On September 9, 2015, Microsoft announced that the Xbox Live Indie Games or XBLIG program would cease to exist sometime in September 2017. At that time, they did not provide an exact date. This prompted me to hurriedly buy a few indie games before the end of July.
When September arrived and the XBLIG section was still up, I bought a couple more games before what I thought was the next deadline, which was Monday, September 4 since Xbox sales change after that day of the week. When that date passed with XBLIG still available, I bought still more games before the next prospective deadline, September 9, but the indie section was still available afterwards.
Again, I bought even more games before Monday, September 11 before Microsoft finally and officially announced on September 12 that Xbox Live Indie Games would close forever on September 29, 2017. This ended my hurried buying of indie games and allowed me to explore and study which indie games to further add to my collection.
More than 90% of the XBLIG games that I bought or plan to buy are $1 games. I don't plan on buying any $5 indie games. For $5, I can buy many used popular triple-A games. There are even some used triple-A games that can be bought for less than $3.
I believe that plenty of $1 indie games are worth more than the price they charge for because they provide fun you cannot find anywhere or can't find at all at that price. The important word is fun and there are many XBLIG games that provide that at $1.
At the price of $3, I have to be more picky at choosing indie games. This is primarily because, for $3 I could buy 3 indie games for a dollar each. So one game must be worth more than three.
This list then presents my choices for the $3 Xbox Live Indie Games that are worth more than three other $1 XBLIG games that were left off of my complete list. Here are 12 of my top $3 Xbox Live Indie Games.
1. Press X to Not Die - A good and funny FMV game. I love FMV games. Good and lengthy FMV games are hard to find nowadays and this is one of the best FMV indie games on any platform. This game was one of my first choices.
2. One Finger Death Match - A game where you fight waves of enemies on your left and right with either the X or B buttons. This honestly surprised me with its incredible fun gameplay despite its simple mechanics and concept. This game was one of my first choices.
3. Unholy Heights - This game presents a unique blend of tower defense and management sim. I love tower defense games and management sims. This is the highest rated tower defense game on XBLIG. It is rated even higher than the $5 Sol Survivor which is a traditional tower defense game. Unholy Heights was among my second batch of choices.
4. Magicians and Looters - Described as a metroidvania platformer. I love those types of games. This is one of the highest rated platformer games on XBLIG and one of the few metroidvania platformers, Magicians and Looters was in my second batch of choices.
5. Blood and Bacon - A first-person wave shooter. You try to kill waves of monstrous pigs. One of the best looking games on the service. This is the only FPS game on XBLIG that makes shooting massive numbers of enemies feel so satisfying and enjoyable. Other FPS games, particularly zombie games, make shooting such a chore. Maybe its because of the infinite ammo of this game. You don't have to manage your ammo usage. This game was among my second batch of choices.
6. Bleed - This game is a platformer-shooter. I'm not a big fan of this genre but its shooting has twin-stick mechanics and I love twin-stick shooters. The main reason I included this was that it was a consensus critical selection of almost all indie game reviewers and it was fun. This was in my third batch of indie games.
7. Blocks that Matter - A puzzle platformer game, more of puzzle than platformer. I love games like these. One of the highest rated puzzle platformers on the service. I included this in my fifth batch of selected games.
8. Gateways! - Another puzzle platformer but more platformer than Blocks that Matter. Also one of the highest rated puzzle platformers. Also included in the fifth batch of games chosen.
9. Total Miner: Forge - One of the highest rated Minecraft clones on the service but offers more than the other top rated clones. For one thing, it is the only top rated clone to offer four-player local multiplayer. Its gameplay is also modeled after one of the highest rated games on XBLIG, Miner Dig Deep. This game also offers zombies and survival mode. Selected in my sixth batch of games.
10. Diehard Dungeon - A roguelike action-RPG dungeon crawler. Roguelikes are my primary passion. Although I already had a couple of $1 roguelikes, I just had to include this, one of the highest rated roguelikes on the service. This was in my seventh batch of chosen games.
11. Aqua Kitty - A very good-looking Defender type shooter. It has good mechanics and plays well. It offers a campaign. I really like shmups and this was among the best-looking of them. I haven't bought this game at this time but is in my thirteenth batch of games on my list.
12. Avatar Legends 2360 - This is a third-person shooter science-fiction RPG. It offers an 18 mission campaign and you can build your own campaign and missions so it offers infinite replayability for solo players aside from its online multiplayer. Its graphics surpass almost all of the first-person and third-person shooters on XBLIG. It plays better than most of them as well. Even though it is an adventure RPG game, it would rank as one of the best person shooters, whether first or third, on the service. I haven't bought it yet but it's in my fifteenth batch of games I selected.
13. Odyssey 3011 - A space-combat and trading game much like Elite and Privateer. One of the very few games of that type on XBLIG. This genre is one of my favorite types. This game is the best of the few of this genre on the service. I haven't bought Odyssey 3011 yet but it is on my fifteenth batch of selected games.
Part 2 of my farewell to Xbox Live Indie Games has been posted. It is a list of sites that list the top or recommended XBLIG games. I'll see if I can still make a list of the indie games I bought in another post before the shutdown of the service.
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