Indie News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Steam is lousy with farming sims that will absolutely destroy your productivity by ensnaring you within a compulsive loop of reaping and sowing. Rusty's Retirement explicitly promises a less engrossing experience: it's a farming sim that "sits at the bottom of your screen while you do other things."

is a souls-like game in which Kril embarks on a dangerous journey across the ocean and, even though difficulty can be adjusted, increasing your HP is a valuable feature that you'll want to take advantage of immediately. Don't be fooled by the adorable graphics, many challenging enemies await, and you'll need every edge to defeat them.

Excitement has been slowly building for Manor Lords, a unique Middle-Ages-set combination of city building and real-time-strategy, for some time now, and now it seems it’s the latest big indie success. Manor Lords launched into early access today, and peaked at just a hair shy of 160,000 concurrent players on Steam, good for a top 5 place on the charts, even displacing the suddenly-hot Fallout 4 at times. It’s also the top-seller on Steam right now. And these stats don’t capture the whole picture, as Manor Lords isn’t a Steam exclusive – it’s also available via Game Pass on PC and Xbox Series X/S. For those who haven’t been keeping up, here’s a look at Manor Lords in action.

Tucked away in the corner of this year's Day Of The Devs at GDC I discovered a lavish, strangely unattended action-RPG, in which austerely beautiful young women in elaborate skirts kick the bejazus out of each other on fields of whirling flowers. That game was Aikode, the work of Spanish solo developer Ace.

is an engaging visual horror novel experience that interweaves supernatural romance and existential crisis. Developed by Akabaka and published by DreadXP, it's the sequel to 2022's, and it certainly expands and improves upon the ideas of the first. While the actual dating simulation mechanics and the main character's personality are sometimes found wanting, the game's Lovecraftian love interest and cleverly crafted environments make it easy to be sucked in regardless.

Lost Soul Aside, the upcoming action RPG hack-n-slash from Chinese developer Ultizero Games, has been rated in China.

Eco-conscious village builder The Wandering Village sees you raising a settlement on the back of a huge wandering creature called Onbu. For the most part, you live in a symbiotic relationship with this gentle giant, as your villagers keep the gargantuan trundlesaur healthy while being ferried about on its back. Awww. Well, the wholesome city-builder now lets you feed villagers to the creature and start a cult in the great devourer's name. Okay. Why not?

Over 300 itch.io creators have come together to offer a bundle of their work to benefit relief efforts for Palestine. The itch.io Palestine Relief Bundle costs just $8 and includes a collection of digital games, tabletop role-playing systems, and other cool stuff. All proceeds from this bundle will be donated to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), a more than 30-year-old registered non-profit organization that describes itself as “the primary humanitarian organization in Palestine, delivering crucial and life-saving medical relief where it is needed most.”

I never expected to feel genuine affection for Dr Robotnik, whose various level-ending wrecking balls and spiked doodads have killed me a million times over, but here I am sobbing like a banshee over the release of Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers, a free Mario Kart-alike created by Kart Krew, the fangamer team behind Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, using the Doom Legacy source port.

Today the Tribeca Festival, which recognizes achievement across various entertainment mediums, announced their games lineup for 2024.

Pine: A Story Of Loss, which stars a bereaved woodworker and thus may be a play on the double meaning of ‘pine’, is a gorgeously animated interactive fiction game that sees you performing farming chores and wordlessly reminiscing upon cherished memories. It’s short - designed to be played in a couple of sittings - and while the fiction is the focus here, you’ll spend time gardening and whittling in bespoke minigames as you find out more about the woodworker’s relationship. The publisher describes it thusly:

Alien-infested submarine sim Barotrauma has received a chunky update, bringing two new-ish monsters into its lethal aquatic world. The shrimp-looking Mantis may be recognisable to veterans (it once appeared in pre-Steam builds). And the Viperling is a venomous variant of the existing Spineling (a thorny seaworm with hull-piercing porcupine-like spikes). But don't worry, the medical systems have also seen a "mini-rework", which means drugs like morphine are "less of a 'solution for everything'". Wait. What?

