A year is a long time – we have twelve whole months ahead of us, and most of them will likely be filled with brand-new game releases; some we already know about, while others are still the subject of rampant speculation. Today, we’re taking a look at indie games that are confirmed to be coming out in 2026 – titles that, barring any unexpected delays, we’ll be able to get our hands on and play later this year.
Happy New Year! 2026 has arrived, and the indie game releases are not slowing down. Not one bit. We hope you’ve all had a good rest during the holiday season, because January is already hurling a handful of promising indie titles at us – so strap in and enjoy our list of personal picks from the first week of the month!
We continue our exploration of the holiday season – here are all the coolest indie game releases from last week that we believe you might want to check out! Enjoy!
The holiday season is almost here, but that doesn’t mean there’s a shortage of indie games coming out! Far from it, really. So, here’s what December had to offer so far – these are some of the coolest indie titles that came out during the first few days of the month. Enjoy!
Umigame opens in an almost cosy fashion. Soft lute strums fill your ears while scrolling text tells the story, accompanied by the oddly satisfying tap-tap of a keyboard. You play as an Umi, a water spirit summoned into the Haunted Swamp by the wicked Witch Maeve, whose corruption has turned nearly every creature against you.…
The post Umigame Early Access Preview – Charming Roguelite Adventure appeared first on Invision Game Community.
We have good news – there are still cool indie games coming out! Imagine that. So, before we fully dive into December, let’s close out our November series with all the coolest indie titles that came out recently!
I won’t blame you if you look at the title of this game and wonder what I’m going to talk about today. Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about that sort of adult game and I hope that the SEO won’t bring in that kind of traffic either. Today we are going to talk about a game named “G String” developed Eyaura. This game started life as a Half Life 2 mod just like another game “The Stanley Parable” I took a look at in the past. Now, the Stanley Parable is an amazing game in terms of story telling in games so I have high expectations for this game. Is this standalone game going to live up to it’s expectations or is this game going to fail and disappear in SEO-hell with it’s name? Let’s take an 100% honest look at this game with the developer provided press code I got for this game and let’s talk about my opinion. Meanwhile, I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.
Editornal note: The latest patch for this game has been released on December 23th.
Personal Robots Got Too Real
This game is a passion project of the developer Eyaura who worked on this game for the past 13 years. According to the press kit, this game is 10-ish hours long and is a single player Cyberpunk FPS game that aims to envoke the feel of old science fiction films from the ’70 – ’90.
In this game, you take on the role of a young Korean girl named Myo Hyori. After a sudden earthquake, she is able to escape in her standard issue biosuit into the dystopian world. During your exploration, you learn more and more about your missing parents, what happened to the world and the personal robots and much more.
Due to the nationality of the character, I think this game takes place in Korea. The reason I mention this is because there is voice acting in this game. Dialogue between characters is in English but the suit talks to Myo in another language. I’m not 100% sure but I think it’s in Japanese but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in Korean since the main character is Korean.
The voice acting is decent and adds a lot to the world building, tension and atmosphere of the game. But, on several occasions, the suit and a character were talking at the same time which made it a bit annoying to follow the voice acting. Thankfully, there are subtitles, so I was able to read what was being said.
During this adventure, you go through various locations. You also fight various enemies like soldiers and personal robots. You also meet various other characters that all play a vital part in the story. On the store page for this game, there is a beefy “Quick Reference” guide that contains quite a lot of lore and story details. Don’t read that if you want to go in the game blind. Yet, if you enjoyed this game, I would highly advise you to read through this manual and download it to add it to the collection.
Because I haven’t finished the game, I’m not going to talk too in depth about my opinions on the story. But, so far I have been enjoying the story. While I find it a bit cheesy at certain points, it’s still a good enough story to play through the game.
Let’s survive this world
So, due to a catastrophic event nicknamed the “Friday Floods”, the world got quite dangerous to life in. So, you need to be careful while exploring in this game that you survive the dangerous surface world.
While playing this game, I didn’t really know under which style to categorize this game. On one hand, I would call this an action packed survival horror and on the other hand, I would call this a story driven FPS. In the end, I would say it’s more an adventure game with heavy influences of the FPS genre. The best game to compare it too is Half Life in a matter of fact. In that game you also have moments of puzzle solving and moments of action.
