Top 10 Best Games for Under 10 Bucks!

Rewind nearly a decade and you’ll find this indie gem. A puzzle platformer that has you playing with time itself to solve it’s many puzzles - the concept will hook you, but it’s the narrative and unique style that makes it truly special. A benchmark in the indie game scene, Braid broke several records and won numerous awards – and it also inspired many other game developers to try their hands in the world of indie games. The gameplay is fairly straightforward, as you collect puzzle pieces to unlock new areas and save the princess, but with a few narrative twists that keep you guessing.

Making a game is no easy feat, but thanks to third party software, it has opened up new opportunities for up-and-comers. One such example is a small indie game by the name of To The Moon, which was build on the RPG Maker XP engine. Acting more as an interactive story than a traditional RPG, but that didn’t stop this little title from finding an audience. With a very powerful narrative and soundtrack to help capitalize on the emotional storytelling, it grew to become a smash hit - and helped to demonstrate the possibilities of video games as a storytelling medium.

How do you get out of a sticky situation; create… another one? Helping to pave the way and provide indie games a fighting chance on Nintendo consoles -World of Goo offered a simplistic, yet in-depth puzzle building game. Using gooey creatures, you must create contraptions to help get across various forms of terrain. The game is incredibly addictive as you make your way through the many engaging puzzles that are thrown at you, making it easy to pick up and play, but difficult to master. Relaxing gameplay, mixed with silly visuals offers a nice casual experience whether you’re looking for something to play on the go or on your couch.

Sometimes less is more, as is the case with Limbo. Minimalist art-style, with a black and white color scheme helps to fuel the game’s dark, oppressive, and isolated tone. A desperate search for his sister takes a boy to the edge of hell, where he navigates through rotted forests, to crumbling city landscapes in an attempt to find her. The monochromatic visuals and ambient music prey upon the lonely and lost feelings of this puzzle-platformer -with an unspoken narrative to help push the emotional impact.

Thanks to a magical fez, the little adventurer obtains the ability to manipulate that angled of his 2D world, allowing him to see it for what it really is. By using the newfound headwear, you can turn the world at a 90-degree angle, giving new perspectives, and allowing you to solve platforming puzzles. While it may seem simplistic at first, the game offers tougher platforming challenges as you progress through this meticulously designed world. Colourful, mysterious, and unique, Fez has something for everyone.

You can’t keep one of the grandfathers of gaming down, no matter how many ghosts you throw at him. Still munching pellets over three decades later, the Championship Edition series had not only helped to bring the yellow ball back to the forefront, but introduce new ideas to the classic game. New game modes like time trial and score attack add variety to the game, while the booming soundtrack and rainbow-filled visuals will keep your eyes dancing across the screen as you munch away at those pellets and deal with those pesky ghosts.

Here’s the thing: we’re probably not going to get a Half-Life 3 any time soon. Lucky for us, the second instalment in this series still holds up over a decade after its release. Spanning across a wide variety of environments, from dystopian metropolises, to abandoned towns with infected, zombie-like creatures roaming the streets, you’ll need all your science know-how -and surprising proficiency with weapons- to try and save the world. While the visuals are certainly dated, the game’s combination of excellent storytelling and action packed FPS gameplay still make this game a must-have gaming experience.

Some games are difficult because of their incredibly hard-to-kill monsters or brain-testing puzzles, and others are difficult because of the emotional strain they put on each decision you are forced to make. Papers, Please is an example of the latter. As an immigrations inspector for the fictional country of Arstotzka, you are forced to screen would-be immigrants and returning citizens, and make enough money to provide for your family. These two goals are constantly in conflict, as bribes, quotas, and other factors make each acceptance or denial carry emotional weight.

We’ve piloted starships in games before, but nothing quite like this. Taking a much slower-paced, more tactical approach to spacefaring, you find yourself racing to the other side of the universe in an attempt to stop the growing rebel threat, and it’s up to you to prepare your ship and crew for the impending battle. Resource and crew management, procedurally generated encounters and paths, and a rogue-like permadeath system make for a very challenging, but very fun sci-fi strategy game.

Drama, adventure… dogs in giant suits of armor? Undertale is notably a very strange game, yet when it quietly released in 2015, it soon skyrocketed to the top of the sales charts -gaining fame and fortune, all without having to kill a single thing – unless you want to, that is. A nod to both old-school adventure games -specifically the Mother/Earthbound series, it allowed players to choose whether or not to spare or fight their adversaries. A tear-jerking story, with clever gameplay mechanics made for an unstoppable indie juggernaut, and you wouldn’t need to grind out dog residue to afford.