Tag: Indie - Page 7
News A Musical Story Is A Funky 1970s Narrative Told Through Jams
The musical jams, not the fruit jams. We think.
Here's the skinny, hip cats. Like, we weren't around in the 1970s, but we've seen photos, and we've heard the music of Steely Dan, so we feel confident in saying that French studio Glee Cheese has nailed the aesthetic of the era in the trailer for A Musical Story. As Steely Dan might say: groovy, man...
News Comedy Cartoon Point-And-Click Later Alligator Snaps Onto Switch On 16th March
In a week, croco...deek
Fans of Undertale, Night in the Woods, and Neil Cicierega, look this way: the people behind all of the above have thrown their names and support behind Later Alligator, a collaboration between game developer Pillowfight and SmallBu, the Emmy Award-winning animation team. "This game looks extremely cool, not gonna lie. An
Video Beautiful Ghibli-Esque Platformer Hoa Gets A 7-Minute Gameplay Trailer
Make friends with bugs!
Hoa is unfairly gorgeous. The game was announced last year with a late 2020 release on Switch, but has since been moved to an April 2021 launch, and this is the first time we've seen gameplay. Charmingly narrated by Art Director and Co-Founder of Skrollcat Studio, Son Tra, the video shows off various mechanics, like making...
News Stardew-Like Coral Island Wraps Up Successful Kickstarter With $1.6 Million Raised
The game is planned to release at the end of 2022
We're only on our third month of 2021, and we've already got Harvest Moon: One World, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, Littlewood, and a massive Stardew Valley Update... but fans of the farming simulation genre always want more.
News Eccentric Indie Developer, Onion Games, Wants To Know What You Think They Should Make Next
Remakes of Chulip and Rule of Rose could be on the cards
It's hard to say what Onion Games are best known for. It might be their newer games, like meta-RPG Dandy Dungeon, which is about game development, or satirical RPG Moon, which is old enough to have been Toby Fox's inspiration for Undertale, but only came out in the West last year. It might be...
What if you're afraid of cards? What then, eh?
Anyone who's played Slay The Spire has probably spent the last few months wondering how to get another fix of deck-building roguelite monster-slaying, right? Neurodeck might have what it is you crave. Described as a "dark fantasy deck-builder" in which you fight your own phobias, nightmares, and fears,...
Video Astral Ascent Announces Upcoming Kickstarter With Kick-Ass Trailer
For people who prize promisingly pixel-perfect pugnacity
It's hard to say exactly when the pixel art renaissance happened. Perhaps it never quite went away. Nevertheless, it continues with the gorgeous-looking roguelite Astral Ascent, from the makers of the Dark Souls-like Dark Devotion. Similar to its predecessor, Astral Ascent is presented in a...
News Hades Gets Physical Release, Plus Soundtrack Download And Art Book, Available To Pre-Order Now
Please don't lick the Zagreus game card
Update: 23rd Feb 2021 - UK pre-orders are open now. Well, we were hoping for Zagreus in Smash, but we can settle for Zagreus on our shelf instead. The GOTY of many, Hades, is getting a physical release, which comes with a download code for the fantastic Darren Korb soundtrack and a big book of game art...
News Panic Co-Founder Tweets Out A Firewatch Secret In Celebration Of Fifth Anniversary
You can find it by following a series of clues
It's Firewatch's Fifth anniversary, and to celebrate the big day, Cabel Sasser - the co-founder of Firewatch publisher, Panic, and co-creator of the PlayDate - tweeted out a big secret about the game. Don't read past this if you want to discover it for yourself! We'll give you a hint: Search for
News Narrative Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Game Sorcery! Gets A Switch Release This Year
And it'll include all four parts of the story
You already may be aware of the work of narrative-focused indie studio Inkle, thanks to their recent Switch release of Heaven's Vault, or perhaps you know them from their earlier games, 80 Days and the Sorcery! series. Up until now, their fantastic Sorcery! games have remained locked away on PC and...
News Open World Vaporwave Detective Game, Paradise Killer, Is 30% Off On Switch
Whodunnit? Probably the developers, we'd guess
You may not have heard of Paradise Killer, the cult-favourite that secured a few GOTY nominations last year thanks to its excellent writing and bizarro cast of characters, but that's ok - it's best if you go into it completely blind, anyway. Fans of Ace Attorney and Danganronpa will love the mystery...
News World's End Club Gets Physical Editions With Goodies From The Game
Art books, soundtracks, enamel pins and more
Announced on the Nintendo Direct last night, World's End Club is an intriguing prospect for fans of Danganronpa and Zero Escape, and not just because the team behind it worked on those games in the past. Although we don't have a lot of info on the upcoming game, we know it's about a group of 12-year-olds...