During my playthrough, it was quite clear to me that a lot of love has been put into this game. But, it pains me to say that there are some things that are a bit rough around the edges. A first example is the controls. The controls are great and responsive and are quite quick to learn. But, sometimes they act quite strangely. I especially had problems getting up when I got out of a vent. Sometimes, I was unable to move and I had to jump to get into the right position. Also, ascending and descending on ladders is too fast in my opinion.
A second example of this game being a bit rough is that there is some cheap enemy placement. Especially those exploding floating balls. Some of them come in the most inconvenient moments when the game is quite tense or you are trying to avoid a sniper shooting at you. Speaking about these snipers, I have seen in a gameplay video that you are able to take them out. I was unaware of that because they barely give any feedback when you hit them. I wonder if I could destroy these turrets, but I highly doubt that since they don’t seem to get damaged when I unload a complete magazine on them.
So, a great advice from me is to quick save often. Especially after an encounter, since you never know when something happens and you need to load a save. Now, this brings me right to the difficulty of this game as a third example of this game being a bit rough. I started two playthroughs in this game. One on the medium difficult and one of the easy difficulty. Maybe it’s just my playstyle but I barely felt any difference between the two difficulties. Those flying orbs still gave me as much trouble on easy compared to normal. I think that if those flying orbs weren’t an instant kill, it would be a lot better.
Let’s talk about combat. You have two types of enemies. The robots and the soldiers. Only the turret and the soldiers don’t use melee attacks. All the other enemies use melee attacks. You can play this game without firing one bullet to an enemy since you have a fireball attack. Now, to be quite honest, I rarely used this attack since I found it a tad bit tricky to use and I always ran into my stray fireballs and got damage.
Most of the enemies are quite beefy and require more than one bullet to take out. Rarely I was able to kill an enemy in one shot. Apart from when I got lucky and found some explosive barrels around and use my telekenis powers to throw it at my enemies. The combat is quite enjoyable and if you are a veteran in the shooter genre, I think you will feel right at home here.
Destruction Of The World
I don’t really recommend that you play this game with the default visual settings. I highly advise you to play around with the visual settings since otherwise you will have some issues like textures looking a bit rough or the lighting being too harsh.
It would be a shame since the visual presentation in this game is well done. Of course, you will see some area’s where it gets a bit rough or where it feels like you are playing a game from 2010 instead of 2021, but in my opinion, as long as the presentation of the game sets the right mood without having too much visual glitches or clashing art styles, I think it shouldn’t matter if the game looks like you need the latest graphics card or your old laptop from when you were younger.
Occasionally I had some moments where I felt that the visuals felt a bit more rushed or unpolished like the rest of the game. But, I didn’t focus on these moments since the charm of the world kept pulling me in and I didn’t stop enjoying this game at all.
In terms of animations, I was quite impressed. It’s a shame that sometimes small objects like planks do glitch out a bit but that’s more a problem with the engine then the animations. The only thing I feel that would improve in terms of the animations is a bit more visual flair when you are using your telekenic powers.
At first, I felt that the soundtrack of this game was totally disconnected from the game. I felt that it didn’t match at all. But, when I gave it some thought, I started to understand what the developer was going for. The soundtrack really fits the world before it was destroyed. Now, there are a lot of silent moments in this game that helps with the tense atmosphere but when the music kicks in, you get the feeling that you are destroying the world which gives an even more creepy vibe.
Let’s go from talking about the soundtrack to talking about the sound effects. The guns feel great to fire and they sound amazing as well. The only thing I would add to the game is a bit more grunts to the enemies since it was a bit jarring sometimes when I entered a room with a lot of enemies that after their first shot started with their grunts.
In terms of visuals and audio, this game does a lot right but it needs some polishing in some area’s to get the game to the next level. It would improve the game so much if there was a bit more visual polish and if the sound effects gave a bit more hints to the player on how to solve a puzzle or when there are enemies nearby.
Now, in terms of the visuals, I would like to mention one thing. I think the option & FX UI is somewhat broken. Sometimes I didn’t display the background, sometimes it didn’t even pop-up and sometimes it was a combination of the two. But, I think this something that can be fixed in an update.
