Indie game recommendations

[AccidentalDenz]

inZOI has been on a lot of people's radars for a while as it's a variation on The Sims, but with an approaching photo-realistic art style. It launched into Early Access today.

It's yet another game that is crying out for the latest CPUs, so although I'm interested, I won't be going near it!

inZOI on Steam

"Every life becomes a story" Create your unique story by controlling and observing the lives of 'Zois'. Customize characters and build houses using inZOI's easy-to-use tools to live the life of your dreams and experience the different emotions of life created by its deep and detailed simulation.

store.steampowered.com

 

[AccidentalDenz]

STORROR Parkour Pro looks like it could be interesting as it seems like they've recreated the layout of the Isle of Dogs for the game. It's an Early Access title with Mixed reviews, but hopefully the devs are able to work on and improve the issues people are having as this could be a lot of fun on full release.

Save 17% on STORROR Parkour Pro on Steam

Escape Reality. The ultimate multiplayer parkour experience. Escape, race, and explore the streets and rooftops of London’s Isle of Dogs. Join team STORROR to save your estate, or challenge your friends to test their skills. STORROR Parkour Pro is complete control and freedom of movement.

store.steampowered.com

 

[SpyderTracks]

I'm not certain if these are strictly an Indie, do correct me if I'm wrong, just come up on my feed and looks really intriguing.

Of course, it's a horror genre as that is what floats me dandelions.

Called Karma, very dreamlike sequences, very dark, single player story driven

Save 10% on KARMA: The Dark World on Steam

KARMA: The Dark World is a first-person cinematic psychological thriller set in a dystopian world where the Leviathan Corporation is omnipresent. The year is 1984, the place is East Germany, and things are not quite what they seem.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Martinr36]

I'm not certain if these are strictly an Indie, do correct me if I'm wrong, just come up on my feed and looks really intriguing.

Of course, it's a horror genre as that is what floats me dandelions.

Called Karma, very dreamlike sequences, very dark, single player story driven

Save 10% on KARMA: The Dark World on Steam

KARMA: The Dark World is a first-person cinematic psychological thriller set in a dystopian world where the Leviathan Corporation is omnipresent. The year is 1984, the place is East Germany, and things are not quite what they seem.

store.steampowered.com

Certainly looks interesting, may take a look after I've finished with syberia

 

[AccidentalDenz]

I'm not certain if these are strictly an Indie, do correct me if I'm wrong, just come up on my feed and looks really intriguing.

Of course, it's a horror genre as that is what floats me dandelions.

Called Karma, very dreamlike sequences, very dark, single player story driven

Save 10% on KARMA: The Dark World on Steam

KARMA: The Dark World is a first-person cinematic psychological thriller set in a dystopian world where the Leviathan Corporation is omnipresent. The year is 1984, the place is East Germany, and things are not quite what they seem.

store.steampowered.com

I'm pretty laid back when it comes to determining indie game or not - if the developer or publisher isn't one of the big boys (Sony, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, etc), then it's an indie in my book.

South of Midnight is an action-adventure game set in the Deep South of the US and borrows heavily from the mythos of the region. I've had my eye on it for a while due to the distinctive art style. It released yesterday and is looking good.

It was published by Xbox Game Studios so isn't technically an indie by my own definition, but this is a game that doesn't have much hype around it, but it seems to me like the kinda game more people should be aware of. So I'm including it here anyway!

South of Midnight on Steam

South of Midnight is a new action-adventure from Compulsion Games. Explore the mythos and confront mysterious creatures of the Deep South in this modern folktale while learning to weave an ancient power to surmount obstacles and unravel your family’s hidden past.

store.steampowered.com

 

[SpyderTracks]

I'm pretty laid back when it comes to determining indie game or not - if the developer or publisher isn't one of the big boys (Sony, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, etc), then it's an indie in my book.

South of Midnight is an action-adventure game set in the Deep South of the US and borrows heavily from the mythos of the region. I've had my eye on it for a while due to the distinctive art style. It released yesterday and is looking good.

