My last day at gamescom was all about the indies. I also got to play Unknown 9 Awakening & Little Nightmares III at the Bandai Namco booth, but the majority of my time was spent checking out some new and upcoming indies. Let’s dive in, shall we?
Wall Town Wonders
Let’s start with the best of the best. The other games are in no particular order, but this Belgian game blew me away! It’s an AR game I played on the Meta Quest 3, where you build a small mining town on your very own walls, into a crazy detailed environment with tiny people living in the houses. You can really bring your eyes close to the wall (careful to not bump into it!) and look inside at various angles. It’s very rare that I still feel the gleeful discovery of something truly new and unique in games, but Cyborns’ latest does just that. It’s kind of like those miniature wooden/paper bookshelf inserts you can make yourself:
The demo was pretty extensive too. I got to build a mine, a restaurant, the town hall including a landing port for a hot air balloon that I could navigate with my hands or by blowing wind at it and later on I had to control an airplane and make it fly through some hoops. Outside of looking into the tiny houses, picking up people on my flat hand and helping them find places to dig was really wonderful as well. As luck would have it, the character picked out a nearby table she wanted me to drop her on, and then I could really inspect closely as she dug something up.
The fact you can do this in your own living room, put down the headset and continue where you left off the next day adds even more flair to the experience. One big unknown for me at the moment, though, is how grindy the experience is to mine for ores and get other resources like wood. The demo luckily gave me an infinite supply, a kindness as resource management is not a thing I particularly enjoy. On the other hand, it does increase the sense of accomplishment when you build your wall town into a full living room scale!
Here is me playing this gem at Gamescom:
Pre-order Wall Town Wonders on the Meta Quest Store: https://www.meta.com/en-gb/experiences/6103056399797843
Ruffy and the Riverside
I’ve seen Ruffy around on Twitter, but this was the first time I got some hands-on time with it. It’s an open-world 3D adventure game with a unique visual style and an equally unique mechanic to go alongside it. Let’s start with the visual appeal: it’s a 3D world, but the textures are hand-painted and Ruffy and the other characters look like 2D paper cut-outs similar to Paper Mario titles. Those textures are important to the gameplay, however, as you can copy/paste them as you see fit. Imagine turning a stream of water into a river of lava so it burns the wooden dam, following it upstream to the lavafall and turning it into vines so you can climb it.
It’s a really clever idea, it plays like a dream, constantly adds new ways to use your swapping powers and feels fresh throughout. If that sense of wonder holds up for the full game, we’re in for a treat!
Wishlist Ruffy and the Riverside on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1002260/Ruffy_and_the_Riverside/
This is also coming to Xbox in Q1 2025!
The Knightling
Our northern neighbours at Twirlbound have not been sitting idly by since their success with Pine. Their next title is an open-world action adventure in which you play a skinny knight with a giant shield. You can use this in combat, traversal and many other clever ways. It reminded me a little of Effie, which is a title I covered a few years ago, but this demo felt a lot more polished. I do like the resurgence of shields in games, with even the upcoming DOOM using it as their main new addition. (more on that in a later article!)
It’s bright & colourful, the magical world feels enchanting, and the platforming feels juuuust right. The set-up is that you play as a squire in training, still bulking up to be as strong as the knight you’re loyal to. The open-world is massive, even in the demo, as I felt I could wander off into any direction and encounter interesting things in the various corners of the map. Getting around is quick as well, with your shield serving as a surfboard to glide over the curved hills across the countryside.
I’m typically playing aggressive in action games, and that’s still a possible route here, but it’s obvious that you should also use your shield to deflect and counter enemy attacks. I would have probably dealt more damage that way as some of the enemies I faced felt a little too spongy on the HP-bar side of things. I’ll see if I can play the game more like it’s intended when the full release arrives!
But to be fair, it’s usually the sidequesting, exploration and platforming in these games I enjoy way more than the combat.
Wishlist The Knightling on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1471650/The_Knightling/
This is coming to Xbox in 2025!
Koira
Another Belgian title on the list. I swear I’m not being chauvinistic, we just make some really good games in this tiny country! I’ve known Koira for a few years now, from back when it was still a solodev project called “NEJ” (which is a clever word-play on the French word for snow). The concept of the game has remained the same, but the team has grown, DONTNOD came on board as the publisher and the game received a lot of polish since then.
You play as a black shadow-person, encountering a similar styled puppy at the start of the game. You bond together on your way back home, and you can of course pet him or feed him some apples or play fetch. Each action in the game has a distinct sound effect from a musical instrument, with the dogs’ barks sounding like a bike horn and music & meditation playing a larger role in some of the puzzles.
It’s not all fun and games in this uniquely styled game, however, as you’ll also have stealth sequences where you have to sneak around hunters and their more vicious dogs.
Koira succeeds, most of all, in making you feel. The emotional expressions on the main characters are amazing, considering their simple designs, and it doesn’t take long for you to genuinely care for them.
Wishlist Koira on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1626620/Koira/
Coming to PC & PlayStation 5 first (no announcements for Xbox or Switch releases just yet)
30 Birds
Another Belgian game? Well, I ended up playing games mostly by people I had already talked to at some point before gamescom and this is a game I even posted the VERY first tweet for about 4-5 years ago when it didn’t even have a title. I also played a demo about 2 years ago, which you can watch HERE. It’s distinct visual appeal is immediately striking. It’s almost like playing a game on stained-glass lanterns in a Persian setting, rotating along with the player in a way that reminds me of FEZ.
The Persian theme isn’t only apparent in the visual style, but also plays a major role in the game’s story & setting, taking inspiration from famous Arab & Eastern novels and even their music, which also has a significant part to play. I feel like I’m poorly equipped to go into much detail on it as I haven’t consumed enough eastern works, but I can definitely attest to liking what 30 Birds has to offer.
As the title gives away, you’ll be tasked with saving, finding or convincing 30 birds to join you and you’ll have to solve various (musical) puzzles to do so. Some of the controls for these seem complex and overwhelming at first, but I managed to solve them without much help in the end, so just play around and you’ll be fine. (or look around for clues first)
The demo is public on Steam, so give it a shot and let me know what you think!
Wishlist 30 Birds on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1708770/30_Birds/
I wanted to play a lot more games, but ended up talking to the devs 90% of the time while their station was busy with other players. I’m still of the belief that indiedevs are the soil that’s keeping the landscape of videogames healthy these days, as this is where you find innovation and creative people making something truly unique because they care about the art behind it, not just the dollarsigns in the eyes of investors. I just hope they’re given enough time in the sunlight to sprout.
Robby lives and breathes video games. When he’s not playing them, he’s talking about them on social media or convincing other people to pick up a controller themselves. He’s online so often, he could practically list the internet as his legal domicile. Belgian games-industry know-it-all.
