9 Rad Indie Games We Can't Wait To See More Of From The Mix Summer Showcase
We picked out nine that caught our eye. Some of them were being shown for the first time. Others were previously revealed but had gone under our radar since, or popped up with fresh trailers showing a deeper look at story, world-building, and gameplay. But there were a ton more games worth checking out and wishlisting in the full showcase. You can see all of them for yourself in the video below.
The most intriguing reveal was a tactical RPG from a small studio called Hypersect led by a former Destiny sandbox gameplay engineer, an Octopath Traveler monster artist, and the composer of Enter the Gungeon. Never's End's pitch? Final Fantasy Tactics collides with city management as you raise an army of possessed warriors to protect the last human settlement from a magical apocalypse. There's no release date yet but it's coming to PC and PlayStation.
Airframe Ultra looks like Wipeout meets Twisted Metal. It's got a slick PS1 presentation and a gritty vibe that would fit right at home on a long-lost demo disc. It's the newest project from Rain World maker Videocult so it will probably be uncompromising in every way.
Rig dice to beat evil billionaires at their own deranged games. That's the basic premise of Dead Finger Dice, a point-and-click roguelike about gambling with ghouls and trying to escape the yacht they've imprisoned you on. It's giving Inscryption meets Cryptmaster if they were made in MS-DOS. A survival horror spin on Balatro? Let's go.
The gardenvania subgrene expands with Beauty Cult's Nectarmancer, a gorgeous-looking action platformer that doubles as a farming sim. Grow crops and fight in tight 2D spaces as you try to take down The Throne, a mysterious cabal exploiting the world's resources for its own gain. Here's the line from the Steam page that sold me: 'Use a network of plants and their latent nectarmancy to build up a planet-scale biological research computer to acquire even more nectar.' Yes. Yes I will.
At first glance I thought Critterrupters was an Animal Crossing clone but it's actually more like Pokémon. Go from 3D exploration to 2D turn-based augmented reality battles with a focus on interrupting your opponent's attack to gain an advantage. There's over 100 Critter Chips to collect, train, and 'puzzle out' with the goal of defeating gym leaders and meeting the creator of the virtual Tamagotchi-based warriors.
Motorslice is an atmospheric parkour adventure in which you wall-run and slash your way through a futuristic construction site with the vibe of Shadow of the Colossus inside a mega city. Think indie, PS2-era Mirror's Edge with a sword and heavy machinery boss fights. There's a bit of a Tarkovskian undertone. Prince of Persia is also an influence according to the developers. Should I just keep name-dropping cool stuff?
A boomer shooter segment near the end of the showcase included a bunch of experimental first-person shooters, but Moros Protocol has been in production for five years and is the one that stuck out to me. The sci-fi roguelike combines Doom and Dark Souls for a low-poly fever dream that supports co-op. 'And yes, you can kick your enemies,' the devs write.
Nocturne is a story-focused JRPG that uses rhythm gameplay for its combat. Rock Paper Shotgun likened it to 'Chrono Trigger meets Guitar Hero.' It might not end up an all-time classic like those, but the pixel art and soundtrack are pretty neat. What's it about? 'Your consciousness was uploaded to a world where a sentient AI has taken control, twisted creatures roam the land, and a vast corruption spreads.' An increasingly relatable predicament!
Monsters are Coming! Rock & Road mixes and matches elements from lots of popular genres, including city builders and arcade-y bullet hell grindfests. The neat thing here is that the city you grow travels around and turns into a weapon itself, unleashing hell in Vampire Survivors-style horde mode onslaughts. There's a closed beta happening later this summer.