In conclusion, I think that this game is a prefect example of a diamond in the rough. All the elements for this game being amazing are there. But, the rough area’s hold the game back. Thankfully, most of the issues have to do with the lack of polish in some area’s. The issues aren’t game breaking and shouldn’t hinder the enjoyment of the game. Well, unless you feel that jank in games is something you don’t want of course.
Would I recommend this game? Oh yes, I would recommend this game to everybody who enjoys more story based FPS games like Half Life or Alan Wake. This game is quite enjoyable and for the low price of 14€, I think you get more than your money’s worth out of this game. While the game is a bit rough in some area’s at the moment of writing but the future patches will improve the game quite a lot.
With that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in a future article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.
2003’s Manhunt is a brutal, gritty title that occupies a strange place in Rockstar’s catalog as something that should be considered the company’s best work, yet it remains overshadowed by their own mega-hit franchises. This bleak, uncompromising meditation on the nature of voyeurism questioned the player’s participation in horrific bloodshed, and has since become something of a cult title — and PIGFACE is certainly one of its descendants.
Set in a post-industrial wasteland, PIGFACE places players in the role of a woman with a bomb in her head. Faceless handlers have assigned her to murder members of a drug-dealing gang across a handful of locations, and what little characterization the game offers has those same handlers shocked by how little pushback they receive from their living weapon – almost as if she’s as much down for all the murder as the people playing the game. The gameplay is as basic as the graphics – this looks like a Quake-era experience and feels like gritty, vicious shooters of that time, back when most titles were developed by a handful of people and when it was easier to smuggle bizarre and extreme content into even major titles.
After choosing a mission, the player picks their loadout from a decent arsenal – but in a twist that feels strange for an FPS (and may have been inherited from Manhunt) the player can only bring a single ranged weapon. This creates a bit of awkwardness, as the player is asked to decide on a playstyle before they have a sense of what the level is like, and pre-mission the briefings are not particularly voluminous. So, there’s often nothing to do but guess whether a sniper rifle or a shotgun is better for any given area, and if that doesn’t pan out, they can hope to snag a more appropriate weapon off of a dead body somewhere along the way.
The strange part is that for a game seemingly built around experimentation and taking chances, the developers punish players harshly for mistakes. Any time they fail a mission, a steep financial penalty is incurred. While guns only have to be bought once and ammo is free, healing syringes cost money, ensuring that if a player fails a particularly difficult level more than a couple of times, they’ll be forced to try again with even fewer resources, and consequently, less chance of success.
Enemy AI is also a little on the spare side at this point. I’m sure it’s a difficult to balance and all of the enemies can be best described as drug-addled wastrels, but they were remarkably unobservant and unresponsive whenever violence kicked off — enemies will watch a guard’s head get blown off with a sniper rifle, shrug, and then get right back to their patrol seconds later. Setting off explosives or blasting away with a machine gun might attract reinforcements, or it might not – enemies were largely unpredictable in an ‘is the AI broken and not responding to triggers?‘ kind of way.
Still, there’s plenty to be optimistic about here. The violence is every bit as brutal and upsetting as one would hope given PIGFACE’s obvious inspiration. There are huge blood spatters with every shot, and enemies scramble around and scream as they’re injured, making the whole thing feel doubly unpleasant.
This unpleasantness also permeates every bit of the world. Every room is full of trash and dirty needles. The player is asked to shut down drug factories, and all they find are a few drums and jars crudely linked together with hoses and tape. This game is about the absolute lowest-tier of criminal being executed by an assassin who lives in a dingy one-room apartment next to a set of elevated train tracks. It’s a celebration of the grindhouse aesthetic and seemingly pointless violence – although as the story gets developed in later updates, that might well change.
PIGFACE is in a rough Early Access state at the moment, with inconsistent enemies and no real narrative to speak of. I don’t expect the graphics to get any better – the low-end look is the point — and it’s a clear throwback to a rougher, more brutal past. Anyone lamenting that we never got a Manhunt 3 will find a lot to love here.
Assuming gameplay is rebalanced and more levels are added – I beat all five in just under an hour – this is extremely promising. Hopefully the devs manage to turn it into a more complete experience, as games this heartlessly brutal are few and far between.
