>>1465465 i liked the game because it feels different from anythinh i played so far. like >>1465465 said its mixture of different genres and for me it actually feels fresh. I just think they need to buff the hammer weapon.

I just completed Infra and I loved it. >Take Half-Life >Remove the shooting >Have the player take photos of structural damage to the falling apart facilities they journey through instead >Also documents on government officials and corporations doing illegal shit >Add in some tough puzzles too If you like urban exploration this game is 10/10.

>>1571673 >>remove the shooting That sounds g- >rest of the post I'll take a look, thanks anon.

>>1571676 There's still action. Pretty early on you're witness to a collapse that causes a massive domino effect across the city and you end up in exploding or burning buildings/tunnels more often than you'd think.

>>1571673 >Take Half-Life >Remove the shooting I already hate it

>>1571690 I was about to say "that sounds gay". It's fine if it doesn't have action, the rest of the premise sounds cool.

>>1571790 Without even seeing he was talking about Infra, I could tell he was talking about Infra. That's exactly how I'd describe it. Personally, I loved the game. It's like Half-Life 2's interludes between combat, but for an entire game. It's also really pretty, being a Source game. Ever watch Game Dungeon, you know how he gives awards to games? Mine would be "World's Best Inspector". Markku simply will not rest until he has documented the full extent of the water infrastructure's damage, madly dedicated.

>>1569177 >>1569046 Was either coincidence or someone on the payment processor side realised this was going to be bad optics and backed down. (A large part of what is allowing them to get away with it is the normalfags thinking they are just going after porn)

>>1571906 >It's like Half-Life 2's interludes between combat If there's no ammo/health collecting in said interludes then it's not really Half Life 2. That's a big chunk of what makes STALKER so good as well.

>>1572012 >DMCA I'm not buying it

>>1572012 That's really weird Same thing happened with Old School Rally https://steamcommunity.com/app/2824660/discussions/0/590651049589629945/ https://archive.is/ci9fZ

I just dropped Outrider Mako after 2 hours . I really like the concept and aesthetic, but the game is simply unfun to play. They put too much emphasis on standing still on something and jumping around during combat, but they feel kinda janky and awkward, it's hard to describe. Similar feel I had when I played Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus with its extreme emphasis on Pogo-ing. You can still do normal attack, but only using that would just handicap you as enemies often swarm you with high damage projectile and they always move around in such an awkward way that'd make your normal attack miss. The story is non-existent, you got isekai'd and suddenly told to do errands for some random ghost. dialogues are just do here, do that, go here, go there. a shiny turd/10

>Word Play After Balatro Mahjong >>1123301 , now we got Balatro Scrabble where you can input 4-10 words to get big numbers. Tbqh this game sucks. The point modifiers SUCK DICK and can't really transform your hands into super hands. I cleared Easy mode, barely cleared Normal mode and got wrecked in Hard mode. I tried cheating in the hardest mode (Legendary) by looking up 10-letter words on Scrabble word generators and I wasn't even close to beating it. The points requirement simply got too high. or maybe this is just a skill issue. meh/10

>>1573723 All right, it's actually skill issue. Maybe I'm just too low IQ for the game.

>>1572022 There kind of is "ammo collecting", in fact. Your flashlight and camera both have batteries which need to be replenished by finding pickups in the environment. If you're shrewd, you can have max batteries essentially all the time.

>Demonic Mahjong Another recently released Mahjong Balatro just like Aotenjo >>1123301 There are 4 things that differentiate this from Aotenjo and Balatro: 1. It has THREE multiplier (Value x Han x Mult), so numbers go crazy real quick and it feels really good scoring hundreds of millions points. 2. The progression is like Slay the Spire where there are non-battle nodes to upgrade/buy stuff and modify your deck with special effects 3. It's a roguelite with meta progression 4. You're facing off against ACTIVE enemy who also build a hand, use skills, disrupt your hands and score points that you have to outscore There are 3 kinds of equipment: Consumables (for in-battle usage), Tributes (permanent passive effects) and Figurines (like Tributes, but more powerful and limited slots up to 8). Every single one of these items is very impactful in buffing your gigantic scores, unlike in Word Play >>1573723 where most stuff felt meh and didn't really help me score better. Since this is a Mahjong game, there's naturally so many ways to build a hand, combined with all the different kind of equipment effects and personal character skills, the gameplay diversity of this game is extremely high and won't feel repetitive at all. Cons: - Boring AI art & animation where most characters feel samey and Genshin Impact-like - Very slow meta progression grind, so I just cheated to upgrade everything to max after the 3rd run A single successful run takes 30-60 minutes. Very recommended if you're a balatro/mahjong fan Far Better than Aotenjo and Balatro/10

I just played Back to the Dawn Prison Life sim where you manually do every little thing from eating to making your bed to toothbrushing and everything you do advances time. Man, this game is really interesting, but I'm too low IQ and impatient for a micro management game like this.

