Remember how we all laughed together and said how terrible 2016 was? Well, it turns out 2017 was even worse overall. Luckily there was a bevy of great games to keep our worries at bay. Indie gaming in particular had a great year, with such instant classics as The Sexy Brutale, Night in the Woods, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds to name only a few. But what if I told you that this minty fresh new year of 2018 might be even better for indie games?

There are some truly phenomenal looking indies slated for the next twelve months, and it being the new year, you know what that means. That’s right, list time, baby! Here is our mostly not random list of 20 indie games to keep an eye on this year.

Some Highlights

If you want our full list of games be sure to check out the video above, but here are some highlights. Two games slated for an early release are Long Gone Days in February and Ghost of a Tale in March. Meanwhile, personal favorites and criminally under-looked A Case of Disturst and YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG come in early in the year as well.

Where does hipster existential nightmare simulator YIIK rank on our list?

There are also the more well-known indie games on the list too. You can bet Lucas Pope’s next game, Return of the Obra Dinn made it onto the list, as well as the already cult favorite Where the Water Tastes Like Wine. Also rounding out the list is Life is Strange Season 2, which isn’t technically an indie game since it’s published by Square Enix, but it feels like one, you know? We also don’t know anything about it other than that it’ll feature new characters and a new setting, but who cares? The beauty of lists is that facts don’t matter!

The Underdogs

As with any egregious listicle, a few games just barely made the cut. I still want to play coy, so I’ll only go over a couple of the lower games on the list. Coming in dead last at #20 is Life is Strange Season 2. Now, we can debate whether or not a game published by Square Enix, a major Japanese AAA publisher, can be considered an indie game. On the other hand, who cares?

The reason this game isn’t higher is because my love of the original Life is Strange hasn’t aged well. We moved in together and LiS leaves its dirty clothes everywhere, it always uses my toothbrush, and it hogs the covers. The sex isn’t great either if we’re being honest. I think I’ve fallen for its half-sister, Before the Storm, developed by a completely different studio then the creators of Season 1 and 2, harder than LiS.

I didn’t know I could cry so much.

Also sneaking onto the list is House Flipper at #19, a game about buying houses, repairing and cleaning them, and selling them for a profit. That’s pretty much all there is to say about it, frankly.

Closing out the Solid Snakes on this list is The Gardens Between at #18. If you’ve missed our coverage at E3, shame on you. This is a 2D narrative adventure game in which you play as a girl and her BFF walking around in a forest. That’s pretty much all I know about this game, but I like the sound of it and it looks pretty so it’s on there. Deal with it.

3D Platformers

You can bet your sweet, buttered butts there are 3D platformers on this list. Originally coming in at three before I had to remove Psychonauts 2 due to the delay late in December, there are now but two lone platformers. Not only that, but neither of them have actually been confirmed to come out in 2018, so…

Happy Hell’s gonna be a trip.

The first is Happy Hell, which was Kickstarted way back in February 2015. You play as a little, happy demon in hell. Much like with The Gardens Between, my information on the game is limited, to say the least. Number two on the list is Clive ‘N’ Wrench, which has not one but two failed Kickstarter campaigns under its belt. The fact that developer Dinosaur Bytes hasn’t let that deter them, and have continued to develop the game using their own funds is either incredible, or incredibly stupid. Either way, I applaud them.

If you want to check out the whole list, watch the video above or go to Cliqist’s YouTube channel. There you can find more terrible fantastic videos just like this one.