Little Indie Games Worth Knowing About (Probably)

It’s free - so no questions asked even if it feels like a beta:

Thanks, Therlun. Potionomics looked really appealing, so I appreciate the impressions. And I totally missed Diluvian Winds, and it looks great!

Played a bit of The Pale Beyond. It’s atmospheric, but I was getting the impression that the story has been determined, and you are just moving around the ship clicking the one option to go on. There are choices, but pretty much blind choices. Then I got to a point where I could not find a way to continue the story, bringing back bad memories of old RPGs where most of your time was spent trying to figure out how to go on.

The game opens up after the initial introductions on the ship with more management and decisions. The dialogue trees also have more impact in relations and outcomes.

The action(s) that progress the week are always yellow. Maybe you need to zoom out a bit on a screen to see them.

Another interesting demo available right now is Inkulinati. The art style is off the charts (isn’t that what you kids say??):

Inkulinati has been on my wish list for a while. Time to check out the demo.

I don’t know what the kids say but the art style is off the charts :D Got the demo installed (among many others!) but not had chance to take a dip yet.

My current demo haul:

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I’m tempted by Skald and Dredge as well. Will try and report back!

I’ve been enjoying some demos.

Flat Eye - dystopian Icelandic service station management sim. Hard to say how good this actually is, because the demo is very short and I’m so in love with the art style that it overwhelms my critical faculties. Promising, I guess is how Id put it, but the hints at the larger story make me wonder about replayability.

Dredge - Sunless Seas set in a fictional New England. Upgrade the boat, learn about the spooky things beneath the waves, sail around, fish. Enjoyed my time with it.

Zero Sievert - This is a pixelated, top-down single player Escape from Tarkov with bits of STALKER thrown in. Got its hooks in me immediately, even though it’s fussy about rebinding keys, which is normally an instant no-play for a lefty like me. Mod weapons, craft food, die and lose everything you found on the run because you tried to loot one more thing. Will buy the minute it’s available. Scratches an itch I didn’t know I had.

Which brings me to
Superfuse - Action RPG in which keys cannot be rebound. QWERTY or die. Uninstalled after 2 minutes. Might be ok, but there are a lot of action RPGS in the NextFest.

Downloaded the demo to try it out. I like the look/feel of it but the demo is just terrible. The load screens moving between areas or tasks are out of hand (5-10 seconds for me with a note like ‘Buy this game!’ basically) & after you’re told to ‘Travel’, you’re just stuck going between the three vendors with no way to go back to your shop. Apparently you have to buy something from the ingredient vendor and give it as a gift to someone in order to advance but it never mentions this at all. Just leaves you hanging with nowhere to go. I think they’re going to lose potential customers just on how bad the demo is.

It kind of suggests it by saying you CAN do that, but yeah, I’m sure a lot of people will struggle with that. The deckbuilding haggle system is a neat idea, so that’s a shame

King of the Castle is a social storytelling game. One player is the king, making decisions for his kingdom, and his friends (on Twitch or in a browser, apparently) are the council that votes on whether he actually gets to do what he wants.

Oh that sounds great!

Was just watching some video. Superfuse looks absolutely incredible. Futuristic, comic-styled aRPG with a modular upgrade system for tailoring skills with “fuses” (on a hex grid, so much less restrictive than something like PoE gems).

No release date yet, but will be watching for this one.

I just saw a Splattercat video on SUPERFUSE. Looks really good. Not being able to rebind keys doesn’t bother me, as I always program my mouse to emit whatever keys the game needs. Plus, this is an early demo so it’s quite possible rebinding will be in the game when it launches.

That’s how I heard about it.The EA isn’t coming until next year. I’m certain the key binds are just a demo limitation.

Nomad Survival has left early access. It’s a Vampire Survivors clone with no limits on the passives and weapons you can collect. A bit more casual but still quite fun. I got it bundled, but it’s well worth the $3.

“Ooh, only $3.”
“Nomad Survival is already in your Steam library.”

I find this more common where I already own games and don’t even know it. Apparently I got this from a recent Fanatical bundle. Time to try this out on my Deck.

I just heard a glowing review of the demo for Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, out early next year:

Apparently it is doing some wild things mechanically and structurally.

I mean, all of ACE Team’s games are at least noteworthy. They always have some bat-shit bonkers setting.

I think you are underselling it