I'm talking about games, not actual precious stones, of course . There have been quite a few very positive surprises over the past couple of years when I've blindly bought a game and discovered a while later when I've actually gotten the time to try it out that it's absolutely awesome. The indie ocean is large and ripe with obscure gems, which is why I hereby throw in my lure and hope to catch some more! Please tell us about your favorites, what makes them special and briefly describe why you like them!

My very recent discovery is Deadlight - a post-apocalyptic platformer where you have to solve (admittedly rather easy) puzzles and avoid/fight off zombies called Shadows while navigating the world with pretty cool parkour abilities. It's a mixture of the original Prince Of Persia, Limbo and the zombie survival genre. While Deadlight's interface can occasionally lag, the game itself lends itself to a very enjoyable set of controls. You don't really have too much variety in terms of how you solve something or how you navigate the level and this makes it perhaps a little bit linear, but moving around the world of Deadlight is a joy. The most impressive part of this game is the semi-interactive 3D world that functions as a backdrop. It's absolutely massive and given the speed at which you navigate through the game, it literally feels like one of the largest most visually stunning games I've ever played. If I had one major complaint about Deadlight, then it's that while it has adequately frequent checkpoints that you can restart from when you die, it saves the game permanently at much sparser intervals and it never explicitly tells you when - so if you're not careful when you quit and continue playing later, you may have to re-play a portion of a chapter that you've already beat.

I'm not a fan of platformers, but this little Finnish puzzle game, The Swapper, absolutely blew my mind. The Swapper may seem like yet another spinoff of VVVVVV and a strange mutation of Quantum Conundrum - except that instead of time or other dimensions, you control up to four copies of yourself that follow every move you make precisely. The VVVVVV part comes in when you discover that upon walking across certain platforms you and your copies experience a gravitational flip. The Swapper also introduces a very simple yet visually clear puzzle mechanic: different types of lights affect how you can use your swapper gun. The game has very few controls (differently from Deadlight, which includes quite a few, plus various combinations to perform different parkour stunts), yet it manages to confront you with very neatly balanced puzzles that on several occasions far surpass riddles found in most games. For instance, I found myself pondering solutions to a couple of The Swapper's puzzles for several days while Portal and Portal 2 largely felt like move-look-around-shoot-advance experiences. In addition to the wonderful gameplay and good mental exercise, I recommend The Swapper for its absolutely, almost ridiculously good atmosphere and soundtrack.

I never got into Minecraft and I've never been into the Sims-style build-a-house-and-make-it-pretty thing. I also don't really have the time or patience to create large contraptions for little to no reason. So when me and my friend finally came across Terraria and tried it for a few hours, I found myself hooked. I can't really compare Minecraft and Terraria as I haven't played the former, but as far as I can tell, Terraria is strongly inspired from Minecraft, but builds on top of it a great deal. You have NPCs, shops, special areas (like a dungeon, hell and an underground jungle) and you also have bosses that you can beat to advance the game. Most notably, you can beat a giant world boss called Wall Of Flesh to advance the entire game from normal mode to Hardmode, which essentially resets all the monsters in the game world to their stronger counterparts and introduces several new ores/building materials. You can still enjoy the sandbox home-building game style, but differently from Minecraft, Terraria provides you with loose objectives and it's all in retro 2D, which in many ways makes so much more sense. In short, it's difficult to pinpoint precisely why Terraria is so great, but ultimately it's just fun - especially if you have a friend or two to take along for the ride.

If platformers haven't necessarily been my cup of tea in the past, then top-down shooters - especially ones featuring zombies - are a weakness of mine. Among others, I was a fan of Crimsonland way back when it was released more than a decade ago, but the truth is that the game hardly ever got me and my friends sucked in the way other session-based games of yore did, like Worms United or Trackmania Sunrise, which we used to play in alternation in hotseat mode. Then came Left 4 Dead 2, which stole my heart for literally hundreds of hours and proved conclusively that there really is nothing that can beat a well-balanced multiplayer zombie shooter. While L4D2 is very much a strategy-based FPS, this little top down shooter called Nation Red is a direct throwback to the times of Crimsonland. Except that it far surpasses Crimsonland pretty much in every respect. It has coop multiplayer, a very similar yet much more extensive perk system and it feels visually much more complete what with actual obstacles and its 3D art style. Nation Red is a straight-up session-based shooter. No story. Not much strategy (albeit some naturally emerges from your choice of perks and the Barricade gameplay mode that introduces things like turrets). With just guns and a lot of carnage, Nation Red is supposed to be fun. And fun is one thing that it definitely is..

My bonus suggestion goes to a completely obscure little DOS gem called Quadnet, one of the most frustratingly addictive short-session games I've ever played - especially if you have a friend with whom to compete for high score. If you're a master of somatosensory coordination and can bother to do more Googling than I did, then there's a version of the game out there called Quadrot, which is very much the same game, but in which the game field is perpetually spinning. And that will really mess with your senses.

Watch the gameplay video below and then download it here.

Enjoy and tells us what are your recent and not so recent discoveries?

If there's one I feel that I must mention it's "An Untitled Story" by Matt Makes Games. That game perfectly captures my idea of what magic can happen when a person is able to realize their vision. A cute main character, lots to explore, challenging at times, unified and unique. I could really say so much more. The graphics aren't maybe what you would call AAA but they work just marvelously in this game. I found it impossible to put down and envious of the creator by the fact that the game is so complete and it never strays from its original goal. And it's not that violent. And it's free. Okay, I better stop thinking about the game or I'll never stop saying good things about it.

Just Cause 2..found about it trough someone mentioning avalanche studios in a post here on gamedev.

maybe better than GTA (ok, I didnt played gta V yet)

The map is humongous, the gameplay is awesome:

- grappling hook that can hook you to anything solid in the game (so imagine batman games without fixed grappling hook locations);

- infinite parachute, using the hook you can propel urslef and open the parachute for insta flight (yeah, not realistic...who gives a fuck);

- the map is ridiculously enormously huge;

- in gta games, piloting aerial vehicles sucked balls cause due LOD you couldnt shoot things from far, shoots would vanish before hit anything, plus you wouldnt see anything either,

this game handle this MUCH better;

- in gta games, finding 'cool' vehicles is a miracle, or you use cheats.. this games is full of military bases, and airports, so getting military vehicles or planes is normal;

You see, the place is sorta like Cuba (not that I know Cuba, that was probably racist, >.> the way I imagine Cuba), so its military owned full of the evil armys bases and rebels.

- It doesnt have much variety of cars or weapons. (the country is poor so mostly cars are shit). like when in gta you find this super cool car and go steal it, thats not much the point of the game, "owning stuff". Its more for the insta fun, gameplay focused.

The map man..the map..is huge.