Indieventure

Episode 14: Is Harold Halibut 2024's gaming babygirl?

It's been a while since the Indieventure crew did a group review, but here we are at last once again, this time having a proper gander at newly-released (by the time you hear this, anyway) stop-motion narrative adventure game Harold Halibut. Drawing its inspiration from mid-20th century TV — namely an unusual blend of hard sci-fi and gentle animated comedy shows — Harold Halibut proved somewhat divisive among the Indieventure trio, although we find it so hard to argue with each other even when we disagree that once again we end up negotiating a reasonable middle ground. What can I say, sometimes we're so wholesome it's sickening. But thanks to our lively exchange of ideas, there's a good chance that you'll come out with a well-informed impression of whether Harold Halibut is a game for you or not.
 
This episode also contains a mini review of Pepper Grinder, a new pixel-art 2D platformer and the latest outing for the linchpin indie publishers at Devolver Digital. Does it have cronch? Stay tuned for the verdict from our resident pinecone-munching expert.
 
And last but not least, hyperfixations! In a break from tradition, Rebecca doesn't want to talk for long about how much she's been hooked on The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood of late, because she's literally been playing it for our discussion next episode and that would defeat the point. This leaves Liam and Rachel plenty of time to swap reality TV recommendations: courtesy of Liam we have Channel 4's latest social experiment The Underdog: Josh Must Win, while Rachel presents us with South Korean game show The Devil's Plan on Netflix, which turns out to have been way better than the second season of Physical 100.
 
Our music was written and performed by Ollie Newbury! Find him on Instagram at @newbsmusic.

Episode 13: Our favourite short indie games that you can play in a single sitting

Little known fact about the Indieventure crew: we're all pretty tiny. Like, 5'9" at the outside, the types who really need a tall friend to accompany us to the supermarket so we can reach the interesting condiment jars that always seem to be hanging out on the top shelf. So, short queens/king that we are, of course we stan a short indie game. How could we not? Just like us, they're perfect the way they are, taking up exactly as much space as they need to make their point without feeling the need to be all imposing (on your precious free time).
Moving on from that metaphor before the thread gets lost entirely! We've separated this episode into time-based categories, starting with indies that take two or three hours to complete, including Anemoiapolis, Birth, Industria, Lily's Well, Nuts, Penko Park, Pupperazzi, A Short Hike, Umurangi Generation, and A Year of Springs; as well as various games in the Devcats and Rusty Lake franchises.
Next up are some of our favourite one-hour indies, like Chop Goblins, The Exit 8, and Morph Girl, as well as the individual games that make up the Frog Detective trilogy; Rusty Lake's sister series Cube Escape; and the early works of solo Birth dev Madison Karrh.
Squeezing our way down to indies in 30 minutes or less or your pizza's free (disclaimer: I do not actually have the authority to grant you a free pizza, sorry), it turns out we've got a surprising number of recommendations to offer in this particular bracket. We urge anyone who fancies playing a game from start to finish over their lunch break to check out David Lynch Teaches Typing; Dr Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald; Localhost; Pebble Witch; Pet the Pup at the Party; Pineapple on Pizza; Puzmo; Teenage Blob; or any of Deconstructeam's short offerings on Itch, with a special mention going to Eternal Home Floristry if you're too overwhelmed by choice to know where to start.
Finally, if you're looking for a miniscule indie game that can be played in just 5 minutes or so, look no further than psychological horror walking sim September 1999. And if your tastes run to indies so small they can only be viewed under a microscope, we end by recommending Morning Makeup Madness and Queers in Love at the End of the World, both of which last just 10 seconds.
Before we're done, though, there's time to have a quick chat about longer indie games nevertheless handily divisible into single-sitting runs, including Balatro, Deep Rock Survivor, Slay the Princess, Vampire Survivors, and (of course) the Monster Prom games.
We end, as ever, with our latest round of hyperfixations! It's a broad category this episode, which sees Rachel bingeing all three seasons of Netflix's adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events; Rebecca hooked on the recently-released fantasy/mystery novel "Voyage of the Damned" by debut author Frances White; and Liam discovering that YouTuber City Planner Plays is every bit as good as Bob Ross for some educational ASMR.
Our music was written and performed by Ollie Newbury! Find him on Instagram at @newbsmusic.

