Each year more and more great indie games are released. While the triple-A market is spending millions and millions on creating the next Dark Souls, Fortnite, or Call of Duty clone, the indie scene is constantly bringing something new and creative to the table.

2019 was a great year for indie games and saw some fantastic releases that will be talked about for some time. The scene is growing more and more, creating tribute games and many fresh and inventive experiences. Now that 2019 is over and done with, here are 10 of the best indie games that came out last year.

10 Amid Evil

Amid Evil is one of the many retro shooters that have come out as of late that take inspiration from old Apogee and id Software shooters of the ‘90s like Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Blood, and Doom. Amid Evil takes a lot of its inspiration from the Raven Software developed Hexen and Heretic games which came out in the mid-90s.

The game has a dark fantasy setting with magical weapons as opposed to the more traditional firearms found in many other first-person-shooters. The weapons in the game include an axe and six other ranged weapons that all need one of four types of mana to use.

9 Risk of Rain 2

While Risk of Rain 2 isn’t officially out, the beta launched last year and got everyone who tried it very excited for its August 2020 release. Risk of Rain 2 is a third-person rouge-like that allows you and three friends to traverse one of the game’s levels together.

In each level there is a teleporter that generates in a random spot - you must activate the teleporter and wait for it to open, during that time waves of enemies will spawn and attack you. You must survive through all of the enemies and the bosses until the teleporter is open before you can proceed to the following level.

8 TimeSpinner

While it seems that there is an endless supply of Metroidvanias with pixel art aesthetic to the pint of saturation, TimeSpinner stands out among them. As the name of the game implies, you are capable of controlling time which you can use to help you with platforming or avoiding enemies.

Just by looking at the screenshot, it is clear that TimeSpinner is very much an homage to Konami’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Just like the game, TimeSpinner takes its inspiration from, you must find different abilities throughout the game that will allow you to access areas that you previously couldn’t enter.

7 Void Bastards

Void Bastard is a rouge-like first-person-shooter with a very colorful cel-shaded art style that takes a lot of its inspiration from both System Shock and Bioshock. On top of the first-person-action, the game also has survival elements as you must salvage materials from spaceships and use them to repair your own ship.

Each area in Void Bastards is randomly generated and when you die you lose all of your ammunition, food, and fuel but retain all of your gadget upgrades, weapons, and any of the objective progress you had made.

6 Outer Wilds

Rather than having the story as the background and seemingly an afterthought, Out Wilds’ main goal is to have you slowly uncover its world and lore through puzzles and exploration. You are stuck in a time loop and must uncover the secrets of an ancient civilization to move time forward.

Instead of collecting gear or power-ups, you instead collect information. This information is used to point you in the direction of another clue that slowly uncovers more about the ancient civilization that has left all of the technology and architecture you run into throughout your playthrough.

5 My Friend Pedro

My Friend Pedro is a fast-paced run and gun with some odd physics which dictate how you and your enemies move. It is an incredibly arcadey experience that rewards long combos and avoiding enemy bullets.

Like F.E.A.R. and Max Payne before it, My Friend Pedro offers bullet time, meaning you can slow down time mid-action to take out as many enemies are you can before they have a chance to fire at you. You can flip into room or dive into a group of enemies, slow down time, and take them all out before they can even point their guns at you.

4 What the Golf

What looks like a typical golf game with some very unique and colorful graphics quickly becomes much more as you are tasked with sinking just about any object into a hole. In What the Golf, you have the ability to choose where you are going to hit whatever random object the current stage is offering and how hard to hit it.

The fun comes from actually attempting to do it with all of the obstacles and physics standing in your way. This is filled with humorous gameplay with some levels having you using a poor human as a golf ball, among other odd objects.

3 Cadence of Hyrule

Exclusive to the Nintendo Switch, Cadence of Hyrule takes the gameplay established in Crypt of the Necrodancer and brings it into the world of Hyrule. You play as Link from The Legend of Zelda and must move and attack all in time with the beat song playing in the background which also comes from the legendary series.

While it may seem like a simple reskin of Crypt of the Necrodancer, Cadence of Hyrule offers many of the same things you’ll find in The Legend of Zelda like collecting items, fighting familiar enemies and running around in a world not too different from the one found in A Link to the Past.

2 Blazing Chrome

The run and gun genre is nowhere near as popular as it once was with even the indie scene has barely given the genre any love. While there is the amazing Cuphead, there is still a lot of untapped inspiration from the genre that could be used for indie games of today.

Blazing Chrome looks to change all of that. Blazing Chrome looks strikingly similar to Contra Hard Corp on the Genesis and that is in no way a knock on it. The fast pace action delivered by Blazing Chrome is reminiscent of other great games of the genre like Gunstar Heroes, Contra 3: The Aliens Wars, and the Metal Slug series.

1 Untitled Goose Game

While technically a game, Untitled Goose Game is more of a pester simulator. As a nameless goose, you go around town causing juvenile havoc to many of the civilians by doing things like stealing their glasses, squawking at them, or just vandalizing property by messing up someone’s fruit stand.

Each task for bothering the townsfolk is given to you before you start and you must complete them all to proceed. This is a great example of the odd ideas that can come out of the indie scene that also just work for some reason.

NEXT: 10 Indie Games On The Switch Animal Crossing Fans Will Love