Echoes of The End Xbox Series X Review 7/10 "a visually stunning action-adventure title that fails to entirely engage" ⚔️ @MyrkurGames @deepsilver #IndieGame #GameDev

Myrkur Games began work on Echoes of the End back in 2016, and that length of time and dedication shines through in a lot of the visuals and audio work, but the core puzzling that makes up the bulk of the gameplay feels somewhat inserted, and actively works against the games’ strengths, meaning that each area soon stops feeling exciting and evocative, as you instead grit your teeth and wonder what contrived puzzle you’ll have to work your way past in order to proceed further through this genuinely beautiful and desolate world.

Echoes of the End begins with Ryn, our heroine, and her younger brother Cor, as they make their way through a rocky, mountainous region of their land of Aema. Ryn is a ‘vestige’, a person who has magical powers feared by the majority, leaving her a fiercely independent spirit who prefers solace to the city. Cor, on the other hand, is a youthful optimist that seeks out adventure naively, often at his own risk. As the game begins, we find that large, vital crystal formations called ‘wards’ have begun to be destroyed, and whilst trying to find out what is causing this, Cor gets kidnapped, leaving Ryn to try and locate him with the help of Abram, a mysterious older adventurer that luckily happens across her path just as her brother is taken away.

Britt’s Mini Review Round Up! - Ringlorn Saga, HeistGeist, Party Party Time 3, Doodle World Deluxe, Rally Arcade Classics 📝💻🎮 #IndieGame #GameDev

It’s been another one of those periods, where we have simply received too much indie gold, and things are piling up here at the Welsh branch of GF! Below you’ll find some snappy articles on games that we’ve played recently, as well as our thoughts on them. Hopefully, something will catch your eye, and in no time at all a personal indie darling will be curled up on your Switch (or Steam Deck!) tonight.

📝Game Title – Ringlorn Saga

💻Developer – Graverobber Foundation

🎮Platform Played -  Switch (also available on – PS4, PC, Linux)

🗣️ “classic bump ‘n slash gameplay with CRT pixel visuals”

"I have to admit that I don’t usually use filters when I play games on modern televisions, but the warmth of the CRT in Ringlorn Saga completely won me over. A game that doesn’t outstay its welcome at a few hours in length, Ringlorn Saga puts you in the leathery boots of a prince that has collapsed after making his way through a magical barrier in a bid to follow in the footsteps of his father, the king, and must track him down in this strange land. Very much a throwback to Japanese adventures of the mid-80’s, the combat boils down to you choosing which attack works best (slash/stab/shield bash) and then walking into the enemy to chip away at their health, timing is key!

Whilst the extremely old-school gameplay will be a huge positive to some, others may perhaps furrow their brows at the grindy gameplay, the classic 8-bit visuals and absolutely wonderful soundtrack can’t be ignored, resulting in a game that not only captures the vibe of the vintage titles that it apes, but pulls you in with some seriously glorious music as well, good!"

Our Summer Festival 2 Nintendo Switch Review 7/10 "A Bunch of Mini-Games Set in a Japanese Festival" 🎈 @SAT_BOX_2011 #IndieGame #GameDev

We’ve covered a few Sat Box games here at GF, with the most recent being the very enjoyable Desktop Golf. This newest title takes us away from the links and instead plonks you and up to three other players in a Japanese festival in which you will find yourself doing everything from fishing through to dancing, and even cooking!

Psygnosis: Games People Play - Tome One - Book Review By Britt – Author - Christophe Boucourt / Publisher - Editions 64K 🔖📖 @editions64K

This is the first book that we’ve covered from French publishing house Editions 64K, and after reading it, I very much hope that it isn’t the last! For those out there with an interest in the early days of computing – and especially the Amiga – Psygnosis: Games People Play – Tome One covers the beloved UK developer / publisher Psygnosis from the days of their original formation right up until the mid-‘90s, leaving you thirsting for more, as Tome 2 promises to take us from 1995 through to the eventual studio closure in 2012.

First off, Editions 64K are a pleasure to work with and take their processes seriously, the book turned up swiftly and was incredibly well-packaged, almost to Bitmap Book levels of safety, with thick polystyrene corners ensuring that even during a bumpy delivery ride, your book will turn up in pristine condition. The cover of the book is mostly black, with a bold and stylish classic Psygnosis logo taking centre stage. ‘Psygnosis Tome One’ in a classic Psygnosis typeface runs down the spine, with the close-up ‘Owlface’ logo on the back, with a couple of blocks of synopsis text below.

