Upcoming Indies Worth Keeping An Eye On | May 2022

Narukoopa
May 4, 2022
4 min read

Getting into games development is a difficult challenge; obtaining attraction for your game online even more so. I've always enjoyed playing indie games, and I often wish that all of them got way more attention than they did.

So I figured I'd start a new series for my website. Every month I will pick out five indie games that I like the look of, and talk about them. The number may increase in the long run, and to begin with, I'm sticking to Steam games, but if I continue to enjoy writing these, I might make them bigger.

Without further ado, let's begin...

EchoBlade

The guards that patrol the pitch black corridors are fully trained crusader knights, bolstering tough armour and a heavy penchant for violence. They're not very friendly either.

Starting off with a rather unique one; EchoBlade is a first-person, dungeon explorer that takes place inside a dark, labyrinthian tower. Trapped inside, the player must fight their way past patrolling guards while tackling platforming-esque puzzles in order to escape.

The twist that makes this game stand out is its presentation. The only way you can observe your surroundings is through sound. Every sound emitted highlights the nearby area, and according to developer Sunset Arctic Games, this includes all the little ones; each time you move or hit an object or swing your weapon.

Knights aren't the only danger. The tower is filled with booby traps triggered by pressure plates. Not exactly ideal when wondering around in the dark...

It's certainly a unique feature that I don't think I've seen before, and to have a game that revolves entirely around it definitely has me intruiged. EchoBlade is available to purchase now on Steam.

Warlord: Britannia

Being able to recuit up to 9 Roman centuries, battles can contain hundreds of participants. As well as being able to order them externally, the game allows you to fight alongside your troops directly, lending to the 'immersive-strategy' label.

Described as the first entry to a series of games, Warlord: Britannia takes us back two thousand years to 1st Century AD Britain, during the time of its Roman occupation. Classifying itself as its own unique genre, 'Immersive-Strategy', the game has you playing as the Romans, leading an army across the land, conducting a wide band of activities, ranging from base building, to pillaging local settlements.

Warlord: Britannia contains elements reminiscent of the Mount & Blade series, but it's still very much its own thing. You journey across a vast open world seeking plunder, but you also have to carefully manage your legion, both on and off the battlefield. Your decisions have consequences depending on how you carry yourself and your troops, but also how you interact with the world around you, and the locals that live in it.

Base-building appears to play a major part in Warlord: Britannia. You do need to store your troops somewhere after all. There's plenty of room too, with the game world being 45 square kilometres, containing three distinct environments complete with no loading screens. Pretty cool!

It's a highly ambitious project that promises a lot, which makes it even more impressive that it's being made by one individual. The game highlights its emphasised focus on delivering historically accurate content, so it's fair to say that Roman history buffs should have this on their radar; alas, I'm really looking forward to this one. Warlord: Britannia is said to be released sometime by the end of this month.

Eternal Threads

The goal is to save all six housemates, but you are able to focus on specific characters through the decisions that you alter. Do you want to have morals, or do you enjoy favourtism?

With a concept that plays heavily with the butterfly effect, Eternal Threads is all about time travel and manipulation. You play as an operative tasked with altering events leading up to a house fire that killed six people. The catch: you can only travel as far back as a week before it happened, and you cannot directly stop the fire yourself.

Eternal Threads is a game focusing on choice. Since you can't interact with the fire, you must alter the decisions made by the housemates in the hopes that they will survive the event. How you approach this is up to you, as the game gives you quite a lot of freedom, allowing you to jump to specific events and make changes to dozens of their choices.

Saving all of the characters will require a lot of investigative work, as each alterable choice is said to have noticeable impacts. There's plenty of different ways things could go. Even if they don't work out the way you want them to, you're still provided with useful information.

On top of this: there's more than one way of doing things. Different decisions lead to alternate time lines, all of which affect the world around you in the future. In essence, it's a time-travelling detective game, and it looks fantastic. Eternal Threads releases on May 19th.

My Time At Sandrock

It may be post-apocalyptic, but there's still a noticeable beauty to Sandrock that doesn't make it look like the worst place to live in. Let's hope the locals are just as friendly.

One way of describing My Time At Sandrock is that it's a wild-western-esque, post-apocalyptic version of Animal Crossing, if it had open world mechanics, as well as a varied combat system. So essentially not like Animal Crossing, but a similar style.

You arrive at Sandrock, a run-down city-state in need of repair. You've accepted the job of a builder, so it's your job to bring the place back to its former glory. Rebuilding everything spick-and-spanny, meeting and befriending the locals, and journeying across the land in search of valuable resources are just some of the things the game has to offer.

My Time At Sandrock is said to contain hundreds of side quests alongside 30 unique characters to interact with. You can also take part in festivals, because who wouldn't want to take part in a post-apocalyptic festival?

It promises a wholesome experience giving you complete creative freedom. Developed by the same team that made My Time At Portia, Sandrock advertises an experience that fans of that game will be familiar with, while also providing a ton of new content for everybody to invest in, starting at its Early Access release on May 26th.

Sky Caravan

Another title that emphasises player choice; Sky Caravan is a 2D, text-based RPG that has you play as an aptly named sky caravaneer, a proclaimed adventurer of the skies. You captain a ship alongside your crew, embarking on missions and making tough decisions, some of which dealing long-term impacts.

That last part appears to be the main focus and selling point of the game. Since you're the one in charge, you are responsible for keeping your crewmates in check, ensuring relationships with them are amiable and not hostile.

Sky Caravan utilises a 'reaction disk system' for its choice mechanics. Slide the option you want into the terminal to make your decision. It's a cool feature that further adds to the game's charm.

When you're not engrossed in decision-making, you'll be exploring the vast world, gathering resources for your ship and, apparently, hanging out with greedy capybaras. All in all, I like the look of this one. Sky Caravan is set to release sometime within the month.

In Conclusion

That's a wrap. I was originally going to get this finished on May 1st, but university got in the way a bit. Whoops. I'll do my best to get the next one done for June 1st. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed this one, and I hope the games interested you. You can find them here: