Indie slop. I'm at the point now where I honestly hate indie games more than AAA ones. At least AAA devs have the excuse that they're working for a corporation and don't always have creative control. But indie games are supposed to be different! Those devs literally have absolute creative control and yet they produce the most creatively bankrupt crap ever.
Almost all indie games have one or several of these tropes in them:
- Monochrome or duochrome "high contrast" color palette. AKA the entire game never has more than 2 colors on screen at a time.
- "Retro" pixel art nostagiabait aesthetic.
- Design centered around a core gimmick in an attempt to "differentiate" itself from the games it's blatantly copying. "It's like X game with Y!"
- Story about "depression".
- Brown "people".
- You play as an animal.
- You're the only human in a world of non humans/animals.
- Is a rougelike.
- Is a metroidvania.
- "Customizable difficulty" AKA you can make the game as easy as you want if you're a game journo.
- Your character uses something that's not meant to be a weapon as a weapon.
- You can pet the dog.
- Reddit beanmouth artstyle.
- Is a streamerslop "wacky" simulator game.
- Is friendslop.
Among many others.
Every time I see any of these tropes in a game I immediately lose all interest. Indie "devs" shouldn't be allowed to make video games.