News Turn-Based Tactics RPG Battle Brothers Stabs Its Way Onto Switch On March 11th
The original Battle Brothers are Mario and Luigi in Smash
The wildly popular Battle Brothers has almost 12,000 reviews on Steam, with PC Gamer describing it as "when Game of Thrones has a one-night stand with X-COM." If that description alone perks up your ears, then we really don't need to tell you much more about the game - e
News Teamwork Is Key In KeyWe, A Kiwi-Co-Op Coming To Switch This Summer
Do you have any proof that the postal system ISN'T run by birds?
Love Overcooked, but wish the characters were a bit... rounder? KeyWe might be what you're looking for. It's a co-operative game where you play as little kiwi birds named Jeff and Debra running a mailroom, trying to type out letters, telegrams, and ransom notes alike with nothing but...
News Donut County Dev Is Now Working On Neon White, A First-Person Action Game About Killing Demons
Ben Esposito has an impressive range, it turns out
Annapurna Interactive is a publisher that constantly puts out video games that are the equivalent of arthouse movies, and we mean that in the best way. If you're looking for the cinematic, the strange, and the downright kooky, Annapurna's catalogue is where you'll find it. They're the Devolver...
News Timeloop Game Outer Wilds Finally Comes To Switch This Summer
Twenty-two minutes to do... something... in space
Hold on a second, we need to stop screaming in excitement - the fantastic narrative-loop adventure mystery game Outer Wilds is coming to Switch at last! (No, not Outer Worlds - that's the Obsidian game that's like Fallout in space. Yes, we get them confused all the time, and we'll eat our hat if we...
Set to launch on consoles this May
Most deckbuilding games are about biffing your opponents with various card-based attacks. The Amazing American Circus is instead about impressing your audience with incredible card-based feats of strength, acrobatics, and clownery. Set in a 19th century American circus during the decline of the Wild West, the game...
News To The Moon Gets Physical Version On Switch Ahead Of Sequel's Summer Release
Dream a little dream of me
To The Moon has no tagline, but we would like to formally propose - ten years after its initial release - that they go with "Lie Down, Try Not To Cry, Cry A Lot". It may not be original, but it's certainly a good way to describe how you'll be feeling after finishing the game. With a soundtrack to cry for and a...
News ZA/UM Talks About Disco Elysium's Big 'Final Cut' Update Ahead Of Its Summer Switch Release
In case 2020 wasn't quite enough politics for you
Disco Elysium, the intensely complex political-supernatural-murder-mystery-thriller-detective novel-RPG that's clearly quite hard to put in any one genre category, has been out on PC since 2019. It's due to hit PS4 and PS5 in March, and the Nintendo Switch some time this summer. For those who haven't...
News Mask Of The Rose Launches Kickstarter, Gets 50% Funded In Two Hours
A murder of crows, and also of people
Failbetter Games, the developer behind Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, and long-time fans of placing scary adjectives next to big places, launched their newest Kickstarter today to fund Mask of the Rose, an upcoming romantic visual novel about "love, mystery, the restructuring of society after...
News Surreal Avoid-'Em-Up PUSS! Comes To Switch On February 19th
Cats, glitches, and eyeball-searing colours
WARNING: This game trailer contains flashing graphics that could potentially trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. If you enjoyed the nail-biting Super Hexagon, a game where you have to dodge walls while terrifying rhythmic chiptunes pulse in your ears, then PUSS! will probably grab...
News Haven Gets Gorgeous (And Raunchy) Launch Trailer
Lovers in a dangerous spacetime
Haven's new launch trailer is surprising from the very first second, in which the ESRB rating states that the game contains "nudity, sexual content, use of drug and alcohol, and violence". Now, the violence we knew about - it's an RPG with combat, after all - but nudity?! Goodness. (We can't actually post the trailer...
$100 million is being split across 40 studios
It's a big day for indie game fans, as games fund company Kowloon Nights dedicates $100 million (£73.2m) towards 23 upcoming and unannounced titles. The studios that will receive a portion of that one hundred million dollars include Thunder Lotus (Spiritfarer), Night School Studios (Oxenfree,...
Fans of Slay The Spire, take note
In the world of tactical card games, is there any man more revered than Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering? Maybe whoever actually invented cards, but since they're not coming forward to take credit, Garfield holds the top spot. Roguebook is a roguelike deckbuilder (like Slay The Spire, Dicey...
And yes, it's planned for Switch
A new Kickstarter project has appeared, and this time it's not a farming sim - it's something a little bit different. Beacon Pines is a "cute and creepy adventure" that takes place within a magical storybook, where you - both the reader and the main character of the book, Luka - decide the story by filling in words,...
