Throughout July and August we were treated to three separate gaming events/showcases with a healthy presence of indie games. The Mini Indie Showcase, MIX Next 2023, and week of Gamescom each brought us some great new games to look forward to, as well as updates and closer looks at indies that had already caught our collective eye. Here are 15 of my favorites. And, just like last time, I’ve collated these trailers into a playlist for your viewing convenience.

Cross Blitz (Steam)

Cross Blitz already presents itself with a serious amount of polish, evident in the first moments of its trailer as its card battling grid springs to life, complete with attack animations, status effect signifiers, and anime-esque intercuts that ratchet up the action. Traditional deckbuilding has fallen out of favor with deckbuilders as the genre has grown more and more popular, so it’s oddly refreshing to see a return to form being explored so fervently, unskilled at it as I personally am. The “isle of pirates” setting is also a tried and true classic, this time with a furry (and whatever else they feel like including) sort of twist; poster child Redcroft is a charming, boisterous lion with a toothy grin, clearly beloved by the developers and fans alike. Cross Blitz will be boasting both a singleplayer campaign and challenge roguelite mode when it launches in Early Access. Judging by the quality on display, that’s quite the offer already.

Crypt Custodian (Steam)

I haven’t played the well-liked Islets — I’m burnt out on 2D platformer-style metroidvanias, and wasn’t that into them to begin with — but Kyle Thompson is clearly an extremely talented developer, and I’m happy to see so much of that game’s DNA carrying over into a style I gel with a little more. Crypt Custodian is a top-down metroidvania, replete with  abilities and upgrades, all of it in Kyle Thompson’s signature, cute-with-a-twinge-of-creepy art style. There’s whimsy and humor, too, inherent even in the concept of a glorified graveyard keeper fighting with a magical(?) broom. Even from what little we know of it so far through press releases and trailers, Crypt Custodian is shaping up to be another slam dunk with its unique and beautifully rendered point of view.

Crystals of Irm (Steam)

The Crystals of Irm trailer immediately enthralls with its chunky, jewel-toned, fantastical dungeon crawling setting, and it’s sure not to lose your interest after that, either. It displays a hectic-looking battle; a grid that moves not in tactical turns but in real-time, with a white dot (presumably the player) frantically scuttling around the board to dodge fireballs and pick up items. From there, it treats you to glimpses of a classic, 8-bit overworld, as well as a 3D town chock full of NPCs and quests. A lot of information is presented in only a minute and three seconds, but it’s all looking good so far — dungeon crawling, a great art style, a cool, unique combat system, and a very energetic soundtrack.

Doggy Don’t Care (Steam)

We’ve had goats, geese, and every other manner of critter attempted in the loose genre of “animals getting silly with it.” Although some seemed like shallow follow-ups to the immensely viral Goat Simulator, there’s a deep-seated joy we humans have in both causing mischief ourselves and watching funny animals do the same. Doggy Don’t Care is about a vacant-looking pug left home alone with full run of the house. I adore having a small but tightly packed space to explore in games, as with Chibi-Robo or Katamari Damacy, and Doggy Don’t Care looks to deliver. Despite the relatively small size of the home and attached yard shown in the trailer, our doggy runs amok in all manner of creative ways.

Dome-King Cabbage (Steam)

From this relatively surface level glimpse, Dome-King Cabbage appears as a psychedelic mishmash of ideas, simultaneously an artist’s entire media tab, a Blender showcase, and collections of images that go hard, the likes of which you only see in commercials of days past. Oh, and there’s also a video game in there, somewhere. It’s unclear to me how exactly this visual novel will operate, but its setting — that is, within a creature-collecting RPG — is clear from the outset. Each entity in the trailer could spawn their own collectible toy line or blind bag series, ranging from sweet, clay-like animals and pretty mage girls to musculoskeletal effigies and blocky flying ships.

Geo Mythica (Steam)

Although it’d make a retro purist recoil in fear, Geo Mythica is scratching all the right itches of a 90s JRPG-loving brain. All the elements are there — none the least of which the 90s fantasy game’s love of just odd shit. The fantasy genre is, frankly, extremely boring nowadays, with the same Tolkien-inspired copy/paste present in damn near everything. Geo Mythica, in its throwback nature, has tapped into a type of fantasy I sorely miss. Our main character is a football player with a sword accompanied by a dragon in a Hawaiian shirt, riding a triceratops and fighting jesters spitting spiders in New Orleans. In other words, it looks like a game with a vision, and that’s something I’ll always be drawn to.

