Welcome to the first episode of Indieformed I’m your host Josh

This is series that takes a look at some news, some games, some announcements and updates of things you may not be aware of So sit back, relax or put me on in the background grab a snack because there’s a lot of variety coming up First, we’re going to go into the ‘news’, then into some more specific segments later Something I’d like to not too spend long on, but I want to mention is the Madden NFL shooting If you don't know what happened, a competitor was knocked out, wasn't happy about it came back into the venue and killed two current competitors

My thoughts are with the families involved and any of you who were involved or know someone that was My thoughts are with you Like I said I don't want to spend too long on it, but I just want to address it because it is important that people are aware of this kind of stuff and that it is a good discussion to bring forth that games don't make people like that, it's definitely deeper than that Discord is launching a curated games marketplace Along with this they’ll have a ‘First on Discord’ feature which has games debut on their store before others, such as Bad North

One great feature is that Discord can scan your computer for games already installed so that it can add them to its library They understand it can be frustrating having multiple launchers so they’re aiming to make a universal library tab They don’t launch the game, but they’ll launch the launcher which then launches your game It’s sounds more complicated than it is, but I’m looking forward to this coming out I know this isn’t indie gaming, but I just had to include this

If you’re into the competitive gaming scene then Arena Esports is for you I know the producer of this TV show personally and I’ve never met anyone more passionate about the Esports landscape It’s a weekly news and current affairs editorial based show that brings you all that is happening in the world of pro-gaming Arena Esports is the broadcast solution for esports exposure to an offline audience, taking aim at enthusiasts both gamer and spectator They broadcast to various sports and free-to-air channels in over 20 countries with more broadcasters coming aboard each month

You can follow Arena Esports on Facebook and Twitter and even go and grab free trial at sportnownet to see a full show And if you’re a general sports fan then I’m sure there’s some other content on the site which you’ll find interesting too From a fellow Australian we have the MusicGameJam, beginning on the 1st of September and finishing on the 15th, contestants have 2 weeks to create a music-based game It was extremely successful last year and the event organiser has asked if I’d like to cover the games produced this year

So hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze that video in and create some extra content this month Speaking of music though, if you’re looking for a rhythm-based game right now then there’s TERRORHYTHM on Steam Early Access Load up your favourite tracks and chill out whilst smacking some enemies But on the flipside, if you want to keep creating games and don’t know what jams are coming up, head to the description Itch

io has a calendar with all the game jams coming up and passed so you can organise which ones you’d like to be apart of Now I just want to go through some updates on The Universim and Green Hell, two games I featured in my Early Access video of August, just because I couldn't play them at the time The Universim is now out on Early Access and has had some changes from the alpha I showed I’s got a great narrator and is far more polished It’s cute and adorable and if you want a management game then go ahead and grab that Green Hell is a good change of pace, it’s a survival game but puts you through a story to get you to understand the basics, which then sets you up for the survival part

The voice acting is also really good For an Early Access game it’s really good, there’s some audio things and animations that could be better but that’s the point of Early Access! Worth a look if you’re into these types of games Now here are some announcements you may have missed this month The final DLC for the Binding of Isaac will include the very popular Anitibirth mod which apparently has more than 4000 new rooms, new enemies and bosses I am in love with this series and have purchased everything up to this point so I’m looking forward to adding this expansion to cap off this series

But what’s after The Binding of Issac?, well the developers are working on a new title Legend of Bum-no which will have its own spin on the Isaac world This past August Nintendo announced some great titles upcoming for the Switch These include but aren’t limited to Night Call, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, The Gardens Between, Streets of Rogue, Bad North – which is already available From 11 bit studios we have Moonlighter, This War of Mine and Children of Morta We also got Everspace, Baba is You, Slay the Spire, Windjammers and Windjammers 2

Terraria in 2019, Prison Architect and Morphie’s Law This only scratches the surface of the indie games coming to the Switch More and more indie titles will be released on the platform, so it might be worth investing in at some point in the future On their 8th birthday, Vlambeer decided to have a playable build of their next game at PAX West 2018 3ish years after their hit Nuclear Throne and they’re back with an unnamed title that is an ‘inverted’ space invaders