The closest I have come to having any interest in sport is when I got really into reading about football hooligans, or like, Blood Bowl, but I do absolutely recognise the romance of it all. SUDDEN DEATH is a delicious free slice of playable art-pie that celebrates that romance. It is - says dev Cécile, who co-made the project with Nat Pussy and MOTHER GOOSE for collective Domino Club - “a game about love and sports. it's gay, it's very australian, and it's great.” You can tell it’s Australian quickly, because people call chips ‘chippies’, which makes me chuffed.

My experience with actual flight simulators typically amounts to approaching the runway far, far too quickly at far, far too perpendicular an angle, so perhaps I’m better off just flying folded-up bits of A4. Happily, that’s exactly what Paper Sky, a "semi-open world paper plane adventure" from solo indie dev Brute Force, is offering.

In a rare case of a wild Nintendo being spotted having somewhat of a point, actually, in regards to being protective over their IP, Facepunch announced yesterday that they’re removing all “Nintendo stuff” from Garry’s Mod’s Steam workshop, following takedown orders sent straight from ninty themselves.

Four new game trials have been added to PS Plus Premium, letting you play a small chunk of the selected titles in order to see what they're about.

Players that put more than two hours into pre-purchased or advanced access games will now be exempt from Steam's refund policy, says Steam, the maker of said policy and thus the final word on how it is implemented. As spotted by the Verge, this change is intended to combat a loophole where filthy time criminals could fill their stolen boots with ill-gotten fun pre-release, then get their money back.

Against The Storm's latest update adds a a River Kelpie, a "legendary water demon" that can mesmerise villagers in your rain-slick settlements. I've been mesmerised myself by another part of the update, however: the ability to zoom out 66% further than before.

I'm the kind of awful person who looks at the background actors in TV shows and wonders what life is like for e.g. the old woman who sells birdfeed in Trafalgar Square in Mary Poppins when said upper-middle class domestic isn't singing about her. What fate the Warcraft grunt when he is too old to work work? It's probably pretty bad, right? Now let me slop Innkeep down in front of you like a big bowl of rat stew. Developer Daniel Burke furnished me with a little playable slice, and boy, Innkeep is a grim old time. I mean that as a compliment.

Afternoon, conveyor belt fans! Good news, I think I may have discovered the first genuinely cosy automation game. Attempts have been made at cosy automation and automated cosiness in the past – Satisfactory is on the sunnier side, providing you enable the right settings, and Shapez 2 has lots of rounded edges. But IDK, there’s something about the ravages of mass industry that doesn’t quite gel with zoomorphic raccoon baristas and other such wholesome trappings. Have you ever encountered a cuddly smokestack? How about a cuddly just-in-time network?

Sometimes, I hear critics describe something as ‘actively hostile’ to the act of playing it, but with something close to admiration in their voices. I've always felt that I, too, would like to one day find an artwork that I could describe in the same way. Partly because it sounds like an interesting experience, but mainly so I could steal that line and feel like one of those elite, urbanely perceptive, multiple trouser-owning critics.

Legacy games brand Atari has brought back Infogrames.

Valheim, the popular norse-inspired survival game, is set to get even deadlier and at least several percent more volcanic with its upcoming Ashlands biome. The new biome is due to enter public testing as we speak.

I often regret that I didn't get into football as a kid (note for people across the pond: football is what we call soccer in these here accursed, eternally post-imperial isles). The trouble was, all my friends liked football and I have an abiding hatred of popular things, a hatred that has obviously served me well during my later career as an online news journalist. I played hockey instead, which is the superior sport in that you get a big nasty stick, but also relatively niche because you need more equipment.

IGN is proud to once again partner with ID@Xbox to exclusively present the next ID@Xbox Showcase, which promises to feature some of the most exciting upcoming indie games from around the world, including Vampire Survivors, Dungeons of Hinterberg, 33 Immortals, Lost Records Bloom & Rage, and more.

At the end of last year I played the demo for An English Haunting and got very excited. I like horror that has a generally spooky, creeping dread vibe rather than being wall-to-wall cheap jumpscares and gore, and that sort of stuff is thin on the ground. But it'll be less so from May the 15th, cos that's when this ghosty point and click puzzle adventure is out! Hooray! The demo is still on Steam if you want a taste before then. In the meantime, the release date announcement comes with a new trailer to enjoy.

Hollywood has really begun flexing its video game adaptation muscle in the wake of the spectacular success of the FalloutTV show and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Even indie publishers are getting some of those sweet, sweet development contracts. Case in point? The hit third-person shooter El Paso, Elsewhere is being adapted into a feature length film, as reported by Deadline.