News Gorgeous Puzzle-Platformer Minute Of Islands Comes To Switch On March 18th
Hand-drawn artwork plus post-apocalypse? Sign us up
This game is going to get a lot of Adventure Time comparisons. That's not a bad thing. With its deceptively simple art style and its post-apocalyptic setting, Minute of Islands shares a lot of DNA with the absurdist cartoon, and its creepy monsters, cursed aesthetic, and axolotl companion only...
Video Exclusive Peek At Soundtrack Sessions For Upcoming Zelda-Style Dungeon Platformer, Blue Fire
Launches later this week
We're big audiophiles here at Nintendo Life Towers, and there's nothing we like more than a little behind-the-scenes peek at a recording studio (well, there are some things, but it's up there!). Remember that Mario Medley from Abbey Road? Yep, that's the stuff! There's just something about the cellos, mics, mixing desks, and...
News Point-And-Click Adventure Willy Morgan And The Curse Of Bone Town Comes To Switch Soon
The curse will probably be removed by sticking chewing gum to cat hair
It's a great day for fans of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and LucasArts adventures, isn't it? Two new games, announced within hours of one another, have specifically named retro point-and-clicks as their inspiration. It's like we're back in the '90s again! Willy Morgan...
News Cyberpunk Meets Noir In The Sundew, A Point-And-Click Adventure Coming To Switch This Summer
It's like Monkey Island, but cyborgs instead of pirates
Made by a one-woman team based in France, The Sundew is a new point-and-click game in the style of old LucasArts classics. You'll play as a cyborg police officer in Japan named Anna Isobe, living in the dystopian city of Shibukawa where cyborgs — once a symbol of technological possibility and...
News Celeste Devs Release Retro Celeste Mini-Sequel To Celebrate The Game's Third Anniversary
Happy birthday, Celeste!
Celeste is a beautiful, heart-wrenching platformer that takes skill, patience, and wrists that won't quit on you. It's hard, but that's kind of the point - it wants to teach you a lesson about never giving up, even when you don't believe in yourself. Celeste Classic 2 is a free PICO-8 platformer in a similar style, made...
News New Sail Forth Trailer Awakens The Wind Waker Fan In Us
Belayed after delays
It's been... 83 years... since we last played The Wind Waker. Despite our repeated cries for the Wii U version, which only Wii U owners played, to be ported to the Switch, we have not yet seen the slightest glimmer that this hope will come true. Sob. Luckily for us, the upcoming procedurally-generated game
News Anodyne 2, A Zelda-Inspired Action-Adventure Game, Comes Out On Switch In February
It's a mixture of Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past
You might remember Anodyne as the game with retro 16-bit pixel graphics that looked a lot like The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past. Initially released in 2013, the game made it to Switch on February 28th, 2019, and we gave it 8/10, praising its "dark narrative" and "solid dungeon-crawling"...
News Boo! The Indie Survival Horror Game Lone Survivor Is Getting A Remake On Switch
Returning in 2021
Think back to the Wii U era, and one indie title you might remember is the survival horror release, Lone Survivor. It was developed by Superflat Games and published by Curve Digital. To cut to the chase, it's now getting a remake - Super Lone Survivor - on the Nintendo Switch and PC, and will come with a whole new scenario titled,...
News Indie Puzzle-Platformer Evergate Surprise Drops On Switch Today
The gate is open!
The Nintendo Indie World Showcase presentation broadcast earlier featured a cluster of indie games that are launching later today, and one of them is enchanting puzzle-platformer Evergate. Coming from Boston-based Stone Lantern Games, Evergate is a deeply personal adventure that has players exploring the afterlife as Ki, a...
News Indie Label tinyBuild Is Hosting Its Very Own "Non-E3" Conference On 13th June
Reveals, demos and more!
Video game publisher and developer tinyBuild - responsible for games like Hello Neighbor, Graveyard Keeper and Streets of Rogue - has announced it'll be hosting its own "non-E3" press broadcast later this week, on 13th June. Here's what you can expect from it, according to the YouTube video description: This Saturday on...
News Terraria Has Sold 30 Million Copies Worldwide
An incredible achievement
Terraria might have started out as a 2D take on Minecraft when it first launched in 2011, but since then it's morphed into its own style of game and has been ported to just about every platform possible including the Nintendo Switch, 3DS, and Wii U. It looks like all the hard work for Re-Logic and 505 Games has paid off...
News Introducing The 3D Action-Adventure Blue Fire, A Timed-Exclusive For Switch
And it's arriving this summer
Kicking off the Indie World Showcase was the premiere of Blue Fire – a 3D action-adventure from the Argentine developer, Robi Studios. It'll launch first on the Nintendo Switch this summer, as a timed-exclusive. As the player, you'll explore the mysterious and "beautiful forgotten kingdom" of Penumbra, while you...
