Indie games is a term that describes games made by independent game makers outside of the big studio developers and publishers. In a sense indie games have existed since the beginning of video game making in one form or another, Rogue has some characteristics of an indie game despite the absense of a large game publishing industry at the time. In the past ten years (2007 - 2017) the indie game world has grown quickly with digital publishing and game making tools allowing independent and hobbyist developers to produce games and distribute them.
ZZT (1991)
Tim Sweeney
Game Maker (1999)
Cave Story (2004)
Dōkutsu Monogatari
Super Columbine Massacre RPG! (2005)
Danny Ledonne, made on RPG Maker
Darwinia (2005)
Chris Delay
Syobon Action (2007)
ちく(Chiku)
Passage (2007)
Jason Rohrer
flOw (2007)
Jenova Chen & Nicholas Clark
World of Goo (2008)
Kyle Gabler, Ron Carmel, Allan Blomquist
Braid (2008)
Jonathan Blow
Blueberry Garden (2009)
Erik Svedang
Minecraft (2011)
Markus Persson
dys4ia (2012)
Anna Anthropy
Depression Quest (2013)
Zoe Quinn
Papers, Please (2013)
Lucas Pope
Oquonie (2014)
Rekka Bellum & Devine Lu Linvega
STEP (2014)
Plug & Play (2015)
Michael Frei, Mario von Rickenbach
Stardew Valley (2016)
Eric Barone (ConcernedApe)