Upcoming Indie Games to Keep an Eye On

Agreed. Looks excellent!

Aaron D. wrote:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1...

Oh hell yeah.

Day One.

Features:
-Return to the city of Nivalis to explore new areas and meet new characters.
-Play through a brand new, fully-voiced campaign as long and as compelling as the base game.
...
...

Oh my.

Day Zero!

Welp, time to finish the original campaign.

Veloxi wrote:

Welp, time to finish the original campaign.

What's funny is for how low key the game setup & structure is, Blade Runner taxi service...and I love it for that, the end-game narrative really goes places thematically & emotionally.

Stuck with me far more than I might have imagined.

Set in a series of procedurally-generated labyrinths, Loot River is a dungeon-crawling action-roguelike that combines the tense, real-time combat and dark fantasy stylings of dark souls with the spatial block-shifting puzzles of Tetris.

Tetris Souls people! Hopefully this comes to Game Pass.

I think this is considered indie? It's on PC and the closest I'll get to playing animal crossing. Played a little and enjoyed it. Love the look. It is time gated like animal crossing though.

Time gated, but from what I read it doesn’t try to guilt you if you miss days.

How about a game where you restore a wasteland and then clear out the buildings. Terra Nil just got pre-listed on Steam.

Yes please!

Devolver digital puts some of their games on game pass. Here’s hoping…

That game looks dope!

I love how that ends with everything being packed up.

Since the trailer and other materials don’t really tell us much about how it actually plays—though I can’t refute just how pretty and appealing it looks—this shows far more about how the itch.io version plays:

NSFW Language.

It reminds me of a Minecraft mode pack called Regrowth. There are no biomes: everything is a wasteland and you have to build machines that turn wasteland into plains, forests, etc.

Solasta Crown of the Magister is really good yall.
The TBS RPG doesn't overwhelm you with systems but that doesn't mean its simplistic at all.

Some of the key things I like are how the advantage and disadvantages are handled. They have straight forward things like cover providing bonuses. But they also incorporate light and shadow really interestingly. For instance, even if you have darkvision, it has a limited range so if you shoot something outside that range, they are in darkness.

Solasta also does really unique things with jumping and climbing in combat. There is a lot of play that manipulates the third axis.

They also do a nice and unique thing where conversation options are available for each of your party members that have those skills (persuasion, intimidate, history, religion), personality (pragmatic, altruistic, greedy) or languages.

I really can't wait to get to level 3 so I can try out all the interesting subclasses. They don't have many classes but they have enough considering each gets at least 3 subclasses. (clerics get around 8 domains) I hope they have plans to add more classes that don't require DLC. I sorely miss sorcerer, druid, barbarian, monk and bard. The classes they do include are: fighter, rogue, ranger, cleric, wizard, paladin.

And just binged another 5+ hours in Solasta. It is really, really good.

This completed several hours ago. I’m mostly looking forward to Yokai Inn, but there are no platforms announced for it yet:

(skip to 15:00.)

fangblackbone wrote:

Solasta Crown of the Magister is really good yall.
The TBS RPG doesn't overwhelm you with systems but that doesn't mean its simplistic at all.

Some of the key things I like are how the advantage and disadvantages are handled. They have straight forward things like cover providing bonuses. But they also incorporate light and shadow really interestingly. For instance, even if you have darkvision, it has a limited range so if you shoot something outside that range, they are in darkness.

Solasta also does really unique things with jumping and climbing in combat. There is a lot of play that manipulates the third axis.

They also do a nice and unique thing where conversation options are available for each of your party members that have those skills (persuasion, intimidate, history, religion), personality (pragmatic, altruistic, greedy) or languages.

I really can't wait to get to level 3 so I can try out all the interesting subclasses. They don't have many classes but they have enough considering each gets at least 3 subclasses. (clerics get around 8 domains) I hope they have plans to add more classes that don't require DLC. I sorely miss sorcerer, druid, barbarian, monk and bard. The classes they do include are: fighter, rogue, ranger, cleric, wizard, paladin.

Thanks for posting about this. I have it high on my Steam wishlist but am holding off as I work through some other games.

Vector wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Solasta Crown of the Magister is really good yall.
The TBS RPG doesn't overwhelm you with systems but that doesn't mean its simplistic at all.

Some of the key things I like are how the advantage and disadvantages are handled. They have straight forward things like cover providing bonuses. But they also incorporate light and shadow really interestingly. For instance, even if you have darkvision, it has a limited range so if you shoot something outside that range, they are in darkness.

Solasta also does really unique things with jumping and climbing in combat. There is a lot of play that manipulates the third axis.