After six years the team wants to do something else
At this year's PAX East, Yacht Club Games said it was "absolutely" considering a direct sequel to Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove. Now, in a Reddit AMA on the Nintendo subreddit, the talented indie developer and publisher has added to this previous c
News Yacht Club Games Is "Absolutely" Considering A Shovel Knight Sequel
"it's something we talk about a lot"
Yacht Club Games has made it quite clear that it's not done with Shovel Knight. In fact, at the start of this month, Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove artist Sandy Gordon explained how the developer would continue to make games about the popular indie hero forever and ever. Even though Treasure Trove is now...
News Temtem Developer Lays Down The Law And Bans "Almost 900" Cheaters
But will allow players to appeal
You might have heard about the indie hit Temtem. It's a game "inspired by" Game Freak's long-running Pokémon RPG series and wants to be the very best creature collection MMO on the market. While it's still yet to arrive on the Switch, the title recently launched on Steam. On its first day, its servers
News Yacht Club Happy To Continue Making Shovel Knight Games "Forever And Ever"
He's here to stay
After a five-year development cycle, Yacht Club Games has finally completed Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove. That doesn't necessarily mean it's done with the iconic indie character altogether, though. In fact, it already announced Shovel Knight Dig – a joint project with the talented team at Nitrome (known for titles such as Bomb...
News Untitled Goose Dev Will Give "At Least" 1% Of Its Income To Indigenous Australian Groups
"We'd encourage others to do the same"
House House, the Melbourne-based indie developers behind last year's indie success story Untitled Goose Game, has promised to give "at least" 1% of its income to Indigenous groups located within Australia. It announced this via Twitter, explaining how it would be supporting the 'Pay the Rent' movement: Our...
News Stardew Valley Has Sold Over 10 Million Copies In Just Four Years
An epic milestone
Although Stardew Valley was inspired by the Harvest Moon series, it's now considered to be the definitive farming simulation. Since its initial release on PC in 2016, the game's creator Eric 'ConcernedApe' Barone has continually improved the game while at the same time porting it across to every platform possible, including the...
News Journey Developer Could Be Bringing Its Newest Game To Nintendo Switch
And it would likely support cross-play
Remember the 2012 game Journey? Although it wasn't released on a Nintendo platform, it was still a beautifully crafted title. Now, the developer behind this – thatgamecompany – seems to be hinting at bringing its most recent mobile release Sky: Children of the Light to Switch. The game is described as a...
News HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed Dev Says All The Game's Updates Will Be Entirely Free
And provides a full road map for the next four months
One genre that's somewhat underrepresented on the Switch is FPS. More recently, we've got games like Overwatch and Alien: Isolation, but the pickings are still considerably slim compared to the number of first-person shooters available on other platforms. Fortunately, by the end of this month,...
News Cuphead Dev Thanks Sakurai And Nintendo For The "Unbelievable Opportunity"
Indies represent!
One of the highlights of Masahiro Sakurai's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate broadcast yesterday was the reveal of the new Mii Fighter costumes coming to the game. This time around there's a lot of third-party and indie representation. We've got another Mega Man alt, Altair from Assassin's Creed, the Rabbids, and
News Poke Life Studio Brings 2D Cyberpunk Evolutis To All Major Platforms In 2020
Including the Switch
PM Studios has just announced the "thrilling" new 2D action-adventure cyberpunk game Evolutis, which is driven by story and inspired by classic '80s anime-realism, will be released on all major platforms next year. The game is being developed by Portugal based indie team Poke Life Studio and is set to define a new trend in...
News Devs Make Big Bucks On The Switch eShop By Drastically Reducing Game Prices
Cheap success
If you own a Switch, you've likely been in the situation where you're browsing the sales section of the eShop and end up buying a game because of its insanely low price. For certain developers and publishers, sales are the best way to stay relevant on Nintendo's hybrid platform. Due to the limited browsing options available on this...
Hand in hand
If you're a fan of in-game cross-promotion, it might be worth checking out Le Cartel's new game, Heave Ho. It's designed for up to four people and simply requires players to reach a goal without falling to their death. As Heave Ho is published by Devolver Digital, it will include a number of indie game cameos. You'll be able to select...
News Gurgamoth Brings Frantic Multiplayer Carnage To Nintendo Switch This Week
The level is your only weapon
We love a bit of a party game here at Nintendo Life Towers, that hectic, frantic feeling is difficult to top when you've got a bunch of chums over for a lemonade or two. Gurgamoth is just that sort of game, but this time around your only means of besting your opponent is the environment: Full game details and...
