It feels like it’s been a year since I was last granted the opportunity to write here—wait, it was! Though, the only indie game featured was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge.
I fear that flies in the face of the mission of Indie Ranger, helping to show you indie video game gems. This year is an entirely different story. Between a sponsored stream of JRPG love-letter Chained Echoes, and chances to show more indie games, my indie exposure has most definitely grown. I’m more prepared than ever to do justice to the mission and share with you 5 indie games that have made an impact on me in 2023.
Vampire Survivors
The game released late 2022, and this gamer, piqued by increasing curiosity, finally took the plunge in 2023. The time came to survive against zombies, ghosts, and more kinds of night creatures in the game. Ironically, except for vampires! Was it worth it? More than could have been realizable.
One look at the game and one listen to the music, and you can feel the love developer poncle has for Konami’s legendary Castlevania series. Yet, the game plays nothing like those, and may as well have popularized its own genre, whose name doesn’t seem to have a strong consensus yet.
Reverse bullet hell, bullet heaven, garlic-like, or it could be as simple as a roguelite shoot em up.
That also feels dubious, as the shooting is automatic and omnidirectional. Whatever the case, it
doesn’t stop the game from being a lot of fun. There’s an inexplicable joy in learning ideal load-outs to keep yourself alive and defeat the endless hordes of night creatures coming your way—endless within 30-minute bursts, anyway. If it’s a grind, giving yourself to it will please you in a way you may not realize. You’ll unlock new stages, new characters, weapons, items, stat boosts, and so much more. Stats you can increase for future runs make it feel not strictly as roguelike. To the right gamer, this will be an alluring rabbit hole to sink into, and more so with DLC on the way!
Elemental Survivors
This game has one big similar world to the previous game, but worry not, there are sizable differences. For one, the presentation and inspiration are practical opposites. The more things change, the more they stay the same, they say. It’s still a roguelite bullet heaven, and it’s a love-letter to the classics; in this case, the JRPG genre!
Instead of dark, gothic vibes, you got bright and vibrant vibes—we could even say 16-bit. The music matches as if moving through a JRPG overworld or monster filled path. Weapons and equipment aren’t the only tools at your disposal, for party members can join, too! You can change the music at will, and you’ll know what’s coming up in your run, as well. If you can believe it, there’s also a main quest in getting green gems and side quests!
This gamer put in a lot of time in the previous game, and considering everything about this, there’s every chance this game would get even more love. There are plenty of references to all kinds of JRPGs you love, and fun ways to unlock them, themselves side quests! If not enough JRPG fans are talking about this game, then that needs to change posthaste.
Cornucopia
There seems to be a bit of a trend here; can you figure it out? It continues with this farming sim-plus, where there’s also light dungeon-crawling, in addition to growing crops and animals, bonding with people, and fulfilling some big goal. Only instead of inheriting a farm from family, you’re simply given the farm… after learning you’ve been found frozen in the nearby cave!
Quite a departure from the usual farm-sim story, isn’t it?! Then again, the graphics are a departure from the usual farm-sim of nowadays, too, but not all the way. The world itself is 3D, at least, but far less so than usual, and why might that be? It’s an HD-2D style popularized by more than a few Square Enix titles, but it’s not the biggest influence. One look at the possible inventory and the actions you can take, and you might consider this a denser Stardew Valley!
Its scratch card system is actually how you learn to cook new foods, for starters. You have a shed that can hold a lot, and I mean a lot of items, of which there are a ton in the game. You’ve actually gotta analyze the soil and make sure your seeds can properly grow within it, and each tile will be different! Worry not if you’re not all about the farming; its story involves you solving the mystery of a magical Cornucopia artifact and its gemstones. Might sound a little Zelda-esque there, eh?
Breakout Survivors
Okay, there’s been a few -Survivors games here, but here’s a promise: this is different from the others! Breakout as a concept is simple: break blocks above with a ball. The Survivors part makes it a wholly different beast. Also, unlike the others, this feels more like an actual roguelike, where you start completely from zero. In the other games here, you can have some starting boosts.
Having played through this once during the Steam Next Fest Fall 2023 event, you can rest assured when this is said: it may seem easy at first, but at some point, Breakout won’t be so easy. Suddenly, all these power-ups you’ll be getting (such as more balls, a bigger paddle, balls that pierce blocks), they’ll be going up against tougher blocks. You could be very much at the mercy of the ball’s path and where your paddle is when it bounces off. Oh, was it mentioned that the blocks come down to you? And that you have a health bar?
Cuisineer
To close out the list, a game that doesn’t play like one featuring the word – Survivors! Somehow, boba tea has finally made its way into this gamer’s hands, and it doesn’t want to let go. For protagonist Pom, it’s a necessity as she goes food spelunking. Cuisineer, it seems, might be more inspired by a fellow indie game in one aspect instead of an AAA title.
Finally, a game that doesn’t get super-clear inspiration from just a big name! There are two major aspects to this game: dungeon-crawling and restaurant management. Yes, they do tie into each other. The former is isometric in a way that feels more like Bastion than it does Diablo. Kid thinks that part of that could be the floating island aesthetic. If not… floating- on-water island aesthetic. Fighting enemies and searching certain spots are how you get your ingredients, which, of course, you need for cooking.
Pom’s parents up and left her a run-down restaurant, ensuring they became Parents of the Year! She won’t let that stop her, though. By fulfilling citizens requests for some recipes and getting ingredients, she’ll cook up a storm. Happy customers mean she’ll get money to pour into stronger equipment. That’ll let her get into deeper and harder dungeon-crawls. She’ll really make the restaurant hers in both foods and how the whole place looks with the food profits.
It feels like a cliché to say the next year of video games will be even better, even if it is true. This year, there had been a lot of great indie games, and events like the Steam Next Fest sure help show off a lot of them. For example, that’s where I got to try Cuisineer and Breakout Survivors! It still isn’t just the big-name AAA video games that deserve your attention. As I got to show here this year, independent studios are still putting in the work to entertain you, too.
Remember that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes mentioned in last year’s article? Its time is almost here. If anyone will have you covered on the game and many more indie darlings when they release, you can bet it’ll be Indie Ranger.