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It was published by Xbox Game Studios so isn't technically an indie by my own definition, but this is a game that doesn't have much hype around it, but it seems to me like the kinda game more people should be aware of. So I'm including it here anyway!

South of Midnight on Steam

South of Midnight is a new action-adventure from Compulsion Games. Explore the mythos and confront mysterious creatures of the Deep South in this modern folktale while learning to weave an ancient power to surmount obstacles and unravel your family’s hidden past.

store.steampowered.com

That looks really cool, I love the Deep South mythology, that's definitely on the Wishlist. Thanks for the pointer

 

[TonyCarter]

I believe South of Midnight is also included with MS GamePass...but I've been getting less & less from that as I ween myself of the subscription model (had it for my Xbox Series X, but got fed up with the limited game options).

South of Midnight | Xbox

Pre-order South of Midnight, available 8 April with Game Pass.

www.xbox.com

 

[Tron1982]

If you like city builder in a post apocalyptical world with a really nice design, I just played (and finished a run) this game that I really enjoyed:

Cliff Empire on Steam

After a nuclear war life on the surface became impossible. A 300m thick radioactive fog covered the Earth. We are looking for bold active people to manage the process of restoring life on Earth. Join!

store.steampowered.com

 

[AccidentalDenz]

I don't know how I feel about this... 👀

God Save Birmingham on Steam

Doom has come to Birmingham, and you are the last soul alive. Survive an undead plague in a painstakingly recreated medieval market town. Manage your needs, master physics-based mechanics, and evade the horde for as long as you can.

store.steampowered.com

 

[SpyderTracks]

I don't know how I feel about this... 👀

God Save Birmingham on Steam

Doom has come to Birmingham, and you are the last soul alive. Survive an undead plague in a painstakingly recreated medieval market town. Manage your needs, master physics-based mechanics, and evade the horde for as long as you can.

store.steampowered.com

Looks very realistic to current day

 

[AccidentalDenz]

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree could be a Game of the Year contender but for one issue: you have to accept an EULA in order to run the game and there's a prominent mention of your data being sold in the EULA. I played the demo and really enjoyed the game as it's a dark fantasy, Action RPG/Souls-like. Those are all attributes that do well when indie devs use them, and the reviews do seem to suggest the devs were using well. Such a shame that the EULA is in place - fix that and I'd be looking to buy at some point...

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree on Steam

Slay your way in Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree, an epic action RPG in a dark fantasy world. Battle monsters across a 40+ hour story, master six unique Classes, craft hundreds of useful items, and explore the secrets of an expansive, interconnected world.

store.steampowered.com

 

[AccidentalDenz]

Clearly not an indie game, but one notable release this week has been the Oblivion remaster. 82% Very Positive reviews isn't bad. Many of the negatives seem to be a mix of performance issues on older hardware, the game having anti-cheat software (in a single player game!!) and mods being banned until the almost obligatory Creation Club content is launched so the mods can be monetised as is the Bethesda way.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered on Steam

Explore Cyrodiil like never before with stunning new visuals and refined gameplay in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion™ Remastered.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Steveyg]

Bought it already, have Tuesday booked off and shes away all day with the wee man so I'll be all to myself to play probably my favourite game ever

I genuinely can't wait to get my teeth into it again, I 100% the original, read every book in the game and explored every single location/cave/dungeon on the map. If you know the scale of Oblivion you'll know how ridiculous a task that is

 

[TonyCarter]

Bought it already, have Tuesday booked off and shes away all day with the wee man so I'll be all to myself to play probably my favourite game ever

I genuinely can't wait to get my teeth into it again, I 100% the original, read every book in the game and explored every single location/cave/dungeon on the map. If you know the scale of Oblivion you'll know how ridiculous a task that is

I hope you've got a nice, new, beefy GPU as it's UE5, so will run at about 40 FPS at 1080p Ultra on a 3060Ti

 

[Steveyg]

I hope you've got a nice, new, beefy GPU as it's UE5, so will run at about 40 FPS at 1080p Ultra on a 3060Ti

I'll let you know what my performance is like, I'll be running it at 1440p aiming for 60fps

