A common fear when playing platformers is the fear of falling. Overestimate a jump by just a few pixels and you’ll skid off the next ledge into the dreaded abyss that exists just below the play screen. In the They Need To Be Fed series, however, falling is an impossibility. Gravity pulls you towards whatever object you’re standing on, until you jump close enough to another object that will suck you into its gravitational field instead. You never have to worry about plummeting off-screen—but there are still plenty of obstacles within the frame for you to contend with.
While many indie games suffer from the same problems as their AAA peers, getting mired down in retreaded subject material and clichéd mechanics, the most interesting titles recognize their freedom and show no fear in taking advantage of it. The qualifier of “indie” should indicate that you're in for a unique and inventive experience. So here’s Hardcore Droid’s list of the games most representative of that so far in 2013.
A highly enjoyable bite-sized gravity based platformer in which the goal of each level is to feed your little character to a hungry carnivorous plant.
Touch Arcade: There is something inherently perverse about intentionally creating the thing that will destroy you. I don't mean that in any sort of metaphorical sense; this isn't some sort of child-destroys-the-parent thing. In Bit Ate Bit's They Need To Be Fed 2 [$0.99], you are charged with growing a monster and then crawling into its mouth to die, over and over and over again. You are responsible for pulling yourself through a hellish platform-scape, gathering the magical bean that contains your killer, planting it, and then feeding yourself to the monster that results. The game's developer Jesse Venbrux has some twisted ideas.
