Demon platformers, battle golf, and a couple of dice

Hey folks! First of all, big apologies for any spelling errors, and nonsensical musings in this newsletter. I am running on approximately 2.5 hours of sleep due to our game AWAYSIS being featured in Indie Fan Fest. Getting into these showcases is great for any developer, you need all the help you can to get in order to drive those wishlists, and hopefully sales on launch day. The one thing that really sucks about most of these showcases taking place in the US is that I am living in Japan, which means 10AM PST is 3AM Japan time. It’s a good problem to have, but I am bloody tired right now.

Here’s the trailer, and if you want to check out the thing I have been working on for the past year, the demo is live right now on Steam!

Anyway, let’s get to the recommendos so I can get some slumber!

Developer: brika
Steam rating: N/A
Store page

When I first booted up LOVE ETERNAL this week, I am ashamed to admit I thought to myself “oh, it’s another one of these” as I started to run and jump through it’s macabre castle hallways. It took all of about twenty minutes for my opinion to do a full 180, and before long I found myself entranced in this psychological horror platformer.

You play as Maya, a child whisked away from her family by an ancient god into a horrific castle realm that is filled with spikes, pits, and lasers. You will be running and jumping your new pixel friend through 100 screens of these literal deathtraps, but LOVE ETERNAL has a trick up its sleeve. Gravity in the underworld is optional, so you can literally switch from jumping to free-falling as you glide endlessly into spikes, over and over again.

The story is pretty wild, Lyncian meets Junji Ito in a very unsettling way. The atmospheric soundtrack is both zen-inducing but also industrial at times, which is a stellar mix. There aren’t enough Steam reviews to give this a rating, but all the reviews are trending positive. I will say that I just hit a WTF moment in a very good way, and I need to see this through. I highly recommend checking this one out if you are fan of Celeste, Super Meat Boy, or VVVVVV.

Developer: Fabraz
Steam rating: Positive
Store page

Us Platformer fans be feasting right now, huh? Demon Tides is an incredibly sharp 3D platformer that follows Beebz and her crew across the vast oceans of Ragnar’s Rock. You can explore the open seas at your leasure, completing unique challenges at every structure and uncovering the myriad of secrets that have been hidden there, with some of the smoothest movement I’ve seen in a while from the genre.

Expressive player movement is the focus of Demon Tides, as you can dash and wall ride your way around challenging levels with an ease that seems would make Nintendo jealous at times. You can unlock a lot of movement options like hookshots, and gliders, and more, which will make traversing the ocean at speed. The other really cool thing is that you can set your own checkpoints, which is a quality of life feature that I wish more games would deploy. If you were disappointed with that Yooka-Laylee remake from a wild back, this might be the 3D platformer you have been waiting for.

Developer: Brimstone
Steam rating: Very Positive
Store page

It may be easy categorize Super Battle Golf as yet another Friend Slop game, and that might be somewhat true. This chaotic free-for-all rush towards the green battle golfing game for 1-8 players looks delightfully silly, as players fight each other across the course as they try to be the first one to sink a putt and get as many points as possible and emerge victorious.

There are 27 different courses to fight across, with a barrage of offensive and defensive items to use against your pals. If you grew up playing Worms, then you will probably get the vibe going on here. It’s a little bit Peak meets Worms, and I mainly say this because putting a landmine into the path of your friend zooming towards you in a golf cart just for some reason puts memories of Worms 2 in my head that i didn’t even know I had.

Fashion to unlock. Public and private servers to compete on. Voice chat. Super Battle Golf has the works. If I can convince some folks in our community to dive in, I definitely want to check this one out.

Developer: Alexandre Declos, Pas Game Studio
Steam rating: N/A
Store page

I stumbled across this one while scoping out the Quebec Games Celebration this week, and the weirdness of the art immediately had me scribbling down notes like a madman to include this in this week’s dispatch. Horripilant is an incremental dungeon crawler (which I THINK is a fancy way of not saying “Roguelite”), with a strange pixel art style that also somehow manages to feel like hand painted ink nightmares with a dot matrix vibe. Yeah, it’s a lot.

Rather than do my usual distillation of what the story is here, I am going to just drop a quote from the store page:

You awaken. An old, battered knight, lost in the darkest corners of an abandoned dungeon, with no memory of how you got there. The stench of decay permeates the thick air. The walls seem to whisper your name.

A strange tree catches your eye. Barely a sprout, growing in defiance of the dark. The voice demands you hit it. A twig breaks off onto the ground. The first of many.

Distorted moans echo from an empty staircase. Beckoning you. You must go down. It is your purpose...

Encounter bizarre characters, solve cryptic puzzles, and survive the horrors that lurk in every shadow. Will you escape this living nightmare, or will it consume you?

There are apparently over 1000 floors in the dungeon, filled with horrific baddies, and puzzles to solve. You’ll also need to “Meet God” and “Become worthy”. I think I might be up for that. There are literally no user reviews for this just yet, but the comments on the YouTube trailer are mostly nice and supportive. I definitely want to try and find some time for this one, will pick it up when I get paid at the end of the month.

Developer: Gamepie
Steam rating: Very Positive
Store page

The last recommendo this week is a digital tabletop game called Dobbel Dungeon, that comes from a two-person team out of the Netherlands. This light fantasy romp has you assembling a party of three before you venture out armed with your dice. At the start of a turn you roll the dice, and then power up your abilities. There are no chances to hit or misses in Dobbel Dungeon - as long as you have the numbers you can perform your abilities and defeat your foes.

Of course you will be unlocking items and buffs and interesting ways to juice those numbers. I am an avid tabletop gamer, so Dobbel Dungeon immediately stood out to me. This beautiful pudgy clay aesthetic really stands out, and immediately feels like a fun, cozy adventure. This one is on my backlog, because I’ve got a few other games on my docket right now but I do look forward to checking it out.

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See you next week - Steve