Great indie game reviews.
Arietta, a young lady camping at grandma's cabin along with Arietta's mom and dad. Arietta meets a spirit named Arco during their first night. After Arietta's departed grandmother greets her on the cabin pier and sends her on a quest to retrieve a silver ring, things take a major turn. With some authentic metaphysical storytelling involving realms, ghosts, and spirits, the integrity of the spiritual aspect of this game is solid. In reward, it creates a game with a story with countless possibilities and storytelling. Let's take a look.
Golfie is a new concept game from Triheart Studio labeled rogue-like deck-building mini-golf. They've just released a demo, and I was able to get a first-hand look at the game and its odds and ends. The environments are pleasant, gameplay fun, and I'd love to see more down the line. I had to doubletake the genre with all those tags, but it's a neat little game that actually maintained my attention quite a bit. The deck-building element was a double whammy because I know nothing of these things! Once again though, this feature is implemented in a really neat way as well. So there is plenty to observe and plenty and say. I think you're going to take an interest in this one, it's not your regular golf game. Let's get started!
Cosmo's Quickstop is a hilarious new game out about an alien family who runs a gas station in outer space. It's your job to learn how to run things pretty much by yourself unless you're playing co-op. The game displays an absolutely fun design direction, with chunky colorful spaceship interiors and holographic control screens for tasks. It also has a goofy fun bug-eyed alien cast which reminds me of the excellent TV show Tripping the Rift. This may or may not be an inspiration, but it's a fun reference point either way. While you play, your new home is chock full of customer maintenance borderline crises that will have you chortling while you rush to keep up. I am loving this, so let's take a closer look
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Big Boy Boxing is a cartoony indie boxing dev inspired by Cuphead and the classic late 80's NES game Punch-Out!! The concept is polished and shiny for contemporary indie players who thrive on retro quirks in new games. You play as a new boxer, trained up through the earnest beginning in the ring with a trainer, Coach Hank. At this stage of development, the demo is pretty short with only one contender, but there are plenty of interesting observations to be made on this neat project. I'd say it's pretty certain by the time this is released this is going to be a very hyped game in the indie world and beyond. The project from concept to gameplay is really enjoyable and I'm ready to dive in, so let's take a look.
The Wratch's Den is a rogue-like dungeon builder from the depths of the PUNKCAKE Délicieux inventory on Itch.IO. The gameplay involves building a pixel art style base by mining the surrounding layers of cave rock. The core of the base is a simple brick square structure that houses a minotaur villain on a throne that oversees a group of minions. Progress is measured by how quickly you respond to crusading do-gooders and the retrieval of three magic orbs. When enough progress is made the arch-villain minotaur can research new areas in the base or even revive slain minions. This entire experience is procedurally generated and leads to casual replay value that is pretty dang fun. So, let me take you into the depths of The Wratch's Den, and tell you what I see.
Mini-motorways is a delightful traffic planning sim released within the last month. It boasts charming flat graphic aesthetics with an intuitive casual style game experience. The sleek 2D environment bleeds indie simplicity worthy of a gaming machine or a new phone. The gameplay is relatively simple but allows interactive city planning in a selection of metropolitans all around the world. Start with a small group of structures within the map and drag road tiles and other traffic structures between color-coordinated structures to advance. As you progress, you'll learn tricks and skills to create a flawless infrastructure. I'm excited to take a look at this one with you, so let's get started!
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Dark Dragonkin is an indie dev project from Twintertainment that is a top-down pixelized fantasy RPG/dungeon-crawler. Players control multiple characters in a group to make them work together to defeat enemies and advance the story. This game is still deep in the dev process with a potential audience of RPG fans and general indie gamers. It feels very attended to as a solo dev project though, and the potential to scale abilities and environments into a fully fleshed world is entirely real. So, I sat down with Dark Dragonkin and played through the first level. I recommend if you test the demo for this you realize how far the developers have come in working on basic mechanics and themes. I thought it was pretty cool, so let's talk about it.
Colorblend fx Desaturation is an upcoming game released in demo form shortly before testing it here on my end. It’s a 3D platformer with story-rich puzzle-solving elements that blend ideas about color and storytelling. The characters in Colorblend fx Desaturation consist of a wholesome-ish pack of potato-headed buds called the Splatians. And deep in the fire and brimstone caverns of who knows where is the abode of nefarious minions sworn to a meanie named Lord Ashen. In a diabolical turn of fate, Lord Ashen depletes the Splatian’s home of colorful hues in place of monochrome misery. The only solution is to work with your friends and solve creative puzzles involving color to defeat Lord Ashen.
Toodee and Topdee is so far one of my favorite platformer concepts that I've ever tried. A while back I did a documentary review that talked a bit about the game Fez. While much different conceptually, they both have a neat mechanic that combined 2D platforming with shiftable perspectives. I'm not sure how efficiently I can describe this concept without getting into some straight-up academic theories involving geometry, so be sure to watch the video, but suffice to say it is really, really neat. Plus anybody can play! The game has a compelling intro with a demagogue world-merging backstory, and each level is a platform with locks and blocks, in what I want to say is kind of like the super old school game Chips Challenge mixed with Portal. I have some exciting thoughts on this, so let's get started.
