#hypogea

This includes both mainstream games and indie projects, as well as unfinished projects/demos.

As this genre of games expands, more will be introduced and archived in time.

A buncha simplified characters based on some cool demo's I've played recently, from left to right they are: - Bloodthief - Geargrit - The Knightling - Raw Metal - Stick It To The Stickman - Hypogea - Haste: Broken Worlds

Day 0/Day 1/Day 2/Day 3

Rusty Rabbit

If I had a nickel for every game I've played this next fest featuring cute characters and whose protagonist is voiced by Takaya Kuroda, voice of Kiryu Kazama, I'd have two nickels, which is not a lot but it's weird it happened twice.

It's a Metroidvania about evolved rabbits digging through the ruins of humanity after the apocalypse.

Written by Gen Urobuchi. I'm liking the premise and tone, and enjoy the running gag of "no one in the rival group The BB's can agree on what their name actually stands for." But aside from that there's not much "hook" to the plot yet.

Your starting mech has a nice balance between being agile and feeling appropriately "stiff," since it's a homebrew pile of junk. Nothing gets in the way but it feels right.

The game has an experience system, where both fighting enemies and digging through rubble blocks gives XP. Worried the latter might encourage drudgery, but it's not there yet.

The combat was kinda boring, but they barely threw any enemies at you anyways. I'm hoping getting actual upgrades and actual combat will make it interesting.

There's supposedly going to be a crafting system but the demo stops before you can touch it.

Mashina

One game about digging deserves another.

compared to Rusty Rabbit, this game's idea of digging is a lot more freeform. Fly about on a 2d plane and drill through rock. Get minerals for items and, assumedly, upgrades. A conveyor belt building system suggests there will be a layer of automation. But the demo didn't really fully explore that.

The demo was very barebones in general. It seems mostly there to show off Jack King Spooner's trademark visual style: Mixed media, assets created by molding real clay and other items, cutscenes shot on a real camera, faces on the characters drawn with marker. From what I've seen this is always been his forte, but it feels like a step up from his previous game, Judero.

No idea how plotty it's going to be compared to Judero. There were a lot of characters, but trying to talk to most of them got an abrupt "NOT AVAILABLE IN DEMO."

The Electrifying Incident: A Monster Mini-Expedition

A Monster's Expedition was a puzzle game that was both incredibly relaxing and incredibly in depth. I'm glad the devs are going back to this particular well.

A Monster's Expedition was about pushing and rolling trees by hand, sokoban style. This game is about picking up and placing boxes using a grappling hook, putting them on buttons to turn off electrical grids, create bridges, or open doors.

There are some strong limitations, as expected for a puzzle game. For one, once you grab a box, the grappling hook functions like holding it at the end of a stick. Considering the large amount of bottomless pit in the map, this can make getting the box to solid ground a problem. Not only can your character not step on electrified ground, but if a box they're grabbing touching electrified ground, the shock will carry over. Not only can your character not step on electrified ground, but if a box they're grabbing touching electrified ground, the shock will carry over.

The demo was painfully short, and cut off abruptly, but it's already surprised me with a couple of its mechanics. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

The Path of Ren

Celeste-like precision platformer. The two main differences are 1) While there's wall and ceiling climbing, there's no stamina system limiting it. 2) the dash is not the central mechanical pillar like it was in Celeste. It's one of many very limited power ups.

The other power-up the demo offers is, for lack of a better word, "ghost mode." For a short period of time, your speed and jump height double, and transparent platforms become visible. Useful for when you need to do a long distance obstacle course quickly, but gets in the way when you want to do precision jumping in closed areas.

The game also plays more with enemies, or at least "obstacles with player-reactive behavior" The earliest is a spider that drops from above when you go under it, but it leaves a web you can climb. There are also grasping hand obstacles that do some light tracking, forcing you to give them a wider berth than expected.

While its pixel art and music can't fully match Celeste's quality, I do like the zen atmosphere they're going for.

Grimshire

If I'm going to follow themes today, might as well throw another bunny game in the mix while I'm at it.

Thinking about it, it's kind of odd that "farming" became synonymous with "cozy." I mean I get why, it's a good mechanical backdrop for daily routines, and there's a lot of idyllic pastoral imagery surrounding it but… aside from the labor aspect, farming can be pretty precarious.

That's the sort of scenario this game is exploring. It takes Stardew Valley and adds more pressure.