A Cat and His Boy (also available on PC) - Developer – Howdy Riceball *a short and simple adventure in a Game Boy style* 🐈👦 #IndieGame #GameDev

A very short little side quest presented in a black & white Game Boy style, A Cat and His Boy puts you in the shoes paws of a cat, your owner – a little boy called Leif – has gone to sleep and you are left to roam the house and surrounding areas in vintage top-down Game Boy adventure style, coming across other characters and areas that require some pretty light problem solving.

A simple little title that can be completed in under an hour, A Cat and His Boy evoke the Game Boy style pretty tastily, with suitably chip tune music provided by Beatscribe.

Whilst this is a fun little game that touches on topics such as alienation and how an unstable household can affect the children involved, it’s such a breezy experience that things don’t get too heavy. 

Lovely sprite work and music push this simple adventure along at a nice pace, whilst its short length means it can be completed over a cup of tea – or perhaps a saucy glass of wine. Looking forward to seeing what Howdy Riceball dream up next!

Giant Machines 2017 Xbox Series X Review 5/10 *Big machines with big problems* 🚜

Recently released on X Box Series X, Giant machines 2017 comes from Polish studio Code Horizon, also know for The Way, 911 Operator, and Gold Mining Simulator. This being a title from 2017 means that it is showing its age somewhat, in terms of the visuals, but there also other, more serious issues that wind up making what could have been a wonderful trip through over-sized construction vehicles in various situations a plodding, technical mess that boils down to performing repetitive manoeuvres whilst hoping the controls don’t freeze up on you.

The game begins with a pretty solid opening, yes it all feels very ‘assety’ – par for the course with a lot of ‘simulator’ type games – but the Southern American drawl that acts as your mission co-ordinator comes over the radio and tells you that you need to get into a transport cart and head on over to an enormous structure to prepare it for silicon ore mining. Leaving the vehicle shed, there is an incredible sense of scale as you flick through the radio stations on offer and trundle across the empty desert ground to the excavation machine, first fixing a hose, then moving lining it up for the mining, drilling, filling up the haulage truck, and finally getting the ore out of the complex. Played mostly in first person perspective, with various cameras selectable when on a vehicle / machine, the sounds of construction work really well, with each machine having a real sense of weight and power to them. It’s when you want to actually ‘move’ them that the real problems come into play.

Alien Breakout Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 "An accessible, 100 level alien platformer!" 👽 @Vergiuu @eastasiasoft #IndieGame #GameDev

It’s easy to get burned out on certain genres, many times over the years I’ve moved from one epic RPG to the next and just sighed at the sheer weight of time-suck that I know is about to take place, and I’ve learned to switch to shorter, more succinct titles whenever this happens so that I don’t lose interest in gaming for a while. 

I was recently at this very point, and so fancied covering a few titles that were a little more pick-up-and-play friendly in style, cue Alien Breakout from developer Vergiu and publisher Eastasiasoft, folks who very much have a taste for this genre of games - a simple 2D platformer that’s perfect for beginners, has a player-friendly learning curve, and is just the ticket for some quick blasts of action!

Slaughter: The Lost Outpost Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 "Take Back Control of A Prison Run By Inmates!" 💥 #IndieGame #GameDev #SlaughterTheLastOutpost

Inmates of a massive, labyrinthine prison  have broken free and anarchy reigns, cue the entrance of your lone hero – named Russell, natch – a man who is here to bring law and order to chaos…by shooting everyone dead in a blizzard of bullets and gore.

A third-person shooter with a focus on head-on action as opposed to strategic, cover-based gameplay,  Slaughter: The Lost Outpost makes a solid first impression, running at 60 fps on the ageing Switch hardware, and the initial sections consisting of tense, close-quarter combat with armed prisoners, either blasting you from afar and dashing behind doors, or rushing you with knives. The industrial surroundings, little shortcuts through vents, and smooth ambient work gave off some pretty positive vibes for my first thirty minutes or so with the game.

Golden Tee Arcade Classics Xbox Series X Review 7/10 "True Golf Classics Approach The Tee Once More" ⛳ @DigitalEclipse #RetroGaming

The Golden tee series of golf games were a mainstay in arcades here in the UK back in the ‘90s, and I have many fond memories of playing them throughout the country on various holidays and trips (and more recently, thanks to the awesome folks at Timewarp Arcade in Bridgwater). It was always good to see golf games in amusement centres, with the main two being the Golden Tee series and of course, the mighty Neo Turf Masters.

