Little Indie Games Worth Knowing About (Probably)

Super interested in anyone’s impressions of that new Tainted Grail game.

This looked VERY Skyrimmy so I of course bought it, and it IS. Just lost ninety minutes to it in the blink of an eye. Really fun so far, and funny too, in a good, intentional way.

I noticed that if you already own Tainted Grail: Conquest and purchase the bundle, you pay only $24.29 for Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon (you get the bundle credit on top of the 10% launch discount).

Apparently you get it free if you bought Conquest before 27th of November 2020.

And of course if you backed the Tainted Grail board game Kickstarter all those years ago, you got both free with that. :)

However it’s only the first chapter of the game, and it’ll be in early access for over a year.

Wait, so they went from a card game to a Skyrim-like game? Now suddenly I’m interested (once it’s out of Early Access, of course).

They sure did, and I had a great time with it. I’ll likely now let it simmer until it’s out of EA.

I was a bit bummed when I found out ages ago that they weren’t going to be doing more of a conversion of the board game, but the music, atmosphere, and gameplay of Conquest were amazing, so I’m willing to give them some benefit of the doubt here.

Hehe, it is like the reverse of the Witcher and Gwent. Instead of big open world RPG > card game, go card game > big open world RPG.

I will not touch the early access version but given the incredible quality of Tainted Grail Conquest AND that I am enjoying the actual boardgame version, including the deep dark mature theme, I will definitely be in for this. My aversion to early access for this one is not a general one, but rather whilst I am happy to EA-up for games with core mechanics that are not narrative or story-arc heavy, like Slay the Spire, I wish to preserve myself for the ‘full’ experience of an immersive world.

Yet still, happy to read about others enjoying it!

Mmm, not exactly. A remaster of the game that Roadwarden spun off from.

So odd. Dungeoneering, town-building and NPCs that have tasks. Someone described it as Terraria meets Minecraft meets Rimworld. At the price on discount it’s an easy call. EA but seems feature complete.

edit: I seem to be underselling it - it’s fantastic. I love it.

The dev of Horizon’s Gate announced his next game Kingsvein, planned for release this year.
A larger roster of rotating fighters exploring a larger location. Classes and adjustable skills in turn based tactical combat encounters.
This time with a “metroidvania-style exploration”. Which I assume means mostly/entirely hand crafted maps you visit repeatedly.

I have tried that a few times, but I could never get into it. Maybe I give up too soon?

We won’t always enjoy the same games and that’s ok but from my perspective, there are boss mechanics, settlement mechanics, farming, animal husbandry. It’s no Rimworld, but it’s hard to argue with the price. It could be a bit deeper than the 5(?) biomes I think it presently has, but it’s been in EA so long and stuff gets constantly added to it.

Weird. Roadwarden of Dragon Pass?

I bought Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon and played through nearly all of the available content.

Summary: Budget Skyrim, looks promising, definitely not done yet. About 10-15 hours of stuff you can do right now, and most of it works really well. If they don’t totally screw it up, it will be impressive when it’s done (particularly given the team size).

Minimal tutorials, so there’s a bunch of stuff you’ll need to figure out on your own or go track down some wikis, guides, or Reddit threads.

Combat is a little janky, and takes a while to learn. I wish it were more fluid/less stiff, but it works. Archery currently feels weak (expensive arrows, minimal damage)

Like Skyrim, it is a “classless” character system. Attributes have attached skills, and you can (and should) mix spells with traditional combat. Your skills level up when you use them, so you will level up “Athletics” by running and “Agility” by jumping. No respec at the moment.

Open world with a story and some chokepoints. Quests with a map and some guidance. A lot of the usual “go get me this thing which happens to be surrounded by monsters”.

Plenty of balance issues and the crafting system seems mostly placeholder right now.

No place to store stuff, and if you drop stuff on the ground or leave it somewhere, it will NOT be there when you return.

Oh, there are bugs, but fewer than I expected to find. Scariest one was load up a save and being trapped underground. Re-save to a new slot, load that save, it was resolved. Nearly all of the in-game stuff works just fine.

I was pleasantly surprised, and look forward to the final version.

Dome Keeper clone.

I have heard vague stories that it LOOKS like a Dome Keeper clone but it’s not. No idea what that means though. So I was leery about it but heck, at under 5 bucks, that’s almost a no-brainer!

Thanks for the tip on Wall World. Looks very similar to Dome Keeper which was an interesting little game that I hope to return to at some point.

I completed Paradise Marsh last night which was like Animal Crossing’s bug catching coupled with Katamari’s constellation collection, wrapped in Proteus’ exploration, visuals and sound (by Disasterpeace). Very cute (especially the sticker and scrap book) but it sounds a lot better than it is. There’s poetry which I’m not great with, florid prose and some grating characters so in the end it just made me realise why I love Proteus so much: it’s quiet with no fluff.

Shardpunk Verminfall came out in the last day or so.

Turn based tactics, node based ‘Choose your path’ type of game.

Intended to be on the hard always scrounging for supplies side of things.

You unlock character with their own skills/weapons/etc, team skills, other permanent unlocks via points you earn by getting various achievements.

Very much the type that gets easier as you unlock things.

I’ve only played an hour or so and it has been enjoyable and challenging.

The enemies seem to be heavily inspired by the skaven from warhammer.