>>1571673 Started playing this game because of your post and it's awesome so far but you could have told me about it being a horror game Fuck Morko

>Ninja Gaiden Ragebound A stage-based 2D action platformer developed by a small south american team. For a Ninja Gaiden title, this game is surprisingly very newbie friendly. The game default difficulty is very forgiving where getting hit only gets your HP down by around 10% and there are many ways to recover HP. There's Assist Mode where you can turn the damage down, increase pogo window and increase charged attack duration, but there's no way to make the game harder. very weird. It's very fast paced as enemy dies in 1 hit except big enemy where you have to kill them with a charged attack (still 1 shot). Platforming is pretty easy, but I hate that if you fall off, it sends you all the back all the way to the previous checkpoint instead of the nearby ledge. It's a decently fun game, but nothing spectacular. very short. about 4 hours. 7/10

>Kaze and the Wild Mask Another 2D action platformer, but not much action this time. feels very similar to Donkey Kong games. It's so average that I lost interest after an hour. >Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo top-down action adventure where you fight using a Yo-Yo. You get accessories and traversal abilities as you progress that you can use to unlock paths and solve challenge rooms. metroidvania-esque. but the main adventure itself is pretty linear. I'd say 2/3 of the game is pretty easy, but the last 1/3 got really challenging with its platforming & puzzles that require combination of multiple abilities, timing, dexterity and of course your brain IQ. The combat is nothing special, very easy all the way until the end. Some unique things about this game: - it's set in a normal metropolitan city instead of the typical fantasy. - passive skill upgrade system: you get passive skills by buying them from an NPC. You get into a debt and get the skill temporarily, but you get a debuff like ATK -3, LIFE -3, Healing Drops no longer drop, etc as long as you're in debt. For every future $ you get, half of it get automatically deducted to pay off that debt. Very fun, but the puzzle and platforming got really frustrating near the end 7.5/10

>The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily This one is pretty fun, very challenging and also very frustrating sometimes. The progression is very unique where you just keep going from the beginning until the end of the game, no turning back, similar to Yggdra Union. Every new chapter, your HP get fully recovered, but you retain your position from the last turn of the previous chapter, no deployment, you use every unit you recruited (19 in total). There are 5 chapters and each one of them is quite long. The difficulty of this game comes from: 1. Unfair enemy reinforcement, which is very annoying. Different tiles have different maximum unit allowed (max 5) and there’s a lot of situation where an 4-5 units enemy Fortress tile can only be attacked from a 1-3 units tile, so you’re outnumbered. To make this worse, enemy Fortress tile have this mechanism where it fully replenish lost troops. So let’s say I killed 3 out of 5 enemy, failed to occupy the fortress, the fortress will revive those 3 (and partially heal the surviving 2) in the next turn, which can also act immediately. This shit is unfair, annoying, and also a waste of time. 2. movement inflexibility. Let’s say 2 friendly units is 1 tile away from an enemy. And another friendly unit is 2 tiles away from an enemy. Both can attack the enemy, BUT they can’t attack the enemy together at once, even though they’re both in range. They all have to sit on a single tile, THEN move to an enemy tile to attack it. Joint attack and flanking aren’t possible in this game, so you can’t really utilize your positioning. very weird for a strategy game. 3. Enemy level jump. New chapter, new enemy and bosses, but their levels are far higher than my party, like 5-10 levels higher. You can’t really grind effectively in this game by turtling on a friendly fortress tile since the EXP gain is very slow and your party can’t keep up with the new enemy level. Eventually everyone reached level cap (40), but the final chapter has massive amount of enemy and they’re all level 41-48, beyond the level cap with busted stats lol. Overall, I still enjoyed the game, but it could’ve been far better

>>1636014 >by a small south american team they are yuro spaniards (Blasphemous 1+2 devs)

>Everdeep Aurora I can’t believe I managed to finish game. Great concept, great looking aesthetic, but fucking hell, this game is absolutely awful to play through. Movement sucks. Drilling sucks. Navigating through the samey-layout area sucks The minimap especially sucks really bad. It sucks that every single door, cave, room I encountered was always locked/ability gated and I had to return later, but it’s a nightmare to even re-find those rooms again. The lore is actually really good, but it sucks that it’s told through item description and end game infodump. If you want to play a digging metroidvania, then just go play Rusty Rabbit and Steamworld Dig 2 (not 1). This shit is so ass.

