- By Ash
- in Indie Games
In a bit of an interesting twist on the usual survival horror formula, the upcoming Harvest Hunt has decided to mix in a bunch of different roguelike elements in order to hopefully keep things tense and interesting for a long time to come. As such, not only will you have to contend with an eldritch horror stalking you through a fetid swamp, but also a variety of random modifiers that can drastically shift the balance in either direction and prevent you from getting too comfortable.
Personally, I really like this idea. Fear of the unknown can be a remarkably strong factor in horror games, and what better way to make the monster unknowable than by constantly changing the rules!
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Much like Vampire Survivors from which it takes a great deal of inspiration, Brotato is a ridiculously customizable and equally addictive action roguelite. You'll start off each run with a fairly generic set of gear, and by the time you're done you'll not only have additional arms sprouting from your body, but each of those arms will be armed with some kind of absurdly overpowered (or just absurd in general) weapon that can rip and tear through the enemy hordes.
The big difference between the two games is that Brotato focuses a bit more on presenting the players with proper challenges while Vampire Survivors is all about the non-stop power trip. As such, Brotato not only comes with multiple difficulty settings to choose from, but also an additional set of sliders that you can use to fine-tune the settings in either direction. So if even you get good at it, you can still amp things up to the point where the fate of each run will rest at the knife's edge.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
To say that Dead Cells has had a lot of support over the years would be quite an understatement. Between the crossover updates, paid DLC and numerous free additions, the number of weapons, locations and potential builds increased significantly since launch, and the game is much better for it.
Alas, all good things must eventually come to an end, and the same goes for Dead Cells. So after five years of updates, it looks like the upcoming Patch 35 will be the very last one. A real shame since I truly believe Dead Cells could've easily sustained many more updates and DLCs given how fun the core gameplay is, but I certainly won't fault the Evil Empire team for wanting to move onto something new after all this time.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Set many generations after nuclear war devastated Australia's cities, Broken Roads is a story about survival in an extremely harsh environment, as well as the painful process of rebuilding civilization. Unlike games like Fallout or Wasteland where the wilderness is full of deranged mutants and rabid beasts, most of Broken Roads' conflicts are a result of people being people, which gives it a grounded and rather unique feel.
If that sounds like the type of cRPG you might be interested in, you'll be pleased to hear that you won't have to wait all that long to give Broken Roads a try. And I do mean that quite literally as Broken Roads is set to launch next week, on April 10th!
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Instead of just playing it safe and creating Dead Cells 2, the Motion Twin team has decided to take their next game Windblown in a bit of a different direction. As such, not only will Windblown be fully 3D and give you a lot more room to maneuver than Dead Cells, but you'll also be able to tackle its many challenges alongside friends in 3-player co-op!
As for the actual gameplay, it should come as little surprise to hear that Windblown is going to be a fast-paced roguelite. Much like its predecessor, Windblown will arm you with a variety of different weapons and abilities, and then throw you against a massive amount of tricky enemies and bosses. Needless to say you'll likely be dying a whole bunch while learning the ropes, but that's all part of the fun as the greater the challenge, the better it feels once you finally stomp it into the ground!
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Only a month has gone by since Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor launched into Early Access, and already it has managed to become a massive success. And when I say massive, I really do mean that as the Funday Games team have just revealed that Survivor has sold more than 1,000,000 copies!
In order to bump those numbers even further, the developers have also announced that a brand new biome, the Salt Pits, will be launching on March 20th. As you would expect from the name alone, the defining feature of the Salt Pits will be a variety of stalagmites that not only look pretty, but can also used as impromptu weapons against the bugs.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is celebrating 1,000,000 copies sold with a brand new Biome.
The original Deep Rock Galactic is all about mining for precious minerals, annihilating bugs in the most irresponsible ways possible, and naturally, taking literal years off from mission control's life due to the sheer madness he's forced to witness on a daily basis. As such, I'm sure it'll come as a massive surprise to hear that's also what the recently released Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, a roguelite auto-shooter spin-off, is all about!
There are some differences since this is a highly challenging singleplayer game, but the concept is mostly the same. You're still mining for minerals, except they're now used to purchase both temporary and permanent upgrades. Similarly, you're still smashing hordes of bugs, except now you also get to loot all sorts of new weapons and weapon upgrades while doing so.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: Helldivers 2 will soon be getting the EXO-45 Patriot Exosuits teased all the way back at launch.
[Update]: My 70+ hour review of Helldivers 2 is now out, and I'm delighted to say that the game is phenomenal!
Following in the footsteps of games like Risk of Rain 2, Arrowhead Game Studios have decided to really shake things up for the sequel to their 2015 co-op shooter Helldivers. As such, not only is Helldivers 2 going to be bigger, better and more polished than its predecessor, but it'll also forgo the restricting top-down view in favor of a more personal and higher fidelity third-person one.
When it comes to the actual gameplay, it should come as little surprise to hear that Helldivers 2 will equip you with an assortment of absurdly overpowered weaponry and throw you into the meatgrinder against equally absurd numbers of enemies. Add to that a plethora of toys that all cause copious amounts of friendly fire, a constant stream of chaos and nonsense, as well as overly patriotic, Starship Troopers flavored dialogue, and you've got yourself the building blocks of a (hopefully) highly entertaining co-op game.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
A fair bit of time has gone by since Hades 2 was first announced, but I'm happy to say that we now have at least a bit more information about it. First and foremost, Hades 2 will be heading into Early Access (both on Steam and the Epic Games Store) in Q2, 2024, though no exact release date has been announced just yet.
Much like its predecessor, the initial version of Hades 2 will come with a sizable amount of content, which will then be expanded through a variety of updates guided by player feedback. These types of updates will bring with them additional characters (likely meaning non-playable ones), new and expanded storylines, deeper interactions, and naturally, more areas to explore and enemies to clobber.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
If you're in the mood for something a little bit unusual, you might want to check out the somewhat recently released Slay the Princess. To put it quite simply, it's a narrative-driven horror game where all you have to do is slay the princess in order to save the world. Naturally, things don't stay that simple for very long as the story quickly spirals into a myriad of different directions, time loops and other bizarre scenarios, all of which will slowly lead you to the truth behind it all.
Since trying to explain all of this through words alone is a bit of a futile endeavor, allow me to instead share with you the freshly posted launch trailer. Have a gander, it should hopefully clarify a couple of things... hopefully: