Upcoming Indie Games to Keep an Eye On

My front page post today is relevant to this thread.

I'd provide links to each individual game but then why would anyone read the article? I'll drop some links later, and I have a few that weren't listed I wanted to call attention to as well.

MeatMan wrote:

From the developers of Trine: Has-Been Heroes

Has-Been Heroes is a game of strategy and action with a roguelike twist coming in March 2017

You have my attention.

Looks pretty fun.

Cultist Simulator

From Alexis Kennedy, the guy behind Fallen London, Sunless Sea and a bunch of other stuff...

Battle Brothers

I have been hopelessly addicted to this game for the past month or so. I haven't seen it posted anywhere else on GWJ. It's the game I never knew I needed. It is out on Steam Early Access and is nearly complete. Sounds like a 1.0 release is coming in early 2017. In any case, it is highly playable as is.

Best way to describe the game is a mash-up of Mount & Blade and X-Com. It is a turn-based tactical combat mercenary squad management game that takes place in a low fantasy open world. Highly recommended!

Copingsaw wrote:

Battle Brothers

a mash-up of Mount & Blade and X-Com

Consider me very interested. Just added it to my wishlist, hope i get an alert when it releases.

Yeah, Battle Brothers looks very interesting. I'm surprised a game like this has flown under the radar for so long.

This looks great:

It's hard to not want a game called "Necrobarista".

Well, coffee is a requisite for me waking from the dead every morning...

From the people who brought you Stasis...

Beautiful Desolation - A post-apocalyptic adventure game

Set in Africa, to be different.

So Battle Brothers should be out by end of February... I hate waiting for things.

IMAGE(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/558420/header.jpg?t=1486652369)

Steam - Feb. 27th

A story within a story, it has you playing an 80's horror text adventure in a creepy house.

Looks promising.

Aaron D. wrote:

IMAGE(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/558420/header.jpg?t=1486652369)

Gotta be the first time I've seen a text adventure game and thought, " Oooh, pretty!". I am very intrigued. On my list now.

Introducing the next game by Subset Games, creators of FTL.

Ben Prunty, FTL’s composer, is making an original soundtrack for the game, and award-winning sound designers PowerUp Audio are heading up the rest of the audio. Chris Avellone is lending his writing talents and world building skills to the team as well.

Welp, consider me very interested!

Interesting, feels a bit smaller in scope than I thought the follow up to FTL would have been. But cool nonetheless. Seems very mobile friendly.

troubleshot wrote:

Seems very mobile friendly.

FTL was eventually ported to iPad, so that may be the long-term plan for this new game, too.

Hollow Knight now has a release date of February 24th.

Not sure if this game's been discussed before but it looks incredible.

Hollow Knight looks great too. After seeing that map in the trailer i'm getting a metroidvania vibe. Games have certainly become beautiful.

At last! Been looking forward to hollow knight for ages

A police procedural role playing game inspired by Planescape: Torment and Kentucky Route Zero. All combat is handled in dialogue, story is everything.

Color me intrigued...

No Truce with the Furies

tanstaafl wrote:
A police procedural role playing game inspired by Planescape: Torment and Kentucky Route Zero. All combat is handled in dialogue, story is everything.

Color me intrigued...

No Truce with the Furies

Interesting, and that narrator sounds like an Aussie... Cool.

The Signal From Tölva is now on Steam for wishlisting purposes. Coming April: http://store.steampowered.com/app/45...

So I couldn't wait and bought Battle Brothers to give it a whirl before it went full 1.0 and after 5 hours I've applied for a steam refund. It's possible I may buy it again on full release if I watch some gameplay videos and it looks like its improved, but as far as I played if felt a little to shallow for my taste.

I like the art style and its heavily hitting on Mount and Blade (which I loved) for the game play loop, but instead of real time 3rd person combat its top down strategy-lite. My biggest gripe is not being able to configure my team setup for battles at all, it just throws them into the map in a straight line.
Also, when I say lite, I definitely don't mean easy, the game is brutal and even going up against an underpowered enemy you're likely to lose a man or more, which I liked. But I dont feel like there aren't enough options from a strategy point of view and trading is a step down from M&B.
Also, upon playing their response to having no female PC's in the game is a bit of a bummer, they easily could have added female members and relevant backstory without much work and improved it further down the line if need be. This originally wasn't a big deal for me, but their response in the faq was lackluster and some of the community response was awful. All too common in the gaming space.