>>1643628 Damn they work pretty fast. >Blasphemous 2 was released in August 2023 nevermind. time flies.

I also tried the more mainstream indies, Undertale and OMORI. they're both beyond shit, especially Undertale. I like what OMORI's tried to do, but the pacing, writing and especially gameplay suck really bad. unbearable. Celeste and Hollow Knight are probably the only mainstream indies I actually enjoyed.

>>1643594 This looks gay as fuck.

>>1644251 and that's a good thing!

>>1645100 The second one isn't gay, they are fraternal twins and one of them is a girl

>Shadow Labyrinth I didn’t know this was a Pacman metroidvania spin-off. That’s cool. I can see the effort put into making this game with all the high quality production value. This is a good game and I SHOULD like it. But this game is just NOT FUN to play through. A certain reviewer said this game got good after 6 hours (end of Act 1), but for me it’s the complete opposite. The game was only fun BEFORE the 6 hours mark, because THERE WAS A SENSE OF PROGRESSION. So, Act 1 is pretty linear with a clear objective location, but still got a bunch of branching off paths for platforming challenges & loots. There’s like 6 main areas that you go through with many interesting story cutscenes and traversal abilities to unlock. All within 6 hours. It’s a very compact and satisfying experience. Act 2 however, is the complete opposite of that. They told you the objective is to visit 2 certain areas (unmarked), but you’re free to explore wherever you want, no guided direction, no handholding at all. But the problem is, the world is HUGE. Each new area is MASSIVE and multi-layered, connected by dozens of doors spread around the area. The biggest problem with that is the exploration feels unrewarding with NO sense of progression at all. Traversing areas is a huge chore due to how massive they are with countless doors that lead to other massive areas. Enemy variety is very lacking and rewards for doing thorough exploration and platforming challenges are mostly trash like literally useless stones (apparently a collectible?), currency and piece of character lore (not even area lore). Oh, and there’s no story or even a dialogue AT ALL. Just mindlessly, aimlessly walking and fighting mobs. Just before I wrote this post, I was exploring an area for 2 hours straight, explored a lot of stuff... but without any real progress. No story content, no new ability, no notable items, just trash collectibles. I wasn’t even done exploring the area. I actually discovered NOTHING by doing 2 hours of exploration. I already had a gut feeling after the 10 hours mark that I would stop enjoying the game, and by the 15 hours mark I just said “fuck it” and dropped the game for good. I looked up youtube and this is actually a 30+ hours game. Wow. I don’t want to imagine playing through 30+ hours of this slog. There’s nothing special about the combat & metroidvania traversal abilities. All basic staple. There are other negatives like awful Pacman control, frustrating Pacman mini-games with no checkpoints and not-so-useful checkpoints that don’t even restore your healing items all over the world, but I won’t talk about them. I feel like the core exploration of this game is just too much of a slog that nothing could possibly fix it. Rating: NOT FUN/10

>>1653876 If you wanna play a Pacman Spinoff, just play this game >>1451801 Much better, much more fun.

A revival of the late 1990's 3D platformer collectathons with 3D, 64-bit graphics! Inspired by the convention and design of the golden era of video games while also keeping things fresh with new ideas and more things to do! meet characters, jump on enemies, leap through levels with style, find secrets, collect everything, and save the land! Explore the fantastic world of Kittland as Bee and Are to liberate it from the evil and lazy King Kitt, Replay the collectathon experience!

