Original & creative: gaming fun in the Indie Area
The Indie Area with its many colorful and creative games is once again a real highlight of Gamescom this year. We present some special titles.
(Image: Liane M. Dubowy / c’t)
There's never a dull moment in the Indie Area at Gamescom: developer teams present their games across all genres at small to tiny stands in every corner. This year, too, there are many surprising and creative ideas. Here, away from the halls with the huge stands of Microsoft, Bandai Namco and THQ Nordic, for example, the queues are manageable. The crowds are all the bigger because the game stations are close together.
The Indie Arena Booth (IAB) has already made full use of the available space: the joint stand organized by Supercrowd brings together a curated selection of games on 1537.5 square metres. Organizer Valentina Birke would have liked to use even more booth space, but there was simply no more room. In any case, there were more than enough applications: Supercrowd received 420 submissions this year, a good hundred more than last year. An expert jury of 43 industry professionals from 17 countries played them and ultimately selected around 170 games, which will now be presented at Gamescom.
For the selected developers, the Indie Arena Booth is an all-round carefree package that includes everything they need for their stand, from monitors and peripherals to tickets. Games and studios will also be presented in livestreams from the trade fair and take part in the IAB Steam event. So if you're not going to Gamescom this year, you can still play a number of demo versions on Steam until at least the weekend and watch the livestream on Twitch. Even before the trade fair, Supercrowd prepares participants with workshops to present their game to end customers and publishers. Networking events are intended to help those who are still looking for a publisher. Around the IAB, other indie games can be found in the Home of Indies or at the stands of the countries represented.
We can only pick out a few from the extensive range of new indie games. The c't-zockt team will be looking at others in the coming months. For some of the games shown, there is already a demo or even the finished version on Steam, while others can only be added to the wish list so far.
Once again represented in the Indie Area this year were "The Darkest Files", "Tiny Bookshop" and "Pioneers of Pagonia", which we have already presented. We would like to briefly show a few more here.
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Oddada
The roguelike music construction set game Oddada by Mathilde Hoffmann and Sven Ahlgrimm has just been released. In the fantasy toy world of Oddada, a small train travels from station to station. At each stop at a toy-like, interactive instrument, the player assembles a sound snippet and changes it until he or she likes it. Various landscapes and machines are transformed into musical instruments that can be used to modulate the pitch. Different building blocks are available in each level, such as small houses, a weathercock, a camper or a gravestone, to further modify the sounds. If you press the red button on the nose of the train, the level is completed and the music brick is attached to the train. Little by little, you collect bass, melodies and rhythms.
Once all six building blocks are together, you play them in a performance by starting and stopping modules and adjusting their volume. At the end, a finished piece of music is created from the music blocks, which can now be recorded onto a virtual music cassette. This is given a suitable title and a colorful label and can then either be added to the collection or discarded. You can browse through the collection at any time, take out music cassettes and listen to them again on a virtual player. The creations can also be exported as audio files. The game can then start all over again.
The colorful and beautifully designed levels and instruments are a little different each time you play, and you gradually unlock more instruments. In Oddada, making music becomes a playful exploration. You can take your time to combine the sounds one after the other and play around with a building block until it sounds good. With a little patience, it is not difficult to produce good-sounding results, so that even the less musically talented can have fun.
Oddada is available for around 10 euros for Windows and macOS on Steam, and also ran well on the Steam Deck in the test.
(Image: Liane M. Dubowy / c’t)
Moonlight Peaks
In Moonlight Peaks, you take on the role of a vampire who tries a less bloodthirsty lifestyle and runs a supernatural farm with a hellcat, a golem and other supernatural creatures in the titular village. Some of the game mechanics are familiar from farming games such as Stardew Valley: digging up the soil, sowing seeds, watering daily, clearing the surrounding land of wild bushes, wood and rocks and collecting wild plants. The collected material can be sold. Every day, the letterbox delivers post from the village with additional tasks to be completed.
But then things get magical: spells make the vegetables grow faster, but only if you don't mess up the spell in the mini-game. You can also decorate the plot, craft things, mix potions and learn more spells. Instead of walking slowly across the property, pressing a button quickly transforms the character into a bat that flutters quickly across the grounds.
Later on, you will be able to move freely around the village and make friends with the werewolves, witches and mermaids living there. A background story with quests is planned. If the chemistry is particularly good, the encounters can turn into a romance or even marriage. The developers leave it entirely up to the player's own preferences as to who gets together with whom.
The game from Dutch studio Little Chicken Game Company is expected to be released in 2026. There is currently a demo of Moonlight Peaks for Windows on Steam, which also runs on the Steam Deck.
(Image: Liane M. Dubowy / c’t)
EcoGnomix
Munich-based studio Irox Games is presenting its game EcoGnomix at Gamescom, a fun combination of roguelite and construction game. In EcoGnomix, the little gnomes venture deep into the earth to collect resources. As the platform sinks deeper into the cave, hungry bats have to be provided with more and more food on each level. There is food and resources on every level, but there are also dangers that threaten the little guys. Only the right combination of specialized gnomes with the right equipment can get deep enough. Raw materials are left over from each cave exploration, which are then used to build the village. Suitable buildings, for example, help to secure the food supply below the surface.
The gameplay is turn-based. Once the platform has been launched into the cave, you first add specialized gnomes such as a huntress, a woodcutter or a boomeranger, which cost different amounts of wood. Putting together the right team is crucial. However, each gnome costs scarce resources and the number of gnomes is limited. At the start of a level, the available gnomes are placed on hexagonal tiles in such a way that they reach suitable resources and are exposed to few dangers. Then the round begins, after which hungry bats must be fed.
The team can only reach deeper levels with treasures and boss enemies if enough food and wood are collected during each round. However, the bats get hungrier with each level and often the gnomes are also already battered. Occasionally there are intermediate stations to heal and upgrade the gnomes.
EcoGnomix will be released on Steam on September 30, 2024 and is already available in a demo version. We played a pre-release version for Windows, which also ran on the Steam Deck.
Outlook
The Indie Area at Gamescom offers a nice preview of what indie games we can expect next year (and beyond). The original ideas and successful graphic design of many indie games promise an exciting year of games.
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(lmd)