- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Cook, Serve, Forever has unfortunately been delayed, though thankfully only for a week!
To say that the Cook, Serve, Delicious! series is a strange one would be quite an understatement. While it all started with a humble cooking and restaurant management sim, somehow Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3 ended up being a road trip across war-torn America where you'd get frequently assaulted by rival cooking gangs!
After experimenting with these types ideas for quite a few years, developer Vertigo has now finally decided to give a proper story-based game a try. As such, the upcoming Cook Serve Forever is not only going to feature plenty of cooking action, but also a lengthy storyline that will offer dozens of hours of gameplay, a variety of fully voiced and realized characters to annoy, as well as a bunch of side quests to mess around with.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: Trine 5 has now added crossplay between all the different versions.
[Update]: I have some good news to share! Trine 5 will be launching onto PC and consoles on August 31st, 2023!
After taking a few years off to work on a couple of different genres through Boreal Blade and Starbase, Frozenbyte have announced that their next game will be a new installment of their classic Trine series. Needless to say, the recently revealed Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy is once again going to be a gorgeous 2.5D puzzle-platformer with a heavy emphasis on co-op and all of the chaos that brings with it.
In order to help it stand out from its predecessors, Trine 5 will bring with it a new combat system and tricky boss encounters, a character-specific skill quest system that should add a lot more depth and variety than before, as well as an adaptive difficulty system for both the combat and puzzles. How exactly that last part will work, I'm afraid I have no idea, but if done well I can definitely see the extra challenges adding a fair bit of replay value.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Boltgun has now arrived, and I'm pleased to report it's looking quite good so far!
Doom is all about a ridiculously skilled space marine blasting apart hordes upon hordes of demons. Warhammer 40,000 also happens to feature superhuman Space Marines fighting an essentially endless war against untold numbers of demons. The two have a very strong thematic connection, so combining them through the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun just seems like a great idea to me!
So what even is Boltgun? Well, to put it simply, Boltgun is a sprite-based 'boomer shooter' that will put you in the shoes of a lone Space Marine as he attempts to deliver righteous vengeance against the forces of Chaos. In order to do that you'll need to shoot, hack, explode or simply chainsword your way through legions of pixely (and kind of adorable) enemies spanning everything from worthless cultists to Plague Toads and even the mighty Lords of Change!
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Instead of going on a journey to explore new and far away places, the upcoming narrative focused adventure Inner Ashes is more interested in delving into the past for answers. Specifically, the often tangled memories of Henry, an Alzheimer's patient trying to figure out why their daughter is no longer present in their life.
In between all of the exploration you'll also need to solve a variety of puzzles themed around shapes and memorization. These are apparently based on techniques used to help Alzheimer’s patients alleviate their symptoms, so I can only imagine there's going to be a fairly tight connection between the puzzles and the storyline itself.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
While Cult of the Lamb made a very strong first impression back in August with its intriguing premise and charming visuals, the honeymoon phase didn't last very long as the combat simply lacked the depth and difficulty necessary to keep players truly engaged. So unsurprisingly, the Massive Monster team has decided to focus their first and rather massive free update on improving exactly that.
In order to do so, the Relics of the Old Faith patch has now added a post-game progression system that features revamped and significantly tougher bosses, challenging new enemy types to contend with, as well as new items and abilities to unlock. You can also expect to see new cultist buildings, special boss followers, a new set of challenge runs to overcome, along with a bunch of new accessibility options to help fine-tune your whole experience.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
If you're in the mood for roaming the world in search of monsters to catch, and perhaps even creating a couple of your own, you might want to give the freshly launched Cassette Beasts a look. To put it quite simply, Cassette Beasts is a Pokemon inspired turn-based tactics game where you can fuse literally any two monsters together to amplify their abilities and hopefully get an upper hand over your opponents. Best of all, each one is fully animated, so discovering all of the combinations should be a nice bit of fun!
Besides smashing monsters together, Cassette Beasts will also task you with exploring an open world, solving puzzles, and delving trough dungeons. In true Pokemon fashion, certain monster abilities can also be used outside of combat in order to aid with exploration, so you'll definitely want to revisit old areas every once in a while in order to see what new secrets or shortcuts you can uncover.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: Dredge's Patch 1.1 has now made navigation smoother and added quality-of-life improvements,
[Update]: Good news! Dredge is getting an expansion alongside a couple of quality-of-life focused updates!
Whether we're talking about real life or video games, I must admit I don't like fishing. It's a slow, boring activity that mostly seems like an excuse to crack open a few beers and kick up your feet. Yet despite this, I found myself really enamored with Dredge - a Lovecraftian exploration game that's almost entirely about roaming the isles looking for strange new fish to annoy.
The main reason Dredge got its hooks into me is the simple yet compelling gameplay loop. You need to catch fish and collect various materials in order to upgrade your ship, which then allows you to explore further and catch even bigger fish, which then lets you upgrade your ship with even more fancy toys, and so it goes. Most things take a bit of effort to unlock which makes acquiring new items feel satisfying, yet the process is never too grindy so you get to constantly enjoy a stream of new abilities and enhancements.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: Vampire Survivors will be adding local co-op and fully switching to a new engine on August 17th.
[Update]: Vampire Survivors is getting an animated show, along with even more free updates throughout the Summer!
If you're just looking for an excuse to dive back into Vampire Survivors and lose another dozen hours or so demolishing absurd numbers of enemies, you'll be happy to hear that a brand new expansion has just arrived. Tides of the Foscari brings with it a huge new map to explore, 7 new music tracks, 8 new "extremely original and not remotely derivative" characters, 13 new weapons to experiment with, and naturally, a whole host of new secrets to uncover!
Best of all, the whole thing costs barely anything. Much like the first expansion Tides of the Foscari will set you back 2€, or 1,8€ during the currently ongoing launch week discount. By Grabthar’s Hammer... what a savings!
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: After two years in Early Access, Darkest Dungeon 2 has now been unleashed in all of its 3D glory!
After spending a bit over a year in Early Access, the roguelike turn-based tactics game Darkest Dungeon 2 is now slowly getting ready to release in full. So if you're in the mood for watching all of your favorite characters get sliced up by eldritch abominations, make sure to mark May 8th on your calendar as that's when Darkest Dungeon 2 will be launching onto both Steam and the Epic Games Store.
In terms of gameplay, Darkest Dungeon 2 follows a very similar formula as its predecessor, though it's by no means a simple copy. The visuals have been improved and are now 3D, there is a much greater focus on lengthier expeditions that will have you make a variety of difficult choices along the way, your characters can now form friendships or rivalries, and there's been all sorts of tweaks to the underlying gameplay mechanics in order to make things flow a bit better.
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Deep Rock Galactic's Season 4 has arrived with new enemies, boss, jet boots, and an arcade cabinet.
In celebration of their fifth anniversary, the Deep Rock Galactic team has now unleashed a festive update for everyone to enjoy. The Space Rig has been decorated with balloons, confetti and all sorts of plastic nonsense, the missions now come with an optional objective to double the amount of Performance Points you can earn, and as is tradition, there's also a snazzy new hat to acquire by completing the special anniversary assignment.
However, that's not all! In order to make this an anniversary worth remembering, the Deep Rock Galactic crew has now also re-released the classic 2018 version of the game as a limited time event! It's a bit dated and rough around the edges, but also a nice bit of fun, as well as an excellent showcase of just how far Deep Rock Galactic has managed to come since the early days.