Episode 12: Listener Mailbag #1

Let's be honest with you, dear listeners: the Indieventure trio are making this podcast in our spare time around our full-time day jobs and, sometimes, we simply can't find the time or just don't feel like writing a detailed script. Which is why, on this occasion (and at random intervals going forward) we've crowd-sourced our theme for this episode! We asked and you lovely people answered, throwing out some great questions that we were only too delighted to respond to in the form of our trademark lengthy rambles.
Ever wondered what everyone's first indie game was? Which indie characters we'd love to see in Smash Bros.? The indie game we'd most like to see get a movie adaptation? If we have any secretly shameful indie faves? Or whether we have any opinions on tabletop games? (Spoiler alert for that last one: turns out, we do.)
I mean, obviously there's a high chance you did wonder about all this, because we don't have that many listeners, so there's good odds that the person reading this right now did submit some of these questions. In which case: hi! And thank you! It's been a pleasure, and I can assure you that all these queries and more become the subject of lively discussions (if not yielding actual answers) by the end of the episode.
We finish as ever with our latest hyperfixations, and while this isn't a competitive section, Liam definitely wins by becoming absolutely obsessed with Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy of New Weird sci-fi/horror novels, a preoccupation that Rachel and Rebecca are only too happy to encourage since it turns out we're all big fans of the series. Rebecca, meanwhile, has a lot of good things to say about Re/Member, a Japanese teen horror film featuring not one but two time-loops that got absolutely slated in reviews when it came out on Netflix, but which in her opinion was close to 5-star quality (but then again, it is an extremely Rebecca-coded film). And Rachel has been playing a short but sweet (and surprisingly queer) indie mystery game: This Bed We Made, which sadly got a bit lost in the shuffle when it launched towards the end of last year despite great reviews.
And finally: you might have noticed that our music is back at long last! With huge thanks to Ollie Newbury for composing a bespoke theme for Indieventure that we can call our very own. Check out Ollie's work on Instagram if you want to hear more of his stuff, because he's very talented and cool.

Episode 11: It's About Time (Loops)

It's a Leap Year, and the strange minds at Indieventure have taken this as a sign that we need to do a thematically appropriate episode about a gaming trope all three of us happen to love! Yes, since 2024 has an extra day, we decided to dedicate that sliver of bonus time to talk all about time loops. Trust us, it makes sense.
Because of the fluid nature of this discussion we don't limit ourselves just to indie games on this occasion, although they remain a heavy focus because, y'know, if there's a good theme out there then there's 10 great indies and a couple of solid AAs to every AAA that nailed it, right? In this episode we talk about a whole bunch of timey-wimey titles including Deathloop, The Forgotten City, Hades, Heaven's Vault, In Stars and Time, Layers of Fear, Life Is Strange, Outer Wilds, P.T., The Sexy Brutale, Slay the Princess, The Stanley Parable, and Ultros. We also touch upon a few other games that aren't technically about time loops but evoke similar feelings thanks to the iterative way you're encouraged to play, such as Frostpunk and Hitman.
We follow this up with a shorter discussion about how the shared experience of the pandemic has influenced storytelling in indie games in general, including but not limited to a notably increased use of the time loop trope; touching on 1000xRESIST, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, Full Void, Goodbye Volcano High, In Stars and Time (again), Mediterranea Inferno, and Roman Sands RE:Build.
That's not even a comprehensive list of our favourite time loop games, and we could literally have talked about this for another several episodes. Sadly, unlike the inhabitants of a time loop, we need to wrap things up eventually — but not before we share our latest hyperfixations! Rebecca has rather unexpectedly finished Romancelvania, and extremely unsurprisingly recently re-watched the live action Ace Attorney movie; Liam has caved to Rachel's influence and begun watching The Traitors, and has also finished playing Stardew Valley (apparently that's a thing you can do?!); and Rachel has been watching True Detective: Night Country, the fourth season of the acclaimed weird crime thriller anthology series which is finally back after a five-year hiatus.

