Action and adventure games, by design, typically involve quite a bit of traveling, whether by foot or vehicle. You can’t have yourself a grand adventure if you’re rooted in one place, after all. Now, obviously, any game in these genres has its own way of moving you around, regardless of budget, but there’s something aboutindie gamesthat hits a little different in this department.
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More than a few indie games offer up movement mechanics that are, in a word, satisfying. It’s not just about getting around quickly, though that definitely helps. It’s also about smoothness, responsiveness, and engagement. It’s not just moving from point A to point B, the journey in itself is an experience, something fun and memorable about the game in itself.
This can be achieved through novel takes on established movement mechanics from other games, or even something entirely fresh and unique. However they go about doing it, these are the indie games to play if you’ve got that ol’ wanderlust in your heart.
This is not a ranked list, and the following games are presented in no particular order.
Jumping Through The Wilderness
I think if I ever received super jumping and running powers, the first thing I would do is find a big forest mountain somewhere and go full George of the Jungle. Running down hills, climbing up trees, the whole shebang. Unfortunately, I’m probably not going to get superpowers, so the next best thing for scratching that particular itch is playing Valley.
In Valley, you’re equipped with a device called the L.E.A.F. suit, or “Leap Effortlessly though Air Functionality.” As the name implies, it gives you the ability to run and leap at high speeds, as well as jump directly up to impressive elevations.
Using this suit, you can get a running start down a hill, then launch yourself way up into the air, easily clearing the gaps between mountains and trees. It’s a simple form of movement, yet positively exhilarating when it gets going.
The game also incentivizes you to pick up and use its movement system quickly, as every time you botch a jump and die, you’re slowly killing the entire valley around you. It’s a pseudoscience circle of life kind of thing. Just don’t fall.
9A Story About My Uncle
My Uncle Is Good At Grappling
A Story About My Uncle
If you’re looking to give your game a satisfying sense of movement, one of the best ways to do it is to give your player a grappling hook. Everyone loves grappling hooks. It’s a scientific fact. A grappling hook on its own is a pretty good start, but just to really help seal the deal, it’s only part of the movement equation that makes up A Story About My Uncle.
This brief narrative-focused platformer gives you several tools to navigate massive caverns full of floating rocks, the first and most prominent being a zappy grappling hook. With this ephemeral tether, you’re able to hook onto a swing from just about any surface within range.
You can find small targets on critical holds that illuminate the obvious way forward, but technically speaking, as long as you get from one end of a cavern to another, it doesn’t matter how you do it. If you see a good spot to swing from and you can reach it, might as well try!
The movement element is A Story About My Uncle’s primary gameplay mechanic, including your grappling hook, a jump enhancer, and additional charges that allow you to grapple multiple times consecutively. There’s no combat here; the movement is the gameplay in itself, and it’s quite good at that.
Let The Momentum Carry You
If you’ve ever played Portal, you’re probably familiar with the mechanics of momentum: “Speedy thing go in, speedy thing come out.” Multiple movement-heavy games make extensive use of momentum to give their mechanics that extra realistic punch.
In Haste, however, that momentum can carry you right up into the sky at breakneck speeds, which is good, because you need to escape from the collapse of reality behind you.
Haste is a roguelite game where you journey through multiple short running courses before reaching a boss at the end of the line. You don’t have a jump button; rather, when you run off a ledge or the top of a hill, your momentum will automatically carry you into the air.
With careful targeting and fast-falling, you’re able to then hit the ground running at a downward incline to preserve your momentum and speed up, as well as build energy to use your special abilities.
Haste starts off very simply, but subsequent levels begin throwing in course hazards like lasers and pitfalls. It’s a lot of fun targeting both your running and falling to keep up the speed, though I admit, I laughed a little when I accidentally ran face-first into a wall multiple times.
7Neon White
Combat Is Movement, Movement Is Combat
Neon White
A game with an emphasis on speedrunning basically necessitates quality movement controls, at least unless you’re going for a QWOP thing where bad controls are part of the experience. Thankfully,Neon Whiteis not a QWOP thing. It’s far faster, far more action-packed, and far more stylish.
Neon White is a level-based action platformer, wherein you need to run through levels as quickly as you possibly can, destroying demons as you go.
You can run and jump, of course, but in addition to that,every weapon you pick upcomes with its own situational movement ability. The pistol gives you a double-jump, the shotgun lets you dash in any direction, the rocket launcher has a grappling hook, and so on.
The trick is knowing when exactly to use your secondary abilities, as doing so consumes the weapon. You also can’t forget about killing the demons as you go, lest they put a bullet in you first. It’s a game that takes its fair share of trial and error, but when the pieces finally fit together and you nail that perfect run, hoo boy, is it satisfying.
6Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
Tearing Up The Streets
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
One of the most stylish movement-centric games of the previous generations was Sega’s Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast. Its cast of skate-clad Rudies got up to all sorts of high-flying shenanigans, though that game wasn’t without its old-school jank. Thankfully, a lot of that jank has been mopped up by the game’s spiritual successor,Bomb Rush Cyberfunk.
In Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, your crew of rebellious young folk take to the streets atop skateboards, inline skates, and bicycles, aided by horizontal jetpacks on their backs.
With those packs, you may instantly gain speed and elevation on the ground, while grinding, in the air, and more. It makes it much easier to quickly pick up the speed necessary to hit a large jump, instead of having to noodle around on a halfpipe for five minutes.
