Some very fun indie games I've been playing this past year (lots of early access):
- Hexarchy / Rogue hex (Civ-like)
- The Last Caretaker
- Captain of Industry (factorio-like, was posted here on HN by dev awhile back)
- 9 kings
- Super Fantasy Kingdom
- Manor Lords
- Astronomics
- Heart of the Machine
Those games have 100x to 500x smaller budgets than the AAA-games. Yes, they often have cute ideas, but, like a blockbuster movie, 99 times out of 100 you need a solid budget to make a solid movie/game.