The Ars 13: Our top indie game picks from PAX East 2020

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  Party like it's 1795 in Ambition: A Minuet in Power.

I've been writing about games long enough to remember when the concept of an "indie game" was new and odd. It seems like just yesterday that getting a game to market without the help of a major publisher or console maker was so rare as to border on impossible. Today, though, increased access to digital distribution, easy-to-learn game development tools, and cheap game development hardware has produced thousands upon thousands of independent game developers, all fighting for a small portion of gamers' limited attention spans.

Nowhere is that battle more apparent than at PAX East, where the crowded Boston Convention Center floor is packed to the gills with hundreds of indie game booths that range from single-person development teams to mini-conglomerate indie publishers like Devolver Digital, Tiny Build, and Annapurna Interactive.

Playing every indie game at a modern PAX East would take multiple weeks; a four-day show just doesn't offer enough time to take it all in. But we did our best, sampling from a wide variety of the most interesting indie prospects. Here, in alphabetical order, are 13 indie games that stood out from the PAX East crowd.

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