Indie Strategy Games With Stylish Graphics

There are plenty of indie strategy games on the market, with the genre covering a variety of niches. From turn-based tactics to real-time strategy, all the way to unique rogue-likes and strategic RPGs, there’s plenty of variety in the strategy game genre.

Related

8 Hardest Indie Strategy Games

These indie strategy games will push players to their absolute limits.

Strategy games are some of the most popular on Steam, but many of them often feature dry visual styles. Some indie titles, however, use interesting artwork and screen-space effects to create a unique visual style.

10 Balatro

A Poker Roguelike With Casino Style

This Poker-themed roguelike tasks players with playing the best Poker hands they can and carefully constructing synergies with the game’s variety of Joker cards. What makes Balatro special is its simplicity and sheer strategic depth, but it also has a pretty stylish appearance.

Related

Strategy Games That Use Randomness Well

Although it may sometimes be frustrating, some strategy games employ randomness to great effect.

Balatro is full of charming and often whimsical pixel art. This is best displayed with its variety of over a hundred Joker cards, each of which has its own unique personality, making most of them instantly recognizable. Balatro‘s light CRT filter and consistent casino-like color palette also help to give it a sense of style.

9 Dune: Spice Wars

A Stylish RTS Set In The Dune Universe

This stylish combination of real-time strategy and 4X was developed by the team behind the equally stylish Northgard and features a visual aesthetic that’s cartoon-like in nature. Furthermore, the environments are surprisingly colorful, despite the desert setting.

For fans of the Dune universe and the recent film, Dune: Part 2, Dune: Spice Wars is an excellent strategy game developed by independent developers. For those who enjoy soft-edged, cartoon graphics, there is plenty to love about this title,

8 Dicey Dungeons

Light Deck-Building Strategy With Whimsical Artwork

• Platforms: PC, Mobile, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
• Released: August 13, 2019
• Developer: Terry Cavanagh
• Genre: Rogue-Like

Dicey Dungeons puts players in the shoes of giant, personified dice, exploring colorful dungeons packed with whimsical monsters. Every enemy’s visual design is easily recognizable, with each of them having their own distinctive silhouette and overall look.

Dicey Dungeons‘ variety of environments and characters are in a hand-drawn style that perfectly matches the game’s light-hearted tone. This provides the title with a consistent atmosphere, especially when combined with the music and the light, strategic gameplay.

7 Thronefall

An RTS Tower Defense Game With A Minimalist Style

This unique combination of real-time strategy and tower defense tasks players with growing a miniature Kingdom and defending it from waves of enemies. Thronefall is a tremendously accessible experience with plenty of depth and strategic decision-making. Although it’s fairly light on content, the game features a roguelike mode that adds to its replay value.

Related

10 Best Base Defense Games

Base Defense is a very popular genre for gamers who like to think and plan, and these are some fantastic games to consider playing.

Thronefall isn’t the most artistically complex game, but it makes up for it with a brilliant minimalist style. Thronefall uses simple shapes and flat colors to great effect, creating immersive landscapes and easily recognizable enemies with a very simple artistic direction.

6 Star Renegades

A Roguelite Strategy RPG With Great Pixel-Art

This distinctive combination of the strategy RPG and roguelite genres features a unique twist. Star Renegades is a turn-based, party-based strategy game in which unique enemies and bosses are generated on the fly.

The greatest strength of Star Renegades, however, is its brilliant art style. Star Renegades features a plethora of high-quality pixel art, predominantly in its characters. These 2D pixel-art sprites are set on a 3D plane, adding a great amount of depth to each scene.

5 Griftlands

A Strategic Deck-Builder With Klei’s Iconic Art Style

This strategic deck-builder from Klei Entertainment stands out for its RPG elements and unique setting. The world of Griftlands is a strange, fantastical place packed with distinct characters that the player can interact with, and it’s perfectly depicted with Klei Entertainment’s iconic art style.

Griftlands’hand-drawn characters and environments strike a careful balance between fantasy and science fiction, though it treads more toward the latter. The character and enemy designs are particularly strong, with many characters being both memorable and easy to recognize.

4 The Banner Saga

A Hand-Drawn, Strategic RPG

This Viking-themed strategy RPG tells an epic tale of a caravan making a grueling journey across a harsh land made beautiful by the game’s stunning art direction. The Banner Saga is driven by its narrative and its focus on player choice, providing gamers with consequences for their decisions.

The Banner Saga‘s strategic combat and general gameplay mechanics are solid, but its greatest strength is its visual style. The Banner Saga features stunning hand-drawn artwork and landscapes, allowing the game’s Norse-inspired world to become a truly immersive setting.

3 Inscryption

A Stylish Combination Of Horror And Deck-Building

Combining elements of escape-room puzzles, psychological horror, and deck-building card games, Inscryption is one of the most unique indie games released in recent years. While not a pure strategy game, Inscryption‘s strategic, lane-based card system is particularly fun to engage with. Furthermore, the game’s distinct and creepy art style makes it an immersive experience, too.

Inscryption is a dark, horror-tinged game set in a 3D environment. The player’s opponent is a creepy 3D character that reacts with the game board in real time. When combined with the atmospheric lighting and hand-drawn card art, Inscryption makes for an extremely stylish indie game.

2 Dorfromantik

A Relaxing & Aesthetically Pleasing Puzzle Game

This cute and colorful combination of puzzle and strategy tasks players with building and growing villages across a tranquil landscape. The game’s peaceful atmosphere is only furthered by its vibrant, painterly textures and minimalist 3D tiles.

Dorfromantik also features a variety of biomes that help to break up its visuals and prevent the game from looking stale. Furthermore, players can unlock new tiles as they play, adding even more to the visual variety.

1 Darkest Dungeon 2

A Dark Roguelike With A Gothic-Fantasy Style

Although some players may prefer its predecessor, Darkest Dungeon 2 arguably improves on the original’s visual style. This sequel puts players behind the reins of a stagecoach on a road trip through dark and twisted landscapes, stopping occasionally to fight off Lovecraft-inspired monsters of all shapes and sizes.

Like the original, Darkest Dungeon 2 is packed with Lovecraftian imagery and hand-drawn characters. For some, Darkest Dungeon 2 may stray too far from the gameplay of the original, but its improved animations and 3D environments are a welcome addition to its visual style.

More

Darkest Dungeon: 7 Worst Quirks, Ranked

Negative Quirks can make any run of Darkest Dungeon far harder. These are the perks players will want to get rid of as soon as possible.