Every enemy you destroy gets split into more enemies This is an arcade game so you will die at some point, this is just to see how high your score can get This was completely unplanned as they woke up and decided to show the game, so there’s plenty of work to go into this, but it’s nice to see something from the studio since their last release of Nuclear Throne in December 2015 They’re not 100% sure that this title will even make it to full release but they said with the response they’re getting from players that there is definitely an audience for it So now here are some games I came across that I don’t really know where else to feature on the channel, so I'm putting them in here

Wildfire, a game we played at PAX in 2016 at and covered back in 2015 when the Kickstarter was running A stealth platformer that gives you the ability to control fire amongst other elements Wildfire is planned to release this year, and from what I’ve played of it, this is going to be a memorable title It’s a game that is for speedrunners, people who like to take things slow or just general pyromaniacs Wildfire is super polished right now and is also a difficult trip

With multiple ways to complete levels and optional objectives to tick off, this game definitely does not hold your hand One major gameplay design element to be aware of is there’s no direct way to take down an enemy This confused me at first, but I came to appreciate that Sneaky Bastards have designed this game without this action purposefully It would be the easy way out for these levels, so without it there’s a constant sense of danger Another cool feature is that this can be played with a friend locally, making for some great tactical chat in the living room

It’s up to you how to get through these levels, running around like a stampede of elephants or running through bushes like a mouse ANOTHER cool feature is they’ve designed the controller support buttons to have a mode where you only need one hand to play, leaving the other hand for that tasty bowl of Doritos I hope I have this right, but the music sounds medieval inspired and fits perfectly The pixel graphics are 100% what this game is meant to be I cannot imagine another art style for this project

One thing I really love is how this game makes you use the inaccuracies to its advantage Now, don’t assume I mean bad when I say that But things like an enemy not be able see you hanging from a ledge or off a cliff is what makes this great It’s not meant to replicate what an actual enemy would do – poke their head over, but instead actually be a game And that’s one thing that feels good about Wildfire, it feels like a game

It’s got a good story and great animations, but at the helm this is a game There is so much attention to detail that I’m confident this is going to be a winner – it’s coming together superbly and I can’t wait until this gets released where I’ll get into more depth about it If you’d like to wishlist this on Steam I have a link in the description This is a game I was following through the month because I was unsure if it would release or not Don’t Play This Game

exe has a… very interesting marketing technique The steam page has a lot of interesting characters and words crossed out, the recommended requirements state that you need an Intel Core I X and 64 GB of RAM Don’t be alarmed, I’m sure this will run fine on your machine This is apparently an experiment, community-driven, crypto experience That's what the store page says, so if I could explain what I crypto experience was, I would

It’s akin to a first-person shooter merged with inconvenient mechanics, abnormal difficulty and playability, and detached from common design standards I had a shot at the demo, and it was definitely an experience It doesn’t have a hand that you can hold so you’re on your own from the get-go You can try this for yourself from the steam store page and come to your own conclusions So now that the news is out of the way, I’m moving onto a new segment

Kickstarter Planet will run through some of the projects on the platform that I think are worth your time and money A 90’s inspired combat fighter that actually could end up looking like it came from the 90’s Super Combat Fighter is an over-the-top, content packed amalgamation of every 2D fighting game from the 90’s Loud announcers, classic 2D gameplay, ridiculous mods, cheat codes and easter eggs There are not many games these days that promise cheat codes, so this game is already looking like a winner

It’s got digitised photos of actors as fighters, and one thing that struck my mind was what if you could digitise yourself…? If the game gave you all the poses you needed to take photos of then people could put themselves and their friends into the game and battle it out I know that’s not the game they’re aiming for but it’s a good opportunity to increase replayability Currently over 300% funded, Kitfox Games are back with their new title Boyfriend Dungeon If the developer sounds familiar, you may know of Moon Hunters; which we covered on Indieformer and even backed ourselves Boyfriend Dungeon is an action RPG where the weapons you use transform into beautiful people

