Wandersong starts with bad news: the world is dying. The good news is that it is also packed with excellent people worth saving. Setting out from your tiny, colorful village, you solve puzzles and dispatch grumpy ghosts with music. It combines point and click adventure and rhythm games into an adorable experience fullâŚ
In Subserial Network, humanity as we know it doesnât exist. Instead, synthetic beings populate the world. They live mostly normal lives. Thereâs only one rule: donât connect yourself directly to the net. The synthetics who disobey are deemed âSubserials.â Your job is to hunt them down.
Plenty of explorations games give you the opportunity to walk through colorful fields or strange, alien worlds. But sometimes it feels like all you can do is wander around. Mendel allows the player to breed plants in order to create wild and unexpected new species.
10S is a bullet-hell tennis game where each match is a frantic battle to survive. Strange dog enemies and massive bosses fill the screen with projectiles, all while you fire shot after shot at them. The amount of things you need to juggle and track to succeed is intimidating, but it makes each victory feel incredible.
Ship of Theseus is a straightforward game. You are given dozens of body parts with which to design and construct an android. Mixing and matching pieces until you settle on a unique creation is a lot of fun. But Ship of Theseus is also a meditation on the human body and what it means to modify our own flesh.
Itâs a late night shift and things are quiet. That nosy journalist who always says sheâs working on a book took her espresso and sat down in the corner. A dapper looking elf wanders in with his literal succubus of a girlfriend. Itâs gonna be a slow night in Coffee Talk, but thatâs fine.
Heaven Will Be Mine is a visual novel about giant robots, political intrigue, and maybe even smooching the enemy. It combines evocative writing with a multi-perspective story thatâs as engrossing as any anime.
Clever game design can take advantage of even the most limited resources. Celestial Hacker Girl Jessica is a marble-rolling game set in abstract space, which is made using mostly Unity assets. For some people, that might be infuriating, but sitting down to play it shows off what smart level design can do for a game.
One Hand Clapping is a experimental project from the University of Southern Californiaâs games program. It mixes music and puzzlesâthe player needs to hum or sing to create walkways and raise platforms to proceed through a colorful world. Itâs short but memorable.
I scroll through itch.io every week to see what gamesâŚ
Shape of the World is an exploration game that weaves colors into breathtaking landscapes. The shifting pastel horizons create one of the best game worlds Iâve ever explored, capturing both the thrill of hiking and the colors of a solid psilocybin trip.
OK/NORMAL is an experimental arcade game by Toni Kortelahti that embraces the visuals of early PlayStation games. The game, which captures the strange and abstract worlds of mid-90s 3D, is one of several new indie titles that embrace a new form of âretroâ aesthetics. Itâs an oppressive, bizarre, and overwhelming gameâŚ
Settling a bet with Rock, Paper, Scissors is nice but itâs even better when you can read the future. In Fortune 499, you use fortune-telling cards to predict your opponentâs move and win battles against the demons attacking the human resources department. Fun combat and a unique twist on magical bureaucracy make it aâŚ
In Quarantine Circular, a plague is ravaging humanity, destroying cities and pushing our existence to the brink. As extinction looms, a mysterious creature from the stars appears, their motives unclear. Itâs up to you to navigate the situation and hopefully save humanity.
Spartan Fist is a first person brawler where you have to punch your way through randomly generated maps. Along the way, thereâs tons of special attacks and silly upgrades that turn each new playthrough into a hilarious beatdown of hapless enemies.
The Wisdom and/or Madness of Crowds is an interactive game by Nicky Case all about how ideas and trends spread. Short puzzles teach the player how popular perception changes as groups grow smaller or larger. Itâs an important lesson wedged between devious brain teasers and a perfect Indie Pick.
Sometimes, you just want to hit the road. Photon Highway takes cues from games like Audiosurf and Temple Run to create a randomized highway through the stars. Itâs great for those times you want to sit back and cruise away from lifeâs problems.
Beat the Art Breaker is a game about dashing around and punching folks. Itâs not done yet, but a new playable demo gives a glimpse at an indie game that has a fast and exciting take on hand to hand combat.
Duck Jam mixes WarioWare style mini-games with a touch of absurdist comedy to tell the story of a bunch of ducks trying to make money. Bills, you could say. The fast-paced change from one game mode to another means you need to always be on your toes if you want to avoid begging for bread crumbs on the street.
Danmaku Unlimited 3 is a bullet hell arcade game that came out for PC last year but was recently released for the Nintendo Switch. The laser-filled shoot âem up is exciting, with tight dodges and massive beam blasts that make for a good time.
