Gamescom 2022 diary: Day 4

Dear Diary,

After three grueling yet fun days, the time for rest has finally come. I met lots of people and had some really insightful and entertaining conversations about all aspects of the gaming sphere with developers and friends alike. I’ve played the demos of upcoming games I’d been following for a while and some completely new ones that entered my mental object permanence. I worked hard and partied hard.

This means it’s finally time to leisurely browse the halls at my own pace and mostly play indie games… What, you didn’t think I’d leave yet did ya?

So after a well-deserved lie-in, I left for the convention center once more to arrive there at around 1 PM, ready to enter the Indie Arena Booth and go through all that stood out. If you’ll indulge me, here are the 5 that stood out the most:

• Let Them Trade: This is a relaxed economy-building game where you have to build towns that produce resources. Through their strategic placement, they’ll automatically start trading with one another, thus improving output and earning money which in turn seems to allow you to expand further. With no clear release window in sight, the devs over at Spaceflower are still hard at work building and polishing the experience.
• The time I have left: Waking up with a large gap in your memory you know one thing for sure, You have only six hours left to live. While you fade into an out of flashbacks you face off against positively Lovecraftian baddies in this time-driven adventure. Gather clues and piece together what happened before your time runs out. The developer from Ground Game Atelier at the booth didn’t yet have a clear release date to share.
• Flying Neko Delivery: Have you ever seen Hayao Miyazaki’s 1989 Kiki’s Delivery Service? If your answer was yes, feel free to wishlist this. If not, here you play as a magic cat who rides a flying broom to deliver items for the locals. There’s crafting, villager bonding, and more! Depending on how development goes, Fractal Phase told me we could tentatively get our hands on this in either October or January.

• Lightyear Frontier: It’s not often that the most stressful moment of your entire game happens before you even get handed the controls, but that’s what FRAME BREAK is going for with their chill and relaxed farming simulator. With nothing to harm you from the comfort of your tractor-like mech suit, you’ll have to live in harmony with the land, while also growing enough crops to fill your proverbial belly. Currently, we’re looking at a Spring 2023 for this one.
• The last worker: Seeing some cashiers in his local grocery store get replaced by self-checkout machines, one of the developers got their inspiration for the last worker. Here a lone employee is the last human who didn’t get fired after 25 years at the Jüngle company, trawling through his fulfillment center as his world gets shaken up while on the job. This multiplatform game should release somewhere in October, and will eventually be making its way to VR platforms as well.

While these short summaries are by no means exhaustive, I do hope they give you a nice first impression to prime your interest and maybe grace them with a wishlist. I’ll be back tomorrow for one last day of Gamescom, probably with more indies played.

Hope to see you then!

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