Nominees for Destructoid’s Best Indie Game of 2024

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It’s that time of year when we collectively look back at the flaming wreckage that we somehow managed to live through. It’s been a tough one, but at least the indie market has continued to flourish with the release of all kinds of experimental and artistic titles.

As with every year, the window for eligibility in our awards are December to December, so games released in December 2023 are valid, but not games in December 2024 (Sorry, The Thing: Remastered). We also have a rule that each game can only be nominated for one category, so if you don’t see something here, we may have stuck it in with a console-specific one if it feels like a better fit.

If you felt like you had nothing to play this year, you need to think smaller budget, my friend. Indie games kept me busy this year. Very busy. Too busy. Portions of my year are just blurs of unique art styles, narrative depths, and casual experiments. But there are some amazing standouts, and myself and the Destructoid team have been able to narrow them down to just a handful.

Here are the runners for Destructoid’s Best Indie Game of 2024.

Mullet Mad Jack

With only 10 seconds to live, you have to kill robot billionaires (robillionaires) on livestream to get the sweet, sweet endorphins that come with amassing likes on social media in order to add precious seconds onto the clock. After all, internet adulation is the only reason to keep living. Mullet Mad Jack is a never-stop-moving murder-sprint of a roguelite laced with a ridiculous but strangely believable depiction of the future as interpreted by the 1990s. Fast and furious in the back, thought-provoking in front.

Anthology of the Killer

Technically a compilation of short-form indie titles going back to 2020, Anthology of the Killer rolls up several tales, presents them in one complete package, and puts on a bow. Following the exploits of BB, a young woman trapped in a surreal city so packed with serial killers that they’ve just become a fact of life. Its dreamlike horror is so effective because it’s impossible to really get hold of anything resembling reality, with only its effective sense of humor keeping panic at bay.

Crow Country

It’s not uncommon for horror games in the indie sphere to invoke a PS1 aesthetic to take us back to the youthful days of survival horror. But despite the well-trodden territory, Crow Country presents something fresh. Featuring an effective art style that allows its environments to look pre-rendered while actually being real-time and a surprisingly unconventional and haunting narrative, Crow Country is among the best games the genre has seen in years.

1000xRESIST

Clearly, we here at Destructoid have an inappropriate level of affection for unconventional narratives, because that’s exactly what Steven “Cinderblock” Mills feverishly rants about in his review for 1000xRESIST, going as far as calling it a “narrative masterpiece.” Beyond that, it finds gameplay hooks beyond its adventure roots to keep you engaged, as if you needed more reason to lock in.

Animal Well

While Animal Well can be pinned as a metroidvania title, at every turn, it seems to try and subvert and surprise in a way that is rarely seen in the genre. Both minimalistic and detailed, Animal Well uses its focus on secrets and exploration to drive hooks into your innate curiosity to keep you fixated.

Balatro

Perhaps the only game on this list to reach indie-game escape velocity and find a mainstream audience. It’s easy to see why. Balatro boils down the deckbuilding roguelite genre into its base elements to provide an absorbing perversion of Poker. It could easily be a perfect snack game, but good luck just playing a few short rounds.

Buckshot Roulette

All the fun of the classic party game with less chance of removing your frontal lobe with a slug. Buckshot Roulette is a deceptively simple game of shooting yourself in the face with a shotgun. You face off with a creepy stranger, using whatever tricks you can to keep yourself from eating lead breakfast. Short, but disturbingly engrossing.

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