Episode 10: What we've been playing in February 2024

This week's episode of Indieventure has a bit of a show-and-tell format, since it's been a while since we just checked in with the indie games everyone's been playing in their down time.
After our last episode on this February's Steam Next Fest, Rachel has mostly been playing loads more demos! Mech-pilot farming sim Lightyear Frontier has emerged as her most-played Next Fest demo this time around, and might even be poised to find its way onto the best-ever farming sims list of our resident connoisseurs of the genre. She also has a lot of good words for INDIKA, an experimental psychological adventure game examining religious orthodoxy — here's a link to the Polygon article we discuss at this point in the episode.
Never one to cruelly leave us without a recommendation for a great indie title we can play in full right now, though, Rachel has also recently checked out text-based horror game Home Safety Hotline. Long-time listeners will know that Rachel isn't always our biggest horror advocate, so rest assured that this one is pretty safe to play for anyone looking for a good creepy story, regardless of your comfort levels with some of the genre's more intense tropes.
Noted Valentine's Day sceptic Rebecca has nevertheless been in the mood for romance this month, specifically in video games that let her woo hot monsters. So she's been playing a few rounds of Doomsday Paradise, a Monster Prom-inspired multiplayer card battler that got a bit lost in the shuffle when it first released back in November. She's also revisited two monster dating mash-ups she previously bounced off of, Helltaker and Romancelvania — and quickly DNF'd one all over again while becoming hooked on the other this time around.
Liam, meanwhile, has been enjoying two very different roguelikes: early access city builder Roots of Yggdrasil, which sees a band of Vikings attempting to outrun Ragnarok by expanding their civilisation across the Nine Realms with the use of deck-building puzzles; and Go Mecha Ball, the twin stick shooter starring a cat piloting a mech through a pinball machine. You might remember we talked about the latter game before after playing the demo, which is when we first uttered the now-immortal line LIAM LIKE CRONCH.
In hyperfixations this week, Rebecca's obsession with the new Wicked movie trailer hasn't quite overtaken her desire to binge as much of the Pokémon anime as possible before Pokémon TV goes offline for good at the end of March. Rachel has recently visited the British Library's Fantasy: Realms of Imagination exhibition, which leads to far too many good book, film, TV, and game recommendations to list in full here. And Liam has finally binned off The O.C. and started watching a TV show he'd actually recommend to others, namely the recent remake of Mr. & Mrs. Smith starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine.

Episode 9: Our Steam Next Fest Highlights for February '24

The Indieventure crew are back and, once again, everyone's a little bit fried. But like, really out of it this time. The vibes reach a new level of unhinged as we attempt to corral ourselves into a semi-sensible discussion of just a few of the many, many lovely indie games demoed at this month's Steam Next Fest: the thrice-annual celebration of mostly-indie games that aren't quite out yet, but are ready for you to take a good look at.
After a quick detour to reminisce about our recent group foray into multiplayer sci-fi horror game Lethal Company, we go in-depth on some of the best things we've played this Next Fest, including Devolver Digital's newly-announced Children of the Sun, as well as Echo Point Nova, Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure, Dead Pets Unleashed, Harold Halibut, Balatro, Roman Sands RE:Build, and Touchstarved. (Rebecca also cheats and wedges in extra shout-outs to Summerhouse and Copycat because she really shouldn't have been handed the keys for this episode.)
This week in hyperfixations, Rebecca wants to put in a good word for gay foodie love story Omurice Next Time, recently released on Steam, itch.io, and GOG. Liam tries to starve the oxygen from his twin obsessions with Stardew Valley and Palworld by listening to the latest album by experimental pop duo Let's Eat Grandma and reading independent gaming blog Aftermath. And Rachel has been watching drag queen and Sims YouTuber Juno Birch revisit the best game in the franchise (The Sims 2, don't @ us) to creatively torture some Sims.
Finally, we also just want to say a big thank-you to everyone who's rated and reviewed our podcast so far! The amount of support and positivity we've received has been super heartwarming and we're very grateful to all of our lovely listeners. For next time, if you have any questions you'd like us to answer, please do drop us an email or a message on socials, as we're planning a listener mailbag episode in the not-too-distant future.