Or maybe this kind of game being rare is a good thing? I’ll let history be the judge.
The post PIGFACE Preview appeared first on Gamecritics.com.
Welcome to the third week of November! We continue our regularly scheduled deep-dive into the world of indie games – and on that note, here are the releases we think you should keep an eye on this week!
Did the success of a horror ARG made by one college student surprise you in 2024? That one person who looked at the genre of mascot horror and grounded it in a plausible time period? It surprised me pleasantly. As an animation nerd, I appreciated a game that understood how important research is for immersive meta-fiction. Shipwrecked 64 supplemented its story-within-a-story, of a company overworking employees it exploits in unusual ways, with jumpscares and gorgeous animation. Now the world of Broadside Animation is back with hotels! We don't know if it has men with axes or twin girls since all the characters in-game are anthropomorphized creatures, but we know the hype is real.
Note that the ARG isn't over; Broadside Animation's shenanigans will unfold over a series of website updates before releasing a Steam game titled Hotel Investigation 09. The updates, titled "Phases," will crack the Easter eggs, revealing what happened to Broadside after the CEO engaged in unethical deeds, and not to improve stock options for investors or to fuel his ego.
While we have to wait for the full HI-09, as creator Squeaks d'Corgeh abbreviates it, a preview game is available online. Go to https://hi-09.com/ to play a demo nicknamed The Waiting Room. If you would rather get the Cliff Notes, there are playthroughs and streams online.
Squeaks d'Corgeh has worked on Shipwrecked 64 for three to five years, first releasing the game in 2022. Squeaks then retooled the game and reintroduced it to the world in January 2024.
Full disclosure: Squeaks and I both support the YouTuber Nightmind through Patreon, and thus know each other in a social Discord. In fact, Discord was how I first found out about Shipwrecked 64 when Nightmind started streaming and analyzing it. He's also shared some progress with little spoilers, and I may have the twenty-second song stuck in my head for a while (I hope it becomes a meme with the full release). Squeaks also offered to read this draft and fact-check it, and he has permission to modify anything that seems too spoiler-y.
If you want a detailed recap of what happened in Shipwrecked 64, my thoughts are here. But to make a long story short, a cutesy video game paying homage to the Nintendo 64 era had evidence of murder. Not just murder, but also rich people trying to emulate Victor Frankenstein while adding cute mascots to the mix. One heir to corporate corruption mixed with generational trauma wants to find the truth, but releasing it to the world may have dire consequences.
In line with Broadside Animation attempting to prove it could compete with Disney during its 1980s flop era, they opened nine hotels to host Studiogrounds theme park guests. Only eight opened, while the ninth one became a ghost-hunting spot. The new game, where we literally have to wait for the next round of horrors, is set inside this mystery hotel.
In the Waiting Room demo on the H09 website, Stumbler comes back for an encore from Shipwrecked 64. He serves as our introductory narrator, though Chief Wulf also makes audio cameos. An artist who lost his hands but has great dreams, Stumbler gives random facts about Leonardo da Vinci and discusses procrastination. He shows more awareness of his plight and the reasons behind his creation, both inside and outside the Broadside canon.
Tragically, Stumbler knows there's nothing we can do to fix his situation. He knows he was created for the developer to vent about a real person. The player has to either follow the rules or break boundaries, which hurts the NPCs; we don't have a compromise or a means to help Stumbler. Stumbler uses his narration to vent about his plight and provide necessary exposition.
Meanwhile, the player is a new animal, Officer Howlz. Howlz has to explore this recreation of Hotel 09 to rescue a hostage. He seems to take Stumbler's monologuing and warnings in stride despite Stumbler's occasional nihilism. So far, Howlz and the player can use his camera to uncover secrets. The rooms, however, don't yet allow for progression beyond that.
The Waiting Room hints at a meta-narrative that covers crossover episodes. Howlz isn't part of the original Shipwrecked 64 crew, instead hailing from another Cogware Game, Blundercover. It makes me wonder why he's game jumping to solve this mystery. A real-life Nintendo equivalent would be Mario tunneling into the Castlevania world to stomp on vampires, while in edutainment, it would be Reader Rabbit running to help the Cluefinders. Some fans have theorized that the Waiting Room and the Hotel 09 ARG are preparing players for a Blundercover "recreation".