>The Dark Queen of Mortholme Very interesting premise where you play as Final Boss in her throne room fighting Hero who just keeps respawning and retrying while getting stronger each time until he can eventually kill you. The game is VERY short and also very annoying because the Queen is sluggish while the Hero is very agile. The battles are also very scripted where the Hero is programed to always dodge and have 24/7 i-frames when convenient. >Pharaoh Rebirth+ Janky and sluggish ass old game. not worth playing. >Danger in Pompeii Your goal is to escape the eruption of Mt.Vesuvius, but game is just walking around, doing errands for NPCs, listening to their story and problems and solving puzzles while the game gives you pieces of Roman history. You’d really like this game if you’re into the history of Roman Empire. Otherwise, nothing special. >Primal Planet Metroidvania set in a Jurrasic era + alien invasion with futuristic sci-fi tech. The story is really simple, save your family and tribe from the invading alien. The game itself isn’t really fun for me since there’s way too much resource management like gathering, crafting weapons/consumables, and managing your ally’s HP, which is very annoying. The combat is also lackluster with weird hitboxes. It sucks that you unlock traversal abilities by leveling up and purchasing them with skill points instead of through natural exploration like in typical metroidvania. The game has an Interesting concept, but really not fun to play. A lot of disappointment this month. Hopefully the next batch of games is better. Gonna play Artis Impact and Chained Echoes DLC next.

It's almost 3 weeks since the last post damn I've completed some games in the meantime >Passant: A Chess Roguelike Chess roguelike. Interesting, but even 1 stage is way too long since it’s basically a game of ches >Wish Upon a Cat Walking simulator with a typical indie "muh learn to accept yourself!" story. Nothing special. >TurretGirls Rare ecchi game in the year of 2025. So many sexy costumes and almost-nude battle damage special cutscenes. The gameplay itself is pretty meh, though. >Bahamut and the Waqwaq Tree I was interested because it’s a game made by Arab devs, very rare in this industry. It’s basically a walking (swimming) simulator, trying to be atmospheric with fairy tale-ish story telling, but the scenery sucks.

>Artis Impact The visual is amazing and the quirky characters are fine, I guess. but in the end, it's just another RPGmaker game with a dogshit basic ass turn-based combat. But this game got a bunch of extra nuisance: Arts MP usage is non-sense, you lose a lot of money when you die, there's no Escape from battle and there's NO FREEDOM TO SAVE. there's only 1 save, which is auto-save that you have to trigger by sleeping, so... not really an auto-save. This game is a shiny TURD >Chained Echoes - Ashes of Elrant DLC Artis Impact made me realize just how good Chained Echoes is as a faux-JRPG. So many content in this DLC with all the exploration and secrets. The combat is still really fun just as I remembered, unlike Sea of Stars which got repetitive really quick with all the QTE garbage. I haven’t played Expedition33 but I’m worried it’d a huge chore eventually like Sea of Stars. >SHINOBI: Art of Vengeance Another stage-based action platformer developed by a small team just like Ninja Gaiden Ragebound. Except this one is far better in every single aspect, from overall game length, stage length, stage design, enemy design/variety, boss battles, unlockables/secrets that are tied to upgrade progression and of course the combat itself which is very fluid. Everything about this game just feels really good. I can only think of 3 flaws 1. Amulet/Accessories don’t feel impactful at all. They might as well not exist 2. Skills are weak that it’s better to just use normal attack and kunai all the time 3. Taking damage is annoying since it push you away so far with a slow-motion effect no matter what attack. The only way to prevent this is to git gud and not take damage at all. If Ragebound is 7/10, then this is 8.5/10

Any indie 3D platformers you guys would recommend? I've tried a few: >A Hat in Time This is probably the most famous one. It has the best movement out of all the ones I've played. My biggest gripe is that it's quite short and a lot of the levels and objectives are quite mediocre, so you're left with only a couple of hours of fun gameplay. >Frogun The gameplay revolves around what is basically the hookshot from Zelda. The character can also jump, but her jump is very weak. Most of the platforming is done with the titular Frogun. A lot of people complain about the races, but I actually had a lot of fun with them. >Lucky's Tale I barely remember this. It kind of felt like playing a licensed game from the early-to-mid 2000s. There was also this other one I played that I don't remember the name of. It was kind of like Jak and Daxter. You played as some kind of anthropomorphic animal with another animal buddy (I think it was a bird). The ending was obnoxious "LOL SO RANDOM" reddit humor where the villain was revealed to be a space worm or something. On an unrelated note, have any of you ever played an indie game with good writing? Almost all of the ones I've played seem so self-conscious that the characters don't feel at all like real people. Like bad fanfiction.