Microsoft and IGN have announced the IGN x ID@Xbox Digital Showcase, which will be taking place on April 29th. It will be commencing at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST, and will have updates from various projects including Vampire Survivors, Dungeons of Hinterberg, 33 Immortals, and Lost Records Bloom & Rage. Other games will be showcased too, including Palworld and what players can expect next for that.

Ugh, I do not have the energy to feed the Maw this week. Sometimes the creature manifests as a proper monstrosity, with B-movie prosthetics and sound effects, and sometimes, it's more of an... unfathomable annoyance, like a nose that won't stop running, or a single player game that requires an internet connection. In either case, the Maw must be sated, and fortunately, there are quite a few appetising video-or-computer games out in the next seven days, with at least one behemoth landing on Friday.

El Paso, Elsewhere, one of Digital Trends’ favorite indie games of 2023, now has a film adaptation in the works.

Developer Strange Scaffold’s third-person neo-noir shooter, El Paso, Elsewhere, is heading to the big screen, per Deadline.

I spend a portion of my every week surviving and crafting. And in the game, where the game is called Minecraft. I still have appetite left for Tinkerlands: A Shipwrecked Adventure, a demo that offers topdown, 2D construction and fights with giant frog bosses, among others.

The sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters has more than tripled its Kickstarter funding goal in four days. Free Stars: Children Of Infinity, which is a sequel to the series formerly known as Star Control, has so far raised $332k (£268k), although it's still shooting for several stretch goals - including one as high as $4.4 million.

The Palestinian Relief Bundle available on itch.io is offering 373 games, soundtracks, comics, and other digital goods worth over $1600 (almost £1300) for a starting donation of just $8 (around £6.50).

Cardy, Mat, and Emma are here to share their picks for some of the best games you can finish in 5 hours or less this week. A mix of well-known indies and hidden gems, maybe you'll find something new to play this weekend. Before that, though, there's time for some more thoughts about Alex Garland's Civil War and flower-puzzle game Botany Manor. Plus, a nail-biter of an Endless Search.

If you've been eager to watch the animated Ark: Survival Evolved TV series, but your attempts have so far been thwarted by your failure to live in the US or Canada, there's some good news: it's now officially available in 11 other countries, including the UK, via Paramount+.

As the calendar continues its ceaseless onward march, Epic has announced its next batch of weekly Epic Games Store freebies, which this time look very much like Cold War shooter Industria and post-apocalyptic RPG bundle Lisa: Definitive Edition.

The Palestinian Relief Bundle on Itch.io contains 373 items for a minimum cost of $8. 213 of the items are are games, including greats such as Wandersong, A Short Hike and Coffee Talk. All proceeds go towards the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF), a non-profit working to provide food, water and medical treatment in Gaza.

The head of Baldur's Gate 3 maker Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, has said he wasn't happy with some of the more negative effects the game's launch had on other titles.

It's starting to feel like ConcernedApe (aka Eric Barone) may in fact be a modern day Sisiphus, destined to work on Stardew Valley forever. Following on from the mega update of 1.6 a month ago, and 1.6.3 soon after that, the hardy perennial farming game has a new 1.6.4 mini update. The key addition this time is more new layouts that will appear after you reach the bottom of the mines, and more layouts for the volcano mines too. If you've not played Stardew Valley you might wonder why there are deep mines and volcanos, and to you I say "Pah! You should play Stardew Valley."

Eiyuden Chronicles, the RPG series that’s effectively a sequel-slash-spiritual successor to nineties and early noughties JRPG classic Suikoden, will continue with a sequel despite the death of its creator earlier this year.

The latest batch of rumors make it pretty clear that a PlayStation 5 Pro is coming this year, but will anyone really care about slightly better 4K graphics? This week, Engadget Senior Editor Jessica Conditt joins Cherlynn and Devindra to chat about the PS5 Pro, as well as her piece on the PlayDate two years after its release. You could say the Playdate is pretty much the opposite of another expensive high-end console.

Cleaning the filters is among one of the early tasks in . While this seems simple, the need for on-screen text can confuse it. Learning the unique iconography of the game will make things a lot simpler.

