Cognition Dissemination: Highlights From the November Indie World Showcase

It’s hardly a surprise that Nintendo Directs generate about ten times more excitement than the Indie World streams, but it’s nonetheless unfortunate. The latter types of streams often showcase a higher number of games than their big brother variants in a shorter amount of time, thanks to a desire to quickly jump from one game to another. Indie games can be just as good, if not better, than big-budget and some mid-budget titles from larger publishers. It doesn’t help that Nintendo doesn’t direct (ha) as much attention to them, but they still deserve credit for providing indie presentations at all when Microsoft’s have dwindled in number and Sony no longer provides any.

I saw a bunch of good-looking titles on today’s presentation, and I want to spotlight them here. I hope no one is reading this for a summation of the stream; I’m merely highlighting the games I saw and nodded my head to.

Goodbye World was the first one to stick out to me, a narrative adventure game with great-looking pixel art and a hazy fever dream-like filter that will involve playing through 12 puzzle-platforming stages. They’re part of an adventure that will follow two protagonists, programmer and game designer Kanii and graphic designer and scenario writer Kumade, working on an indie game while suffering through low funds and creator’s block while reaching the finish line. The game is due for a release later this month, and I hope it’s as fun as it looks.

Another one is Have a Nice Death, a game where players control an overworked CEO version of Death on the verge of burnout. He fights his employees to get them back in order, in what looks to be frenetic 2D action with roguelite elements. This game has been available through Steam Early Access for a good amount of time, where it’s garnered a good reception. The game looks great in action, and the genre shows that it’s not simply “Hollow Knight at home” though only having Metroidvania elements.

My jaw figuratively hit the floor with Pepper Grinder, which looks a hell of a lot like the Drill Dozer spiritual successor I’ve been hoping an indie developer would tackle for years, in Game Freak’s and Nintendo’s stead. This is a pirate adventure game that involves, well, Pepper using her Grinder to drill through enemies and environments in the quest to retain her treasure. The sprite work for the character and enemy animations looks great, alongside the colorful backdrops that will pop out on an OLED screen. It’s a shame the game was given only a vague 2023 release date, but I hope Devolver Digital will show it often from here on.

Oni: Road to be the Mightiest Oni stuck out to me for two reasons. It looks like a beautiful 3D experience, but I’d be surprised if it can run on Switch with the level of visual fidelity shown on the stream without serious framerate and assorted presentation compromises. Whether it can will depend on how much action is happening during the game simultaneously, one which will include unique usage of the Joy-Cons. I understand the reason for the subtitle, to prevent it from being confused with other games like the old Bungie title (that should get a revival), but the subtitle itself is… not great, and only partially because of the redundancy. Still, I hope it’s a quality title when it releases in January.

It took a while for Rogue Legacy 2 to be announced for consoles, but it’s finally on Switch. One of the cooler aspects of the Indie World presentations is the potential for games to be showcased and released after the presentation, but Rogue Legacy 2 was the only one this happened with here. It was deserved, though, considering how long-awaited it’s been after the game emerged from Steam Early Access back in April.

There’s always a title or two that will stick out in an Indie Montage™, and those for me were WrestleQuest and World of Horror. The former is a pixel-driven wrestling adventure where the player will guide wrestling legends like the Macho Man Randy Savage, the Road Warriors, Jake “the Snake” Roberts, and potentially Sgt. Slaughter to victory. The latter title is a roguelite horror RPG that serves as a montage to the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Junji Ito. Both titles are already available on Steam (which explains their placements in the montage) and have received good user acclaim. World of Horror is also due for release on PlayStation platforms.

The final reveal wasn’t for Hollow Knight: Silksong news, like some fans hope for with every single Indie World stream, but I refuse to listen to anyone who doesn’t think Sports Story looks impressive. The game, true to its name, will feature a story that will involve a main character participating in a bunch of sporting activities along the way, including golf, tennis, and soccer. It’s a shame that Nintendo stopped adding story campaigns to their Mario sports games, but indie developers are thankfully picking up from where they left off, as they did with Drill Dozer. It won’t be long before the game arrives, too, which is due for release in December.

This wasn’t the best Indie World in recent memory in terms of announcements, and the terrible puns throughout almost drove me into a violent and murderous rage. But it was a solid one with a number of good-looking titles, as this post hopefully shows. It would still be nice if Nintendo will make it easier to find the good indie games on the Switch shop in the coming months, which is utter hell to navigate through for anyone who doesn’t already know what they’re looking for. I’m not counting on that given the age of the console and store, beyond the most critically-acclaimed titles being occasionally highlighted.