Take them on dates to level them up and become stronger together Each weapons has its own unique play style from short bursts to electrifying your foes They were featured in the Indie Megabooth at PAX West and have won two awards already I commend these guys on thinking outside the box and securing funding for what look to be a 2019 classic You can pledge 20 CAD for a copy of the game now

Decide quick because it only has a few days left An almost 300% funded with 27 days to go, Micro Mages is an already finished game This game was actually developed for the NES console and the funds being raised art for cartridge, box and manual production Not many Kickstarter projects are what you see is what you get, but you can back this project with confidence knowing it’s exactly what you’ll get There will be a PC version in the form of a ROM

The developers are including instructions on how to get it up and running so don’t worry if it’s your first You can play with up to 4 players simultaneously in this platofmer and compete to get the highest score A fun throwback to NES platformers this 40 kilobyte game looks like a lot of fun, and if you still have you NES, you now have a new game for it And we have the next segment to cap off the show which will take use of that good packet change you might have Your 5 under 5 this month includes some classics and some titles that also released this month

Isometric goodness Radiant One is a short and sweet story-driven game You try to escape the boring life and social media with lucid dreaming Beware it’s point and click, but it’s very chill Soundtrack gives the right atmosphere and it’s got a great art style

The guys behind Crawl released Regular Human Basketball in August A great couch game for a group of friends We tried the free version a while back and had a lot of fun with it It can be played online and locally and is just an easy game to pick up and play to fill some time For a $1

99 you can’t really complain Death Fungeon is a puzzle platformer with both stealth and parkour elements It’s got some nice graphics, the sounds are little basic but do their job It’s hard though, not a walk in the park If you’re looking for a cheap platformer with some difficulty then I don’t think you can go wrong with this title

Released back in 2010, this is as bare as platformers get and as simple as they get VVVVVV received a 10/10 from Destructoid and has overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam It got one simple mechanic at its core; instead of jumping you invert gravity and fall to the other side It’s got some difficulty, a great soundtrack and is just simple A classic indie game that sent youtuber’s to their let’s play chambers

Five Night’s at Freddy’s came with a bang and is a very solid series The task is simple, can you survive Five Night’s at Freddy’s? The graphics aren’t amazing, but you’re soon engrossed in what is your summer job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Watch the security cameras carefully and make sure there’s nothing going on If you don’t have much to spend, consider one of these games because they're all worth the $5 or under that they cost But I do have one more addition though, I didn't know where else to put this because it's also cheap so I’m just tacking it on the end here

For $699, a horror simulator about a supermarket cashier who is gradually losing her mind because of the mundanity of her work A little bit Papers, Please inspired, this game is polished and has great sounds and atmosphere It's worth a look That’s the main section of Indieformed over, so this last bit is some updates on Indieformer and what's coming up and what I’ve been working on in the backgroud

As you can tell there are new graphics across the board and we’ve gone 80’s themed for that Let me know what you think of them below I am hoping to get at least one extra video out this month about the MusicGameJam games but I’m also in contact with a local developer who I’m looking to interview in the coming weeks too Kind of a setup like this with some behind the scenes stuff If you have anything you'd like me to ask him let me know, but I think I've got a pretty solid set of questions to get some discussion going The Top 5 Free Indie Games this month will focus on Ludum Dare 42 submissions from last month, sorry if you were expecting some casual indies but I think this is an important jam to cover because of a lot of really good indie games come out of it

Now for some social stuff I’ll be attending PAX Aus at the end of October I'll be covering the indie games at the event and I’ll also be there to hopefully create a video in the style of ‘What is an Indie Game?’ too I’m really looking forward to getting into creating a video like that again Indieformer is now also on Instagram, I know it’s an odd platform for games but I’m trying it out

I’ve also set up a discord! A monster first episode of Indieformed that hopefully made you aware of a project you hadn’t heard of before If you’ve got suggestions for this show please leave them below Thanks for watching, I’ll see you next time here on Indieformed