Eiyuden Chronicle developer Rabbit & Bear Studios will continue working on a sequel following the death of its creator Yoshitaka Murayama.

Harold Halibut is a bit like visiting an aquarium for the umpteenth time — yes, it's visually interesting, offering a glimpse into a submerged alien world, but once the initial intrigue is gone, you're essentially on a long, and quite dull, walk. This narrative-focused sci-fi adventure starts off with a promising premise and enchanting art style, but it doesn't take long before the facade falls to reveal what is ultimately a protracted and shallow game.

Atari has announced it's collaborating with Shantae and River City Girls developer WayForward to develop a new entry in the Yars' Revenge series, named Yars Rising. Slated to launch at the end of this year, the title was announced during today's Nintendo Indie World showcase, but will release also for PS5 and PS4. Check out the reveal trailer above.

Darkest Dungeon 2, the sequel to developer Red Hook Studios' acclaimed Lovecraftian roguelike RPG, is launching for PlayStation 5 and PS4 on 15th July.

You'd think after launching Stardew Valley's massive 1.6 update, creator Eric «ConcernedApe» Barone would want to catch his breath; but nope — Barone has just casually tossed out a new patch that, among other things, adds 40 new mine layouts for players to explore.

The developers behind cozy management sim Minami Lane have gotten candid about indie game development and revealed they have no plans to "milk" their game despite its success.

Pizza Tower fans have been waiting for the well-loved PC indie platformer to make the jump to consoles, but this week's Nintendo Indie Showcase once again failed to deliver that announcement. Instead, we saw a very similar-looking game called Antonblast - and while some elements of the fandom were quick to call it a "Pizza Tower clone," both games owe their inspiration to a much older Nintendo classic.

If you somehow haven’t fallen down the Balatro hole just yet, that slope is about to get a whole lot slippier. The mesmerising roguelike spin on poker is easy enough to lose an entire afternoon to by itself, but now it’s been combined with the granddaddy of all computer-related procrastination: classic Windows Solitaire.

Earlier this week Hades 2 developer Supergiant announced its technical test, which players can sign up for now ahead of the game hitting early access.

The Anniversary Edition of Braid was originally announced almost four years ago, and originally meant to be out sometime in 2021. As such, the latest delay to Jonathan Blow’s time-rewinding puzzle-platformer - which sees its date pushed back two weeks into the middle of next month - feels like a relative drop in the hourglass.

Friends, I have officially discovered another game I can play with my life partner, who regards most games with enormous suspicion and fatigue. That game is Morels: The Hunt 2, released this week, and as you might guess, it is about finding and identifying various species of mushroom in lush, photorealistic wilderness locations. There are also unicorns, crystal skulls and robot parts. Slightly confused by the unicorns, crystal skulls and robot parts, if I'm honest. It feels a bit like developers Abrams Studios are unconvinced as to the popular appeal of mushroom hunting, and have garlanded the concept with random mythology so as to widen the Venn diagram overlap between "fungi fans" and "people who want to live in cyberpunk Narnia".

If you'll be hiding from the sweltering sun in July (I say, daring the fates to try to spite me by delivering a cracking summer), good news: you won't be the only shadow-dweller. The fascinating Schim finally has a release date, July 18th. It stars a little shadowy soul trying to reconnect with its human by hopping from shadow to shadow through city streets, farms, factories, and parks bustling with life and moving parts. See how it works in the new trailer below!

Close Cities is a new puzzle game on Android that lets you play mayor without the headache. Think of it as your laid-back path to being a city-building pro. Created by indie dev Juan Manuel Altamirano Argudo, who has dropped titles like Broki, Brainito – Words vs Numbers, Chesspert, Chessplode and DueLito.

Dwarf Fortress — the hugely influential, dizzyingly expansive colony sim that's been in development for over 20 years — has just released its roguelike Adventure Mode over on Steam, albeit initially in public beta form.

Braid, Anniversary Edition has been delayed by a couple weeks, from 29th April to 14th May, but the good news is that it’s now confirmed with even more levels and special features to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the classic indie platformer.

After proving themselves in darn near every genre under the sun, the devs behind the incredible SteamWorld series are finally returning to the format of their fantastic XCOM-style strategy game with a proper sequel set to launch later this year.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes — the atmospheric new puzzle adventure from Simogo, perhaps best known as the extraordinarily talented team behind 2019's glorious Sayonara Wild Hearts — finally has a release date and is launching for Switch and Steam on 16th May.