If the secrets of Shipwrecked 64 involved murder and necromancy, what could Blundercover reveal that would be even worse or more dramatic? What is worse than murder?
That Squeaks has been able to keep spoilers under wraps is amazing. He has an audience that wants to uncover more Broadside Animation secrets. One video game has linked the company to workplace abuse and murder. We aren't going into the theme park, but Hotel 09 may have its own secrets without needing the Disney or Universal analogy.
It's going to be a long wait for the whole game to be released and for the next Broadside chapter to be revealed. Still, the community is waiting patiently, carefully viewing every update and Easter Egg. Saving Bucky was not an option, but maybe the other NPCs still have a chance.
Like the old saying goes: "One man's trash is another man's treasure."
As if fished out from some old bin at a yard sale, Kingdoms of the Dump feels like a lost classic that somehow flew under your radar for years. Perhaps a childhood favourite, discovered by chance at a used game store, a blind purchase of a dusty cartridge with the promise and allure of adventure, nothing but a cover image to stir the imagination.
We all have such tales of childhood revelry, where a passion for the medium burgeoned into a flame. Long drives home looking at the manual in the back seat, late nights lost in a magical world, bathed in the glow of the CRT TV, your hand gliding across the static of the screen.
If there is nostalgia in these words, then this is the cartridge for you.
Creators Roach and Everdredd are no strangers to the world of the used and discarded. Working as janitors for the past 13 and 9 years, respectively, the two envisioned a magical world of garbage, born of grime and waste.
"They say 'write what you know,'" said creator and director, Roach.
Roach and Everdredd were neighbors as kids, and they began creating games early. From crude board games to a Pokémon knock-off on business cards, to eventually working with RPG Maker on the PSX, it was a passion that lingered into adulthood.
"I wanted to create a children's book as a commercial side project. Pulling from my job as inspiration, we started to work on creating the concept of the Lands of Fill, and what would eventually become the Kingdoms of the Dump. I became so enamored with the world we were creating, it wasn't long before I turned back to what I knew best: creating games. It was easy to convince Matt (Everdredd) to expand it into a full outline. The story came to us almost fully formed in our minds, and while we would spend the next decade shaping it into what it is today, the initial concept was so strong, much of it remains intact."
But the two knew they would need a team to reach the vision they had created. RPG Maker had its limitations, and there were the vast visuals to think of and music to accompany it. So they created an RPG Maker proof-of-concept to recruit their team.
"Maybe fifteen years ago? My composer bobbyghostly sought me out on AOL instant messenger, after seeing some of my screenshots in an rpgmaker forum. We collaborated on Eagleland (an Earthbound fan game) together after that, and he made some seriously impressive work that unfortunately never saw the light of day. I immediately had him in mind when I was developing the KotD prototype, and he made the midis that were used in it. So he has been on board from the beginning."
Roach and Everdredd would go on to recruit William Kage, known for his stellar SNES-inspired albums and sound fonts. They even had a guest track by Hiroki Kikuta of Secret of Mana and Koudelka fame, bringing a touch from those golden years, from whence melodies still echo in your head.
"William Kage was brought on in 2017 when we moved out of the prototype phase and into pre-production. I had seen him at MAGFest showing off his SNES sound fonts and kept him in the back of my mind. Later, I pitched the vision to him via email to see if he would be interested in joining forces. The balance would be kind of a Mitsuda/Uematsu split ala Chrono Trigger. We've been working together ever since."
DM404, Cosmocha33, Evgenij, and Francis Coulombe joined as their art team, bringing an authentic SNES aesthetic. Their combined efforts are both rich and detailed, making a landfill a thing of beauty.
"Solar Mongoose, our programmer, was found on reddit and before long we brought in the "Dreamsloth" devs from Duelyst II to lend more muscle getting the game finished."
And so the two janitors were now a small team, and with that, "The Sanitation Department" was formed, and The Lands of the Fill came to life.
