For many gamers worldwide, the Summer Game Fest was the gaming event to look forward to after E3 cancelled their trade event. The festival, hosted by industry veteran Geoff Keighley, certainly didn’t disappoint with a slew of heavy-hitting game announcements from some of the biggest studios. But over here at LadiesGamers, our eyes laser-targeted some of the cosier, more wholesome games made by ambitious indie game developers.
Day one of the Summer Games Fest 2023 also included Day of the Devs 2023, a one-hour digital showcase presented by Double Fine and iam8bit, involving interviews with other game indie game developers and some interesting game announcements.
Let’s check out nine of the games that caught our attention!
Space Trash Scavenger
Space exploration is an intriguing cosy destination, but in Space Trash Scavenger, your main obstacle is all the trash floating about! Your job as a jetpack-equipped astronaut is to scour asteroids, outposts, and spaceships for debris and other space junk for you to collect and process into useful materials. From there, it’s all base building and all that survival sandbox jazz!
Human: Fall Flat 2
Five years after Human: Fall Flat sold over 2 million copies across PC and console platforms, indie developer No Brakes Games announced its sequel, Human: Fall Flat 2! And it’s bringing all the physics-based, light-hearted mayhem along for the ride! Play solo or assemble a squad of up to 8 people to tackle puzzle platforming challenges while wrestling with the game’s new physics engine.
Fae Farm
Remember Fae Farm, the supposed Nintendo Switch exclusive revealed at the September 2022 Nintendo Direct? Well, developer Phoenix Labs surprised us with an announcement of the cosy farm sim RPG heading to Steam as well! With support for a four-player co-op and some promising fantasy adventuring, I can imagine Fae Farm adding nicely to the growing pile of farming games!
Fae Farm launches on Steam and Switch on September 8th.
Beastieball
Can you name a single game in the volleyball RPG genre? Leave it to the team behind our two thumbs up recipient Chicory: A Colorful Tale to fill in the blank with an ambitious title called Beastieball. The game’s art style gives me these Pokémon and Cassette Beasts vibes, and I’m totally here for it!
You can find the Beastieball’s Kickstarter page here.
Été
Été puts you in the shoes of a travelling painter, where you can freely explore Montreal neighbourhoods and fulfil painting requests by the residents. This title fascinates me because it particularly focuses on watercolour painting.
Summerhill
The brilliant minds behind Alto’s Adventure is back with another scenic puzzle adventure title called Summerhill. The game promises a story about companionship and morality without dialogue and some beautiful landscapes backed by music from Todd Baker of Monument Valley fame.
Simpler Times
Simpler Times promises to be a full-on cosy trip from start to finish offering plenty of activities to do, from painting to taking pictures and observing nature. The game reminds me of Behind the Frame and looks like a decent candidate to check out if you dig this art style!
Viewfinder
When I first reviewed Shutter, I found the whole idea of literally capturing objects with a camera and physically placing them elsewhere to be a fascinating concept. Viewfinder takes a different spin on the idea while keeping photography and reality alteration as core game mechanics. I’m really interested to see how creative the puzzles will be.
COCOON
COCOON is yet another upcoming game from a fresh new studio. However, the studio’s founder, Jeppe Carlsen, is definitely no stranger to the indie world as he was the former gameplay designer of the highly acclaimed LIMBO and INSIDE games. But fear not, COCOON doesn’t carry any of the unsettling creepies of the former titles and comes off being quite charming with diverse worlds to explore and unique puzzle mechanics to unravel.
For the full game lineup, you may check the Summer Game Fest 2023 Steam page or watch the replay of the entire Day One event below. Looking for even more fresh indie game announcements? Check out Paula’s recent coverage of the Wholesome Direct!
I played the Final Fantasy 16 demo, the demo is very cinematic heavy. I know it’s the prologue or beginning of the game, but actual playing is few and far between. I watched every cinematic without skipping, the demo is roughly 3 hours long. Not sure why they released a demo 9 days before the game releases, i almost didn’t even worry about the demo except save data will transfer into the base game when it releases.