I researched hundreds of Kickstarter campaigns since 2021 to find the most successful, tracking how much money they earned, how many backers they had, their country of origin, and whether or not they've since released. What I found might surprise you! Or it might not! Or maybe you'll be mildly interested!

Hi all, I created this little indie game called "Rocket!" It's a game that is a bit more on the arcadey side with 7 different game modes. As you play, you earn resources (iron, gold, etc) that you can use to unlock new weapons and ship upgrades to equip. Thus allowing you to play harder levels and score higher. My game has a free demo as well btw.

Steam link:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2382450/Rocket/

Hi, would love to gather some feedback on the game I've been working on for the past year. If you are curious, here is our Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2997880/Sunset_High/

It's a demo but I really enjoyed playing this. The comparison to Balatro and its popularity has to be made, if only to make it easier to explain the game: it's blackjack instead of poker, and there's a lot of weird cards and funny references.

Some example are a 13 of spades, pi (3.14) of hearts, a PS1 memory card that allows you to copy another card, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon and other trading card cameo appearances, credit cards, business cards, and so on.

The progression is like a classic roguelike deck builder: you move across floors, defeat enemies, make choices between other events like upgrades, healing and adding new cards, defeat a boss and go to the next floor.

I honestly expect this game to get quite popular when / if it releases on Steam. It's already quite polished, has a cool vibe and while blackjack has simple rules, this game adds so many modifiers that it keeps being interesting.

Edit: I'm blind, it released on Steam 3 months ago! Still a great demo haha, ima go and buy this game now

Steam Next Fest has come and gone. I played around 40 demos this time, and I found 9 promising ones you should check out! Ranging from soulslikes, detective games, old Xbox 360 games, detective games, weird comedy games, and detective games, there is a ton of variety here! Okay, maybe there a lot of detective games...

Otherskin is a third-person shooter that plays like your favorite, obscure, janky action adventure game from the PS3 era. It has a lot going on, with unique powers you absorb from defeated enemies, an array of weapons and power-ups, and a story that feels a lot like Returnal.

Skateboard tricks but with cars! A colleague of mine has been working on this game for a while, streaming his progress on Twitch. No firm release date but it can be wishlisted on Steam though.

Become a master of physics by launching your car into the air, performing kickflips, and grinding rails. Complete missions to unlock levels and cosmetics, practice tricks until perfection, or just goof around with friends.

Fruitbus is a comedy adventure game about driving a food truck around a small island and fulfilling orders. But it's so much more than that, with a fully open world to explore, ingredients to forage, upgrades to make to your truck, and hilarious NPCs to meet with their own side quests and stories.

ON YOUR TAIL IS A TRICKY GAME to judge, based on its demo. It feels like two separate games barely related, with one half a joy to play. The other half, well...

The Switch is known for having a ton of great indie games, and a ton of great retro games. It stands to reason that it also has a lot of fantastic retro-inspired indie games. Too many, even. Today's video is all about showcasing the ten best retro indie hidden gems on the Nintendo Switch!

October is going to be a great month for new indie game releases, with a lot of variety - from creature collectors, horror games, rally racing, and so many more. I found 19 great indies you should check out.

Akimbot is a fantastic 3D platformer inspired by PlayStation classics like Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank. But it can't help but be overshadowed by Astro Bot - another robot-themed, PlayStation-inspired 3D platformer that released just one week later.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/21139026

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/21139024

Story:

After a disastrous break up, Qian Hailu wakes up to find that she's dead. Luckily (or unluckily), she's been given a chance to turn back the clock and avert her death—as long as she can pass three rounds in the game of life.

Steam

Itch

VNDB

cross-posted from: https://mastodon.social/users/Berin/statuses/112989412208044111

Demo Release: The Songbird Guild, a yuri magical girl RPG/Visual Novel hybrid by YuriSoft

Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1238940/The_Songbird_Guild/

Itch.io:
https://yurisoft.itch.io/the-songbird-guild-demo

VNDB:
https://vndb.org/v52242

@yuri

#Yuri #VisualNovel #Gaming #QueerGames #IndieGame

We tend to think of retro games being old, because that's what retro means, right? Not necessarily, no! "Retro" simply means to imitate or recreate a design or style from an older generation.

There's been a pattern with indie games the last decade that's become very clear in 2024. New indie games are imitating old video games, using their style and mechanics to create new experiences. This is what I call Retro Indie.

cross-posted from: https://mastodon.social/users/Berin/statuses/112879808020498505

Demo released for Detective Instinct: Farewell My Beloved, a ADV/VN inspired by classic detective games

Synopsis:
A woman vanishes without a trace on a cross-country train. The catch? Nobody on board remembers her ever existing in the first place - nobody, except for you. Uncover the story in this detective ADV/visual novel!

