- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Instead of simply trying to build a single godlike character over the course of an adventure, the upcoming Sandwalkers will have you guide an entire caravan of misfits through an ever-changing roguelike world. Along the way you'll have to survive all sorts of hostile weather, tame bizarre creatures and seek unlikely allies to bolster your forces, and naturally, square off against hordes of enemies in turn-based battles.
When thing inevitably goes awry and your entire caravan ends up on the wrong side of some rampaging abomination, worry not as nobody expected your humble crew to accomplish everything all on their own. Their knowledge will be preserved and passed on to future caravans which will then be able to push deeper and deeper into the wastelands in an effort to a repair the broken climate and bring an end to centuries of wandering.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
With boomer shooters enjoying a bit of a renaissance right now, it was only a matter of time before other long-forgotten genres would start popping back up as well. In today's case, the upcoming Monomyth will attempt to evoke the sense of wonder and exploration found in oldschool first-person dungeon crawlers like Ultima Underworld or even the Souls-series predecessor King's Field.
What this means in actual gameplay terms is that Monomyth will task you with scouring every corner of a highly interactive environment for enemies to clobber, items to plunder, puzzles to wrack your brain over, and NPCs to accidentally insult. Along the way you'll be able to advance your character in a variety of different ways, everything from being a sneaky assassin to a mage or a half-crazed barbarian. And just in case you want to be 'that guy', you'll also be able to bake and then subsequently chuck fresh bread at people!
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, River City Girls 2 will be a colorful and co-op focused beat 'em up that will see you smash your way through hordes upon hordes of enemies with a variety of unique characters. However, as befitting a sequel, River City Girls 2 will expand on pretty much every aspect of the original.
As such, you can expect to see four player co-op instead of simply two-player, all of the previous characters alongside two new additions, as well as an assortment of new moves, combos and character-specific abilities. River City itself will also feature a day and night cycle alongside more complex terrain, more shops, hazards and hidden areas, and most importantly of all, a lot more destructible objects to mess around with!
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: Vampire Survivors has now been unleashed from Early Access alongside a sizable content update.
[Update]: In preparation for the upcoming launch, the Vampire Survivors team has now increased the price tag. Don't worry, it's still going to be dirt cheap!
When it comes to both quality and quantity, Vampire Survivors' updates have been genuinely impressive. Every couple of weeks the developers would unleash even more characters, maps, items and secrets to mess around with, as well as a whole host of quality-of-life improvements based on community requests. For a game that is still €2, that really is quite something!
After about a year of doing this, the Vampire Survivors team is now slowly getting ready to make the final step and fully launch from Early Access. As such, the recent Update 0.11.0 will be the last major content patch before Vampire Survivors' release, though there will still be smaller updates with tweaks, bug fixes and tiny bits of content to help flesh everything out for the big day.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: After exactly a year in Early Access, Sons Of The Forest's Version 1.0 has now been unleashed!
[Update]: In a bit of an unexpected, though not unwelcome twist, Sons of the Forest has now launched into Early Access instead of going for a 'proper' release.
If you were eagerly awaiting to dive into The Forest's sequel this October, I'm afraid I have some bad news to deliver. According to the latest developer update, Sons of the Forest has now been delayed yet again, though thankfully this time around we've been given an actual release date to latch onto!
"Due to the scope of our new game Sons Of The Forest, it has been hard to pinpoint an exact release date, and today we have to delay one last time," explains the brief announcement. "Giving us time to complete the polish we feel is needed, we will release Feb 23, 2023, priced at $29.99USD."
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
In stark contrast to the usual genre norms, the upcoming Worldless is an action-platformer and Metroidvania that occasionally stops to let you take a breather and really focus on fighting against your enemies through turn-based combat. Don't get too comfortable, however, as you'll still need to pay attention since both your defense and offense can be greatly augmented by hitting the correct timings.
As you venture across the world and gain more experience you'll able to unlock new abilities as well as further enhance your combat capabilities through a chunky talent tree. And keeping with the whole Metroidvania theme, you'll also be able to find a variety of new mobility tools that will help you uncover new shortcuts, secrets and even more goodies to mess around with!
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Shovel Knight Dig has now arrived, and so far the community seems to be a bit divided on it.
If you're looking for something to help pass the time while Yacht Club Games pour everything they have into Mina the Hollower, an 8-bit tribute to action-adventure games of old, you'll be pleased to hear that a brand new Shovel Knight game is nearly upon us! That said, the upcoming Shovel Knight Dig will offer a bit of a unique experience compared to the mainline series.
The biggest difference is that Shovel Knight Dig will be a roguelite game, which means it'll contain a mixture of hand-crated areas and randomized elements, all in an effort to keep things fresh and interesting for multiple playthroughs. Unsurprisingly, this also means you'll be able to find and unlock a whole bunch of permanent items and upgrades to give your future runs a bit of a boost, as well as to spice up the gameplay as a whole.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Dwarf Fortress' new and improved version has now landed onto Steam, and I'm happy to say that it has done so alongside overwhelmingly positive reviews!.
Despite Dwarf Fortress being a one-of-a-kind colony simulator that can churn out a seemingly never-ending stream of fascinating stories, recommending it is surprisingly difficult since the process of actually playing the game is both obtuse and overwhelming. It takes quite a few hours of reading guides and wiki articles before you can even begin to make sense of everything, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.
So in order to make things more understandable for beginners, as well as easier to manage for even veterans, the Dwarf Fortress team is currently hard at work on a greatly enhanced Steam version. Once it arrives it'll bring with it stylish visuals to better represent what's going on, an overhauled UI with a focus on usability and readability, Steam Workshop support to make modding easier, as well as a whole bunch of random quality-of-life improvements and additions to help smooth out any rough edges.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: Terraria's likely final update "Labor of Love" has now arrived with a bunch of improvements.
[Update]: After many months of teasers, Terraria's Labor of Love update will be launching on September 28th.
After many, many years of quality updates, in 2020 the Re-Logic team decided it is time to bring Terraria's long and storied journey to an end. Rather than let it simply fade away, they released an absurdly massive expansion that added 800 new items to find or craft, a whole host of new enemies and bosses to throw yourself against, a greatly improved world generation system, and the list goes on for a while. As far as final updates go, it doesn't get much better than that!
So naturally, two years later, Re-Logic is now getting ready to unleash yet another chunky new update - "Labor of Love". While this one will also bring with it a variety of new content to mess around with, most if it will be focused on quality-of-life improvements, balance tweaks, as well as general fixes to make the whole experience a much more pleasant one.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Unlike most card games that focus primarily on the strategy side of things and the process of slinging cards directly at the opponent's face, I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is more of a story focused game that uses cards as way of representing your character's growth, as well as for resolving conflicts.
So what is the actual gameplay about? Well, it's mostly about making a variety of interesting choices and then watching how the consequences of those choices change the world around you. And then, thanks to timeloop shenanigans, you get to do all of it again in order to see if you can prevent disasters and save some of the other characters... or perhaps just act as pure agent of chaos.