are currently working on multiplayer, and there's quite a lot of mods there that add even more content. It's the second best alpha game out there in my opinion, after Rimworld of course

+1 on Factorio. thanks for sharing. 
reminds me a bit of Space Engineers.

though as with both games, they're not very focused on the "survival" aspect.

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anyways. i'm looking forward to Maia (i hope it doesn't get scrapped) it's like a bit of rimworld but with much nicer graphics. (though not much on combat, i hope those guys don't botch it and get faster on developing. it's been a bit slow..)

Folk Tale is another game that i'm definitely looking at it's continued development. it's medieval fantasy city building RTS, that's starting to really look awesome.

7 days to die and Survive the Nights, are really awesome looking zombie survival games.

Pixel Piracy is good if you like FTL.

Starbound also looks good if you're a fan of terraria.

there's also Banished.. though it's a bit too "peaceful" for my taste.

and then there's The Forest... which is just.. wow..

edit :

oh yea, almost forgot : Stonehearth. with it's RPG-esque vibe, city building, and promised titan slaying. i'd be totally stoked if someone manages to mod a shingeki no kyojin in this engine. 

[Damien Hart]

Timber and Stone is a medieval themed game in the same colony management genre as RimWorld, but in 3D. There's a decent bit of fun to be had with what's currently available too.

Kenshi is another, the theme is kind of post-apocalyptic, set on a completely alien planet. Gameplay has a lot of similarities to RimWorld, in that you take command of a person/small group of people and can make a base and fortify against attacks etc. but it gives a lot more freedom to travel the world with your little group of people, to assault enemy camps, trade goods, buy gear from other towns, recruit new people, rather than being entirely focused on base building.

Lastly, avoid Castle Story like the plague - it's all potential, and no development. It looks more and more like towns by the day.

[null]

A good example of alpha funding done right is Starsector.

[stefanstr]

Hey guys,

A lot of excellent suggestions, thank you!

My 2 cents:

I own Starbound and I don't think I could recommend it. It gets boring real quick as there is no incentive to build - you keep jumping between worlds.

The Forest looks interesting, I have never heard of it.

Two I did hear about and am interested in are Kenshi and Banished. To the guys who mentioned/own them: how good are they? As addictive as RimWorld?

[Snownova]

oh yea, almost forgot : Stonehearth. with it's RPG-esque vibe, city building, and promised titan slaying. i'd be totally stoked if someone manages to mod a shingeki no kyojin in this engine. 

Is stonehearth playable yet? I saw the kickstarter a while back and the concept looked awesome, but I wanted to wait a while so there'd be some actual gameplay before committing money to it.

[Rahjital]

I can't recommend Banished. It feels like a promising early access game that could still be developed a lot further, but the author considers it fully finished and will not add any more gameplay features, all updates are bugfixes. Speaking of which, there were a lot of AI bugs on release and the dev fixed only the more glaring ones before moving on to work on the modding tools. The game itself is quite addictive, but very frustating at times because of how stupid the AI can be at times, and seeing how a single thing like that can cause a downward spiral of starvation and freezing, there are situations where even a well-managed city suddenly self-destructs because a farmer went to chop down a tree half the map away during the growing season. The game is a lot of wasted potential.

I tried Kenshi when it first came out. The controls were clunky and the interface was awful to navigate in, but that was years ago. I wonder if it was improved now? There's certainly a ton of new features added to the game.

[Pirx Danford]

oh yea, almost forgot : Stonehearth. with it's RPG-esque vibe, city building, and promised titan slaying. i'd be totally stoked if someone manages to mod a shingeki no kyojin in this engine. 

Is stonehearth playable yet? I saw the kickstarter a while back and the concept looked awesome, but I wanted to wait a while so there'd be some actual gameplay before committing money to it.

It still breaks pretty easily, but the main systems are in place and content is now added at an accelerated rate.
So I suggest you check back on it in about a month or two.

Anyhow I already have some fun with it - its just so super cuddly and somehow relaxing. :-)

[keylocke]

It still breaks pretty easily, but the main systems are in place and content is now added at an accelerated rate.
So I suggest you check back on it in about a month or two.

Anyhow I already have some fun with it - its just so super cuddly and somehow relaxing. :-)

yea, alpha 5 seems to be in it's first "actually playable state" since people can build roofs now, some of the basic class systems are already in place, enemy goblins drop by from time to time to attack, and there are traders and other stuff i forgot.

anyways, it's really starting to shape up.

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as for Banished.. it's a bit of a mixed bag actually, it reminds me a bit of Tropico (sans the comedy), but i haven't been watching it's development lately.. (too peaceful for my taste)

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The Forest is fine, but still a bit buggy.

it's another one of those survival horror games (just like 7 days to die or survive the nights), but with zombies replaced by a scantily-clad cannibalistic tribe instead.

it's a bit difficult and brutal (without using exploits), and it seems to follow the same "anti-game" hardcore steep learning curve philosophy that made the first DayZ mod so popular.

expect to get murderized and often.

[Shinzy]

If you've got 3ds (XL, golden with triforce on it #bragrights)

Shantae Risky's Revenge
And Shovel Knight are must to own
They're both on steam aswell, I'd check those out they're rrrreally good
Like rrrrrreeeaaallly good
Both finished products but I can't not pass the change to shove those on everyone's face.

I'd keep eye on Starbound but for now I can't recommend it at all at this point.. maybe when they actually hook in the upgradable ships and questing

Another early access one I really really love is Steam Marines
a procedually generated roguelike (lite?) .. Look don't yell at me!
Basically you start the game with your four (very foul mouthed) Marines waking up in cryochamber
in a huge spaceship. And set out to clean the ship up from all the evil robots and aliens, going through decks
gearing and leveling up and stuff
Each deck has a boss as far as I can tell, I've never made it past the second deck =P your marines can die and most likely will at some point but you get opportunity to randomly recruit new ones after each floor if you've lost anyone

It's also on Steam

Craft the world
was definite bag of fun for me aswell
really, really, rrreaaally dull though. It's too slow paced
I don't have any regrets owning it though I played good 48 hours by the looks of it =P I'd keep an eye on that if nothing else
It just gives me so good Diggers vibes, Cause that's a game I loved when I was realy tiny bugger. Also! it's unplayabe by todays standards =P Diggers that is.

But I'm not gna recommend buying anything with early access in it
you don't wanna get bored of it before it's finished
But keep an eye on those!

Also! shovelknight, Shantae, Buy them, now! Shoo!!

Edit:
OH! Legend of Grimrock <- if you haven't played it
they're making sequel for it now, too
It's an amaaaazing dungeon crawler

I'm really looking forward to
War for the Overworld and MAIA, too. but I'm not gna spoil myself the fun trying those before they're all polished up and ready to get abused by me

[BetaSpectre]

I'm loving this thread!