6 Awesome Indie Games You Have to See to Believe
Explosions, kill shots, monsters, robots, and swordplay seem to be in infinite supply at E3 this year. But some of the most interesting titles don’t shed a drop of blood or leave a single corpse behind. Many don’t even resemble games as we know them. These are the indies – small, low-budget titles that take traditional notions of fast-twitch gaming and turn them inside out.
Like the big budget titles, the best indies can take years to make. Some of this year’s most intriguing titles have made briefer debuts at previous E3s; most won’t be available til next year. We saw a dozen great indies this year, but these six that caught our eye.
Abzu
From the brains behind the award-winning Journey comes a journey of a different sort. In Abzu you’re a scuba diver with an infinite supply of air, but instead of traversing a barren desert landscape you navigate through a sea teeming with life. Your mission, such as it is: to find ancient artifacts along the ocean floor and discover the story behind an ancient civilization, as well as who you are. Catch a ride on a sea turtle, swim with a school of sheephead, and keep your eyes on the Great White Shark – he won’t eat you, but he might have something to teach you. Available next year for the Sony Playstation and PC.
Back to Bed
Bob is sleepwalking, and he needs to get back to bed before he hurts himself. You are Subob, the vaguely canine-like embodiment of Bob’s subconscious that lives inside his dreams. Its your job to gently guide Bob back to his room by solving a series of increasingly challenging puzzles (involving a lot of apples). Back to Bed offers 30 different dreamscapes drawn from the work of Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, and MC Escher. It will be available this summer for the Sony PlayStation 3, PS4, and PS Vita.
Cuphead
This 2D run-and-gun fighting game looks like the wildest 1930s cartoon you’ve never seen. The premise: Two sad sacks with coffee cups for heads lose a bet with the devil. To repay Him, they must do battle with a wide range of surreal creatures, including pirates, sharks, ghosts, dragons, sea hags, and extremely large vegetables. If Betty Boop ate magic mushrooms and got into a scrap with Popeye and Felix the Cat, it might look something like Cuphead – maybe. Available next spring for Xbox and PC.
Unravel
Unravel is a beautiful tale of a stick figure made from yarn who helps a lonely old woman reconnect the threads of her life – literally – by finding and capturing her memories. As ‘Yarnie’ moves through the game he begins to unravel, and must collect more yarn in order to keep going. The side-scrolling platform and puzzle game is easy on the eyes and ears, with lush photo-realistic backgrounds (taken in the game developers’ back yards in northern Sweden) and a soothing soundtrack. Coming next year to the PC.
Wattam
A gigantic explosion has spread the inhabitants of Wattam (pronounced wah-TOM) all over the galaxy, and as Mayor it’s your job to get them all back. You do this by stacking the surviving inhabitants on top of each other and blowing them up using the bomb you always carry under your bowler hat. The explosions fill the sky with joy and inspire wandering Wattamanians to return home. Wattam is the latest game from Keita Takahashi, whose first game, Katamari Damacy, was exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Don’t even try to make sense of it, just enjoy the weirdness. Available for the PS4 next year.
Willy Chry’s Relativity
Imagine being trapped inside an Escher painting – that’s Relativity, the newest title from installation artist and game developer Willy Chrys. In this first-person exploration game you navigate through an infinite series of sparse artchitural drawings, solving different spatial puzzles in an attempt to undo the laws of gravity and see the world from a new perspective. Available for PS4, PC, Mac and Linux next year.
For complete E3 2015 coverage, check out Yahoo Tech.
