Indie Games are one of the things the Nintendo Switch is genuinely for. The ones worth playing start with Death's Door, Hades, Hollow Knight.
A home console you can take with you, which turns out to matter more than raw power. The strongest first-party library of any modern machine, plus an indie catalogue that fits portable play perfectly.
This is one of its strengths. First-party everything — platformers, adventure, strategy RPGs, party games — and indies, which suit handheld sessions better than they suit a television.
Filtering to indie means you want the answer a small team would give. It is usually the most interesting filter on this site, because small studios take the risks large ones cannot.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
One strong idea, explored completely, at a price that makes trying it easy. Indies have no production to hide behind, so the design is exposed.
Polish and scale, sometimes. A few of these are rough at the edges, and a big-budget pick will always look better doing the same thing.
Death's Door is the usual first answer, and there are 9 in the library we cover.
Yes — it is one of the things the machine is known for, and there are 9 in the library we cover.
Self-published, or published without a large publisher's money. It says nothing about the size of the game, which is why a forty-hour metroidvania and a two-hour art piece sit under the same label.
Constraint. Without a budget to hide behind, one idea has to carry the whole thing — and a small team can commit to something risky that a large one would sand down.
From the games this site covers on the Nintendo Switch, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.
Or browse the whole Nintendo Switch library.