Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s going on in the indie game space. As ever, if you’re looking for something new to play this weekend, we’ve got several games that are worthy of your attention. We’ll also take a look at some news about upcoming games, including word of a Steam port of an excellent Playdate title.
I realized recently I’ve been playing a lot of roguelites lately — such as Minos and Titanium Court — and that I should balance that out by dipping into other types of games. I checked out one I wrote about recently called The Day I Became A Bird. This is a narrative game based on a children’s book. It’s about a young boy who falls in love with a classmate who’s really into birds. So, in a bid to get her attention, he builds and wears a bird costume.
With that story, a hand-drawn, painterly art style and lines like “The day I started school, I fell in love” and “All I see is her, but she doesn’t see me,” it captured my heart. It’s a very sweet and gentle game about the near-universal experience of young love.
The Day I Became A Bird is a game that parents might want to consider playing with young kids to explore ideas like how to express one’s feelings. The gameplay, which features exploration and some light puzzle solving, is straightforward too. It only took me around an hour to complete the game and find all the collectibles, so if you’re a PS5 trophy hunter, The Day I Became A Bird is a solid way to snatch an easy platinum too. It’s available on Steam, PS5 and Nintendo Switch for $20.
On a completely different note, I really like that there’s such a broad variety of events on Steam. There’s a neat one called InterfaceX26 that’s running until May 4. It features games with simulated operating systems and other kinds of custom interfaces.
Meanwhile, artist and designer Brad Smith is trying to put together a Punk Games Fest, which is tentatively planned for this October. Submissions are open until July 23. I really hope that comes together as I love the idea.
New indie game releases
Far Far West is off to a strong start after it hit Steam in early access this week. The co-op shooter from Evil Raptor and publisher Fireshine Games sold more than 250,000 copies in its first 48 hours. It typically costs $20, but there’s a 10 percent launch discount until May 5.
As a robot cowboy, you can play solo or form a squad with up to three friends and go bounty hunting. You’ll hunt down elusive, dangerous targets in order to take them out and scoop up the rewards.
You’ll encounter undead enemies such as skeletons and vultures, as well as haunted mines and ghost trains. There’s an extraction element to this (you can try to complete extra objectives for better rewards), though it seems more along the lines of Helldivers 2 than a more survival-oriented experience like Arc Raiders. You can use your loot to upgrade your loadout with new guns, abilities and spells. You can customize your cowboy and steed too.
I really dig the pixel-art look of 2D hack-and-slash adventure SoulQuest. The animations (which are said to be frame-perfect) in the trailer are super slick, which makes sense given that combat is built around combos of light and heavy attacks. You’ll have magic powers and ultimates at your disposal too.
You play as Alys, a recently widowed warrior who refuses to accept her husband’s fate and sets out to reclaim his soul. A soul quest, if you will. It took the small team at SoulBlade Studio seven years to bring the game to fruition and seven seconds for me to add it to my wishlist.
SoulQuest is available on Steam (usually $20, though there’s a 20 percent discount until May 15). You can get a taste of what it has to offer by checking out the demo.
Gambonanza is a chess-based, Balatro-esque roguelite. It has some solid momentum, given that more than 170,000 people downloaded it during a recent Steam Next Fest event.
The aim in each round is to capture all of the opponent’s pieces on a small-scale chessboard. You’ll probably need to break the traditional rules of chess to do that. Helpfully, Gambonanza has more than 150 powerful “gambits” that modify your runs. These might make your pieces more powerful or force the enemy to skip a turn. Tiles on the board can also be modified (to, for instance, lock an enemy piece in place) and you can deploy extra pieces to turn rounds in your favor.
Along the way, you’ll face bosses. It seems like one of those is a machine named M2ch4gnus C4rls3n, obviously after real-life grandmaster and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen. That alone has sold me on checking out this game.
Gambonanza — from solo developer Blukulélé and publishers Sidekick Publishing and Stray Fawn Studio — is out now. The Steam version runs on PC, macOS and Linux. It usually costs $15, but there’s a whopping 35 percent discount until May 15. You can also snap up the game on iOS and Android for $7.
As I started watching this trailer, I thought Bobo Bay looked like a cute, cozy creature collector. But then these Bobos started battling each other in a beat-’em-up mode, and one pulled out a gun to shoot an opponent. That didn’t feel quite as intense as seeing Palworld for the first time but it made the game more interesting than it seemed at first glance. “Think creature collecting meets cozy island life, with a surprising amount of depth under all that cuteness,” a press release stated. No kidding.
