Key facts
- Cheapest right now
- € Standard · Global · Kinguin
- Live offers
- 42 offers · 20 stores
Half the games on this page cost less than a cinema ticket and three of them have more Steam reviews than most of the year's big releases. That is the short argument for pixel art in one line: it is not a budget compromise any more, it is where a lot of the best design has quietly gone to live.
Grouping these by "indie" or by "retro" would be useless — the label covers a farming sim and a bullet hell equally badly. So they are grouped here by what you spend your hours actually doing, with the Steam verdict and a live price next to each one.
Is pixel art just nostalgia?
Partly, but that is the least interesting half of the answer. A pixel grid caps how much detail an animation can carry, which forces a studio to make every frame legible instead of pretty — and legibility is exactly what a game needs when twenty things are moving at once. That is why so much of the genre lives in roguelikes and platformers, and why the four games below did not have to age to become classics.
The eighteen, in one table
What you do in each one, how Steam has judged it, and a price that moves with the board.
| Game | What you do in it | Steam rating | Price on PC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stardew Valley | Farm, mine, and eventually marry someone | Overwhelmingly Positive · 880,000+ reviews | € (with coupon Gocdkeys) |
| Terraria | Dig, build, and fight enormous bosses | Overwhelmingly Positive · 1230,000+ reviews | € (with coupon AUGGOC10) |
| Undertale | Talk your way out of every fight | Overwhelmingly Positive · 300,000+ reviews | € (with coupon SEAL17CDK) |
| DELTARUNE | The same, in chapters | Overwhelmingly Positive · 120,000+ reviews | € (with coupon Gocdkeys) |
| Vampire Survivors | Survive while barely pressing anything | Overwhelmingly Positive · 250,000+ reviews | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) |
| Balatro | Break poker, one joker at a time | Overwhelmingly Positive · 150,000+ reviews | € (with coupon Gocdkeys) |
| Dead Cells | Run, die, run again faster | Overwhelmingly Positive · 150,000+ reviews | € (with coupon GCKG2AK5N2G) |
| Enter the Gungeon | Dodge-roll through walls of bullets | Overwhelmingly Positive · 79,000+ reviews | € (with coupon AUGGOC10) |
| Noita | Watch every pixel catch fire | Overwhelmingly Positive · 80,000+ reviews | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) |
| Celeste | Climb a mountain, precisely | Overwhelmingly Positive · 130,000+ reviews | € (with coupon SEAL17CDK) |
| Katana ZERO | Die in one hit, and so do they | Overwhelmingly Positive · 66,000+ reviews | € (with coupon SEAL17CDK) |
| Pizza Tower | Never stop running | Overwhelmingly Positive · 66,000+ reviews | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) |
| Blasphemous | Explore, and be punished for it | Very Positive · 54,000+ reviews | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) |
| Sonic Mania | Go fast, sideways | Very Positive · 24,000+ reviews | € (with coupon GOCDKEYS10) |
| Baba Is You | Rewrite the rules of the level | Overwhelmingly Positive · 20,000+ reviews | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) |
| Into the Breach | Eight tiles, and no hidden information | Very Positive · 18,000+ reviews | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) |
| Unpacking | Take things out of boxes | Very Positive · 34,000+ reviews | € (with coupon Gocdkeys) |
| ANIMAL WELL | Look at the screen harder | Overwhelmingly Positive · 22,000+ reviews | € (with coupon GCDKGamivo) |
The four that dragged pixel art out of the niche
Between them these four have well over two million Steam reviews. Nobody bought them because they looked like the past; they bought them because these were the best versions of what they do.
Stardew Valley — one man, and nearly nine hundred thousand reviews
Stardew Valley, written almost entirely by ConcernedApe. Overwhelmingly Positive · 880,000+ reviews and an 89 on Metacritic. Farming is only the excuse: underneath there is a mining dungeon, a fishing minigame, a town full of people who remember what you said, and a stream of free updates that has never really stopped.
Terraria — the most-reviewed game on this page, by a distance
Terraria, by Re-Logic, Overwhelmingly Positive · 1230,000+ reviews. Over a decade of free content later, it is still the cheapest hundred hours in this list. It is often described as flat Minecraft, which undersells it badly: the boss fights are the real game, and they are closer to a bullet hell than to a building sim.
Undertale — the highest Metacritic score here
Undertale, by tobyfox, Overwhelmingly Positive · 300,000+ reviews and a 92 on Metacritic — nothing else on this page beats it. Six or seven hours long, built on the idea that you can finish it without killing anything, and it notices when you do. Going in unspoiled is worth more than any discount.
DELTARUNE — the same author, released in chapters
DELTARUNE, also tobyfox, Overwhelmingly Positive · 120,000+ reviews. Not a sequel and not quite a remake: a parallel story with the same combat grammar and considerably more of it. Worth knowing before you buy that it is being released chapter by chapter rather than all at once.
Below, the full board for Stardew Valley, with each seller's own coupon already discounted.
Roguelikes, where the pixel actually lives
When a run lasts twenty minutes and you are going to start it four hundred times, readable beats realistic every single time. This is the group where the art style and the design are the same decision.
Vampire Survivors — the one that started a subgenre
Vampire Survivors, by poncle, Overwhelmingly Positive · 250,000+ reviews and an 86 on Metacritic. You move; the game shoots. Thirty minutes per run, dozens of unlocks behind each one, and a price so low that the only real cost is the week you will lose to it.
