2020 Steam Winter Sale: 8 really good indie PC gaming deals

The Steam Winter Sale is in full swing, and with many of us staying home for the holidays and growing increasingly weary of this pandemic and the year 2020 in general, this one feels maybe a little more special than it usually does. As always, there are no lack of deals to peruse, and while I usually write a list like this every year, I thought this year I'd shake things up a little bit by focusing entirely on indie games.

You see, major publishers and I are going through something of a rough patch right now. Lately I find myself fed up with a number of big publishers that don't have consoles to sell me – and even one that does – so we're going to put them to the side for the time being and look at some games made by small teams of people who don't have boards of directors or shareholders to please (or, at the very least, games that are published by smaller companies like Devolver Digital or Chucklefish Games).

I know for a fact that this game has made it onto one of my Steam lists before, and after this one, it will probably appear on more because it's just a fantastic game. Brutally difficult, They Are Billions is all about building an outpost that can survive continuous attacks from hordes of zombies. A mix of RTS, tower defense, and roguelike games, I don't know that I've ever played anything quite like They Are Billions before, and I keep coming back to it because the satisfaction I get from winning a game is unmatched by any other. At $23.99, it's a bit more expensive than the other games on this list, but it's easily worth double or triple that given the amount of fun on tap.

This is the second shoot 'em up on the list, but unlike Jamestown+, which focuses on theming and flexibility that allows a wide range of people to play, Steredenn: Binary Stars is a side-scrolling roguelike shoot 'em up, and that means it's difficult. You'll die a lot playing this game, but each new run you start, you'll make it a little bit further, and that incremental progress can be very fun and very addicting. With a variety of sweet weapons, Steredenn is definitely worth checking out for fans of the genre looking for a challenge, especially at its $6.49 price point.

If you're a fan of either Factorio specifically or the tower defense genre in general, then Mindustry is a game you should definitely pick up during the Steam sale. Like Islanders, Mindustry is normally priced in impulse range at $5.99, and the discount it has in the Steam sale isn't massive at only 15% off. Still, the $5.09 you'll spend on it gets you a surprisingly deep game about collecting resources and getting them to your weapons through automation. If you have an eye for efficiency and you enjoy games like the aforementioned Factorio or Satisfactory, then don't pass up Mindustry.

Parkasaurus is a game that came out of left field for me, which is surprising because it's right up my alley (as a certain dinosaur theme park entrepreneur might say). If you wanted a deeper focus on simulation out of Jurassic World Evolution, you should definitely give Parkasaurus a look. Its graphics are certainly cartoony and the dinosaurs a little goofy looking (they can even wear hats), but this game is a solid park simulator that should give Dino Park Tycoon or Jurassic Park fans a lot of hours of enjoyment. At $18.74 (25% off), it's a bit on the expensive side when compared to the other games on this list, but you definitely get a lot of game in return for your 18 bucks.