What set Golden Tee apart, however, was the trackball…which we will talk about later.

Collectible Cars Shop Simulator Nintendo Switch Review 7.5/10 "That Endless Loop Has Become Oddly Relaxing" 🚗 @nostra_games_ #IndieGame #GameDev

Being the father of a four year old that has more Hot Wheels cars in our house than Oliver Reed has receipts from Oddbins in his back pocket, the chance to cover Nostra Games’ Collectible Cars Shop Simulator was one that I leapt at. 

Whilst it feels very ‘assety’ as a lot of the ‘simulator’ games can be, the lack of variety in NPC character models, fiddly controls, and endlessly looping music couldn’t put a dent in my enjoyment of the core gameplay – opening the store, hiring staff, upgrading where possible, and making dosh off flogging those sweet, sweet toy cars before closing up for the night and doing it all over again the next day.

Rallyallyally Nintendo Switch Review 5.5/10 *A chaotic racer that’s fun…for a few minutes* 🛣️ @hairyheartgames #IndieGame #GameDev

A multiplayer racing title from wonderfully named Scottish developers Hairy heart Games, Rallyallyally can be played with up to eight vehicles (a mixture of players and bots), in a game wherein the main goal is to grab a hold of a roll of road, and unroll it to the finish line! 

Upon completion of each section, points are awarded accordingly, and the hectic action rolls on until all three rounds are complete. Scattered powerups help add to the frenzy, and the simple visuals suit the on-screen action.

There are very few options available to customise your approach to Rallyallyally - although you can choose from a large variety of vehicles – and the game quickly becomes repetitive, with some of the environments getting in the way, and the zooming single-screen action sometimes tipping over from chaos into seeming randomness, as you struggle to even find yourself onscreen, or which direction in which you are currently zooming!

SUMMARY
A game that is fun for a short while, but the lack of customisation options combined with the fact that variety in the gameplay means that this is a tough one to recommend beyond those gamers that enjoy true, pure chaotic action in their racers.

5.5/10

🧊💦MELTING 🧊💦

GuliKit Elves 2 Controller Review By Britt 🎮 @GuliKitDesign

A couple of months ago, I covered the very cool Gulikit Elves 2 Pro Controller, and here we are covering their new Elves 2 controller, which is available now from Amazon!

In terms of shape and feel, there isn’t much distinction between the two - both being of high quality – but there’s a lot going on under the proverbial bonnet, which I’ll highlight below. The main visual difference is that they come in different styles, for instance, the Elves 2 Pro comes in black and Japanese Sega Saturn-style form, whereas the Elves 2 comes in black, or coral – which really stands out for me.

Both controllers also come with an included cover, which I personally find incredibly useful, especially if you store your controllers in a drawer, or travel with them a lot, I can’t express how it keeps them from being knocked around and damaged when not in use, I wish this was an industry standard!

GuliKit continue to produce controller at an extremely high level of quality that scratch that retro itch whilst being affordable, all the while sporting modern convenience, it’s a 100% record of thumbs up for their products here at GF!

Ready or Not Xbox Series X Review 8/10 “A Surprisingly Dark Descent Tied To SWAT Tactics” 👮‍♀️💥 @VOIDInteractive #IndieGame #GameDev

I tend to play online co-op games with fellow GFer Transvaal, and our usual approach of ‘shoot, shoot, shoot’ sometimes hits a wall when playing games frolicking on the more tactical side of life, such as here with VOID Interactive’s Ready or Not, a game playable in both single and multiplayer modes that casts you in the role of a SWAT team commander in the fictional Los Suenos Police Department (LSPD) as you make your way through a surprisingly generous amount of missions, in the hope of arresting the guilty whilst protecting the innocent. Each mission leading on from the last – although you wouldn’t necessarily know this until you get a high enough ranking in completion of said missions, which adds key context to your actions, filling out the narrative background.

Victory Heat Rally Nintendo Switch Review 7/10 "A Super Vibrant Retro Racer" 🚗💨 @skydevilpalm @PTonicFriends @VHRgame #GameDev #IndieGame

A vibrant racing game with retro-arcade style mechanics, Victory Heat Rally makes a great first impression with its energetic audio, bright graphics and kinetic sense of energy. Indeed, whilst the devs of Victory Heat Rally are based in LA, it’s very easy to assume that this is a Japanese-made game, so strong are those classic arcade vibes! 

