#independant

In 2023, Young Horses of Octodad and Bugsnax fame released a set of small scale games for free on Steam. These were the result of various development experiments over the years: the original Octodad student project, Ludum Dare game jams, an Unreal engine tech demo. After playing Octodad (see my previous review which also covers the student version) I checked out their other free offerings.

Antbassador

You control the finger dangling off a human arm from the sky. The finger is an ambassador to the ant world, and has to traverse several screens of a quaint ant town, solving simple puzzles and problems without accidentally squishing any ants; easier said than done. As with Octodad, moving this digit precisely is an exercise in frustration but the humour takes the edge off for the most part.

Snakedate

You play as a snake, although it’s nowhere near as involved as something like Snake Pass. After being prompted on your dating app, you need to cruise around the small nightclub to find the horse person you matched with, and coil around them. Your snake moves on their own and is also infinitely long, so all you need worry about is turning left and right to wrap around your potential paramour. Of course there’s some physics goofiness and the fun horse profiles that you swipe through, but the only difference in your matches is their location and how many times they must be encircled for a successful speed date, the aim being to rack up points until time runs out.

IndependANT