MERRY CHRISTMAS YA FILTHY ANIMALS! This time of year can be a particularly apocalyptic, and well-intentioned, time, as you know. I guess. If I Yes arrive. The indie games I’ve been playing lately all have a bit of an end-of-world flavor to them, whether literal or metaphorical or hand-played, if you feel like it. I don’t know, I actually find them oddly relaxing, as a counterpoint to the chaos of my life during the holidays. See what you think.
Whose? Strange Scaffold
Where can I get it? Sauna
how much is this? £15 / €17 / $20
Mandatory disclosure for Xalavier Nelson Jr., whose game this game has written for RPS pretty much. This game is a nightmare, but like in a good way. As the title suggests, you are involved in the organ trade, through space. Although my avatar is a lil dog wearing a cool hat. You make transactions: some agencies are more expensive than others. The markets are open for a few minutes at a time and it’s bustling. You have to learn how to parse the organs for sale and their value, and whether you should capture that lung now or keep a better one. Sometimes you have to have your heart as a loss leader, to enhance your reputation and become the leaders in the trading field.
This game also simulates the organ market. You can see how some agencies are doing and buy or dump stocks. Should you join the neural cluster future? Idk buddy, do as you please. Or buy someone else’s gut and drop it in. It’s a pretty intense game, but in a fun way like pretending to be Wall Street folks all scream at the end of the Trading Place. Oh wait, those guys have almost destroyed society a few times oh nooooooooo-
Whose? fluckymachine, tiny
Where can I get it? Sauna, GOG
how much is this? £15 / €17 / $20
Like most of the world, this is best enjoyed with friends, as even though it has a single player mode, it really means multiplayer. Trash Sailors is a hand drawn survival game where the world has been flooded, so it’s a bit like raft and maybe a bit like Fire in the flood, but it’s fickle and chaotic above all else. You have a small trash compactor to compact any salvage you catch from the water, and you can use it to repair your raft from hitting objects. You also have to steer to avoid collisions, and watch out for all kinds of aquatic and semi-aquatic species that might emerge from the depths.
Basically, there are many quests, and if you love Don’t starve together then you won’t love if you don’t starve together marine. Sometimes the control prompts aren’t entirely clear on what you’re trying to achieve or do, but I absolutely love the artistic style of this. If I lost sight of only my pants and a talking crate at work, I’d like it to look like this.
Whose? Maxim Karpenko
Where can I get it? Sauna
how much is this? £15 / €17 / $20
I’ve been quiet and obsessed with WorldBox for the past few days. It’s early access, but you’ve got so much you can do and I’ve spent hours in this game just not doing anything. It’s a highly detailed god simulation where you can build a biome any way you want, including swamps, deserts or even magical sparkling fairy tales, and then bring it to life. Animals, bees, plants. You can make it any shape. Maps were made that were copies of Europe. And then you can bring civilizations into them.
In true idol sim mode, this means Orcs, elves, dwarves and humans. Put a few down and they’ll start building. They make small tents, and then cut down trees to build houses. And you can interfere by placing iron ore only on a small island, so a group will get weapons and armor first. Or you can drop the whole kernel and level everything. I like it. I don’t even do much, I just start it running on one monitor, throw down some pompous guys, and then see what happens. Usually what happens is war, to be honest, but it’s very engaging.