You can raise and evolve Bobos and combine their traits. You can customize them and get them to participate in races and other events. And shoot guns at each other, apparently.
Bobo Bay, from NewFutureKids, is out on Steam. It will usually cost $25, but there’s a 16 percent discount until May 6.
As a Ball x Pit sicko, I would be remiss not to mention the latest free update, which arrived this week. It added two new characters, 11 more superpowered balls, some passive abilities and a way for you to re-roll character upgrades that you previously opted for.
Alas, I’ve been too busy with another game to check out the new characters and balls just yet. I know that, as soon as I do, Ball x Pit is likely to have a hold on me for at least another dozen hours.
Upcoming indie games
A highlight of Playdate Season 2 is coming to Steam. Antonio “Fáyer” Uribe, one of the developers behind Dig! Dig! Dino!, revealed this week that a port for Valve’s storefront is in the works.
It looks as though the Steam version will retain the one-bit art style of the original Playdate game. Dig! Dig! Dino! is probably my favorite game from Playdate Season 2. In fact, it was one of the best games I played last year overall. So I find it neat that a much larger audience will get the chance to check out this delightful, relaxing game about digging for dinosaur bones.
I’ll always be interested in whatever the prolific team at Strange Scaffold is working on. Its latest announcement has both a wild idea and a bizarre name. I’d expect nothing less.
Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World?! is billed as an anime-inspired blend of visual novel and driving action game. You’ll play as a truck that transports people to a medieval fantasy world in the grand Japanese tradition of isekai fiction.
The truck collides with Carissa Ward, who’s just about to start a new corporate job but suddenly finds herself trying to slay the Skeleton King and return home. When the vehicle clatters into pedestrians, they turn into monsters that Carissa can defeat for XP to help her on her journey. All of this chaos is set to a ska-inspired soundtrack by David Mason, the composer of Dredge and previous Strange Scaffold game Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3.
The concept somehow reminds me a bit of Colossal, a great movie in which Anne Hathaway discovers she controls a kaiju that appears in Seoul whenever she enters a playground in her hometown. The idea of parallel worlds, in which actions taking place in one realm affects what happens in the other, is also a core idea in Screenbound, a game I absolutely cannot wait to play.
In any case, Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World?! is another instant addition to my ever-expanding Steam wishlist. It will hit that platform later this year.
Feather’s Edge is a Metroidvania that made its first public appearance during last weekend’s mammoth Indie Live Expo showcase (which featured more than 200 games!). The action here looks really interesting. You’ll slice through enemies by finding effective angles for your attacks. It appears as if you’ll often have to quickly change direction in the heat of the moment. These dashes are also used for platforming.
It seems like more of a tactical approach to the genre than the likes of Hollow Knight. As a fan of games like Subpar Pool and Flick Shot Rogues, which are largely about looking for effective angles, this one has my attention.
Feather’s Edge — from Clockwork Acorn and co-publisher Outersloth — is coming to Steam. A playtest is said to be taking place soon.
Wanderburg was also featured during the Indie Live Expo showcase. This is a roguelike that seems to be in the vein of Vampire Survivors. The big twist in this game — for which the team at Randwerk took inspiration from Mortal Engines and Howl’s Moving Castle — is that you play as a castle on wheels. You’ll build out your fortress by adding more weapons and upgrading factors like its speed and armor as you battle squads of soldiers and enemy settlements.
More than 300,000 people have played the demo so far. Randwerk and Sidekick Publishing have announced that it will hit Steam in early access sometime this summer. Definitely one to keep an eye on.
Like many of you, my Steam backlog is out of control. My library of purchased and as-yet untouched games has expanded significantly since I started putting together this weekly roundup last year. Developer Nic Taylor has found a way for us to address that issue head on with Game Quest: The Backlog Battler.
Here, games in your Steam library that you play the least are the enemies you’ll battle. The more you paid for a game, the more damage it deals. Games you have never fired up are “immortal royalty.” Conversely, the games you play the most will back you up. I wonder if this means the entire Overwatch roster will be on my side.
What a fun idea. You can even take on your friends’ Steam libraries if they’ve made those public. Taylor plans to add a feature that will turn titles on your Steam wishlist into enemies as well. I’ll be in serious danger at that point.
Game Quest: The Backlog Battler will be available in early access later this year. You can start battling your backlog right now via the demo.