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One of the game’s biggest perks is pulled from the Tony Hawk’s Underground series: instead of having to be on your skates all the time, you’re able to hop off whenever you want and just walk. It’s so much smoother if you need to quickly stop or reposition yourself, and a bigalleviator of my frustrations with Jet Set Radio’s movement.
5Pseudoregalia
High-Flying Vania
Pseudoregalia
Movement abilities are part and parcel with the Metroidvania genre, as they often help to open up new avenues of exploration and navigation emblematic of it. Of course, most Metroidvania games are 2D sidescrollers.
Bringing them to 3D is challenging, to the point that even Castlevania has had trouble with it. Ironically, despite being a send-up to those janky 3D Castlevania games, Pseudoregalia gets the concept right.
Pseudoregalia is a 3D Metroidvania platformer with a big emphasis on large, sweeping movement both horizontally and vertically. Initially, you can perform various kinds of long jumps and homing attacks to clear wide gaps, but with additional powerups, your repertoire swiftly grows. You can slide under tight gaps, kick off the wall, enemies, and air to gain height, and carry your momentum into massive leaps.
Pseudoregalia is a bite-sized experience as far as Metroidvanias go, but that just means its movement abilities feel even tighter and more responsive. It helps that the controls are also quite snappy; I’ve had difficulty navigating these kinds of games in the past, but Pseudoregalia keeps you in full control at all times.
4Super Fancy Pants Adventure
That Classic Somersaulting Platformer
The Fancy Pants Adventures
This is one for you lifetime denizens of the internet like me. All the way back in 2006, a little flash game hit the scene called The Fancy Pants Adventures, wherein a little stick dude in exceptionally fresh pants ran and jumped through a world of doodles and scribbles.
Despite being no more than a tech demo on Newgrounds, anyone who played it was instantly hooked on its remarkably smooth movement. That legacy lives on in the form of Super Fancy Pants Adventure.
Super Fancy Pants Adventure is built around a similar concept to its predecessor, emphasizing simple and speedy momentum-based platforming. It’s rather Sonic-esque, the way in which you run down a hill at high speed, jump into a somersault, and roll down a looping incline like a Hot Wheels car flying out of a launcher.
In addition to the usual running and jumping, this game also adds an ink pen weapon to your repertoire. Besides smacking punks with it, you can also surf on it up and down lengths of scratch paper, leaving a squiggle behind you. This is both satisfying on its own and offers the potential to draw something really stupid.
Climb, Roll, And Fly Across The Islands
The reason you may’t just walk in a straight line across the entire world is, obviously, humans can’t fly or swim long-term underwater, among other hurdles. But what if you could do all that, withthe help of friendly critters or inanimate objects? Well, then you’d have similar capabilities to the titular protagonist ofTchia.
Even before Tchia receives her supernatural Soul Jumping ability, she’s already a pretty mobile young lass. You can freely climb up cliffs and walls so long as your stamina holds out, a la Breath of the Wild, and with the help of your raft and glider, you can traverse short stretches of water and sky relatively quickly.
Of course, Soul Jumping is where it’s really at. By jumping into the soul of wild animals or inanimate objects, you can take control of them and make use of their natural abilities. Birds let you fly, sea creatures let you explore the depths, and even taking control of a rock can be a hoot when you roll yourself down the side of a mountain.
Sometimes I’d jump into a Warthog just to see how fast I could run from one side of an island to another.
2A Short Hike
Long Way Up, Long Way Down
A Short Hike
I’ve heard it said that the point of mountain climbing and trail walking is that it’s very slow and physical. It’s supposed to be. It’s a little journey; if it were easy, why bother doing it? All that said, I wouldn’t be opposed to a climbing experience that’s a little more accessible, and the fact that A Short Hike is very cute and heartfelt doesn’t hurt either.
At the start of A Short Hike, you’re able to’t really do much beyond stroll down the mountain trails. As you collect and receive Gold Feathers, though, your strength increases, allowing you to scale up walls and glide down from high elevations. It’s an excellent feedback loop of exploration versus capability; the more you explore, the more capable of exploring you become.
I’d also like to highlight the game’s last major setpiece, wherein you glide down from the top of the mountain, propelled by a massive geyser. It wasn’t particularly long or difficult getting up there, but it still felt like a worthwhile endeavor, just to bask in that lovely little moment of movement.
1A Hat In Time
This Kid’s All Over The Place
A Hat in Time
You’d think a 3D platformer would have good movement by default, but I’ve played more than a few of ‘em that couldn’t quite figure out how to make the wires connect in that department. It’s not just about jumping and bouncing, it’s about minute control and accuracy, something thatA Hat in Time’s movement controls understand very well.
A Hat in Time’s platforming gameplay takes a few cues from games like Super Mario Sunshine, though unlike that game’s slightly wonky control and hit detection, it’s exceptionally easy to get around in a hurry in this game.
Using a combination of Hat Kid’s double-jump and air dash, not to mention her homing attack and grappling hook, you can cross quite a bit of distance in just a few button presses.
More than that, though, Hat Kid’s movements all feel very deliberate. Unlike in Mario Sunshine, where I frequently walked off edges from slight inputs, Hat Kid always feels like she’s in your control, moving where you want her to be. It makes platforming more responsive and, of course, satisfying.
