Hotline Miami meets football, the power of video editing and other new indie games worth checking out
Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s happening in the indie games space. As always, we have a bunch of interesting games to tell you about. Maybe I’ll tear myself away from the role of Chappell Roan in Fortnite or Jetpack Cat in Monitoring long enough to check more.
Thanks to the people of ConsequencesI discovered a short text game from Woe Industries called You have invested billions in generative AI. Surprisingly, you play a venture capitalist who has invested a considerable amount of money in genAI technology and is perhaps starting to have doubts about this investment. Other characters warn you about the dangers of technology, and real-life headlines showing the impact of genAI’s hallucinations appear. It’s labeled as a horror game, for what that’s worth.
It’s both satirical and all too real, and it’s pretty funny. Plus, any game that lets me yell at Noam Chomsky is A-OK in my book. You can play You have invested billions in generative AI for free on Itch.io.
New releases
Dealing with loss came at just the right time this week, right before another big real game. This is a soccer-themed version of action-packed, top-down games like Hotline Miami. Developer Indifferent Penguin also took inspiration from the Taken film series: you play as a former football player with CTE who sets out to save his kidnapped daughter.
The combat looks pretty interesting here. You have to take out all the bad guys on each floor of a multi-story building before you can progress, but you only have four offensive actions each time (this is inspired by the four-a-side format of football). You’ll need to plan things before going on the attack, especially because your character and enemies all die in one hit.
Dealing with loss is now available on Steam. It’ll usually cost you $11, but it’s 15% off until February 12.
Believe me, I made it is an intriguing turn-based strategy game from Team Afternoon and publisher Jungle Game Lab. A useless warrior hires you as a video editor to make him look like a real hero who can kill any beast.
Enemy attacks and other actions appear on the montage timeline as pre-recorded sequences, and the idea is to plot the warrior’s movements around these. You have post-processing visual effects tricks, allowing you to let the warrior teleport and convert low-power strikes into critical hits.
It’s a fun idea and a reminder (as if we needed one in today’s climate) to not always take videos literally. Believe me, I made it is on Steam now and it’s free.
Tomb of the Bloodthirsty is a twist on the roguelike deckbuilder genre that I’ve never really seen before. Your deck is made up of magical powers applied to the letters of the alphabet. Spelling words using these magics can result in powerful combinations, especially if you use the same letter multiple times. That’s right, this is a typing game – a roguelike deck builder like Word players might be interested.
It’s really about finding words that put the correct letters in a specific order. For example, some letters are more effective if you place them at the end of a word. So that should get your brain going.
Tomb of the Bloodthirsty – from Ethan’s Secretions and indie.io – debuted at Steam Typing Fest. It will usually cost $8, but there is a 20% discount until February 19th.
Next
Shadow Stone is an upcoming turn-based tactical cooperative roguelike for up to four players from developer Secret Door and Dreamhaven (company of Blizzard co-founder and ex-CEO Mike Morhaime). It takes place in the same universe as that of Secret Door. Sunderfolk.
The action takes place on a hexagonal board with random rooms and enemies. Positioning will be key and finding synergies between playable character abilities will be very useful to you.
Shadow Stone will be coming to Steam in Early Access later this year for $15. It’s also coming to the Epic Games Store.
In the meantime, a major update for Sunderfolk is expected to go live on March 10. It will introduce a new tank-style character and two new sets of missions. Secret Door will also add two highly requested features to the PC versions: online multiplayer and, so you no longer need to use your phone to play the game, mouse and keyboard controls.
I really loved it Lana’s Planet and the sequel is one of my most anticipated games of this year. There is now a release date for the upcoming puzzle platformer. Wishfully and Thunderful Publishing will bring it to Steam, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch on March 5. It will also be on Game Pass from day one.
A Lana’s Planet II: Children of the Leaf the demo will be released on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation on February 11. It will arrive on Switch a little later.
East Sticker/Bullet the first Ball x Pit-as? I’m not entirely sure. Yet it’s now firmly on my radar. Instead of shooting bullets at a horde of constantly advancing enemies, here you’ll shoot dice to earn points. You will unlock stickers that can be applied to said dice and they will also interact with each other. For example, spiders can create webs and these can catch flies attracted to poop stickers.
The trailer describes another interaction, “the frog jumped and triggered a pack of cigarettes.” Apparently frogs can also hijack spaceships, and there’s a bouncing DVD logo (well, “VID”). There are over 100 types of stickers and dozens of different enemies.
I don’t really understand what’s going on in the trailer, but somehow it makes my brain happy, so it’s on my wishlist. Solo developer Bilge is behind Sticker/Bulletwhich will soon arrive on Steam thanks to the help of publisher Future Friends Games. A demo is available now, so that’s my weekend sorted.
Skating City has long been one of the best games on Apple Arcade. Its creator, Daniel Zeller, (Zellah Games) has unveiled a new project. Skate style is billed as a “next-generation skateboarding game with high-end graphics.” You will be able to roam the virtual streets of Barcelona and Prague to show off your best moves.
What could help Skate style The animation editor really stands out from the crowd, which allows you to create completely new tricks. The game is expected to have an “advanced” character creation tool as well as mod support, so there will be a high level of customization available.
A Skate style the demo is now available on Steam. The full game is expected to land on PC later this year. Here’s hoping the soundtrack can match that of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series.
Purple Capes is presented as a 2D Soulslike action RPG with four playable characters, elemental magic, over 25 bosses, sword fights, many secrets, co-op, optional hunts with random dungeons and invasions from other players. This all sounds pretty interesting, but the most exciting thing for me here is the pixel-art and rotoscoping animation work. It looks both modern and retro, and I’d love to see that kind of style in more games. I also find it interesting that you get a PDF instruction manual and game guide as well as a printable world map when you purchase the game.
You (and I) won’t have to wait long to play Purple Capeswhich comes from Poor Locke. It’ll arrive on Steam on February 12 for $15, but you’ll get 10% off if you grab it within the first nine days. Console versions are also in preparation.
