Everything takes too long. All the time. I want stuff now! But, I guess they say good things come to those who wait… and I suppose as much HAS proven true in the past. Those sweet indie games to be will grace our LCDs at some point, but a flood of teases, information, and screenshots like those work-in-progress stills at Screenshot Saturday is not making things easy. If you’d like to join me in my pain, have a look at some of the more enticing examples of those images below.
For the King by IronOak Games
Only recently announced, For the King hasn’t yet moved far enough along to gush details. But! We can glean a couple from the team’s writing thus far. The world, a procedurally generated terrain of hex pieces, is randomly pocked with points of interest. It’s “inspired by the best moments in classics such as NetHack, Ultima, Wizardry and the early Final Fantasy games”. They’re posting healthy spoonfuls of lore already. I haven’t the foggiest what this will all amount to, but it’s certainly nice to look at.
Red Goddess by Yanim Studio
This side-scrolling action platformer sports puzzles, three playable characters with their own unique skills trees, and what its creators call “character-ball gameplay”. That is, only one of your goddess’ two diametrically opposed dimensions, rage and fear, can be active at once. The other is weaponized and wrapped up in an orb, ready to be flung at enemies. Perhaps more interestingly, the world is somehow influenced by the subconscious workings of the protagonist and will aggressively try to end you if its appendages manage to detect your presence.
Children of Morta by Dead Mage
The title this image represents bears some of the loveliest pixel art I’ve seen in a long time. It belongs to a hack-and-slasher with a heavy emphasis on the narrative surrounding family stewards of a god-inhabited mountain. Corruption has roused the deity into a fury. Its decline is spreading sickness and rage through the surrounding creatures. Bits of story unfold through your various attempts to save the mountain, each death plopping you back at the beginning in proper “roguelike” fashion.
Spellsworn by Frogsong Studios
Warcraft 3‘s family tree is larger than most people realize. Spellsworn draws from a couple of names in this storied genealogy – specifically, the popular custom game mode Warlocks appears with a package of DotA style ability mechanics. Players engage in top-down arena mayhem amongst wizards well versed in their craft. The developers claims an element of sumo-wrestling is present in the mix, presumably meaning that blasting foes outside the ring (or into the lava) is a wise thing to do.
Cosmochoria by Nate Schmold
The astral winds of outer space are best enjoyed naked. Bouncing through your heavenly gardens, too, is something to be done with nothing between your skin and a planetoid’s newly restored atmosphere. Part of Schmold’s “lifelong quest to make the world a little weirder”, this strange arcade sandbox sees your nudist cosmonaut reviving planets through life-bringing horticulture and blasting waves of space dragons. Death is permanent, but upgrades and the sparse bits of information you’ve gathered about universal mysteries are yours to keep.
