Welcome to GTOGG’s July 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.
CONSCRIPT
It may be the middle of summer, but let’s say you’re looking for something inspired by Resident Evil and Silent Hill? Well, you’re in luck. CONSCRIPT is a gritty survival horror game with a focus on methodical gameplay, resource management and intricate puzzle solving, which, understandably, should very much be familiar territory for fans of the genre – except the story takes place in 1916, during the First World War’s Battle of Verdun, as players take on the role of a French soldier looking for his missing brother in the trenches.
Gestalt: Steam & Cinder
Sporting tight controls and some of the most eye-poppingly detailed pixel art to have ever graced your monitor, Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is certainly a project to keep an eye on. The game puts you in the shoes of protagonist Aletheia, an experienced bounty hunter wielding both a gun and a sword, and for good reason. The game’s fast-paced battle system is built around enemies having two bars: a red HP bar (this one is self-explanatory) and a green break bar that, once depleted, causes said enemy to be temporarily stunned – as you might imagine, firing at enemies from a distance in order to deplete their break bars, then rushing in for the kill once they’re stunned is a solid strategy, but ammo is not infinite and your gun does need to be reloaded very often, so caution and precision is very much recommended. While I do hope the game will expand on these mechanics and introduce a wide variety of enemies requiring different strategies, what I saw of Gestalt: Steam & Cinder during its demo version shows an immense amount of promise.
Meifumado
I feel like the screenshots and videos of Meifumado, a 2D action-RPG from developer Old Bit Studio, sort of speak for themselves, but I’m going to talk a bit about it anyway, because the project really deserves to have more eyes on it. Funded via Kickstarter, the game invites you to a gritty, post-apocalyptic world inspired by Japan, and will focus not just on its stylish combat system, but its RPG elements as well: in fact, players will be able to alter the course of the story depending on what choices they make, which faction they side with and what characters they decide to help. Which all sounds pretty exciting, if you ask me – plus, the game also looks like something you would’ve played on the SNES back in the 90s, which does a lot to tickle my nostalgia muscles.
Nobody Wants to Die
Nobody Wants to Die is a noir detective story taking place in the dystopian future of 2329 – pulled into the stunningly futuristic streets of New York, players will follow the journey of James Karra, a detective at the Mortality Department, as he takes on a case to investigate the dark secrets of the city while hunting a serial killer. With this being the 24th century, you’ll be using all sorts of high-tech gadgetry to solve your case, including your time manipulation augmentation to help you reconstruct events.
Minds Beneath Us
A chilling cyberpunk thriller from developer BearBoneStudio, Minds Beneath Us will whisk you away to a world in which society has become largely automated with AI, and the internet as we know it is replaced by the linking of human brains. Yup, really. It’s in this world where you’ll investigate a grim conspiracy while making decisive choices that can very much alter the storyline. Back when I tried its demo, I recall being quite enthusiastic about the project, calling it “science fiction done right” – needless to say, this is yet another game you’ll probably want to keep an eye on.
Abathor
In this co-op action platformer, you’ll get to prove that no challenge is too big for a group of four heroes dedicated to a cause – in this case, said cause is protecting the realm of Atlantis from gods, monsters and all kinds of other nasties hell-bent on destroying it. Inspired by 16-bit classics as well as the metroidvania and beat’em up genres, Abathor offers a nostalgia-fueled trip across a fantastical continent just waiting to be explored... and rid of monsters.
