The 4th annual Indiecade attracted both gamers and game designers alike to Culver City, allowing companies to show off their hard work and creativity, and give gamers a chance to look into the future of the industry. Here’s a look at 10 games from the event that you might overlook, but are well worth your time. Note: these games are not in any particular order.

1.       1001 Spikes 1001 Spikes is a 2D-platformer that harkens back to the graphics and difficulty of classic platformers. The game (or at least the demo), had you to try and get as far into the game as possible in 15 minutes. This task is not helped  by how quickly the difficulty ramps up after the first couple levels, making it a test of patience, memorization, and execution. Despite this, the game has incredibly smooth controls, and it feels extremely rewarding once you’re able to make your way through a challenging section of a level.

 

2.       Divekick: Divekick looks like the simplest fighting game ever, requiring only two buttons to play. One button sends your character leaping straight up, while another has you diving down to kick your opponent. Whoever is able to successfully kick the other player first automatically wins the match. The entertaining characters and surprisingly tense combat makes it a great game to break out with friends, as it’s a very easy game to pick up and play.

 

3.       Freeq: Freeq is an audio-adventure game for iPhone and Android. You tilt the phone to locate conversations, then, after selecting a conversation, you can choose another person for them to talk with. Each possibility opens up a new storyline between the two characters, which the game then records so you can keep track of them later on. The game provides a refreshing experience, combining a refreshing gameplay idea in a story-intensive mobile game.

 

4.      Forsaken Planet: “Forsaken Planet is a crazy but ridiculously fun, fast-paced multiplayer shooter game,” Scott Den Adel, senior designer and software engineer at LOOT Entertainment, said, “It’s a dual-stick, you can fly around and shoot in any direction. The general theme of the game is you are an alien working for the galaxy’s largest chicken restaurant. They send you down to a planet to abduct anything you can pick up and take it to a device called the Chickenizer. Drop anything in that, and it turns it into a live chicken. This includes any gunk you find in the level, as well as the other players. You can shoot down the other players and turn them into chickens, which is where a lot of the multiplayer competitiveness comes in.”

 

5.       Nidhogg: Nidhogg is a 1-vs-1 multiplayer game that combines simple, Atari-style graphics with some intense, responsive combat. The game has two players squaring off, with the winner getting the “honor” of being eaten by a giant worm. With AI opponents and online multiplayer in the works, Nidhogg could be one of the simplest, and best, gaming experiences of 2013.

 

6.       Gib Gods: Gib Gods is a competitive multiplayer 2D-shooter for up to 4 players, with each player being armed with a rocket launcher. While the controls can take a bit of time to get used to, the game itself is a blast, as all four competitors try and eliminate the opponents as quickly as possible.

 

7.       Rogue Legacy: Rogue Legacy is a 2D beat-em-up game featuring a randomly generated castle and an extremely customizable RPG experience. The main appeal for the game, however, is how it handles player death. When the character dies, their child will come back to avenge them, but have some randomly generated deficiency, such as color-blindness, but will be stronger than the previous character.

 

8.       TowerFall: TowerFall, which was featured in the eSports section of Indiecade, gives each player a bow and arrow and one life to try and eliminate all other players. It plays similar to Gib Gods, leading to some extremely chaotic multiplayer bouts, with players trying to predict their enemies’ movements while, at the same time, making sure they don’t get eliminated. The hectic, competitive nature of TowerFall should make it one of the best party games of the year.

 

9.       That Dragon, Cancer: That Dragon, Cancer was arguably the most emotionally touching game of Indiecade. While only about 5-10 minutes of gameplay were available, the story is what makes the game so special. Centering around the true story of developer Ryan Green, whose son has terminal cancer, the story will tug at your heartstrings, providing a truly unique and beautiful experience.

 

10.   Reus: Reus is a 2D-version of the “god” game, which was once a very popular time-killer, but has since fallen out of the limelight of the gaming industry. It has you building up a civilization on a through the use of different Giants, each having their own abilities and benefits. 

 

 

Reach staff writer Andrew Schultz here or follow him on Twitter.