Kingdoms of the Dump revels in its garbage influence. From the environment, characters, and even down to game mechanics, it uses every bit of its source material creating an imaginative and unique world. It's a world filled with scrap dragons, toxic sludge snails, warrior roaches, and a fridge with something left inside too long that now hungers. A giant washing machine looms over the countryside, oozing bubbles unceasingly, home to the Laundromancers of the Kingdom of Detergos. An ornate, bookshelf tower rises high into the sky, where the Librarians of Book's End seek what is overdue. Cardboard Knights guard the Castle of Garbagia, nestled between mountains of trash, tires, and exports of moldy vegetables.
"We've spent many years creating the Lands of Fill in over-detail. I think players will be surprised how in-depth it all is."
Roach and Everdredd mined their concept down to the very bottom of the dumpster, finding inspiration in their everyday work. Every item, bug, mashed-together object, and mysterious thing better left unknown, was potential for the Lands of Fill.
"'Garbage Juice' is the Elixir of the game, that's what all the Janny's call the liquid that collects at the bottom of the dumpster. Something truly foul to us is one of the best healing items in the game."
Even their breaks would surprise them with inspiration.
"I remember writing a serious council scene, and I was at work in the breakroom. And there's a pile of junk in the corner, a green bean bag, a water cooler, and a cardboard box with a globe on it. Boom. We had the whole council right there. From a sad pile of trash to some of our core side characters."
They wouldn't be the only trash-inspired characters. Kingdoms of the Dump follows Dustin Binsley, the trashcan squire, on his quest across the Five and Half Kingdoms of the Dump to rescue the trash-picked King and defeat the Toxic Grimelin Army. He will be joined by his best friend Ratavia (a thief rat), Walker Jacket (the most feared librarian in Book's End), Lute (a broken instrument and understudy to Walker), Cerulean (a wizard of the wash), and Musk (a stinkbug and master of infiltration from the Buggarian underworld). Together, they will journey across the kingdoms to hopefully prevent all-out war.
"It could, you know, come off as just a goofy thing, the whole idea. It could get really stupid if you let it. My favorite joke in the whole game is that it treats the concept completely seriously. It's got a garbage coat of paint but it's full of soul inside."
Alongside that coat of garbage, Kingdoms of the Dump is designed to evoke a 90s JRPG flavour, a trait it pulls off so well it feels less like tribute and more like time-travel. But the creators didn't want to be constrained by the limitations of the SNES.
"Our goal was always to capture the spirit of the times, not to be overly hung up on the restrictions. The SNES was all about doing clever things with what they had, and we try to keep true to that."
What emerges is something new that feels like your memory of that time and those games.
Source: Official Website.
Unrestricted, Kingdoms of the Dump knows what to pick from its dumpster diving. It incorporates many fan-favourite elements of JRPGs and combines them in one package. It's narrative-based, featuring turn-based combat with tile effects and timed hits. Field exploration features jumping and climbing, adding layers to exploration and moving around hazards and enemies. Players can quickly toggle between the characters on the field to use their unique abilities, like scraping junk and metal enemies as Dustin, shooting as Walker, and climbing ropes as Ratavia. Lastly, there is a large Mode-7-inspired world map to explore by land, sea, and air.
Something new from something old.
Trash is a funny thing. What we see as garbage is the amalgamation of things that were once special to someone. It's made up of once-cherished possessions, wrappings for a gift, things used so much they eventually broke, scraps of that which nourished us, things that just helped us through a day, and the lost things never to be found. It is like a book at a yard sale with a message of love scrawled inside, or that favourite game someone outgrew. It was a Super Nintendo cartridge I had found as a kid, later sold away; a cartridge that made my love of storytelling and this medium grow and set me on a writerly path.
What makes Kingdoms of the Dump special is that Roach and Everdredd took the old and discarded, making a world that reignites its purpose and beauty, and they deliver it in a package reminiscent of the old. Those games that are special to us, those pixels and stories created memories that last forever.
"Classic JRPGs and Super Nintendo games are what Matt and I grew up playing as kids, so we knew the power they had. I remember us renting "Final Fantasy III" (6) and "Mario RPG" from Wow! Video for weeks on end, playing through the entirety of the games that way. Now the idea that others could be picking up our game, and be inspired and go on to create something of their own one day... how cool is that?"
Steam page