Episode 8: The Return of the Vault

In Episode 8 of Indieventure, we re-introduce an old favourite concept of ours from days gone by: the Indieventure Vault, an eclectic mind-palace of our own construction where we store the very best indie games, blending personal favourites with undeniable classics.
Previous inductees — which we take the time to re-induct, since this Vault is completely legally distinct from any other indie game Vaults you might be thinking about — are two all-time favourite indie games from each of us. Rebecca carefully places Monster Prom and Firewatch on a commemorative shelf, Rachel chucks Kentucky Route Zero and Return of the Obra Dinn in the same vague direction, and Liam drop-kicks Hypnospace Outlaw and Paradise Killer into a hole in the ground, but like, respectfully. Everyone's very on-form.
Then it's time to introduce some new games to the collection, and this time we've each selected one indie game that we all feel is just far too important to omit. For Liam, that's just got to be Stardew Valley; Rachel makes a compelling case for the enduring appeal of Disco Elysium; and Rebecca uses science (after a fashion) to conclude that Hades really needs to be there too. And, not least of all because 10 vaulted games is a nice round number to start off with, we also put Dredge on a special shelf of its own to indicate that it was our very first Indieventure Game of the Year in 2023.
Hyperfixations this week see Rachel still obsessed with The Traitors: Series 2, Rebecca still obsessed with Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, and Liam reading Masters of Doom by David Kushner like a proper adult.

Episode 7: Our most anticipated indie games of 2024

Happy New Year to all our lovely listeners! Whether you've been with us since the old days of [REDACTED PODCAST] or are joining us for the first time today, we hope you'll be adding plenty of new recommendations to your wishlist over the course of this episode, where we discuss our most-anticipated new indies coming up in 2024.
First though, a quick chat about what we all played over our Christmas break. Rachel's been enjoying eco-fiction visual novel South Scrimshaw, Part One; Rebecca was pleasantly surprised by 2023's latest video game adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express; and Liam may have finally found his true simulated calling in House Flipper 2.
Onto our most anticipated indies of the year, and we're keen to highlight a few games in particular. Settle in as we extol the upcoming virtues of 1000xRESIST, Demonschool, The Mermaid's Tongue, Pacific Drive, Sucker For Love: Date To Die For, Thank Goodness You're Here!, and Tiny Bookshop.
But obviously, there's way more than just those seven indie and AA titles on the horizon that we're excited for. Our particular honourable mentions go to Anger Foot, Creepshow, Crow Country, Europa, Loco Motive, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, Rise of the Golden Idol, and Synergy. And given how much angsting we went through to narrow it down even that far, we're pretty confident that we're going to have plenty to talk about throughout 2024.
This week's hyperfixations are The Traitors: Series 2, Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways DLC, and DC's Harley Quinn adult animated series. (We'll leave you to guess whose is whose, since long-time listeners will probably be able to puzzle it out.)
Music is Cigarette Boat by Marc Torch.
And as always, thank you for listening!

Episode 6: Our 2023 Indie Games of the Year

Well, here we are, folks: our final episode of 2023! It's been a wild ride of a year and we've had some wonderful times recording podcasts and, of course, playing indie games. Lots and lots of indie games. So many, in fact, that our GOTY episode ran a little long despite our best intentions — but, since we're taking a slightly longer three-week break between episodes while we all head off for the holidays, we hope this feature-length episode will tide you over until we come back on January 11th!
Usually this is where we'd list the games we talk about in the episode, but since this is technically an award show we're running here today, we thought we'd build up the suspense a little and keep it a surprise for our lovely listeners. Here's a clue though: there are 13 games here on our collective GOTY list — including the one we've crowned the inaugural Indieventure GOTY — and we've podcasted about all of them at some point over the course of the past year! Even our hyperfixations this time around are shrouded in festive mystery, because trust me, they really went some places and we're sure you'll want to hear it.
All that remains for us to do is wish you a merry Christmas, happy holidays, or a peaceful winter break if you don't celebrate at this time of year. We are all so incredibly grateful for an amazing first year of podcasting, and it's all thanks to you that we get to keep on doing this! Thank you and see you in 2024! Happy new year!
(Music is, as ever, Cigarette Boat by Marc Torch!)

Episode 5: The Indieventure Christmas Special

'Twas eighteen nights before Christmas, when all through the house,
We were recommending indies, to a skeleton and a mouse.
Jolly Saint Nick is a guest on the show,
Spreading good cheer with a wink and a ho.
His cough is persistent, a fun phlegmy hack,
But he gains a pile of indies to put in his sack.
The trio wraps up with some dinner guest chatter,
A parade of indie characters who feast from food platters.
When all's said and done, another episode out of sight,
We wish a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
 
Oh also our hyperfixations this week are A Profound Waste Of Time by Caspian Whistler, What We Do In The Shadows and In Stars And Time.
 
Music is Cigarette Boat by Marc Torch.