If you browse on itch.io by popularity and go down the list until you find one you've never heard of (or never played, if you want easier standards) that's where the "newgrounds culture" is nowadays. Plenty of stuff that works in browser for free.

There are lots of other games as well. Let me recommend a couple:

• What remains of Edith Finch
• A short hike
• Outer Wilds
• Disco Elysium
• Feather
• Gris
• Journey of the broken circle
• Sayonara Wild Hearts
• Untitled Goose Game
• a dark room

As if flash games weren't 75% dressup games, tower defense, and shit platformers. We still got plenty of that slop don't worry, we just have other kinds of slop to go with it.

Yeah there's a lot of copycats, though even within that there's some great stuff. My wife has been loving fields of mistria. But also I'm currently playing slay the spire 2 and loving it. You've got games like cult of the lamb, Rogue Legacy (1&2), every supergiant game, Cassette Beasts, and less well known ones like Song of the Deep. Flash games were their own thing and it was awesome, but with limited time for games these days I'd rather be playing modern indie games. But I understand why some people would feel the opposite

There was a lot of lazy copies with flash games too. And that's not unique for indie games or even video games. Every form of media has people copying what's already successful

:: looks around nervously as someone who loves those specific games::

They definitely skew to the pixel games and the rogue-likes, due to the limitations of a cell phone interface. But Idk if I'd call stardew valley boring.

I had a lot of fun with Slay the Spire and Balatro. There's a bunch of indie board games that are on mobile as well, Root being one of my favorites. And then there's all the digital CCGs (basically the only way I play MtG anymore is on mobile).

I would say the bigger problem with finding good indie games is the nightmarish volume of bad games (both indie and otherwise) that crowd out everything in the marketplace. I learn about the ones I like through word of mouth. Anything I just randomly install and fool around with, I inevitably hate.