Tag: Indie Games

Every Day of the Devs 2023 announcement

We’ve rounded up all the Day of the Devs 2023 indie game announcements, including mystery games, horror, and a whole lot more

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Day of the Devs 2023 has come and gone, with roughly a dozen new trailers and announcements for upcoming video games. There’s nearly something for everyone, whether you prefer emotional, narrative-driven games, fast cars, working at a hotline where you tell people their homes are haunted, or living in a house haunted by a witch who demands rent every month without fixing the roof in return. While most of these indie games are still in development or won’t launch until 2024, some of them have demos available now or will have in the near future.

We’ve rounded up all the Day of the Devs 2023 announcements below.

Every November Nintendo Indie World announcement

The November Nintendo Indie World showcase has come and gone, announcing plenty of promising indie games to the Switch

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The November Nintendo Indie World showcase has come and gone, and while there’s still no news of Hollow Knight Silksong, Nintendo and its publishing partners highlighted plenty of promising indie games to the Switch. Wayforward is bringing back a long-lost Game Boy Advance game, there’s a circus murder mystery, a life-sim with furry characters, hiking games, geckoes, and a whole lot more. Most of the games shown are coming to Switch in the next six months, with a few demos available now, so you won’t have to wait long if you see something you like.

Cozy indie game Lake is getting Christmas-themed DLC

Christmas is coming to Lake, the cozy game from indie developer Gaminous, in a new DLC prequel called Season’s Greetings

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Christmas is coming to Lake, the cozy game from indie developer Gaminous, in a new DLC prequel called Season’s Greetings. The Lake DLC launches on Nov. 15, 2023, for PC via Steam, Xbox, PS4, and PS5, and it puts you in the shoes of Meredith’s father, Thomas, in the mid-1980s.

It’s the holiday season, but things in Providence Oaks are far from jolly. Meredith won’t be coming home for Christmas, family troubles are popping up across town, and “that eggnog is starting to stir up something indiscreet.” Which sounds a bit ominous.

Telling Season’s Greetings from Thomas’ viewpoint gives Lake a chance to offer new perspectives on familiar characters, Gaminous said in a press release, while shedding light on how Meredith’s family functions and what their role in the community is. It also resolves some lingering questions from the original story, but this is still very much a Lake game. 

Like Lake, Season’s Greetings centers on daily life in Providence Oaks. Thomas delivers parcels – or tries to – and helps people solve their problems – or… tries to. Also like in Lake, there’s no right or wrong choice in Season’s Greetings. How certain stories unfold will depend on your actions and words. but things might not turn out the way you thought they would. 

It’s not all problems and pressure, though. Thomas gets to take advantage of some leisure time as well – spending nights with friends, watching TV, and generally just enjoying being alive in 1985.

If you haven’t tried Lake yet and want to see what it’s all about, there’s a free demo you can check out on Steam.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

The best Halloween games for horror fans and the scare-averse alike

Our best Halloween games list includes picks for scary games, psychological horror, and a few for the less fright-tolerant among us

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The best Halloween games look a bit different depending on what your scare tolerance is. There’s plenty of jumps, frights, zombies, and bloodshed if you’re into that sort of thing, with the likes of Resident Evil and System Shock. If you’d rather have a more cerebral experience, you might want to consider the video game equivalent of telling scary stories by the fire and, depending on the game, probably going to bed with the lights on. If scares aren’t really your thing, though, you’ve got plenty of choices for games that go heavy on atmosphere and leave the creepy stuff behind. Mostly. 

 

We’ve included picks for all those tastes and more in our roundup of the best Halloween games.

 

Unity to change runtime fee policy after indie dev backlash

Unity announced it would change its controversial runtime fee policy after a wave of backlash from indie game developers

Unity, the company behind the popular game development platform of the same name, announced it would change its controversial runtime fee policy after a wave of backlash from indie game developers who would reportedly face substantial negative impacts once the policy rolls out. What Unity will actually change and when it will announce the policy’s new shape remains to be seen, however.

“We have heard you,” Unity posted on its official Twitter account on Sep. 17, 2023. “We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.”

The contention began when Unity first announced a new policy set to take effect in January 2024 that said the company would charge developers who met certain criteria $0.20 cents every time a user installed a game built in Unity. Unity would charge the fee for any game that earned over $200,000 in revenue in one year or had 200,000 lifetime installs.

Unity said “only” 10 percent of developers would be affected by the new fee. In the Unity 2023 gaming report, Unity said more than 230,000 studios develop with Unity, including mobile game developers such as Genshin Impact maker HoYoverse, so roughly 23,000 studios would have to pay the new installation fee.

The plan immediately drew criticism for a number of reasons. Some of these included Unity having no plan or technology to track installs, concerns over users with a grudge who would download a game multiple times just to rack up charges, and fears of losing revenue by offering discounts and charity bundles.

Unity addressed a few of these issues in the days after first unveiling the policy in a FAQ post. Only the first installation on one device would count, the company said, and they would exempt games in charity bundles from the fee – albeit without any concrete plan for exempting them that wouldn’t cost developers.

Unity also reportedly told some indie studios that they wouldn’t consider every charity eligible for the exemption, including Planned Parenthood and children’s hospitals (thanks, GamesIndustry). Unity didn’t tell the developers how the company would decide which charities were eligible.

Developers who build their games with Unity could waive the fee by implementing Unity-based in-game advertisements, unnamed sources told MobileGamer. This proposed concession raised even more concerns about the policy and prompted the European Game Developer Federation to call for regulatory changes at the European Union level against “unfair, non-negotiable B2B contracts.”

“The new install fees will limit game developers’ freedom to conduct business as it pushes them to implement Unity ad-based business models even in games that otherwise would not have ad-based monetization,” the EGDF said in a statement on the association’s website.

