2024 kicks off with no pause in the indie scene. Let’s take a look at the best indie titles we covered in January. Continue reading to discover great titles that you might have been sleeping on.
Showcasing January 2024s Indie Titles
We're starting strong this 2024 with the indie titles we've covered in the past month. We've got some Early Access heavy-hitters on the roster this time, so settle down and strap in because you're in for a ride. There's a particular focus on retro gaming styles, city-builders, and RPGs this January, so if you're a fan of those genres, these games might be the start-of-the-year kickoff you're looking for.
Check out last month’s edition of our indie showcase if you missed it!
Sovereign Syndicate
Sovereign Syndicate is a CRPG game with steampunk fantasy aesthetics where your decisions, no matter how small, matter. Striking a similar vein to visual novels, Sovereign Syndicate tugs at your heartstrings and brainstem by presenting you with a character-driven narrative to die for.
If you’re the type to appreciate a deep dive into a world full of details, then the trials, tribulations, and spectacular dialogue in Sovereign Syndicate might just be the narrative shot you’re looking for. If you prefer a more hands-on approach to your stories, a la Baldur’s Gate 3, then Sovereign Syndicate has that for you as well with its Humours and Tarot System.
Home Safety Hotline
Home Safety Hotline is a short and sweet analog horror trip where you answer calls that delve into the supernatural. Although the gameplay is basic, the atmosphere and lore of the game set up an atmosphere of unease and horror like no other. You’d be hard-pressed to find an analog horror game so efficient with its world-building, though that efficiency is its downfall. By the game’s end, you’d be begging for more endings, creature logs, and fully voice-acted calls; alas, this game only has so much to offer.
The Universim
The Universim is a city-builder god game where you play as the god of creation for an entire planet. Delve into a varied suite of god powers and mold the earth as you see fit. Travel through the ages with your budding civilization as they discover newer and grander ways to make use of the world you gifted them.
This game is charming in its presentation of its art style and mechanics, though its optimization leaves much to be desired. Buggy mechanics and unclear tutorials make for an ineffective city-builder, but at least you get to play god in the truest sense of the phrase.
Roots of Yggdrasil (Early Access)
Roots of Yggdrasil is an early-access roguelike deck-builder/city-builder where you play as the last vestiges of humanity in the aftermath of Ragnarok. This game is an oddly effective mishmash of three or so genres that piqued my interest with every card played. Although your goal is to build a city still, you do so through a masterful mix of deck-builder mechanics and placement bonuses.
That being said, this game is in early access and it shows. Prepare for unpolished mechanics and placeholder art.
Lil’ Guardsman
Lil’ Guardsman is a simple game with a simple premise: you are a guardsman, and you decide who gets to go through. Simple doesn’t mean easy, however, and it’s often hard to gauge how trustworthy a passerby is, especially if half of them consist of fantasy creatures or crazy people (sometimes both).
This is a game about judging people and trusting your gut, so you’re bound to get a few of them wrong. Apart from the perfectionists among you, I’m sure that'll be no issue at all in this charming little game.
Enshrouded (Early Access)
Enshrouded is one of our bigger indie entries this January, promising a 16-player open-world sandbox experience where you can do (and build) just about anything. Think Minecraft, except everything looks like an AAA game with its graphics. Voxel-based building and Enshrouded map areas both make this game a unique experience that we highly recommend for you and your gaming buddies…if your setups can handle the demanding hardware requirements the game asks of you.
Archaelund
Archaelund is a classical RPG with a retro feel that harkens back to the days of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. The visuals and game mechanics were designed to look dated and tap into that sweet sweet nostalgia. But you can’t rely on the good old times for everything, so the game is still lacking in many areas, including its quality of life, its audio, and its balancing. But that’s early access for you; it can only level up from here.
BlazBlue Entropy Effect
BlazBlue Entropy Effect is an action metroidvania roguelike where you hack and slash through legions of enemies as one of many MANY characters. This game features a highly addicting gameplay loop and many action-roguelike staples like jumps, dashes, and combo attacks. Losing a run stings far less due to the game’s unique Legacy Evotypes, which carry on modifiers to future runs, whether the current one succeeds or fails.
There’s something of a wasted opportunity for this game’s story, however, as the game is only “BlazBlue” by its title and characters. Everything else about the game is unique and can’t be connected to the BlazBlue universe some of you might be looking for.