Braid: Anniversary Edition (or Braid, Anniversary Edition as it's officially styled) has been delayed by two weeks. The remake is now set to launch for PlayStation, Switch, and PC on 15th May, with Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One versions arriving a day later, on 16th May.

Today's Nintendo Indie World Showcase event has now wrapped up, after bringing us more than 20 minutes of intriguing Nintendo Switch games from independently-minded studios.

The surreal puzzle game Lorelei and the Laser Eyes hits the Nintendo Switch and PC on May 16, as revealed at Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase event. This is a big deal, as the game’s being developed by Simogo, the company behind the mind-blowing adventure Sayonara Wild Hearts, which was one of our favorite titles of 2019. It’s also being published by Annapurna Interactive, who helped steward games like Stray, Open Roads and Cocoon to digital store shelves.

I briefly posted about this in The Maw, but was unsure at that point if SteamWorld Heist 2 was coming to PC day and date with the launch on Switch. That date is August 8th, by the way, and the answer is: yes it is! Though it was revealed at Nintendo's Indie World Showcase earlier this afternoon, strategy action-adventure-with-robots sequel SteamWorld Heist 2 isn't a timed platform exclusive, so that's fun!

Nintendo’s latest Indie World showcase featured more than a dozen indie games coming to Nintendo Switch in 2024, with some of those titles dropping on the eShop today.

Sayonara Wild Hearts developer Simogo announced a release date for its next game, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, during Nintendo’s Indie World showcase on Wednesday. It’s set to hit Nintendo Switch and Windows PC on May 16.

Today's Nintendo Indie World Showcase may have been a letdown for Hollow Knight: Silksong hopefuls, but it was overall a pretty great show, and included the news that a Hades-like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles roguelike is coming to Switch as a timed console exclusive in July. This is a brilliant surprise, as it comes after almost a year of being locked away as an Apple Arcade exclusive.

Today's Nintendo Indie World features 20 minutes of new indie game reveals and updates to anticipated titles. If you missed the event, we've gathered each announcement here for a cursory glance at what showed up. 

Today's Nintendo Indie World Showcase had a few surprises, and if you happen to be familiar with the Atari 2600 library, none of them were more surprising than the announcement of Yars Rising.

Europa began with "peaceful and zen vibes," and after more than six years of development, it's coming to the Nintendo Switch.

We learned that SteamWorld Heist would finally be getting a sequel during the April 2024 Indie World showcase.

Nintendo is hosting its first Indie World Showcase of 2024. As the name implies, this digital event focused entirely on indie games that were headed to Nintendo's hybrid gaming system, the Nintendo Switch. IGN has you covered with everything announced during the first Indie World Showcase of 2024, which you can read below.

It's time for another video game showcase and this time around, Nintendo's stepping up to the plate. The company's latest Indie World stream takes place today at 10AM ET and you can watch it above.

Aggro Crab, the indie developer behind the colorful Soulslike Another Crab's Treasure, has expressed its fears that it may face sudden competition around its release thanks to Hades 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. 

Is waiting for Hades 2 to release starting to feel like a sisyphean endeavor? If so, push that boulder no longer. Supergiant announced yesterday that fans of the action roguelite can sign up now to be considered for an upcoming technical test, via Hades 2’s Steam page.

Nintendo's next Indie World Showcase — the cooler, more rebellious sibling to the average Nintendo Direct — will air today, Wednesday 17th April, at 3pm UK time.

Despite being released on Steam on April Fools' Day, the enemies of are no joke. Its monster roster is impressive for an indie horror title, with each feeling unique in its mechanics and design. Because of this, the many monsters of vary in both levels of danger and horror, with some being oddly cute and endearing while others stand proudly as nightmare fuel, able to keep even the bravest awake at night.

Hades 2, the hugely anticipated follow-up to developer Supergiant Games' acclaimed 2020 roguelike dungeon crawler, is almost upon us — albeit initially as an early access release — and ahead of its arrival Supergiant is hosting a technical test, with sign-ups officially now open.

Nintendo has announced that the next Indie World Showcase will take place tomorrow.

Xbox has announced the next wave of games coming to Game Pass in late April.