The game is to be released in 2024 (no date yet)

Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2689930/Detective_Instinct_Farewell_My_Beloved/

@visualnovels

#VisualNovel #MysteryGame #Gaming #IndieGame #Games

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18115420

TL;DR This is a review of both Turnip Boy indie games. The first is a sort of classic Zelda clone, the second is a rogue-lite twin stick shooter. Both are short to play and I recommend them but especially the second game.

Tax Evasion Persuasion

The last thing I ever want my veggies doing is paying unjust taxes. The good news is that Turnip Boy does not want to. The first game of these two is one that I played months back and I ended up having a really good time with it. This game is obviously based on some of the older adventure games, particularly older Zelda games, and so you should expect that coming in. It mostly consists of doing small quests for people but the game never gets too elaborate and does not have a huge map making it too complex.

What even is a joke game?

I'll bring this up again later but this game is very lighthearted and most of the mechanics here are in service to the comedy and joking nature of the game and its characters. If you've ever played a game that does this, you'll know already that this tends to polarize the game into being either way too focused on the joke to the detriment of the gameplay, or it ends up with the gameplay being passable but the joke falling flat on its face. I'm happy to report that this game does neither of those things and balanced it pretty well, though not to my full satisfaction.

If only the Triforce was cantaloupe

In totality, the first game is a nice and tidy adventure with a decent amount of fun and jokes and with just enough depth to sell the fun of the game without over complicating it or dragging it on for too long. You can beat this in just a couple of sittings and if "Classic Zelda joke game" sounds like a good time to you, go play it!

He's not done squashing yet

To move on to the second game, Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, this is where I had most of my fun. The game becomes a twin stick shooter on just one map where you break into a bank, take as much cash as you can, leave, and repeat until you've found and defeated all of the bosses and done as many quests as you have desire for. Unlike other rogue-lite games, this one is very approachable and not having a procedurally generated levels means that you get to know where you're going over time. The jokes are also better though the story is lighter here. All of that exists in the shadow of the gunplay though, the weapons here are the real highlight. The first game I didn't really find much challenge at all with, the actual gameplay was almost more about questing than its bosses. Here though, you have some decent boss fights and enemies, very fun mechanics.

Theres a few donut sized holes

The main criticisms here are that despite the mechanics being deeper: There is a gun locker that is almost pointless, the upgrades don't feel balanced, the gun trade in system is not worth utilizing, and the different areas do not do money scaling very well.

A good example is that you have items that cost 10k and you're working towards upgrades that cost 25k. You could buy the upgrades, but it is pointless because the progression item at 10k unlocks and area that lets you get a trophy for 100k with almost no effort. I think that the treasures on the pedestals needed to be scaled better, they kind of undermine the whole game.

This summary is a pickle, or just a vinegar cucumber

Both of these games are worth playing for entirely separate reasons and both will take you no more than 5 hours to beat, I'd estimate 3-4 for most people. They're short but in a very good way and a nice refresher from a long RPG playthrough. As good as these games are though, they don't survive without their specific brand of humor. One is a very short and simple adventure game, the other is a short and simple rogue-lite. I really hope that the developer feels they are able to make a longer game if they feel like doing so because I'd like to see how they could make these mechanics work without just using them as a backdrop to cheeky dialog.

But that's it, I hope that you go play one or both of these games if you have time. Both of these are also simple enough that they'd be welcoming to newcomers to their genres.

People who have played these games, feel free to throw in what you like and didn't like below. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/19362696

I'm really excited about this since the devs have been heavily promoting the game on the fediverse. The game itself looks very high-budget with its polished artstyle and animated sprites as well!

If you're interested you can play the demo here

Duck Detective is a fantastic puzzle game that hearkens back to the days of point and click adventure games. It's got all of the charm, wit, excellent writing, and clever deduction-based puzzles you'd expect from a game during the prime of the genre. This retro styled adventure comedy game is one of my favorite games of 2024.

Steam Next Fest is not over yet! There's still time to try demos, including these incredible retro-style indies!

Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip is the kind of game you like, but want to love. It has a great story, witty humor, great art, and an interesting setting, but its missing something...

House Flipper 2 is good and all, but is there a better house building game? From realistic simulators to rebuilding Europe after WW2, to dice playing chickens... it's a complicated question.