<\/p>\n
Welcome to the 250th edition of Indie-Penance Day! Running annually on Kotaku<\/em> since 1776, each year we celebrate the emancipation of indie games from the tyrannical publishers that once ruled the land. For this semiquincentennial edition, we\u2019re bringing you a broad range of new and upcoming indie games you\u2019ve likely never heard of before, but will be so glad you know about now, all perfectly poised to be added to your Wishlist.<\/p>\n As ever, I put out a call on the socials for indie devs to let us know about under-the-radar games they\u2019re working on or have recently released, and as ever I received far more submissions than I can possibly cover. Selected via my patented method (randomly clicking on emails, and checking they don\u2019t look rubbish), read on for an eclectic mix of unique games. If there\u2019s nothing below that you find interesting it means you\u2019re<\/em> at fault, because wow, the breadth of imagination and variety on offer here just blows my mind.<\/p>\n Developer:<\/strong> Calligram Studio I love a podcast that\u2019s about restoring lost media to reveal a mystery.\u00a0I\u2019m Your Host<\/em> flips that concept around, where you\u2019re the person attempting to restore encrypted audio files to rediscover a lost podcast! It says it will have a customizable operating system in which you rearrange audio clips based on context clues, all with the goal of uncovering and solving a mystery hidden within, and it sounds exactly my jam.<\/p>\n Developer:<\/strong> Neon Aurelius A mahjong-themed deckbuilder, where you control a team of birds led by a sparrow in an effort to free other birds from the tiles of an evil Storyteller. Is a sentence you\u2019ve never read before. Sparrow Warfare<\/em> looks charming, sounds fascinating to master, and there\u2019s a demo to check out. From couple Neon Aurelius, in parts responsible for Secrets of R\u00e6tikon<\/em> and Baldur\u2019s Gate 3<\/em>, the game art uses 17th century public domain bird illustrations that are then altered, colored and animated, and made into tiles, which is just the loveliest idea.<\/p>\n Developer:<\/strong> Voxel Studios I\u2019m not normally one for just pasting the blurb from the email, but\u00a0ShoreTiles<\/em>\u2018 is too good to pass up: \u201cShoreTiles<\/em> is like Dredge<\/em>, Bad North<\/em> and Dorfromantik<\/em> had a three way baby and it came out ready to haunt you when the sun comes down.\u201d Sold. And even more so by the rally lovely-looking art in the trailer combined with the sinister sense of impending doom. Also, stick a lighthouse in a game and you\u2019re almost guaranteed coverage from me.<\/p>\n Developer: <\/strong>Kitico, Laborare, Crybaby Studios Lost screen games are a favorite genre of mine, and\u00a0Murder Meet Cute<\/em> looks like none of them I\u2019ve played before. It\u2019s a detective mystery where you play as someone who fixes computers, and reluctantly gets dragged into a really creepy-looking murder mystery. I very much appreciate it that in the game\u2019s list of features it mentions it\u2019s a game about \u201ca badass goth telling customers where to shove it.\u201d<\/p>\n Developer: <\/strong>Kalinarm Out in under a couple of weeks,\u00a0KAZ<\/em> is an action-roguelite that looks like nothing else, where a four-button input has you zooming around tile grids as everything is kicking off around you. I cannot get over how much I love the animation in the trailer! A score-chasing frenzy, with 145 quests and five different ways to play, I\u2019m not even sure I want to try to figure out exactly what it is we\u2019re going to be doing\u2014I want to learn it on the fly!<\/p>\n Developer:<\/strong> Batterystaple Games A two-to-eight-player 2D co-op puzzle game where you and your chums play as clowns working together in over 100 minigames, with themes as different as trying to cooperatively replicate a painting using squirt guns, to building skyscrapers together. It looks very silly and a bunch of fun, and comes with a campaign mode that\u2019ll last you all five or six hours. Oh, and there are 30 different honk noises, and there\u2019s no way to switch them off.<\/p>\n Developer:<\/strong> DoubleXP Game Studio Self-described in their email as \u201cthe only good\u00a0Survivors<\/em>-type game,\u201d and who am I to argue,\u00a0Warriors of the End<\/em> looks to combine a\u00a0Vampire Survivors<\/em>-like with tower defense, which seems like such an obviously good idea that I\u2019m shocked I\u2019m not seeing it everywhere. You deal with the hordes by careful positioning of your character and the various defensive mechanisms you gain as you play. Also it looks like if South Park<\/em> made a bullet heaven in 1994. There\u2019s a web demo of the game on the team\u2019s Itch page. I had a quick play, and\u00a0yes<\/em>.<\/p>\n Developer:<\/strong> Alien Fruit You know who never gets the attention they deserve? The RPG shopkeepers. What a life that must be, trying to keep stock for passing adventurers but somehow also never going out of business.\u00a0Dungeon Bodega Simulator<\/em> shines a light on these sword-forging, potion-brewing, crop-growing heroes, and also gives them their very own puzzles to solve. Developer Harrison was fired from Xbox last year, so made a game about a recently fired adventurer trying to figure out their next steps. It\u2019s out now, and less than $10.<\/p>\n Developer:<\/strong> Why Not Games You know who else gets short shrift in dungeon-based games? Basketball players. It\u2019s a situation that\u2019s finally improving thanks to\u00a0Hoop Dungeon<\/em>, a turn-based roguelite basketball game that\u2019s all about tactical thinking and smart application of basketball moves. Oh, and it\u2019s also about the power of friendship! And rivalry. It\u2019s out in early access already, and should be reaching its final version any time now.<\/p>\n Developer:<\/strong> Hearbeast A first-person detective game with a whole bunch of code-hunting and puzzle-solving to do, all in aid of solving the murder of a young couple in their safehouse. It\u2019s short, just an hour or so, and only $3, and looks like it has some creepy underpinnings to discover in that brief span. And crikey, over 100 Steam reviews and they\u2019re 100 percent positive!<\/p>\n Check back later today for even more incredible unknown indies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to the 250th edition of Indie-Penance Day! Running annually on Kotaku since 1776, each year we celebrate the emancipation of indie games from the tyrannical publishers that once ruled the land. For this semiquincentennial edition, we\u2019re bringing you a broad range of new and upcoming indie games you\u2019ve likely never heard of before, but<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[3398,77,4746,381,9054,4312],"class_list":{"0":"post-9779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upcoming-games","8":"tag-day","9":"tag-games","10":"tag-incredible","11":"tag-indie","12":"tag-indiepenance","13":"tag-wishlist"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}I\u2019m Your Host<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> 2026
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\nSparrow Warfare<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> Q4 2026
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\nShoreTiles<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> Q3 2026
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\nMurder Meet Cute<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> 2026
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\nKAZ<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> Jul 13, 2026
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\nClowntown<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> TBA
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\nWarriors of the End<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> 2026
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\nDungeon Bodega Simulator<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> Out now
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\nHoop Dungeon<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> Out now
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\n[Redacted] The Safehouse<\/h2>\n
Release date:<\/strong> Out now
Steam page<\/strong><\/p>\n