They also do a nice and unique thing where conversation options are available for each of your party members that have those skills (persuasion, intimidate, history, religion), personality (pragmatic, altruistic, greedy) or languages.

I really can't wait to get to level 3 so I can try out all the interesting subclasses. They don't have many classes but they have enough considering each gets at least 3 subclasses. (clerics get around 8 domains) I hope they have plans to add more classes that don't require DLC. I sorely miss sorcerer, druid, barbarian, monk and bard. The classes they do include are: fighter, rogue, ranger, cleric, wizard, paladin.

Thanks for posting about this. I have it high on my Steam wishlist but am holding off as I work through some other games.

It was added to PC game pass recently...

Did I mention Solasta has a dungeon maker too?
I've been playing with that this morning and it is a lot of fun and quick to get something up and running.
The only bummer about it is that it doesn't auto scale. So a dungeon that is for 1-3 would be a cakewalk for a 5-6 level party.

The game section I'm at has a really nice puzzle section. Your party is inside a broken and floorless tower where you have to jump across, climb down and push things to access more of the tower and uncover things to jump across and push.

There is an older/prototype version of Terra Nil that came out of itch.io a while back. Nice to see them getting published and fleshing the game out!

https://vfqd.itch.io/terra-nil

Squee!!! Probably came up in another thread. I've been waiting for this game forever.

Going Medieval - a 3D voxel-based Rimworld. It's quite nice. The 3D is interesting - you have to build cellars to try and keep your food cold, and if you don't make enough food you end up starving in winter. It has a peaceful mode, but even I found that a bit anaemic.

Yeah, enjoy what I have seen of Going Medieval. I picked it up, but happy to let it bak a while longer. Made a promising start to life, though.

As an INSIDE fan I think Somerville looks up my street.

There's a game on itch.io that's not upcoming but it's worth a look. Circadian Dice. I lost most of yesterday playing it. I still haven't unlocked most of the content. Every unlock adds meaningful gameplay. It's a wonderful dice building roguelite that won't let you put it down. 10/10 would recommend.

So , unless there's another thread for it, this looks like a great place for impressions of the many indie demos available on Steam right now. I'm trying Death Trash. It's a crunchy-pixel style action RPG that reminds me a bit of Crusader: No Remorse, just with some weird body horror on top (I puked to solve a puzzle)

Mentioned earlier on this page, Terra Nil has a Steam demo too. My biggest worry is that there's not much more to it than what is shown and they just want you to perfectly place things to beat levels.

IMAGE(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1386780/header.jpg?t=1623943953)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1...

This demo really took me by surprise. Part strategy, RPG, 4X, tycoon/empire management w/ a board game kinda feel. There's a LOT going on here. The menu density almost feels like a Paradox grand-strat title given the amount of data points you can access & track.

Game is set in 1920's Prohibition era with several sandbox map locations you can start with (Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit). On a high level it's a territory control game as you raise the ranks expanding your influence from one city block to the next. Each turn you have an allotment of movement & action points to spend traversing the map and interacting with NPCs. Then you click Next Turn and it fast-forwards 5 days.

There's sooo many moving parts. Building out your HQ, typically a humble small business that serves as a front for your operations. Supplying your contraband trade by developing relationships with neighborhood businesses (i.e. ingredients to make & distribute alcohol, etc.). Paying off the cops. Smuggling. Building gangs to increase territory influence. Production chains & logistics. And I haven't even gotten to the rival gangs part of the gameplay loop yet. The game feels deep as hell for tycoon management nerds.

Presentation is super-impressive considering the genre & indie vibe. I thought the map was "2D-static" looking at screens but you can fully zoom/rotate/pan all around the city. Has a great look and the music is era appropriate too.

This looks like something to keep a close eye on, and it shot up on my Most Wanted list.

Wowzers!

Keeping an eye on that one. Played the demo and it had potential. I really wanted something like a spiritual sequel to gangsters organize crime. This isn't that I'd think, but it still seemed fun. Could use a little design polish and I didn't get to the combat yet. Still enjoyed what I played.

Aaron D. wrote:

IMAGE(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1386780/header.jpg?t=1623943953)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1...

Part strategy, RPG, 4X, tycoon/empire management w/ a board game kinda feel. There's a LOT going on here. The menu density almost feels like a Paradox grand-strat title given the amount of data points you can access & track.

I read this and assumed you were talking about Empire of Sin.

I'm loving the CoG demo. I didnt look at all at Empire of Sin. As a fan of mob related strategy games am I missing out (derail, apologies) I loved Gangsters, in the past.

The combat in CoG might be the weakest part. I could see them being successful with a system like Punch Quest where you pick a fighting strategy and it plays out without your input.