Your character arrives in the hamlet of Grimshire after being saved by a merchant ship, after the unnamed capital went in flames. You've given some abandoned farmland as is the norm in this type of game, but soon learn that the capital event is tied to a plague outbreak. With the majority of trade gone… your farm is the town's main source of food.

While there is individual buying and selling, the majority of your crops will be heading to a communal cellar. While I didn't test this, since I only played for a few in-game days… if you don't keep up, villagers will start dying. The woodland creature characters isn't just an aesthetic choice. It's a community of herbivores and carnivores, and you need to keep both fed.

There's also a voting system where the townsfolk will decide on emergency measures. While the first one is simply "do we build an herb garden or mushroom garden to try and keep up the medicine supply" I can imagine this will be used for dramatic effect later.

This isn't to say that the game is constantly bearing down on you aesthetically, or abandons any connection to the "cozy" games before it. Both the visuals and audio have a sort of soothing aspect to them, and there's still a sense of getting lost in the momentary tranquility. But the tally at the end of the day telling you exactly how many days of food are left in the communal cellar kind of snaps you out of it.

The game is in pre-alpha so a lot is up in the air of how the final product will look and play but this is a cool seeming twist on the formula.

I really need to dip further into Stardew so I can better experience the formula straight, though.

Hypogea

If I had a nickel for every time I've seen an indie game platformer about a decrepid robot exploring an impossibly large superstructure, I would have two nickels, (the other being Lorn's Lure.) It's not a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

Also if I had a nickel for every time I got to say the "it's weird that it happened twice" joke today I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice twice.

The main gimmick is your staff. Your character doesn't exactly have spring loaded heels, so you need to use it to boost yourself, pole vaulting and grasping distant ledges and hooks to swing from. These small hiccups add a nice sense of friction and momentum to what otherwise would just be "press a to jump."

There's only two "characters," your robot and another, one armed one that recussitated you. There's no dialogue, everything is expressed via body language. This makes me think it'll either be story lite, or try for abstractly heart wrenching a-la Team Ico's ouvre.

You do get to see some memories from now deactivated robots, showing there used to be humans in whatever superstructure this is, as well as some artefacts that give some very vague clues at what's happening.

I do worry the environments will get samey if it's all going to be blue-grey cavernous industrial stuff. Hopefully the final release will expand on the visual palette.

Kejora

I see time loop game, I click. I then get disappointed.

Kejora is an Indonesian puzzle adventure game about the titular girl realizing her village is stuck in a time loop and also there are monsters hiding around. Also her mom is sick and her dad is dead which will probably be used for a good heartstring tug.

The art direction is for the most part good, and while the effort is unevently distributed, there's proof that they CAN animate here. It's just that the areas that are stiffer are the moment to moment game interactions. The stuff you see most often.

the puzzles are either standard adventure game "bring object A to area B" or "summon one of your friends to use one of their abilities." Those latter ones especially felt... kind of like busywork. Especially since your friends just teleport to you when you call them. No reason to consider their positioning when setting up the puzzle.

The translation is… ass. Weird wording, constantly shifting tenses, everyone has a robotic tone. And yet I can't blame the entirety of the writing on the translation, because the game has an exposition problem. Everyone is constantly restating things and saying the obvious.

Anyways I looked at the Dev's youtube and apparently this used to be a Metal Slug-like???

Nitro Express

Since I already got Metal Slug on the mind might as well try this.

A run and gun where you're a gun freak girlfailure who has been hired to be part of the special taskform for when companions, multipurpose autonomous vehicles, go rouge. in other words, shoot robbit.

The pixel art is gorgeous. There is a slight problem of the screen feeling a bit busy though, Kinda wish they pulled a CAVE and did purple bullets.

The combat overall feels good. The dodge roll feels nice, and it's not a free get out of jail free card, since you can only roll forward. You get your I-Frames in exchange for staring right down the enemy's barrel.

The gunplay feels nice. I kinda wish there wasn't a reload system though, even if it happens automatically. I'm already dealing with positioning and aiming, I don't want to have to track my mag at the same time.

My other complaint is that if you cause a car to explode right in front of your face you take damage. Which. makes sense. But I'm still mentally going off Metal Slug rules.

Lastly, I like that the health pickups are you shooting down a food delivery drone and stealing someone's meal.