September indie gaming roundup
Another month, another round of releases and announcements in the indie gaming community. Today I’ll go over some of the things that have caught my attention in September. While EGX was this month I’ll be listing my favourite indie game picks from the event in a separate article, so keep an eye out for that. It’s a shorter article than usual this month because I’ve been somewhat occupied with other things, so if there’s something I’ve missed then feel free to mention it in the comment section.
NEON Ultra release
NEON Ultra was released today, just in time to make it into this article. This game is like Asteroids and Geometry Wars had a baby and raised it in a house made entirely of particles. I cannot emphasise enough how much is happening on the screen all the time. The action is full-on from the start and very soon into it you are reacting mostly on instinct. Upgrades are dropped on a fairly constant basis, but you’ll need them in order to keep up with the flow of enemies. These cover the full range from drifting asteroids in all sizes to rows of ships that drop from the top of the screen in sequence to small geometric ships that zip across the screen when you least expect it to more stationary turrets. Overall a lot of fun if you like this sort of game, plus the global leaderboards give you a chance to show just how good your stick control is.
Kickstarter card and board games
I don’t talk about physical games often, mainly due to lack of opponents, but for me this month has been a month of backing card and board games on Kickstarter. Two of the games are now successfully funded: Card Rogue (a tabletop roguelike with randomly generated dungeons) and Space Base Mutiny (a board game for $1). Yes, you read that right—Space Base Mutiny was up for exactly $1. That game led me to another $1 board game in the form of Stellar Armada, a game of spaceship combat on roughly poker card sized boards. The developer of that game was kind enough to send me a preview copy of the print-and-play files, so expect an article on that soon. At the time of writing Stellar Armada is sitting at just under 1900% funded with 13 days left. Finally, I backed Super Hack Override, a card game based around hacking where the goal is to gain cred within the hacker community. Stretch too far, though, and you can end up in hacker jail. Super Hack Override is currently 320% funded with 13 days to go.
Quick news
- Runner3, the next entry in the BIT.TRIP RUNNER series, was announced.
- Event[0], a game about convincing a spaceship AI to let you live, was released.
- The Kickstarter for the VR visual novel Angel & Demigods was launched. (Disclosure: I edited some of the in-game dialogue.)
- The next Gamerbake event was announced: a “Terrors from the Deep” themed bake-off in London to coincide with the launch of Sunless Sea’s first expansion, Zubmariner.
- Slayer Shock, a vampire hunting game pitched as Buffy meets Thief with a dash of XCOM, was released.
- The Weirder Stuff 48 hour jam runs on 1st–2nd October and you can pick up the required Clickteam Fusion 2.5 development tool in the current Humble Bundle.
- The Kickstarter for Code 7, a fully voiced and animated text-based hacking adventure game, was launched.
I am a software developer by day and dip into a range of related activities in my spare time, including working on my own software projects, writing, proof-reading, and, of course, gaming of both the digital and boardgame varieties. I am slowly starting to sink my teeth into game development.