Balatro — poker, and then not poker at all
Balatro, by LocalThunk, Overwhelmingly Positive · 150,000+ reviews and a 90 on Metacritic. It starts as a hand of cards and ends with a joker combination that scores a number the screen cannot fit. One of the very few games here you can explain in a sentence and still not be ready for.
Dead Cells — the best-animated pixels in the business
Dead Cells, by Motion Twin, Overwhelmingly Positive · 150,000+ reviews and an 89 on Metacritic. The trick nobody talks about: the sprites are 3D models rendered down to pixels, which is why it moves like nothing else on this page. Fast, unforgiving, and years of free updates deep.
Enter the Gungeon — the one where the guns are the joke
Enter the Gungeon, by Dodge Roll, Overwhelmingly Positive · 79,000+ reviews and an 84 on Metacritic. Hundreds of weapons, most of them absurd, wrapped around a dodge-roll that gives you a fraction of a second of invulnerability. Harder than it looks and cheaper than almost anything else here.
Noita — where every single pixel is simulated
Noita, by Nolla Games, Overwhelmingly Positive · 80,000+ reviews. Oil burns, water conducts lightning, sand falls, and every one of those things can kill you by accident. The most technically remarkable game on this page and, fair warning, the one most likely to end a run for reasons you did not see coming.
Which of these asks the most from your hands?
The five below, roughly in order. Celeste and Katana ZERO will make you repeat a single screen thirty times; Sonic Mania will not. Knowing which of those you are in the mood for saves you an evening.
Celeste — hard on purpose, and kind about it
Celeste, by Maddy Makes Games, Overwhelmingly Positive · 130,000+ reviews and an 88 on Metacritic. Single-screen platforming with instant restarts, so dying costs you a second rather than a minute. It also ships with the most complete assist mode of anything on this list, which nobody should feel bad about using.
Katana ZERO — one hit kills, in both directions
Katana ZERO, by Askiisoft, Overwhelmingly Positive · 66,000+ reviews and an 83 on Metacritic. Each room is a puzzle you solve by dying twenty times and then clearing it in nine seconds without being touched. The soundtrack and the neon do a lot of work; the design does more.
Pizza Tower — the one that never lets you stand still
Pizza Tower, by Tour De Pizza, Overwhelmingly Positive · 66,000+ reviews. Hand-drawn frames rather than a tidy pixel grid, and a scoring system that rewards finishing a level at a dead sprint. Closest thing to a modern Wario Land, and the loudest game on this page by a wide margin.
Blasphemous — the one that looks like a church and hurts like one
Blasphemous, by The Game Kitchen, Very Positive · 54,000+ reviews with a 77 on Metacritic — the lowest score here, and the reason is worth knowing: the original release had stiff controls and an unclear map, both largely fixed by later patches. The Andalusian religious imagery is unlike anything else in the medium.
Sonic Mania — made by the people who modded it first
Sonic Mania, led by Christian Whitehead, Very Positive · 24,000+ reviews and an 84 on Metacritic. The one entry on this page that is genuinely retro rather than pixel art by choice, and the widest consensus is that it is the best 2D Sonic ever made — including the originals.
Four for thinking slowly
No reflexes involved. Three of these four sit at 87 or above on Metacritic, which is the highest concentration of critical approval on the page — and the cheapest section of it.
Baba Is You — you edit the rules, not the level
Baba Is You, by Hempuli, Overwhelmingly Positive · 20,000+ reviews and an 87 on Metacritic. The rules of each puzzle are written on the board as blocks you can push, so "wall is stop" becomes "wall is you" if you move three words. Nothing else here will make you feel this clever or this stupid within a minute of each other.
Into the Breach — eight tiles, and nothing hidden
Into the Breach, by Subset Games, Very Positive · 18,000+ reviews and a 90 on Metacritic. Tactics with no dice and no fog of war: the game shows you exactly what every enemy will do next turn, and the whole challenge is arranging three mechs so that it goes wrong for them. Battles last five minutes.
Unpacking — a whole life told through boxes
Unpacking, by Witch Beam, Very Positive · 34,000+ reviews and an 83 on Metacritic. You take objects out of boxes and put them somewhere sensible, across eight house moves and about fifteen years — and the story is entirely in which objects survive each move. No fail state, no timer, three hours.
ANIMAL WELL — the one that hides things in plain sight
ANIMAL WELL, built single-handed by Billy Basso over seven years, Overwhelmingly Positive · 22,000+ reviews and a 90 on Metacritic. A metroidvania whose real content is the layer of secrets under the one you finish, and the most expensive game in this section for a reason: it is also the newest.
And the same for Terraria, which has the widest board of the eighteen.
What changes from one seller to the next
Almost everything on this page is a Steam key, which means the game itself is identical wherever you buy it: what changes is the price, whether the seller has stock, and whether their own coupon applies to your basket. The listings above already have that coupon discounted, which is why our order does not always match what a store shows on its own page.
If you want one recommendation instead of eighteen: Balatro if you have half an hour a day, Stardew Valley if you have a winter, Undertale if you want the one people still argue about, and Into the Breach if you would rather think than react.
When you have picked, you can buy Balatro key or buy Stardew Valley key straight from the listings above.
I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember, and for the last 14 years I have been making life easier for other gamers. CEO and co-founder of Gocdkeys.
LinkedIn profile More about Luis Abrines
+ 120 Tickets by link