Featuring many stages and environments, the order of the day here is super-fast arcade racing. It’s a very bare bones setup in terms of the core game loop, the tracks are often short, and you can whip around them in around thirty seconds, with the high speed action being all about avoiding other cars and managing your boosts. 

Tiny Pixels Vol. 2 – Stormy Knights Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 “Bite-sized, princess-rescuing action” 🏰👸⚔️ @eastasiasoft #IndieGame #GameDev

A snappy, heavily timing-based adventure game that casts you in the role of a knight on a quest to rescue several princess trapped in separate castles, you’ll find yourself adjusting to the simple control setup quickly, and timing your movements, shield blocks, dashes, swipes and magic accordingly as you cut your way through the enemies ahead of you, in single-stage battles.

Hole Digging Master Nintendo Switch Review 8/10 “Take a deep breath, and dig...deep.” 🕳️⛏️ @nostra_games_ #IndieGame #GameDev

I have to admit to covering Hole Digging Master out of sheer curiosity, the premise seemed somewhat bland, but hey – Fishing Vacation was awesome! There was also the fact that the trailer promises mysteries and treasures, tied to relaxing gameplay...good.

Hole Digging Master begins with a swift tutorial that introduces the game mechanics and core loop, that is – you dig, you sell, you upgrade...you dig. Played out entirely in POV, Hole Digging Master takes place entirely in a garage and the nearby garden, with a large square marked out on the grass, and the surrounding paraphernalia suggesting that the reason for digging – initially, at least! - is to get a swimming pool on the go. And so you grab your – erm – battery-powered shovel, and get to work. 

BrewOtaku – The Homebrew Gaming Magazine Review By Britt 📖 @brewotakumag #IndieGames

 📖 Physical gaming magazines are a beautiful thing, especially when they are focused on more specialist, niche topics as it adds to that sense of a community built purely on passion. Cue BrewOtaku! A hefty 78-page magazine that celebrates all thing homebrew, with each page packed to the gills with nothing but information about upcoming homebrew projects in the form of news, reviews, and interviews.

Running since January 2024, BrewOtaku is run by a small team that have their work cut out for them, judging by the sheer amount of games covered in each issue (it’s genuinely impressive!) Produced on glossy paper and currently stocked at Gaming Museum Wien in Austria, and RETRO Games in Germany, if -like me – you live outside of these areas, you can order the physical or digital copies online via this link.

The cover stories on one of the latest issues are the Monkey Island series of games, as well as S.E.U.C.K (Shoot ‘Em Up Construction Kit), as well as an interview with Francesco Terracciano (Straynus game studio, based in Spain) discussing their new game Cronela’s Mansion – which looks to be quite cool and influenced by Maniac Mansion – as well as a plethora of mini-coverage, and articles on both commercial and free games – more on that later.

The Secret of the Four Winds SEGA Mega Drive Review 8.5/10 “One of the Most Technically impressive Mega Drive Games Ever Released” 💨 @Kai_MSX #IndieGame #GameDev

Kai Magazine Software seemed to burst from the ground with the sole mission of pushing the Mega Drive beyond its known boundaries and limits. I’ve been lucky enough to cover all of their MD releases over the last five years or so, and each one has breathed new life into Sega’s much-loved 16-bit console, and given thousands of retro gamers worldwide reason to boot up the black Sega classic.

From the tongue-in-cheek MERCS-esque Metal Dragon through the Metroidvanian Life On Mars to the run-n-gun ‘tastic Life On Earth: Reimagined, Kai Magazine Software push the hardware in different directions, through differing genres – but none have felt quite so special as The Secret of the Four Winds.

Beginning with Inspector Henge in pursuit of a suspect – a suspect running on foot as Henge chases in his cop car!- resulting in them both entering an abandoned warehouse, where the suspect disappears and Henge watches a man die, stealing his gun to discover it’s a supernatural weapon that kills ghosts, it’s safe to say that The Secret of the Four Winds has one of – if not, THE – best kick-off to a Mega Drive game, helped immensely by the anime-style cut scenes, and – I will be talking about this a lot – the incredible, INCREDIBLE music.

