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There are Indie games that have excuses to look like they do because they also offer more stuff on the table.
There also Indie games that are so bad they do not fit their standards.

Contagion, a spiritual successor to the popular Half Life 2 mod Zombie Panic: Source. One of my favorite mods of all time.

When they people behind the mod announced they were founding their own studio to make a standalone title, I was more than happy to preorder a copy as a show of support. I hated Contangion. I was hoping it would have been a more streamlined version of the largely pvp mod itself, but it's more akin to a slowburn knockoff of L4D, but awful in more ways than I care to describe. While the idea itself isn't unappealing, there's already another HL2 mod No More Room in Hell which is both superior and free.

Interesting question. I've always subconsciously considered indie games a 'safe' place where 'bad' is usually more akin to 'jank'--as in PS2-era, experimental weird-ass game jank--so I can't remember any off the top of my head.

So I looked through my Steam reviews to see if I've ever reviewed one and lo and behold, I found Distance.

Distance is the spiritual successor to Nitronic Rush. A more mature, refined take on the neon cyber funk fest that was Nitronic Rush; and the main way it displays its maturity is by looking at all the fun things Nitronic Rush did and saying "psh, we don't do those kiddy stuff anymore."

The game has a very positive review on Steam, but I played through the campaign and most of the time you're just driving leisurely through massive roads devoid of any real challenge, so I don't get what people found so good about it. Compare that to Nitronic Rush's campaign, which makes you dodge giant saws by a hair's breadth and perform gravity-defying ceiling-riding combos and it just doesn't stand up. On its own: it's pretty boring; compared to Nitronic Rush: good lord.

I don't think I'd call the indie games I've played that I didn't particularly like bad, but rather disappointing.

Teslagrad 2 though I had to put down after like 20 minutes because when I played it I had severe technical issues and slowdown. Even then I'd have probably wound up putting it down anyway since I didn't particularly care for the design of the game, and I actually liked the first Teslagrad.

Two that I've played ended up being not quite as exciting to me in hindsight, though I still found them to respectively be challenging or fun.

One is Disoriented, a game similar to one I saw on Steam Greenlight when that was still a thing. Despite its simple yet challenging gameplay, it didn't turn out as rewarding considering how vanilla it turned out to be; then again, it's only three dollars.

Another is Polarity, which is a game I found looking for more Portal-esque games. It's definitely fun to play, but it's way too short and almost seems unfinished considering how basic the presentation is. It's more expensive than both Portal games (not combined), and I'd say unless you're just dying to find more games with gameplay like that, it's not worth it.

One game I could also include, but I never actually finished it (luckily I bought it for free using Switch gold points) is Toby: The Secret Mine. It said it was a lot like Limbo, but it just was a pale imitation that couldn't get the platforming right.

I had a couple of rpg maker games that I don't really care to remember. If I had to say one notable indie game that was the most disappointing indie I've played (but not necessarily bad), it's got to be Shantae and the Seven Sirens. I just didn't like how that game played over the other games, easily my least favorite in the series.

chronos before the ashes, by a mile.

imagine a soulslike game. now add in a mechanic that causes you to age every time you die, which actually changes how you can grow your stats upon leveling (as you grow older, the magic based stat becomes easier to level while the physical stats become harder, and eventually impossible, to level up).

sounds fun right? now remove literally everything that makes a soulslike game even debatably fun.

less then a dozen weapons, exactly 3 shields (one that's good at blocking/bad at parrying, one that's bad at blocking/good at parrying, and one that's in the middle). no armor, and the "magic" is either useless or busted (fire effect is usable, lightning is useless, light is pretty good, just use the fucking shadow effect you'll never die again unless you're monumentally stupid).

the game is also easy as piss, even taking into account that your healing doesn't replenish (well, except for the shadow effect. remember how i mentioned it was busted?) and enemies don't respawn until you die, there is no resting mechanic.

and if you want to level grind to max all your stats out? fuck you, there is exactly o n e e n e m y that is even remotely useful for that, and that's only because that bastard summons the same basic enemy over, and over, and over again. oh and by the way double fuck you, the level cap is 70 so you can't even max all your stats.

it's one of the few games i legitimately DESPISE

It's really hard for me to hate indie projects the same way one could hate big-budget films or games.

Being incompetent or not having enough money is just things that happen, they devs have to outright cheat, lie or be outright evil themselves. So, I'd nominate every Kickstarter game where the creators cut and run.

Starforge

I remember being a kid at the time, looking at this game and being impressed at the idea of a Halo Minecraft fusion.

I did play it when it came out but I never got hooked on to it due to just three major issues I found while playing. Building was never precise and was really finicky, combat was felt underwhelming like firing nerf guns with zero feedback, and overall poor optimization.

The game was supposed to have updates would so I assumed that it would all be fixed by then but the devs never really did, so I left it there rotting in my Steam library for years. Until 2017, you can no longer buy the game on Steam. I even lost access to it.

Darkest Dungeon 2, instead of innovating they decide to do a rouge-lite that actively PUNISHES you for having a diverse build.

Congrats, their is a reason why Darkest Dungeon 1 has more players, about three times as much lol

There's this game for the Wii U called "The Letter" I grabbed long ago because it was only 50 cents and I was like "fuck it, might as well see if it's as bad as everyone says." It is. it's basically no different from a "Unity asset flip" game you can find on Steam with bland visuals, barely anything interesting in either the gameplay or story, and the cherry on top is there's no way to turn off inverted camera controls.

Lol you just got dear esthered

It's really hard to say what's my worst indie game I ever play, let alone actually play any of the bad games on my library. All the ones that interest me that I got the chance to play, I genuinely enjoyed my time with. So instead of talking about a worst indie game, I'll just talk about a really good indie game that gone far fucking worse. RISK OF RAIN 2

for those who don't know, the creator of Risk of Rain series sell his franchise to GearBox.

Graven, i know it's a fantasy FPS but come on, most weapons a all crossbows, going melee is not worth it and i was expecting something more along the lines of Hexxen games.

It's hard to tell what's the worst indie game I've played is. Is it a bad Newgrounds flash game, something that's quickly whipped up together or a bad fully commercial title?

It can be anything you mentioned

As for not completely Newgrounds but still Indie…
Something that left the bad aftertaste…I'd say Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP.

It has great soundtrack, its spritework is nice (though some non-sprite art does clash hard with it) as well.

However, is gameplay drags on and I feel sometimes feel like I'm doing fetch quests.

But the worst about it is how pretentious it feels. Its writing seems to try to be serious while trying the very modern and hip. And the way it uses the Twitter integration to advertise itself rubs me the wrong way. It's hard to explain.