Back on the sort-of listicles this week while I get some stuff played for some of the newsletters I've got in the pipeline. This time around I've picked out my top ten favourite games by publisher Devolver Digital, who are on a ridiculous hot streak at the minute. They just don't miss and, on the few times where they have, there's usually been a patch that means a few months down the line they no longer miss. Here's my top ten games from the king of the indies.

The Devolver Digital List: 2022 Edition

10 - Ape Out

This one has a bit of a personal attachment to me because, when working for the Loading Bar venues in London, we hosted the launch party for this game, where a live drummer played along with people as they played the game on a big screen. It worked remarkably well and was a proper one-off event, something that has always stuck with me whenever I think about this game.

The game itself is a violent, chaotic rampage where you play as a gorilla, smashing his way through levels packed with enemies. It's similar to Hotline Miami, in that your goal is to kill your way to an exit and the penalty for death is minimal, keeping you right in that sweet spot for focused, intense action. While Hotline Miami uses hard techno to keep a constant rhythm for the murder, Ape Out opts for jazz, which by its very nature is more chaotic, more freeform - which fits perfectly with the way that you have to play to get through these gauntlets. You're a gorilla, after all, so there's no guns or melee weapons to use here. It's just you and your big gorilla fists, so you're always going to have to get in close and this, sometimes, requires a bit of luck as well as skill. The drumming ramps up in intensity to match your movements, allowing you to almost soundtrack your destructive path. A fantastic game and one, for my money, is a bit underappreciated.

9 - Boomerang X

Another one that I feel fell through the gap a little. It came out in early July 2021 and there wasn't much else around it but yet there was very little fanfare. It's a fast-paced FPS game built around a brilliant weapon that resembles the Glaive from Krull, a big spiky disc that you can chuck out and recall at any point. The real genius, however, is that you can call yourself to the disc at any point too, so there's this constant momentum of killing enemies then throwing the disc to reposition yourself, sometimes in the same instant. At first it is a touch disorientating but once you've got the hang of it, it feels an almost natural way of manoeuvring around the arenas.

Once you've got those basics down, Boomerang X just throws things at you that force you to constantly rethink the way you use those basics. Enemies that can only be hit from one side. Some that track you with their fire so you have to keep moving until they're deal with. Some that can affect the arena in a specific way so you need to keep that in the back of your mind. Constant movement, constant attacking and constant threat acquisition means you can only rest when you clear an arena. It's a game that has such a simple concept but squeezes every last drop of quality out of it, doesn't outstay its welcome and fucks off in around three hours - partly leaving you wanting more but also making you feel like you got everything you could have done out of that concept. Nothing wasted.

8 - Card Shark

A recent entry into the list, Card Shark is a game that I spoke about a couple of weeks ago, so you can read that here. To keep it brief, it looks and sounds fantastic and does that rarest of things - makes you feel like your simple controller interactions are perfectly tied to the actions in the game. As the stakes get higher, tension rises and the scams get more and more complex, forcing you to keep your nerve and remember each step. It's part puzzler, part rhythm game and is quite brilliant.

7 - Weird West

Another recent entry! I started playing Weird West upon its initial release after hearing it was a bit like classic Fallout but then seeing footage that implied it had a bit more of an action game/twin stick shooter element to the combat. Unfortunately, my expectation clouded my opinion of the game when, after hitting the first major combat encounter and finding the controls to be a little rough, not really knowing whether they want to offer you tactical choice or fast and loose freedom to shoot at will, I bounced off it hard. A real shame, because the dark fantasy meets the wild west setting is one I wanted to see more of.

Anyway, they've since patched the game to add sliders to the combat so you can tweak it to your liking. I've now make time slow right down when I'm aiming and made the targeting a bit more generous, so it feels a bit more like a tactical, real time version of classic Fallout's combat and it works so, so well. With this major issue now completely gone from the game, all of the stuff that Weird West DOES do well has been allowed to take the spotlight. A unique setting with an intriguing plot that ties five seemingly random and extremely strange characters together. A real freedom of choice, with the game allowing you to tackle things with violence or attempt non-violent solutions. Actually good writing. It even allows you to off main quest characters and still tries to carry on regardless. I'm so glad I came back to this one and even more glad that the tweaks to the combat allowed me a way into this brilliant world. This one COULD climb a place or two after I finish it...

6 - Stories Untold

Hard to talk about this one without spoiling it as it is very, very narrative heavy, so this is another I'll keep brief. Stories Untold is a series of short tales that require you to do a bit of puzzle solving to progress their narrative and slowly see how they all connect together. Each one has its own vibe and, although this definitely pitches itself as a horror title, it is a game that relies on atmosphere and the player's own interpretation of the events to create the horror, rather than anything explicitly seen within the game. Your mileage is going to vary with this one depending on whether the story grips you and whether the 80s/Stranger Things vibe clicks but for me, it got me right by the scruff of my neck and I finished it in two sittings. More actually good writing here, too! Give this lot Silent Hill!

5 - Katana Zero

The reasons I like this game a lot are very similar to the reasons I like Hotline Miami (which, spoilers, we'll get onto in a bit) - its fast, hard, intense action that requires you to stay proper focused on the task in hard while some solid synthwave music plays to help zero you in. There's little punishment for death and you go again immediately when you do die. There's two brilliant thing about Katana Zero that tie together in the narrative to give them an little bit extra. First of all, you can slow down time, because the main character, Zero, can see combat situations play out faster than anyone else can. He can also predict the future, which is where the second mechanic comes in. It's not one you use when playing the game, but is a narrative device - your constant deaths and figuring out how to beat a level are framed as Zero planning his attack and you're rewarded with the whole thing playing out in real time when he finally 'executes' what you've just managed to do.

