It was designed to be the YouTube for games – and Microsoft’s Indie platform has delivered on that promise in spirit, if not in numbers. Powered by the stripped-back development framework XNA, the Indie Games menu on the 360 dash has been steadily filling up with homebrew since its launch in late 2008, and now has over 800 titles available. And, as with any trawl through YouTube, in among the oddball offerings – amid the clones, the cranks and the outright botches – you’ll find topical games, parody games and games built around internet memes.

You’ll also find a handful of genuine crackers. While the Indie Games store is in desperate need of intelligent curatorship, separating the service’s hidden gems from the ugly blunders and Avatar-powered cash-ins, there are now more than enough interesting titles on offer to justify a few hours’ mindless browsing. Certainly, at their worst, Indie Games are crash-prone messes with indecipherable controls, but at their best they can offer the kind of experiences you can’t easily squeeze through a traditional publishing deal: a singular vision; a mechanic or setting that pays no lip-service to the desires of the general marketplace.

Developers continue to complain of low sales, poor visibility and a healthy chunk of the profits going to the platform holder, but that hasn’t kept the best of them from their keyboards. And ultimately, although it’s far from perfect, Microsoft’s initiative has been genuinely revolutionary. Putting aside fertile niches like Sony’s Net Yaroze project, for the first time in 30 years of videogame history, amateur designers of all levels of ability have the opportunity to see their ideas flicker and fizz on consoles around the world. Here are 20 titles that deserve recognition.

 
Ancient Trader
Developer: Fourkidsgames
Price: 240MP


One of the more mature and refined Indie Games seen so far, Fourkidsgames’ nautical turn-based strategy offering sees you exploring parchment seas and facing off against all manner of illustrated marine villainy as you trade precious commodities and engage in a series of pacy battles.

And beneath the beautiful cross-hatched surface lies an intelligent and fiercely tactical game, with generous map design and excellent combat options. Despite the attention that’s clearly been lavished on the title, there’s still a certain roughness to the interface at times, but that only goes to make the team’s overall achievement seem all the more unlikely – unlikelier still when you take into account the depth of the multiplayer options. An imaginative spin on an increasingly tired genre, Ancient Trader is ambitious, devious and surprisingly hard to fault.

 
Kodu Game Lab
Developer: MSR Kodu
Price: 400MP


Kodu Game Lab sees the XBLIG platform taking a welcome trip down the rabbit hole by means of a simple development kit that allows players to piece together their own games. Designed by a team of Microsoft employees, Kodu is a simple yet powerful suite of tools that encourages people with no programming background at all to have a go at creating everything from basic racing titles to full-blown RPGs.

Primarily aimed at children, it’s limited but intensely satisfying to use, swiftly guiding novices through the pleasures and pains of development as it introduces ideas as straightforward as the placement of in-game objects and as complex as the beginnings of AI behaviour construction. Tutorials are brief but very handy. Better yet, the inclusion of a range of example levels and designs is testament to the thoughtfulness with which the whole package has been built. At 400MP, Kodu Game Lab is nearly public service software.

 
I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1
Developer: James Silva
Price: 80MP


With over a quarter of a million copies sold, James Silva’s bubblegum twin-stick gorefest is the poster boy for Microsoft’s XBLIG service: the little game that could, the playful joke that almost everybody enjoys. And it’s a strange beast for a chart-topper, taking one of the most well-worn of videogame control mechanics as its basis before layering on a shifting, pulsating visual backdrop, flinging in some chunky power-ups and, best of all, setting the whole mess to the beat of a horribly catchy theme tune.

Z0mb1es is based on old ideas, then, but Silva’s given them a contemporary twist. This is the game as pop song: an idea that would be unthinkable – and unworkable – through any other delivery channel. On XBLIG, however, it’s found its perfect audience, and its success has propelled Silva into the top tier of the indie development hierarchy, landing him an XBLA contract in the process.

 
Flotilla
Developer: Blendo Games
Price: 400MP


Space Invaders by way of Stanley Kubrick, Flotilla manages to be stately, austere and vividly demented at the same time. Its 3D space battles move at a snail’s pace, but they’re a dream come true for armchair strategists who can delight in the intricacies of positioning, course-plotting and missile trajectories before unleashing a volley of slow-moving warheads – most of which will then miss their targets.

Bright migraine colours aside, it’s a believable take on the physics of cosmic warfare, which is why the plot, with its kooky bestiary and bizarre loot, provides such a perfect counterpoint. There’s a hint of sadness amid the pranks, however, as your ailing pilot heads out for one doomed interstellar ramble after the next. Blendo Games’ Brendon Chung has already made a name for himself with wilful titles such as Gravity Bone, but with Flotilla he’s hit the unlikeliest of sweet spots – a game as exacting as it is quirky, a stiff challenge beneath a sugar coating.

 
Leave Home
Developer: Hermitgames
Price: 80MP


Coded by one-man micro-studio Matt James, Leave Home doesn’t just embody the bedroom workshop ideals of the Indie Games initiative: it presents a vivid, nerve-jangling art shooter that rivals the best of its kind on any platform. A fixed-duration score-run with levels that restitch themselves around the player depending on their own performance, this is an exquisite blend of the mechanical and the organic, throwing plastic squid, disco-ball amoebas and all manner of other glimmering, chintzy enemies against you as you take on your real rival – the high-score table.

The adaptive level design means that both memory and improvisation skills combine as the game’s micro-encounters shuffle themselves in and out of the pack, while the lone fixed point of the bullet-hell climax provides the perfect spur to drive you into your next replay. Brief but unforgettable, Leave Home represents the absolute pinnacle of Indie Game creativity.