Originally I was going to compile a list of great indie stealth games, but after an extensive amount of research, there was only three worth playing and four I could find. So instead, I'm going to give you the reason why stealth games are so few and far between in the world of independent development. The simplicity of it may blow your mind, or you saw it coming a mile away. Either way, the reason for it is because of AI.
AI, short for Artificial Intelligence, is one of the hardest parts of a game to code. Zombies and monsters are more popular than humans because no one has to program them to be like humans. if a zombie doesn't notice the guy with the gun running by, no one bats an eye, but when a human does the same thing, it breaks people's immersion, since no real perfectly functioning human would not notice that. There are full triple A studios that couldn't get AI right, so obviously if four people in a garage get too complicated, they probably won't be able to pull it off.
Conversely, AI is also the backbone of stealth. Think about it, without good AI, what seperates Thief from a first person adventure game? You could potentially run through everything if nothing was smart enough to stop you. One of the first things people noticed about Metal Gear Solid was that the guards noticed footprints in the snow, which is a testament to how utterly crucial artificial intelligence is to this genre.
So with the combination of it's difficulty, and it's necessity, it's no wonder why stealth indie games are so few and far between.
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