And the 2019 IndieDB Indie of the Year winner is …
As a follow up to my big overview article of IndieDB’s 2019 Indie of the Year awards in Retronator Magazine, let’s take a look which retro-looking games made it into the top 10.
The absolute winner was 3D Realms’ comeback title Ion Fury which brings the 90s back like no other. It’s powered by the Build engine itself, the same that brought the alien-ass-kicking Duke Nukem into the third dimension. While the code now runs silky smooth and in high-res, the weapon and enemy sprites are still deliciously pixelated.
In second place amongst released games was Noita, a rougelite with an outstanding physics engine that treats every pixel as a particle. Simply stunning.
The rest of the top 10 games weren’t retro-styled, except for WRATH: Aeon of Ruin in 7th place. This was another first-person shooter with 3D Realms backing behind it, done with the Quake engine.
One more 3D title with pixel art textures could be found in the top 10 upcoming games where the space station building sim Starmancer took 2nd place.
A couple of pixel art games that I didn’t mention in my article (which looked only at Player’s choice award nominees) took home virtual trophies awarded by the editors.
Legend of Keeper: Career of a Dungeon Master was named Best Free To Play game …
… while Katana Zero, an instant-death action platformer, got rewarded for Best Gameplay.
Click the titles above of any of the games that picked your interest to go to their Indie DB page, or if you haven’t explored my article yet, go enjoy the many screenshots in a distraction-free format there.