Helltrench (Steam)

Helltrench is emblematic of the “retro style with modern polish” trend in everything from sound to visuals to gameplay (at least in concept; these are trailers after all). Maneuver a seriously combat-outfitted submarine into and through the depths, shooting to shoot, shooting to move, and moving to survive. I love a sea creature as you may know, and I can’t be mad at anything about this game’s style. Its color palettes, UI, and tilesets are of particular note in their beauty. I can only hope this roguelike plays as good as it looks when it comes out.

Liminal Phase (Steam)

VR games are nothing new, and I can’t say I’m all that entrenched in the culture considering its extremely high barrier to entry, but I swear the limits of mindfuck that VR allows have hardly been pushed. Although Liminal Phase may appear at first glance to be a simple action horror FPS, its unique qualities are quick to shine through. Both the game and our main character have a reverence for the 90s video game scene, one that’ll clearly come back to bite the latter. The world transforms from mundane real world settings infested with monsters to cartoonish, old school gaming visuals, and everything in between. It’s unclear what precisely awaits us, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Planetiles (Steam)

I love, love, love a puzzle citybuilder. Serene grooves and a cool 60s style smarten up Planetiles, while motley Tetrominos, evolving biomes, and natural disasters further complicate the spherical sim. As involved as the game may seem, its overall chill vibes — and the presence of the undo button I spied — have me hopeful for a nice challenge I can still zone out to.

Project Anomaly: Urban Supernatural Investigator (Steam)

Whether it’s ghosts appearing in photos, cameras capturing the soul, or the elusive Bigfoot videos of yore, humans have long viewed cameras as a lens into the spirit world. Project Anomaly: Urban Supernatural Investigator naturally expands upon this concept, imagining a world where cryptids, urban legends, mythological creatures, and other spirits are 100% real, and often causing trouble. As an investigator, you’ll use a supernaturally-equipped camera to find, speak with, befriend, and assist a variety of paranormal entities. Luckily, it looks like most of them are friendly...

Quadroids (Steam)

I’ve played my share of puzzle platformers, even those which make use of multiple runs or two-player like The Swapper or Fireboy and Watergirl, but I’ve never played one where a singular player is meant to control four screens at the same time. That’s the premise of Quadroids: a challenge of multitasking and dexterity. It promises over 100 mind-bending levels, each with their own hazards, twists, turns, and solutions.

Thank Goodness You’re Here (Steam)

There have been few games to British as hard as Thank Goodness You’re Here does, if the trailer is anything to go by. Northern England serves as the setting for this comedic side scrolling adventure — or “slapformer,” as it calls itself — and the devs are laser-focused on pushing the mundane absurdity of such a place to its maximum. Take the fish market, for example. Alongside the usual fare, they sell both cigarettes and cigarette-stuffed fish, and if you look closely, you can spy three labeled storage boxes in the background: tab ends, fish ends, and of course, bell ends. Sneaking a cock joke into a Nintendo of America trailer? Brilliant.

This Bed We Made (Steam)

The fast-approaching and punderfully named This Bed We Made seems to focus on the adventure gamer’s most prominent trait: nosiness. Hotel maid Sophie, allowed unfettered access to guests’ personal belongings as is the norm, is quick to stumble into a mystery. Strange photos and fake names point to something greater afoot in the hotel, and it’s up to Sophie — along with her choice of partner — to solve it. Well, I say choice of partner, but the multiple nods to queer women’s relationships, me being who I am, and the blandness of the male option make that decision a total nonstarter. No shade.

Universe For Sale (Steam)

Universe For Sale is set beneath the swirling clouds of Jupiter, predominantly, it seems, in a “bizarre bazaar”; a warm, if not ramshackle, community of humanoids, robots, and everything in between trying to make ends meet under a sheet of acid rain. The hand-drawn visuals only add further to the incredible imagination of the sci-fi setting — cloud cover and fabric in particular look absolutely stunning in these artists’ rusty, lived-in style. As far as gameplay goes, the game’s trailer and associated store pages indicate a much more narrative-focused adventure, although not one devoid of player input. Either way, the focus is clearly on telling a story about people.

Vivaland (Steam)

Even before considering the several hundred dollars of DLC, I could never really get into The Sims. I couldn’t help but feel a bit left out as my friends happily spent hours upon hours in the game, regaling me with tales of grim reapers and cheating husbands and drowning in pools without ladders. While The Sims never grabbed me, perhaps the ability to design homes with my friends and terrorize their little dolls with some of my own could bring it home. Vivaland is a life simulation game, yes, but it’s made the bold decision to make multiplayer a core component of its gameplay. That’s the big selling point, of course, but it’s clear that the development team is very familiar with their competition, and some quality-of-life changes are to be expected. An eagle-eyed Sims player could tell me otherwise, but I think the home customization options showcased in Vivaland’s trailer are looking pretty robust, even compared to the current build of The Sims 4. It’s an ambitious project, no doubt.