Honestly, when the game first booted up and I could select between between the enhanced or standard music, I sat bolt upright the moment the energetic, sax and guitar laden soundtrack kicked in during the intro chase, it was a clarity – and style – of audio that I had simply never heard come from my Mega Drive in the thirty-five years I’ve spent with the console, and on the strength of that aspect alone, my genuine, reflexive initial response was “well, this game is getting 10/10 as far as I’m concerned”.

Even more impressive was the fact that, when I switched the audio to ‘FM’ style, there was still a gorgeous swing to everything, that called to mind the saucy soundtrack of Side Pocket (which is yearning for a vinyl release).

Moving away from the soundtrack though, the visuals are tasty, and depict a top-down world in which the characters that you control – an eventual choice of three in total  - move through with quite a unique control scheme. One button runs – and drains stamina – whilst the others act as aim and shoot. It initially feels very esoteric, but quickly becomes second nature as you make your way through the mostly night-time locations that the game takes you through.

Whilst some stages require simple detective work and puzzle solving, the vast majority of The Secret of the Four Winds involves making your way through the waves of enemies – most of which are weak to light and strongest in darkness – as you hold down the aim/shoot buttons, taking them out before they can get anywhere near you.

Whilst there are three characters to – eventually – choose from, and there are RPG aspects of the game that level up stats such as accuracy, health points, and power etc. this is the part of the game that starts off positively, but becomes a crutch relatively quickly.

Look, I love this game, and I’ll reiterate that the retro Japanese style of visuals, incredible music, beautiful physical presentation, nuanced and bold control scheme, as well as the mood and narrative of the game is fantastic...but my word, does the core gameplay result in a bone-crushing grind. Not just a grind of the type you’d see in most modern games, where you hit a rut and go off exploring, giving at least a little variety in the proceedings, this is a game in which you hit various points that result in you incrementally making your way forwards through areas that are just designed to kill you over and over until the numbers in your stats are high enough for you to make progress.

Thus making what is initially a thrill in how it blends action and RPG (and that world-beating music), and the heart of the enjoyment of the game itself an eventual brick-sieving, repetitive sludge-fest of progress. I promise you that there will never be a speed run of this game, the grind is too built-in to ignore.

SUMMARY

Kai Magazine Software are one of the most exciting developers around for the Mega Drive, and The Secret of the Four Winds is a game that deserves to grace a lot of shelves, pushing the Mega Drive not only through its saucy music, but also in blending genres, visuals and creating a mood in general that seems genetically designed to please me on a cellular level.

That said, the incessant grind and repetition that kicks in after a couple of hours can’t be be ignored, and perhaps leans too heavily on retro-Japanese design philosophies to connect with me, personally. That said. The music? Play it again, Sam.

Purchase Link

Locomoto Nintendo Switch Review 8/10 “A wonderfully cosy train ride with a few unfortunate bumps” 🚂🚂🚂 @GreenTileGames #CosyGame #IndieGame #GameDev

As the father of a four year old who loves trains, Locomoto was a no-brainer when it came to having the chance to cover it. I don’t particularly have a history with the cosy game genre, but I have enjoyed Stardew Valley in the past, and watched my other half pound hundreds of hours into Animal Crossing over the years – a game I find too oddly regimented to enjoy.

Locomoto allows you to create an animal character, who naughtily ‘borrows’ an abandoned train in a bid to help the local villages and towns with the various issues that raise their cheeky heads, thus begins our adventures in the world of Locomoto.

Kiborg Xbox Series X Review 7.5/10 "lock ‘n load...again, and again, and again" 👊💥 @SobakaStudio #IndieGame #GameDev

I was quite a keen follower of Kiborg during its development, developers Sobaka Studio (I previously covered their game Redeemer in a past, pre-GF life) very clearly have a knack for guttural combat, and the trailers promised a silky smooth 60fps title featuring some very involved melee combat that gnawed away at the part of me that still craves visceral versions of the 16-bit brawlers that used to rule the roost such as Streets of Rage, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs... and Crisis Beat. 

A genre that is very much alive today thanks to Lizardcube and Cartel Studios frankly amazing Mother Russia Bleeds (another blast from the past). Kiborg though, leaned into a 3D realm and seemed to encompass the glowing, beautiful future that titles such as Fighting Force merely hinted at. 

What Kiborg ended up delivering, however, was a brawling rogue-lite that has an incredible amount in it’s favour, but feels oddly limited by the very rogue genre that it so leans into. This is a solid and fun game that could have been truly great.