Indie Game Recommender

Find indie games built for you

Answer 10 questions. Get a taste fingerprint mapped to 8 mechanical axes. Deepcuts surfaces hidden indie gems that match how you actually play— not what's popular.

No account. No email. Takes about 90 seconds.

Choose your path
🎮
Use Steam library
Import your actual playtime for a more accurate fingerprint.
  • Weighted by hours played
  • Picks up nuance from 50+ games
  • More accurate deep cuts
Connect Steam →
✏️
Take the quiz
10 questions. No account. Your fingerprint in 90 seconds.
  • No Steam required
  • Instant results
  • Get a shareable card
Start quiz →
Both paths generate a shareable taste fingerprint card.

How it works

01
Answer 10 questions about how you play
Each question shifts your score along one or more of the 8 taste axes — no wrong answers, just honest ones.
02
Get your taste fingerprint and archetype
Your answers resolve into a unique 8-axis fingerprint. We map it to one of 30 named archetypes — The Tactician, The Chronicler, The Wanderer, and 27 more.
03
Receive your personal indie deep cuts
We score every game in our hand-curated catalogue against your fingerprint using cosine similarity, then rank by low visibility. Your top picks are games you'd love that algorithms bury.

The 8 taste axes

Your fingerprint isn't genre tags — it's mechanical. These are the dimensions that actually predict what you'll love.

deep diverdepth vs breadthwide explorer
deliberatepatience vs tempofast-paced
solo immersionsolo vs socialco-op / multiplayer
narrative firstsystems vs storymechanics first
comfort zonesfamiliar vs novelradical originality
low stakescozy vs crunchpunishing challenge
100% or bustcompletionist vs wanderervibes-based
one franchiseloyalist vs drifteralways something new

Sample archetypes

The Methodical Tactician
You measure twice, attack once.
1,200h in Crusader Kings. Every war planned three seasons out.
DeepBroad
PatientFast
SoloSocial
StorySystems
FamiliarNovel
CozyCrunch
100%Wander
LoyalDrifter
The Cozy Completionist
100% on a chill afternoon.
All achievements. Every side quest. No stress, no rush.
DeepBroad
PatientFast
SoloSocial
StorySystems
FamiliarNovel
CozyCrunch
100%Wander
LoyalDrifter
The Tempo Brawler
Thinking is for cutscenes.
Split-second reads, fast restarts, highest difficulty.
DeepBroad
PatientFast
SoloSocial
StorySystems
FamiliarNovel
CozyCrunch
100%Wander
LoyalDrifter

Frequently asked questions

How does the indie game recommender work?

Deepcuts maps your answers — or your Steam library — onto 8 bipolar taste axes: depth vs breadth, patience vs tempo, solo vs social, systems vs story, familiar vs novel, cozy vs crunch, completionist vs wanderer, and loyalist vs drifter. It then matches you against a hand-scored catalogue of low-visibility indie games using cosine similarity, surfacing titles with high mechanical alignment but low Steam review counts.

Do I need a Steam account to use it?

No. The 10-question quiz gives you a full taste fingerprint and archetype without connecting anything. Steam is optional — it just makes the fingerprint more accurate by analyzing your actual playtime data.

What is a taste fingerprint?

A taste fingerprint is your personal score across 8 mechanical dimensions of how you enjoy games. Unlike genre tags ('RPG', 'strategy'), the fingerprint captures the underlying mechanics you gravitate toward — like whether you prefer deliberate turn-based decisions over real-time action, or story over systems. It's precise enough to find games you'd love that you've never heard of.

What's an archetype?

After computing your taste fingerprint, Deepcuts maps you to one of 30 named archetypes — like The Tactician, The Chronicler, or The Drifter. Your archetype is a human-readable label for where your fingerprint lands in taste space. You also get a shareable card with your archetype, axes, and personal deep cuts.

How is this different from other game recommendation sites?

Most recommenders use collaborative filtering ('people who liked X also liked Y') or genre tags, both of which are biased toward popular games. Deepcuts deliberately scores for low-visibility — it uses a log-normalized review count to downrank games that already have large audiences and surface the ones algorithms bury. A 200-review gem with high mechanical alignment scores above a 20,000-review safe pick.

Are the game recommendations personalized?

Yes. Your deep cuts are computed from your specific fingerprint — not a generic 'users like you' bucket. Every axis score shifts which games rank highest. Two people with similar overall fingerprints but different cozy/crunch scores will get different recommendations.

Ready to find your games?
Have Steam? The library path builds a more precise fingerprint from your actual hours.
Use Steam library →