The holidays make for many mixed, complex feelings for many people. So, whether you need escapism, violence, humor, or quiet thoughtfulness, we’ve brought together a list of the best holiday indie games.
Cthulhu Saves Christmas
I love RPGs, but find I rarely have time for them any other time of the year besides the holidays. There, I USUALLY have enough time to really pay attention to them, but even then, I need to hurry. Thankfully, Zeboyd Games excels at distilling the RPG experience into something you can get through quickly, but still in extremely satisfying ways. Loaded with humor, horror, holiday silliness, and some fantastic systems that encourage thoughtful play, and all in a compact package, this one is easily one of the best holiday indie games.
“Given the game’s goofy premise, it’s a ridiculous romp through some fun holiday situations that make it a blast to play. That it’s also created by the same folks who made Cthulhu Saves the World, a game that did wonderful things for turn-based RPGs in how they handle pacing in combat, it’s also a zippy, involved title that puts all of the characters’ abilities to vital use.”
Read our coverage of Cthulhu Saves Christmas.
Krampusnacht
Christmas is always infringing on Halloween, so I think it’s more than fair to bring a little horror into the holidays. Krampusnacht sees you playing a naughty person that Krampus aims to punish, so you have to find the right tools and stay away from it. It’s a brief, but unsettling experience as you explore for items in the silent halls and snowy fields, but one that’s welcome in this season of unrelenting cheer.
“Krampusnacht infuses the holidays with a bit more horror (beyond the usual meetings with certain family members you spend the better part of the rest of the year avoiding). If you need a good scream over something as a break from enforced merriment, it should make for a good old frightful time.”
Read our review of Krampusnacht.
Tall Bagel
Family get togethers where everyone says a lot of passive-aggressive stuff or snippy things about one another seem to be the norm around the holidays. Since they’re often unavoidable, and punching your uncle in the mouth is frowned upon, sometimes you need to take out your annoyances in other ways. Like slapping people with your frog tongue. Or just being weird enough that you disrupt things in ways that make things more fun for you. Why should you be the only miserable person here? I love Tall Bagel for this reason, and thinking about smacking folks with a sticky tongue in mid-conversation has helped me get through a few irritating holiday chats lately.
“Tall Bagel is a brief experience in getting a little petty revenge on these family members by slapping them with your tongue, but it’s endlessly fun to bother these people. I couldn’t play it just once, as it reminded me of every annoying family meal I’d ever been stuck enduring. Except this time I could cause some much needed trouble. It’s surprisingly cathartic to smack family members with a frog tongue, as it turns out.”
Read our review of Tall Bagel.
Planet of Bloodthirsty Santa
Nothing screams holiday cheer like someone screaming because the embodiment of holiday cheer is beating them to death. I think? Santa seems to have a bit of a grudge against visitors here. I’m guessing he doesn’t like being interrupted. This chilling holiday experience takes all of the usual holiday trappings and loads them with menace, which does a good job of capturing the feeling most retails workers get when they see tinsel and lights going up in their workplaces.
“Planet of Bloodthirsty Santa drops a scavenging crew off at a seemingly-abandoned planet. It’s not long before you find a delightful workshop, buildings loaded with gifts, and bright red candy canes. Oh yeah, and a nine foot tall Santa that’s thirsty for blood and hungry for flesh.”
Read or preview of Planet of Bloodthirsty Santa.
Too Many Santas!
You’ve experienced murder Santa, but now it’s time for sexy Santa! Six sexy Santas, in case you really, REALLY like Santa. This ridiculous game gives you an array of Santas to woo as you try to keep a department store intact during the holidays. Depending on how your relationships pan out, there’s a bunch of different endings to your holiday season, each of which is more absurd than the last. The game’s developer, Oh, a Rock! Studios, excels at making absurd, funny games, and you likely need a few laughs right now. And maybe a little romance?
Well, you can get both, here. Finding love with a silly Santa while letting a retail outlet crash and burn? What more could you want from your holidays?
Button City
…well, yeah, I know, it doesn’t have much to do with the holidays. Seems like an odd choice for the best holiday indie games, right? However, as a game about being around strangers and finding new friends through video games, it reminds me of a ton of holiday get-togethers I went to growing up. Places where I felt I didn’t belong, by with a shared interest in games, I made some lasting friendships that I treasure. It’s in finding togetherness through games that I can’t help but feel that this captures my favorite part of the holidays: playing games with the people I love.
“Button City may start off a little lonely, but as you make friends and try to help people, you’ll slowly feel like a part of the town. Well, the part of the town that likes to play arcade games. Those are my kind of people, anyway.”
Read our review of Button City.
Hot Pot for One
The holidays can be a lonely time. Even moreso when your friends decide to cut you loose. This game can be hard on the heart, but while playing it, I can’t help but want to check on friends and loved ones around me. While a difficult experience to watch unfold, emotionally, it did prompt me to do something important in my life that made my holidays a little brighter.
“It’s a slightly sad experience, as you hear other people partying while you put away all of the food you have purchased for your friends, but it’s a good experience, well worth checking out, especially if you are a fan of Christmas or hot pots themselves.”
Read our review of Hot Pot for One.
Haunted PS1 Madvent Calendar 2021
What’s the holidays without some gifts? A whole bunch of them? The Haunted PS1 Madvent Calendar 2021 is a whole collection of neat horror experiences ranging from cute to unsettling to surreal to disturbing, ensuring you’ll definitely find something that matches your sickening holiday tastes.
“Horror is really at its best when it’s surprising and new. When you don’t know what to expect around the corner. It’s even better when you don’t even know what sort of game you’re getting into at all. That’s truly what I love about this collection, as, for the next twenty-four days, you’ll be getting some new adventure in terror. Is it a shooter? A fishing game? Will it be cute? Look scary? Every day, I get to walk into some new horror game without knowing anything about how it plays, what it looks like, or anything about it. I just have to open a door and walk through.”
Read our review of the Haunted PS1 Madvent Calendar 2021.
Wreck the Party: Christmas Edition
Seeing as you’re alive and reading this (although we may have a ghost audience I am unaware of), you’ve likely been subjected to an annoying party or office get-together. Something where you’re just miserable and sitting in a corner, praying for it to end. Or for something exciting to happen instead of having to listen to someone tell the same awful story about fishing or football or the time they got their left testicle caught in a wheat thresher. If only something could just crash the whole party and bring some welcome mayhem.
In Wreck the Party: Christmas Edition, that’s you. You get to fling a fruitcake around a holiday-themed room, just trashing the place with every toss. With lots of nice little effects and the ability to really trash the room, it’s incredibly satisfying to just cut loose and demolish this little holiday party. Terribly cathartic in a time when we all definitely need to express some destructive tendencies safely, and well deserving of its place on our list of the best holiday indie games.
A Christmas Game
A work that is a scathing look at our indifference to the suffering of others. A ruthless look at the religious ecstasy that seems to bind itself to those who are in pain. As if their suffering were some sort of noble experience – a connection to the divine through sorrow and agony – instead of something we should try to fix while we’re here. It makes me boil with rage at the way many religious folks will preach love and forgiveness while using their ‘faith’ to stomp on anyone different than them. That they take some perverse religious pleasure in seeing those folks suffer.
It’s also, somehow, a work about finding something spiritual beyond this place, even at our lowest. That there is something more to this existence than simply keeping our meat vessels running. Beautiful, enraging, and haunting, the time I spent playing it will stick with me for a long, long time. And I can’t think of a better use of the holidays than in finding out how we can do better for the people who need us the most.
Have your own favorite holiday game? Please share it with us so we can broaden our list of best holiday indie games!
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