Little Indie Games Worth Knowing About (Probably)

Ooooh! That’s why it was vaguely familiar: it was my very first phone game when I bought an iPod as a console, copying what you were telling on podcast at the time!
I loved that game, can’t believe I had forgotten about it. Now I’m intrigued about Exo One.
The video was really beautiful but nondescriptive.

Tiny Wings is basically the skiing in Tribes 1, but as an endless runner. Exo One uses the same basic concept. Click to increase your mass and speed up downhill, and then releases to decrease your mass and ramp off inclines. You can also hold down shift to glide, and you can steer since it’s a 3D world.

There does seem to be some variety among the different planets in terms of how lift works with varying atmospheres. But basically, you’re dropped onto procedurally generated terrain with a waypoint off the in distance. When you reach it, you progress to a new map. As far as I can tell, that’s the entirety of the game. An endless variety of random maps.

So, not really a game so much as a traversal sandbox using a fancy graphics engine. In other words, right up there with Riders Republic and Forza Horizon 5. :)

-Tom

Sick burns!

Now I want to try that Tribes game everybody’s been raving about for years decades, but I am way too late for that.

It’s never too late for Tribes, still the best capture the flag game ever made.

To be fair, I should point out that I’ve enjoyed all three games. Forza Horizon 5, Riders Republic, and Exo One have wildly divergent amounts of gameplay built around their physics models and graphics engines, but they’re essentially the same thing: traversal sandboxes. I like all three of them.

-Tom

I saw a friend on Steam bought this and it looks like an amazing puzzle game.

Did you vote for his battlefield team? ;)

Also, this is in a $3.49 bundle with 5 other games I don’t know, for the next few hours: https://www.indiegala.com/bundle/saviour-road-bundle

I remember this one quite well when it first came out. Enjoyed it until I actually had to fly my dragon. I was fine with ground battles just wandering around on foot, exploring and killing stuff but I was no damn good at aerial battles, which was kind of the whole point of the game. So I quit.

I’m playing more of Dysmantle. I dont know what I was expecting, but this plays like a slow life sim. The combat and survival is basically ancillary to the crafting, and zombies are really only as much of a threat as you want them to be. Last session I got a fishing rod and checked out the local waterways. It’s a relaxing zombie-themed life sim and I’m here for it.

I’m kind of interested in it but I get the impression it will get boring fairly quickly…?

That was my experience with it, although far be it from me to dismiss a survival game as “boring”. Some people have a much higher threshold for survival busywork, but Dysmantle seems to consist almost entirely of survival busywork. Which is fine if that’s the kind of game you want to play, but not at all what I was hoping 10 Ton would make. This is the latest from the guys who did super-addictive fast-paced twin-stick shooters like Neon Chrome, Jydge, and Tesla vs. Lovecraft, all of which I played extensively? Yeesh.

-Tom

Thank you. Yeah, that’s certainly the impression I had from the videos I’ve watched.

Disciples-like retro TBS.

This looks very interesting, but the premiere video (horribly voiced) makes it pretty clear this is EA without the EA label.

How so? I think it’s fitting. It’s just very crazy overall.

Did you like Cryptark? I sure did. Did you know the same developers did a really cool Ancient Greek-themed Metroidvania called Apotheon? They’re a team out of Toronto called Alientrap and I suspect they’re very busy these days because their newest game is out next week:

-Tom

I did. I did. I did not!

Wytchwood is a crafting adventure game

I’ll forget having read that when I’ll buy it!

Are you saying this is not releasing into early access, and it has full controller support day 1? Very interested!

Those dudes are too good to be influenced by gaming suckers!