I've never set any game to just Ultra and played I always configure my settings to get the performance I want or because turning off a lot of the crap that's part of "ultra" settings generally looks awful

EDIT: just skimmed through that video and honestly I'm not worried in the slightest. Setting everything to medium and ignoring that not all settings are equal doesn't really show me real world performance. I understand they do this for a benchmark or a bar to set but I'll be picky in what I change to get the most performance while sacrificing as little graphical fidelity as possible

Graphical settings are never as simple as turn everything low and get more FPS. You can literally leave majority of settings in their highest possible option because they don't have as much impact on the GPU performance, there will be a handful of settings that heavily impact performance, these are the only settings that matter at the end of the day

 

[TonyCarter]

I'll let you know what my performance is like, I'll be running it at 1440p aiming for 60fps

I've never set any game to just Ultra and played I always configure my settings to get the performance I want or because turning off a lot of the crap that's part of "ultra" settings generally looks awful

EDIT: just skimmed through that video and honestly I'm not worried in the slightest. Setting everything to medium and ignoring that not all settings are equal doesn't really show me real world performance. I understand they do this for a benchmark or a bar to set but I'll be picky in what I change to get the most performance while sacrificing as little graphical fidelity as possible

Graphical settings are never as simple as turn everything low and get more FPS. You can literally leave majority of settings in their highest possible option because they don't have as much impact on the GPU performance, there will be a handful of settings that heavily impact performance, these are the only settings that matter at the end of the day

Agree, that's the way I do it.

I turn off all the recommendations / optimised settings that the Nvidia app sets, and then tweak everything so that the balance of performance/graphical quality is perfect for me. No point (even on a 4090) of having everything on Ultra / RT-Ultra / DLAA and 40 FPS when I can't see any visual difference between that and High / RT-Medium / DLSS Quality which gets me 100 FPS.

...and I'm always watching the optimisation videos as to which settings take most GPU power for least visual fidelity.

 

[Steveyg]

Just for anyone interested I'm getting about 70-90FPS with the very odd drop into the 50s which is annoying. Most settings on High, draw distance at it's highest and a few of the big hitters on low. DLSS set to Quality but I might give it a go in balanced and see how that changes things

Occasional stutter but I've plenty of room to tweak. The annoying thing seems to be how inconsistent it is, I'm at the point of turning on Vsync which I never do, FPS casually sits at 110 then drops to 70 then back up to 110 again mostly hovering around 80 but it's almost constantly up and down like that which doesn't feel great

I played for two hours last night and it's more than playable of course I just want it to be more consistent in it's performance so I'll play with the settings a little more and see what I can do over the weekend. If I keep having the drastic up and downs I'll have to turn on Vsync hopefully that'll sort it

Games looks fantastic though and I love the changes they've made to the levelling up system

 

[TonyCarter]

I might have to install it (it's free on Gamepass) and see what I'm getting on ultrawide. I tend to cap my games at 100FPS as I don't get anything out of faster FPS...and prefer it slower & smoother to faster with bigger drops.

Edit: download has been stalled at 96.4GB of 119.2GB for 10 minutes...I guess it's popular. Although I did notice the new Clare Obscur is free to download too

 

[Steveyg]

I might have to install it (it's free on Gamepass) and see what I'm getting on ultrawide. I tend to cap my games at 100FPS as I don't get anything out of faster FPS...and prefer it slower & smoother to faster with bigger drops.

Yeah consistency is all I'm asking for, would be happy with a solid 60fps to be honest

 

[TonyCarter]

Yeah consistency is all I'm asking for, would be happy with a solid 60fps to be honest

Ive noticed the usual 'Unreal Engine Tweaks ini' being shown on the NexusMods page for this.

Ultimate Engine Tweaks (Anti-Stutters - Lower Latency - No Film Grain - No Chromatic Aberration - Lossless)

Definitive Unreal 'Engine.ini' changes with the goal to remove most stutters, improve performance and stability, decrease input latency, improve picture clarity. All with no visual loss.

www.nexusmods.com

I'm sure we'll see lots of people's ini file tweaks over the coming weeks too!