Indie Invasion V1: A Bold Beginning

Welcome to Waypoint’s newest weekly standard: Indie Invasion! Every Thursday, I’m going to be compiling the wonderful indie experiences Team Waypoint is enjoying (or is otherwise on the lookout for)! We’re proud to represent games that flew under your radar in the midst of the year’s AAA releases! So, with that out of the way? Let’s go!

let the indie invasion commence!

dwayne Jenkins — Managing Editor

The Rise of the Golden Idol had some huge shoes to fill. The Case of the Golden Idol ended up being one of my all-time favorite games. It was everything I could’ve ever wanted. Striking hand-drawn pixel art graphics that made the characters and settings seem appropriately filthy. An intriguing series of small, visceral mysteries you don’t realize are part of a bigger jigsaw puzzle until it’s too late. Genuinely challenging brain-teasers that will have you hovering over the Hint prompt, refusing to concede as that light-bulb moment finally happens. It’s such a perfect game from beginning to end — DLC and all!

I’m only a few cases into Rise, but so far? It’s met and exceeded my high expectations! Set in the 1970s, the world somehow feels even more nasty and corrupt. Tastes of a bigger scheme have already danced on my tongue, and I’m trying to piece everything together before the game drops those plot bombs on me! Give Color Gray Games a AAA budget and tell them to make a grand-scale detective game because I’d play it in a heartbeat, no questions asked!

Matt Vatankhah — cONTRIBUTOR

I get it, the Battle Royale genre has been beaten and ground into a mushy puree at this point, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in new takes on the formula. Tetris 99, for example, still absolutely slaps, and that’s just factual. Now, imagine the high-octane team fights of League of Legends in a Battle Royale format, and you’ve got my newest obsession. SUPERVIVE debuted last July but rapidly gained traction during October’s Steam Next Fest after landing as one of the top-played demos — and for good reason. After curiously downloading the free-to-play game myself a couple of days ago, I didn’t even realize I spent almost 11 hours playing it on the first day.

The satisfaction of landing a pivotal shot to clutch a team fight is something everyone understands, and SUPERVIVE‘s moment-to-moment gameplay is abundant with just that throughout its various game modes and roster of 16 unique characters. With its launch into Open Beta, Theorycraft Games has delivered a wonderfully polished and stylistic package with a promising future and, after unveiling its recent roadmap, it’s a project I didn’t even think twice about supporting.

anthony franklin II — contributor

When I was working for Untold Tales, I had the opportunity to try some indie games. One of those games was Chickenauts. A roguelike twin-stick shooter with the main premise that you’re a farmer who had his chickens abducted by aliens. You grab your gun and get to work. The thing I appreciated the most about this game is its sense of humor. The support characters are various chicken-themed takes on pop culture figures and movie characters.

Aside from the cleverness of the game, the gameplay is tight. There’s a slight learning curve as you get used to the dodge mechanic, but once you get it going and lean into the standard roguelike elements of pattern recognition, it’s all incredible. There’s a demo available on Steam now, and it’s worth your time.

shaun cichacki — contributor

The Backrooms have been an Internet phenomenon for as long as I can possibly remember. After seeing a massive resurgence earlier in the year, due to the discovery of the original picture’s origins? I’ve spent a fair amount of time mucking around in middling-to-bad Backrooms–themed games. That’s when I saw Backrooms: Escape Together. Initially figuring that the Steam page was full of bull-shots, I decided it was about time I dove in with a pal.

I wasn’t ready. Sure, it may rely on plenty of jump scares to get the point across. But, Backrooms: Escape Together is essentially a photorealistic Lethal Company with a story. Small objectives need to be completed before leaving for the next level, and plenty of terrifying creatures await. Thanksgiving is sure to throw a wrench in my gaming plans, but I’m already sweating thinking about coming back to this one. The vibes are impeccable. The proximity voice chat makes encounters more tense. The ability to revive your teammates keeps the action flowing. It’s an excellent multiplayer experience — and one I’m obsessed with currently.

That concludes an eventful Indie Invasion! I’ll readily admit that I’m proud of the diversity of genres and playstyles present among this week’s entries! However, this is where we’ll unfortunately have to part ways. See y’all next Thursday for Indie Invasion (and Happy Thanksgiving)!

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