“Furthermore, this will create a competitive disadvantage for those game distribution platforms that do not use ad-based monetization at all (e.g. subscription services and pay-per-download games), as Unity is de facto forcing them to increase their consumer fees compared to channels that allow the use of Unity’s ad-based monetization tools.”

“Install fees will lead to markets where game developers want to limit the downloads and try to avoid installs from the wrong players.” 

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

17 Epic Games Store summer sale deals you don’t want to miss

The Epic Games Store summer sale is underway, with discounts on hundreds of the best PC games in nearly every genre

The Epic Games Store summer sale is underway, with discounts on hundreds of the best PC games in nearly every genre. Whether you’re after big-name hits such as Death Stranding, open-world games like Far Cry 6, or indie gems including Disco Elysium, there’s almost certainly something for you in the Epic Games summer sale. You’ll even earn and extra 10 percent back in rewards when you buy something during the sale.

It lasts until Aug.3, 2023, so if you see something you like, now’s the time to get it if you can.

If you’re after console deals, check out our PlayStation summer sale roundup as well.

Steam Summer Sale 2023: Best roguelike games to play again and again

The Steam Summer Sale 2023 is here, with discounts on some of the best roguelike games on PC, and we’ve rounded up 15 of the top picks

The Steam Summer Sale 2023 is here, with discounts on some of the best roguelike games on PC. The idea might be the same – try your best, fail, and try again – but the roguelike scene features some exceptional creativity and innovation. Whether you’re after deep, story-driven adventures like Hades, quirky horror with survival elements, or classic platforming, there’s probably something for you – and maybe even a few surprises as well. Better still, most of them work on Steam Deck.

These Steam Summer Sale discounts last until July 13, 2023.

 

Indie game Terraria is so popular that its devs can’t make other games

Terraria creator Andrew Spinks says the indie game sells so well that he can’t stop updating it or work on other projects

Terraria creator Andrew Spinks says the indie game sells so well that he can’t stop updating it or work on other projects. Spinks made the comment on Twitter prior to his account being deleted from the platform (thanks, PCGamesN).

Terraria updates are the “final tour” of video games, as Re-Logic has promised the next update would be its last for several years only to put out yet another one. There’s a pretty good reason for that as well.

Spinks said that sales of Terraria actually increased by 50 percent in two years between 2020 and 2022 compared to the total sales from 2011, when Terraria first launched on PC, through 2019.

Granted, the global pandemic in 2020 probably played a significant role in the game’s popularity spike, though it’s still a significant achievement anyway.

“After twelve years the game still sells like hot cakes,” Spinks said. “There is so much demand it makes it hard to move on.”

Spinks said he has at least three separate projects he’d like to work on eventually, though the plan for now is to keep putting out Terraria updates and adding to the game – at least in the short term. Whitney Spinks, vice president of Terraria developer Re-Logic said Terraria’s future health would probably benefit if the team took time to create something new and then revisited the hit sandbox game with a fresh outlook.

Meanwhile, Re-Logic is still working on Terraria 1.4.5, a new update that has no firm release date yet.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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This Stardew Valley player spent 100 years making the perfect farm

One Stardew Valley fan set themselves the challenge of making a perfect farm with every item in the life-sim, and it only took 100 years

One Stardew Valley fan set themselves the challenge of making a perfect farm with every item in the life-sim, and while it took nearly 100 in-game years, they’ve just about reached their goal. Reddit user violetswan76 posted screenshots of their farm and a bit about how they keep the challenge interesting as they enter year 98 of their farm, in spite of so much repetition (thanks, GamesRadar).

“I reached perfection somewhere in [year 60] and I was already very far in before the Ginger Island update ever existed,” they said on Reddit. “I’ve been collecting complete stacks of 999 of everything since long before that. You name it I’ve probably got a whole stack of it.”

That includes crops and processed goods of all quality levels, building and upgrade materials, and even recipes, which violetswan said is particularly challenging since you need to grow all the necessary crops for them, which takes quite a long time. There are no mods, though, so violetswan is only working with the items and locations you get in the game’s official release.

Year 98 Farm with NO mods! Trying to make it to 100. Farm pics, stats an collections
by u/violetswan76 in StardewValley

It’s quite the task, especially since, as several commenters on the thread said, most people stop playing or restart with a new farm in the indie game after 10 years or so, when they’ve completed most activities and done what they wanted.

“I do get bored with it sometimes and walk away, sometimes for months,” violetswan said. “But then I’ll invent a new little challenge for myself and get working on it.”

They’ve tried starting new farms, but never make it beyond six years.

The current challenge is finishing their fish and roe collection and then aging 999 of every wine and quality. Silver and gold are the ones they need, to complement their collection of 999 iridium wines.

As for how long all this took in real time, violetswan said they have over 3,300 hours in the year 98 farm, which is about 137 days. 

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

 

The 23 best Steam Summer Sale deals you won’t want to miss

Valve kicked off its Steam Summer Sale, and we’ve rounded up some of the best PC game deals on indies and AAA games alike

Valve kicked off its Steam Summer Sale, with steep discounts on hundreds of PC games. The sale runs until July 13, 2023, at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and features a healthy mix of big-name AAA games, including Assassin’s Creed, Star Wars, and Cyberpunk 2077; smaller hits like Victoria 3 and Octopath Traveler 2; and popular indie games, such as Stardew Valley, Cassette Beasts, and Hades.

There’s a staggering amount of games to trawl through, some with demos and some you have to just try on faith. We’ve rounded up roughly two dozen of the best deals going, ranging from heavy hitters to niche RPGs and a few indie gems as well.