This is my first time going for a steam refund and I feel kinda dirty... anyway. I'll see how it goes and will post in here or the relevant thread if I change my mind upon full release.

troubleshot wrote:

So I couldn't wait and bought Battle Brothers to give it a whirl before it went full 1.0 and after 5 hours I've applied for a steam refund. It's possible I may buy it again on full release if I watch some gameplay videos and it looks like its improved, but as far as I played if felt a little to shallow for my taste.

I like the art style and its heavily hitting on Mount and Blade (which I loved) for the game play loop, but instead of real time 3rd person combat its top down strategy-lite. My biggest gripe is not being able to configure my team setup for battles at all, it just throws them into the map in a straight line.
Also, when I say lite, I definitely don't mean easy, the game is brutal and even going up against an underpowered enemy you're likely to lose a man or more, which I liked. But I dont feel like there aren't enough options from a strategy point of view and trading is a step down from M&B.
Also, upon playing their response to having no female PC's in the game is a bit of a bummer, they easily could have added female members and relevant backstory without much work and improved it further down the line if need be. This originally wasn't a big deal for me, but their response in the faq was lackluster and some of the community response was awful. All too common in the gaming space.

This is my first time going for a steam refund and I feel kinda dirty... anyway. I'll see how it goes and will post in here or the relevant thread if I change my mind upon full release.

You configure the formation in the inventory screen. I think there are three rows you can place your guys in.

I agree about the lack of female characters.

troubleshot wrote:

My biggest gripe is not being able to configure my team setup for battles at all, it just throws them into the map in a straight line.

You absolutely can set up your line for battle. You do it in the team inventory screen where your little dudes are shown at the bottom. There's a front line, a rear line and then a recovery line, which looks like tents.

Where you place your dudes along these lines is where there'll start the battle. If I'm not fighting orcs I'll usually put spearmen on either end and in the middle where I have a gap in the line, so I can put them on the spear skill that auto-attacks anyone coming into melee range.

Archers and polearms go in the second row.

I also agree, it would be nice to have Battle Maidens and also Battle Brothers of More Diverse Background.

Clearly I missed the party line organising, I started the tutorial then jumped right in, I even moved the team members around in the inventory, but didnt pick up on that being how you organise the position or that it changed where they started. Silly me.

So are you guys finding enough meat on the strategy bone here? My refund request was denied because I've played for more than 2 hours, so I'll be at least trying to get my moneys worth.

The strategic layer is clearly not going to match up to Mount and Blade, because you can put a maximum of 12 men in the field so you're not big enough to make a meaningful impact on the world. This is at odds somewhat with the fact that you're supposed to be able to stop the grand threat from the east at the end game of the full release, but there you go.

The world does evolve around you though and you will see other factions doing other things. The major central town in my game, Konigswasse, went from one faction to neutral to another faction and back to neutral again in my current game.

Also, if you're fighting something especially nasty you can try to pull them near a fort or major town and the garrisons or militias will come out to help you. You just won't be besieging castles and turning yourself into a king.

The beta stream release of the final big update is coming this month, I believe, with the official 1.0 in March.

The devs have put up four let's play videos of the newest version, (the four most recent videos here), if you want a glimpse of what's coming.

I'm getting a strong Totoro vibe from Hollow Knight. That might be enough to hook me.

Pre-ordered Hollow Knight and Into the Breach looks like it could be my jam.

If you got Twitter, @screensaturbot ("#screenshotsaturday") is an account to follow. Lots of indie developers post images and gifs of works in progress, and some have really gotten my eyebrow raised.

As stated, here are some games that I think folks should keep an eye on that I played at MAGFest.

Sneaky Ninja is basically Mark of the Ninja and Mini Ninjas combined into a cute side-scroller. The developer's pitch is "what if Nintendo made a stealth game?" I've got a beta code that I've been playing and hope to give a bit more feedback once I've gotten further. It releases on WiiU and PC this year.

Railgun was an arcade style experience that was, for a while, my favorite game of the indie hall. Simple in concept but promising depth and hours of replayability.

What's really got me hyped however is Seafoam Empress, a progressive world-exploration (thanks again Clocky!) game that's Metroid, Little Mermaid, and even some Donkey Kong Country rolled into one. More influences than that, I'm certain. I'm really looking out for this one.

I also liked Pixel Noir, which needs plenty more time to cook (and is getting it). Then there's RPG Arcade, which should be a good play for iOS users.

Lastly: so this is a game made by a small crew inspired by FFXV on Unreal Engine 4 that's coming out who knows when.

EDIT: And just this morning was contacted by a studio making a game called Yoku's Island Express, combining side-scroller platforming with pinball.