Exhausted and utterly drained but what an incredible experience overseeing our debut Indie Wavemakers Indie Zone at this year’s gamescom asia. Witnessing countless gamers flocking in to immerse themselves in the amazing games showcased within the Indie Zone was nothing short of exhilarating. As we take a much-needed break, here are some standout games that left a lasting impression on us!
Cuisineer
Shifting from lovable rabbit mascots and giant mechas, BattleBrew Productions showcased their latest project Cuisineer! It is a rogue-lite dungeon crawler featuring Pom, an adventurer tasked with the heavy responsibility of saving the world clearing her parents’ restaurant debts.
As Pom, you will explore biomes full of dangerous creatures, collect ingredients along the way, and cook up a storm of delicious dishes for the restaurant’s patrons, earning enough to pay off the debts and turn the restaurant into a thriving business. Tough work for your average adventuring catgirl.
The game launches on 9 Nov 2023 so make sure to add it to your wish list.
Amp
Inspired by the world of audio, Amp takes your senses through the world where music is everything. Watch as you fly through pulsating environments to the beat and clear your path with different chain abilities to suit your play style.
Amp has an amazing look, it’s like Tempest and Star Fox had a child and it also sounds fantastic too. Which of course it needs to being a music centered game. While not out until 2024, the game is polished and very fun. The designers are also in the process of adding new modes for the final launch so it’s looking like this once should hit your wish list now!
Cats on Duty
Cats on Duty takes the tower defense genre and throws in a match 3 mechanic to produce a wildly fun game. Heavily armed battle-hardened cat veterans of rodent skirmishes and yarn tangles take charge in defending their homeland (and litter boxes) against the forces of great evil! Utilize a multitude of cat varieties to engage in combat against 50 types of fiendish creatures. Unleash the power of the whiskers and drive those zombies back to the depths of the underworld!
Cats + games = the best thing ever. It’s no wonder the majority of Indie Games on show had cats in them 🙂
Samudra
Being the first of Jakarta-based Khayalan Arts’ titles, Samudra is a puzzle game about a child’s adventure across a polluted underwater world that was released in 2021. With some spooky vibes, award-winning haunting soundtracks, and subtle messaging on the state of ocean pollution, Samudra is a game that is both meaningful and fun, and definitely worth checking out.
I Need Space
Khayalan Arts’ second game is a space exploration adventure, inspired by the likes of Spiritfarer and Outer Wilds. Inspired by the 2020 pandemic, I Need Space sees you playing as a solitary spacefaring traveller exploring six unique galaxies and revitalising planets devastated by a celestial pandemic.
Accompanied by your trusty Cosmicat companion, you’ll meet and help other characters through quests that will unveil more about what caused the pandemic, while seeing what’s in store for the future. The game is launching in 2024 on Steam, but Khayalan Arts welcomes players into their Discord servers for an early peek into the game progress.
Stellarune
With a clear inspiration from Mega Man Battle Network, Stellarune is a game that uses the tactical movements from the series and sprinkles in a touch of randomness by making your spell attacks come in the form of pre-loaded dice rolls! Mix spells from three different schools inspired by fire, lightning, and wind, to create your own strategy, and take them into battle against the corrupted creatures. With a planned release date set in Q3 2024, the developer duo from Mergician Productions shared that they are looking into adding more RPG and rogue-like elements into Stellarune for better replayability.
PIO
Hailing from Korea, developers Star of Star introduced PIO as an action platformer side-scroller with a mystical starry theme, inspired by games like Ori and the Blind Forest and Hollow Knight. You can launch attacks by moving over blocks with a number and pressing an attack button, spending a point on the block, and destroying it once its number reaches zero. Other unique blocks provide some utility, such as a health block that regenerates their health or a block that slides them across the screen to dodge attacks.
The game is slated to be released on Steam in December.
LumineNight
It’s not every day you see a mystery adventure game inspired by the Ace Attorney series, set in an alternative 1950’s that features a crime noir vibe, but Korean developers Spickasoft is taking on that challenge. LumineNight features detective Kelvin Foster and his only daughter, self-proclaimed detective Selen Foster, uncovering information that sees them tackling decades-old unresolved cases in the city of Summerset, USA. The game is a blend of spices from various genres, coming together into a satisfying thriller influenced by L.A Noire, The Wolf Among Us, and Lupin the 3rd. LumineNight is nearly done, with efforts put into localizing and cleaning up bugs over the next few weeks.
Bootleg Steamer
Set in the U.S prohibition era of the 1920’s, Bootleg Steamer sees you travelling across oceans, buying trade goods and contrabands from foreign ports and smuggling them past the coast guard to sell off the items at American ports. However, as the years pass, the value of trade goods will begin to change and the number of coast guards will increase as time goes on. The game is expected to launch in Q2 2024, and while multiplayer was not planned, the team noted that many fans were requesting the feature.
UNYIELDER
Set in the science-fantasy, post-post-apocalyptic lands of Antarctica, the player takes control of “The Pretender” a sapient machine built from the technology of an old totalitarian technocracy. They begin their journey with a single directive: To hunt down and reclaim parts of a shattered machine-god, scattered throughout the rusted lands.
UNYIELDER is currently being worked on full-time by the team at Trueworld Studios on Unreal Engine 5 and is in the early stages of QA playtesting and content generation. Focusing on “Finding the fun”, many members of the dev team, some without prior programming knowledge, were able to rapidly prototype ideas with blueprints. This greatly accelerated the rate of development as the team was able to make quick decisions with a hands-on, tactile demonstration instead of having to rely on purely conceptual proposals. From what we played, this is shaping up to be something special.
For all the games not mentioned here that were at the Indie Wavemakers Indie Zone, we love you all and it was a blast meeting you, promoting your games and most importantly, playing them!
