Welcome to GTOGG’s August 2024 edition of Promising Indie Game Releases, where we highlight indie and non-mainstream titles that we believe deserve your attention – in other words, “look at all this potentially cool stuff you might’ve missed otherwise”. That would’ve been too long for a title, though.
In any case, let’s get right down to it.
Never Forgotten
Taking place in a dying, abandoned world enveloped by fleshy abominations, Never Forgotten will have you discover fragments of your own troubled past while trying to avoid the nightmarish monstrosities that haunt the pitch-dark landscapes surrounding you. With this being a survival horror title, you’ll also have to manage your resources, solve a variety of puzzles to get ahead, and engage in turn-based battles with real-time elements that require you to time your attacks and dodges just right. Personally, I found the game’s atmosphere to be quite captivating when I tried its playable demo, and the project’s minimalistic black-and-white style – combined with its moody soundtrack and creepy pixel art flesh-creatures – did a great job of conveying its mysteriously melancholic tone.

World of Goo 2
The original World of Goo was possibly one of the most memorable puzzle games of the late 2000s, at least for me personally – launching in 2008, it introduced people to the charming world of goo balls and wacky construction challenges as you tried (and sometimes failed) to build gooey bridges and various other structures to get from A to B. World of Goo 2 makes me feel like it’s 2008 again: armed with new species of Goo and made by the same people who brought us the original, the project looks like it’s going to be a Goo fan’s dream come true.

Eden Genesis
Focusing on Leah, a female cyborg, Eden Genesis is an action game that hopes to test your skills and reflexes with countless challenges, while also telling the story of a universe where cybernetically augmented people are doomed to die due to their implants corrupting their minds. In the role of Leah, players will take part in an experimental treatment and try to unearth a cure for augmented people in the hopes of saving themselves and countless others in the process.

Farewell North
Farewell North is an emotional open world exploration game where players will venture across the majestic Scottish Highlands as a border collie named Chesley, exploring differently-themed islands while solving a variety of light puzzles. That’s hardly all there is to the project, however: narrative-wise, it will also deal with themes of mental health, loss and depression, with the adorable Chesley trying to bring some color back into his owner’s life so she can finally begin to heal.

DEVIATOR
Deviator is a deflection-based metroidvania that will have you traverse many diverse landscapes and tackle countless dangerous foes, but the way to victory isn’t necessarily through endless button mashing – instead, you’ll want to avoid getting hit and skillfully parry/deflect all your enemies’ attacks. The more you do this, the more momentum you build, which eventually lets you enter an enhanced, high-powered state in order to dish out massive amounts of damage and fully obliterate your foe.

Volgarr the Viking II
Volgarr the Viking II knows exactly what it wants to be – as a sequel to its punishing predecessor and an homage to 1980s arcade games, it hopes to deliver the same level of difficulty, offering would-be players a brutal adventure where even a single mistake can be fatal. The barbarian king’s second outing, nonetheless, will offer a handful of quality-of-life features as well (checkpoints, for example) to make life a bit easier for those who want it, along with new types of magic, new powerups and new enemies, to name a few.
