- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Much like Jagged Alliance from which it draws a great deal of inspiration, the upcoming Project Haven is a turn-based tactics game where you control a squad of highly customizable mercs sent on a variety of nearly suicidal missions. In order to succeed you'll need to utilize an assortment of different tools and weapons, carefully plan your approach, and then solve each problem with a combination of stealth, strategy and vast quantities of explosives.
Where Project Haven differs greatly from Jagged Alliance is in the aiming. All of it is done from a 3rd person view, giving you the option to aim exactly where you want to. Headshots grant bonus damage, shots to an enemy's weapon can potentially disarm them or at least mess up their aim, while hits to the legs will obviously slow them down. You'll still have to rely on good ol' fashioned percentages in order to actually score a hit, but being able to personally choose what you're shooting at is certainly a nifty idea.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Prepare to die over and over again as the Ashes of Vados expansion has now arrived.
After greatly expanding the world and fixing many of the post-launch complaints with the chunky Afterlife update, the Souls-like Metroidvania Death's Gambit is now getting ready for its very first paid DLC - Ashes of Vados. You can expect to see it launch onto PC this February 10th, while the Switch and PlayStation versions will be arriving at some point in Spring.
In terms of content, Ashes of Vados will bring with it the continuation of the main storyline along with a climactic boss fight against Ash. Should you manage to succeed, you will also unlock a drastically different and much more challenging version of the encounter called "The Eldritch Hand!" Keeping on with the theme, there will also be devious new platforming challenges to overcome in the appropriately named Halls of Cruelty.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Vampire Survivors will be getting a new engine with greatly enhanced performance this Summer.
Like many things in life, good games come in all shapes and sizes. There are some that are so ridiculously elaborate that you can spend dozens of hours playing them without feeling like you've cracked the surface of what's on offer. And then there are games that do exactly one thing, but they do it so well that you can't help but keep playing them into the wee hours of the morning.
The recently released Vampire Survivors, a game that has been making quite a splash over the past week, belongs in that second category. It's essentially a Castlevania inspired and super-casual roguelike where you get to mow down hundreds upon hundreds of enemies while watching your powers grow to absurd levels.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Dread Hunger is one of those survival games where the challenge isn't in staying alive amidst the freezing cold, but rather in trying to actually do anything productive while the entire world descends into utter madness around you. After all, it's not every day you get to see a group of grown men furiously argue aboard a sinking ship about who deserves the last bowl of soup, completely unaware you poisoned the entire batch a while ago!
If that kind of nonsense sounds like something you'd love to sink your teeth into, you'll be happy to hear that after about a year in Early Access Dread Hunger has now been officially released! Here's a brief trailer showing off the whole premise:
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: Achilles: Legends Untold has launched into Early Access, and while it does show promise it's still a bit rough around the edges.
[Update]: Achilles: Legends Untold has now launched into Open Beta, so if you're interested in giving it a try, make sure to do so before the whole thing closes down on February 10, 2022.
The upcoming Achilles: Legends Untold is bit of an interesting combination of genres. On one hand it is a Diablo inspired action game where you get to slice and dice your way through entire armies, and on the other hand it's a Souls-like RPG where timing and positioning are often the only difference between being victorious or simply splattered across the floor.
In order to spice things up even further, the AI in Achilles: Legends Untold is designed to cooperate rather than simply rush at you. So as long as they have numerical superiority, the enemies will try a variety of different strategies in order to catch you off your guard. A pretty neat idea, provided it doesn't get too predictable anyway.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Much like the original, La-Mulana 2 is a deviously challenging puzzle-exploration game that doesn't hold your hand in any way. As such, an average playthrough is going to have you singlehandedly dismantle complex puzzles, solve obscure riddles, and often spend considerable amounts of time trying to figure out if the strange wall in front of you is simply ornamental or some kind of mysterious clue you aren't fully comprehending!
If that kind of difficulty sounds like something you live for, you'll be happy to hear that La-Mulana 2 has just added its very first piece of DLC - The Tower of Oannes. The newly added map stands shoulder to shoulder with the Hell Temple in terms of difficulty, which as you might imagine given the name, means that you're in for quite a ride!
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
After going through a bit of an extended closed beta test, The Thing and Aliens inspired horror-action game Hidden Deep is now nearly ready for its big launch. That's not an exaggeration either, as Hidden Deep will be launching into Steam Early Access within the next hour or two!
Given its influences, it should come as little surprise that Hidden Deep will have you explore a cramped system of underground caverns that are filled to the brim with all sorts of nightmarish amalgamations. In order to survive you'll need to use specialized equipment like grappling hooks and terrain scanners, as well as slightly less subtle things heavy machinery and high-powered weaponry.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
In an interesting little divergence from the usual action-RPG tropes, Never Mourn is an upcoming, fast-paced roguelike where you get to play as a necromancer. So not only do you need to worry about the usual stuff like dodging enemy attacks and striking when an opportunity presents itself, but also ponder which enemies you'd like to add to your side and when it would be convenient to do so!
Since this is a rather unique concept, allow me to me to share with you the freshly posted teaser trailer. It should give you a pretty good impression of just what Never Mourn is trying to accomplish:
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Democracy 4, as you might imagine from the name alone, is a political simulator and strategy game about running a country... or rather, desperately trying to run a country while everything collapses around you! In order to bring your vision of the future to life you'll need to carefully handle an assortment of complicated topics, work on passing unpopular laws without losing too much support from your voters, wrangle with the ever-annoying opposition, and most importantly, do whatever you can to stay in power or else it will all go to waste!
How all of this madness translates into actual gameplay, that you can find out through the freshly posted launch trailer. Have a peek, it's a fairly short one:
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Instead of sticking with the same formula as many of the other action-roguelikes on Steam, the upcoming Mythic is trying to push things in a more MMO direction. So rather than watch you brave the dangers of the world alone, Mythic will have you join forces with a large assortment of other wanderers as you move from map to map.
Naturally, since Mythic is a roguelike the world itself will be procedurally generated and filled with all sorts of goodies to collect and monsters to slay, while careless deaths will send you all the way back to the start of the region you're in. And in order to ensure you're always progressing forward, there will also be five unique skill trees to explore and customize your character with.