Things are heating up this May with the best indie games this month has to offer. Let’s take a look at the best indie titles we covered in May. Continue reading to discover great titles that you might have been sleeping on.
Showcasing May 2024s Indie Titles
The mid-year is almost upon us and the indie scene isn’t slowing down with its line-up of high-quality indie titles this May. We’ve covered a huge array of titles this time around, with everything from a fairy tale city-builder to a titanic god game making up this month's roster of indie reviews.
We’ve also got a couple of visual feasts lying in wait for the classic anime aficionados and Lovecraftian horror enjoyers among you, so sit tight and enjoy as we go over the best and greatest May has to offer!
Check out last month’s edition of our indie showcase if you missed it!
Reus 2
Let’s kick things off with a blast from the past! Reus 2 is a sequel to a similarly-named god game by Abbey Games from over a decade ago. Appropriately named after the Dutch word for "Giant" this long-awaited follow-up to a beloved indie hit features elemental Titans as they enact the will of a creator—you—on a barren planet.
Reus 2 is a god game, but it’s also a puzzle game in disguise. As you place elements of the world’s ecosystem, they interact and synergize, fostering innovation and prosperity among the inhabitants through wealth, science, and food. Min-maxing is a must, and there’s no satisfaction greater than earning a 3-star era through sheer strategy alone.
This game is a tactician’s paradise and thinking several steps ahead is rewarded with impressive scores and even more opportunities to elevate your game. Now that's what I call a grand design!
Fabledom
We’re going from building planets to building fairy tale kingdoms with this month’s sole entry to the city-builder genre, Fabledom. Fabledom is a charming, grid-based game where you start from scratch to create a thriving fairy tale kingdom, complete with heroes, princesses, and fantastical creatures.
Immerse yourself in the seasons as you manage the logistics, housing, and production queues of a deceptively intricate cityscape, where early Renaissance statesmanship blends with the cutesy facade of fairy tale stories. Not everyone gets a happy ending, but you sure as heck can build yourself one in Fabledom.
Capes
Speaking of the fantastical, join us for some superpowered escapades in Capes! Capes is a turn-based action strategy game set in a world where the villains won and the heroes are on the run.
Striking the same strategic vein as XCOM, Capes capitalizes on the superhuman nature of your team, allowing them to take down hordes of henchmen in various scenarios. Unlike XCOM, however, Capes foregoes the research and development of standard military operations and opts for a dynamic system where powers can be synergized on the field to devastating effect.
No superhero game is complete without a similarly epic narrative and Capes has that in spades through a truly marvel-ous story spanning multiple chapters. So go on and save the day in Capes!
Mullet Madjack
If the golden age of superheroes piqued your interest, then the classic anime stylings of Mullet Madjack’s vaporwave aesthetics are sure to blow your mind. Mullet Madjack is a fast-paced FPS where you have 10 seconds to live and a whole lot of enemies to go through.
Featuring roguelike elements and fast-paced gunplay similar to that from games like ULTRAKILL, Mullet Madjack is a perpetual adrenaline rush given a classic anime makeover. If you’re looking for a nostalgia hit that just doesn’t quit, you can’t do much better than the surprisingly anti-capitalistic and gratuitously gory gameplay of Mullet Madjack (virtual videogame unboxing simulator included).
Read Only Memories: Neurodiver
Let’s keep that classic anime aesthetic groovin’ with a futuristic point-and-click visual novel sporting some of the sickest pixel art on this side of the vaporwave sunset. Read Only Memories: Neurodiver is the long-awaited sequel to 2015’s 2064: Read Only Memories and the first of this month’s many indie chart-toppers.
Offering a positively enthralling narrative set in the futuristic streets of Neo-San Francisco, Read Only Memories: Neurodiver is quite the ride from start to finish. With its unforgettable cast of characters, hilarious dialogue, breathtaking pixel art, and exceptional synth soundtrack, this is one game you’re going to want to commit to memory.
ROBOBEAT
Now, Vaporwave’s well and good, but you can sing, dance, and shoot to the beat of any song in ROBOBEAT. As the newest entry to the budding sub-genre of rhythm shooters, ROBOBEAT bursts onto the soundstage with a dark electropunk vibe and the smoothest roguelike shooter elements since Roboquest. Wait a minute…I think I’m noticing a theme here.
In ROBOBEAT, you can only shoot to the beat. What beat exactly? That’s for you to decide with the game’s custom music option. It also offers an entire arsenal of weapons, items, and unlockable tracks for you to enjoy on and off the game. Combined with the many powerups and passives you can gain during a run, no two tracks ever feel the same.
Keep your shots ringing to your own rhythm in ROBOBEAT!
Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago
Let’s settle down from the gratuitous violence for a bit and talk about something that’s both nostalgic and relaxing. Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago is a Tamagotchi-inspired adventure game with RPG and idle game elements.
Sporting amazing 8-bit graphics, hilarious dialogue, and some of the most fun casual gameplay since the original virtual pet toy from the 90s itself, Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago is easily one of the most accessible and easy-to-pick-up games in this month’s lineup. Just don’t forget to feed your pets, alright?
Jim’s Nightmare: Chapter 1
The nostalgia train continues chugging along with the 16-bit point-and-click adventure of Jim’s Nightmare. If you’re a fan of Machinarium, Hotel Dusk, or Clock Tower, then the dark and foreboding urban hellscape of Jim’s Nightmare is just for you.
Featuring a genuinely enthralling story about mental illness and the struggles that come with it, Jim’s Nightmare is an episodic game, featuring six episodes with 2 hours of playtime in each. Some might consider this serialization a tad unnecessary if not a bit lacking, but the game more than makes up for it with its thrilling noir mystery vibes, Resident Evil-esque puzzles, and astounding 2D-pixel art.
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
If you prefer puzzles over mysteries, then Lorelei and the Laser Eyes—one of this month’s chart-toppers—is the perfect game for you. Lovingly described as the "quintessential puzzle game" by our reviewers, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes offers an entire hotel’s worth classic, room-to-room puzzle-solving with a categorically anachronistic twist.
Sporting some of the most distinct visual styles I’ve seen in character, stage, and puzzle designs, this game is as much a visual feast as it is a brain teaser. Well-designed puzzles and stylish visuals really do go a long way.
Animal Well
Let’s follow one chart-topper with another and end our spotlight with one of the best indie games of 2024! Animal Well is a horror metroidvania with some platforming and puzzle elements. That description does this game no justice because between the primal fear it evokes at every turn and its unique, almost uncanny visuals, it’s easy to see why this game scored as high as it did in our reviews.
Animal Well is a difficult game to describe. It has no story, world-building, or dialogue, yet the fear permeating every bit of its 34 MB file size is undeniable. Its stunning visuals and amazingly horrific sounds lead your instincts to think the worst, then the game follows it up with something that exceeds any horror your mind could conjure.
There’s no better way to truly understand fear than to give this game a shot. Who needed sleep anyway?