The whole thing is framed around Zero receiving counselling, talking with his psychiatrist about his fragmented past which eventually begins to catch up with him and is a surprisingly engaging tale, told really well. It's paced perfectly and the interactions you have with the characters that affect the story's progression are meaningful and handled in a really cool way. As you talk with someone, a bar begins to decrease. You can just straight up cut them off by leaving while it is still depleting and the way you handle these interactions allows for some quite unexpected moments throughout. Honestly, the only reason this one isn't higher is because Hotline Miami exists and for my money does everything this does better but despite that, Katana Zero is still a very, very good game and almost feels like the true sequel, in many ways.

4 - Reigns

A perfect idea, perfectly executed. Reigns is a simple card game that uses the Tinder control method - you either swipe these cards left or right depending on whether you want to say yes or no to them. From this, you begin your life as King or Queen of a kingdom, with every decision coming down to you swiping left or right on them. It starts off fairly fun, light and breezy but quickly ramps things up to some tough decisions that some parties might not take kindly to. This is where the strategic balancing act comes in, with you trying to keep multiple groups with different needs and wants happy, lest they drag you out of your throne room and beat you to death in the streets, or even poison your wine when you least expect it.

Another thing I love about Reigns is how each 'go' is the descendant of the previous monarch, creating a really cool high score board that is basically a timeline of all your previous runs. Eventually, you'll start to see the cards repeat (although this does take quite a while, believe me) and at that point Reigns starts to run its cause, but there's a sequel and a Game of Thrones branded one that are both well worth a go too. This game lived on my phone for a solid two years. I've probably played it more than a few games I consider some of my all-time favourites.

3 - Ruiner

A brutally difficult twin stick shooter that requires you to tweak your abilities and ensure that your build is the right one for you and the situation you find yourself in. There's a whole load of different skills and abilities to help swing the firefights in your favour and you can reset all your points spent whenever you want, allowing you freedom of how you approach them. Mastery of build creation is just as important as mastery of movement and mastery of combat and when all three of them are in harmony, you will feel indestructible - a feeling that is amplified by how challenging the game is and how crushing it can be when you're struggling. Being in the sweet spot in Ruiner, when everything is working in your favour, is a great feeling.

What elevates a very good twin stick shooter into something quite special is all of the stuff that sits around this core of combat. The aesthetic is Akira meets Blade Runner meets A Scanner Darkly, a dark Cyberpunk future city that draws you in and makes you wish you could explore all of the nooks and crannies. The soundtrack is absolutely incredible too and how they managed to get legendary Japanese composer Susumu Hirasawa onboard is anyone's guess. Your enjoyment of this one is definitely going to be affected by how you react when a game is happy to just chew you up and spit you out if you're playing sloppy but for me, the combination of the rock solid combat, excellent world building and perfectly pitched cyberpunk aesthetic really resonated with me.

2 - Inscryption

I don't like deck builder games. I didn't like Inscryption. I persevered with it because I loved the vibe and loved Pony Island (a previous game by dev, Daniel Mullins), but I found the first hour or so really slow. Like, being awful at the card stuff felt like it was actively preventing me from getting into the other, more interesting aspects of the game. Turns out, this was all part of the plan. Slowly but surely Inscryption begins to reveal itself and, in the process of doing so, masterfully teaches you the rules of the card game that make up the backbone of it and, crucially, how to break them.

Simply put, the only games that got me thinking about them when I wasn't playing them like I was with Inscryption are the From Software Soulsborne games. Just going over the possibilities of what I was going to do in my next session in my head until I finally got to sit down with it again. The highest of praise. It is a game that is better the less you know about it, so that's all you're getting. Even knowing it is a deck builder is too much.

1 - Hotline Miami

The game that made Devolver Digital a few quid and probably put them on the path to where they are to this day and with good reason - its a fucking masterpiece. You all know the score by now, you have a series of areas full of people who need killing and its your job to dispatch them. How you do it, is up to you. Are you going to go in and grab the first gun you can get and shoot anything that moves? What about switching weapon with every kill? Just use your hands, get up close and personal? A single hit will kill you, so you're always a split second from death, so you've got to be hyper focused on the murderous path of destruction you're on. You're egged on by a soundtrack of techno bangers, the repetitive, aggressive beat pushing you onwards. If you do die, it doesn't matter - you hit R, start again immediately, the song doesn't even stop playing and you're back at it. This low penalty for death not only creates this proper "one more go" compulsion when it comes to beating the level but also encourages you to experiment or make risky decisions - what's the worst that could happen? Very little!

It's garish and unappealing but also effortlessly cool, with a plot that leaves as many questions as it answers, almost as a sarcastic anti-narrative fuck you. This is a game about killing people. This is the most videogame videogame of all. Your targets start off as threats that could end your life as quick as you could end theirs but before long, they're simply things you need to hit to get your high score higher. That's where another part of Hotline Miami's genius lies - the ability to change mask to fit your playstyle, giving you a little buff in an area that with either emphasise a strength or cover for a weakness in your technique and help you bump your way up the online leaderboards. You can look into the backstory of Cold War conspiracy if you want but also, you can treat it like Robotron and make those numbers go higher. It says a lot with so few words but also, it doesn't really matter what those words say at all.

Hotline Miami is one of my favourite videogames of all-time. It's not just top of a Devolver specific list but easily in my top ten games FULL STOP.

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