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Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Chicago Tribune
Manifesting ‘Destiny': Danita Patterson building talent pipeline for Chicago's expanding entertainment industry
South Sider Danita Patterson's childhood exposure to the arts — tap, ballet, jazz, piano, music and even poetry — helped pave her path to Hollywood. But Patterson, who once held a job as a development director and administrative manager with actor Will Smith for his '90s sitcom 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,' doesn't think people should have to leave Chicago to pursue jobs in the entertainment industry. 'We have more television series and feature films coming here,' Patterson said of her hometown. 'Who's going to work on these as opposed to Hollywood or Canada bringing their people here? Are we employing people here on the ground?' Patterson, who went from production assistant to producer to development executive, has been a bi-coastal creator in the entertainment scene for 33 years. But with the pandemic and the loss of loved ones — her father died in 2019, her grandfather in 2020 — she found herself in Illinois more frequently. Now she's back in Chicago, bringing all she has learned to help the next generation make inroads into the industry. 'It was time to bring my entertainment content and educational workforce to my hometown in a big way,' Patterson said. Her way is the Dreams & Destiny Entertainment Industry Apprenticeship Program — a film and TV workforce development plan that hires and trains youths aged 16 to 24, giving participants exposure to the entertainment industry and the careers within, as well as personal and professional development. Dreams & Destiny is a part of Patterson's nonprofit Destiny Outreach, which brings together career services and industry professionals to educate youths. After training, apprentices gain hands-on job experience at places such as CineCity Studios, Central City Productions, CAN TV and Richard Gallion Entertainment. Patterson's own path started with stints in TV production as part of journalism school at Northwestern University, as well as work in musical theater and modeling. By the time Patterson, a University of Chicago Laboratory School and St. Ignatius alumna, traveled west in her early 20s, literature and storytelling were ingrained in her psyche. Patterson said she is passionate about bringing more production to the Chicago area to make it a media capital. 'It's hard for adults to get those jobs, let alone young adults and youth to be exposed to that,' she said. 'Our state, the Chicago film office, Illinois film office… all are really trying to make this be something where when you graduate from Northwestern, Columbia, DePaul, you don't have to go to LA or New York, because there's work in your backyard to do film and TV, in front of or behind the scenes.' 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'I'm majoring in computer information systems, but getting this insight on this side of the business, and seeing that there's roles for me within my major, has me more interested to look into the technical side of doing things within the industry.' Gibson, who is interested in entertainment project management, is working pre-production for the Stellar Awards — considered the Grammys of gospel — which will be held in Nashville on Aug. 16. 'You might not know exactly what you want to do with your life, but this will definitely help,' said Darius Donald, 22, of Hyde Park. 'You'll get answers, whether you don't want to do something or you do. It's nice. And you'll be surrounded by people who know what they're doing, who have years of experience.' Donald is considering using his art and photography skills for films or journalism. 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Engadget
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Forbes
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Destiny 2 is currently all over the place as it attempts to figure out its power gains and loot systems which have been overhauled for the launch of its new 'era' and its Edge of Fate expansion. One consistent refrain I've always said about Destiny is that more than not, it should be overly generous with its rewards and loot. Now, the game has taken that to heart with its new Solstice event, which is giving out so much loot and such high quality loot, many genuinely believed it was a bug, myself included. Bungie has confirmed it isn't/ That event was Solstice, which like many things about Destiny 2 has been stripped down and Portal-ified. Bungie has killed off the EAZ and Bonfire Bash, the unique activity that rolled around once a year. Instead, they have thrown a bunch of fire-based modifiers into the Portal, which are…actually quite fun if you're running a solar build. But on the other hand, it's just more Portal, which is like 90% of the game now. What's going on here is that running certain activities gives you a special 'Solstice Engram' filled with one of three weapons from the event, a bow, grenade launcher or SMG, and once you unlock its armor, that can drop too. Not really unusual, of course. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder However, the catch here is that all of this gear is dropping one Tier higher than anything else you're currently getting. As in: It is a little hard to explain how insane this is in the current context of the game and its new loot system. For instance, it took me a few dozen hours to reach 300 power and start getting Tier 3 drops. Then, after that, you get a single Tier 4 piece of gear about every 15-20 runs of a Portal activity. Getting a Tier 5 was literally impossible. Now? After a single day I've gotten dozens of pieces of Tier 4 gear, replacing my entire old build almost instantly. I've gotten two Tier 5 pieces of armor and three Tier 5 weapons. The weapons are less of a big deal as it's only three of them, and Tier 5 does not represent some huge surge in power. But armor? Going from Tier 3 to Tier 4 or even some Tier 5s is a massive power upgrade, giving you dozens and dozens of stat points dramatically reducing your cooldowns and giving you huge chunks of damage or healing that you didn't have before. More or less what's happened is my entire old farm has been replaced by something immediately 5,000% more profitable over the course of the next two weeks. You almost need this farm unless you want to be thrown back into the cold of the eternal grind after this ends. Again, I said be generous, but this is so generous I'm not entirely sure Bungie understands how their whole Tier farming economy has been to this point. But as it stands, this is easily the most rewarding event Destiny 2 has ever had. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
