2020 will be a special year for the independent development of video games and February is proof of that. Here we bring you a selection with the seven best indie releases of the month.
We already anticipate it as soon as we say goodbye to the previous decade: 2020 will be a spectacular year for independent video games. A payroll of many carats and with a playable, stylistic and plot diversity difficult to match awaits us over the next 12 months. We hope that here comes the next Celeste or Hollow Knight on duty because, although the year has just begun, it has been enough to tear off a single sheet of the calendar to run into real jewels. Indie development has started the year strongly and since February it has proposed works as groundbreaking and fascinating as the ones that make up the following selection. If Valentine has not brought you love, we do bring you 7 indies that you will fall in love with.
Conan Chop Chon (Mighty Kingdom)
Conan Chop Chop emerged as a joke on April 1, but recently ceased to be an innocent and became a full-fledged game. This is a two-dimensional slash hack for up to four players, with a vocation of roguelite and a slashing continuation of the legacy of Nuclear Throne and Enter The Gungeon. We know that they are major words and that it is difficult for Conan Chop Chop to have the same impact as the works of Vlaamber and Dodge Roll, but there is something about his marketing style and the casualness of his proposal that invites us to trust him. At the very least, we wish a lot of fun to anyone who throws a breath from February 25 on PC and consoles.
Death & Taxes (Placeholder Gameworks)
Death & Taxes is not the first game that puts us in the skin, or rather the scythe, of death. However, none has done so in an original way. With a little touch of Papers, Please, in this indie we decide who will appear on the sides of tomorrow's newspapers. For this we must fill in a lot of paperwork, although the consequences of our decisions are much clearer than in similar titles, such as Lucas Pope. Before burying one or the other we can consult your profile and all the necessary information to determine whether to send it to the hole or not.
It is not that the title of Placeholder Gameworks raises great moral decisions; Anyone with a minimum sense of good and evil will be clear about what and who to choose. At least, during most of the game. There will be times when it will not be so simple and when we will question ourselves, or at least we should, why and for whom are we reaping souls. Death & Taxes will arrive on PC with NPCs fully dubbed in English and multiple finals on February 20.
Evergate (Stone Lantern Games)
The indie platform in 2D does not stop giving us joy. One of the most recent is Evergate, which arrives on Steam on February 15 with an adorable visual, plot and playable proposal. Of course; Do not be fooled by their appearance. This title demands precise jumps and solve the occasional puzzle between jumping and jumping until reaching the gate with which it culminates its levels. To do this we can push ourselves by aligning with one of the crystals that populate each phase, a unique mechanic that shows that Evergate offers much more than jumping.
The most surprising thing is that its more than 80 levels contain several routes and possible ways to solve your puzzles. So much so that the developers have confessed that not even they know 100% of the solutions to their own puzzles. If you're interested, you're in luck: Evergate is now available!
The Suicide of Rachel Foster (One-O-One Games)
The Suicide of Rachel Foster is the next great walking simulator – or first person walker, depending on the sensibilities of each one. One-O-One Games collects the witness of Gone Home, Firewatch and similar works with a thriller about love and disappointment full of mystery and some moments of terror. The protagonist of the title is locked in a mountain hotel because of a horrible blizzard.
The lodging, which once belonged to their parents, barely gives us opportunities to contact abroad. We can only interact with a federal agent who will guide us on our journey through such a sinister hotel using a mobile-brick as before. Together with him we will be reeling out an intricate and quite dark family history. As you can see, The Suicide of Rachel Foster has all the elements to hit us in command and captivate us with a story full of twists and mysteries. We wait for you on PC from February 19 and later on consoles.
ScourgeBringer (Flying Oak Games, E-Studio)
ScourgeBringer is one of our bets for this year and that is why we include it in our special with the 10 best indies of 2020. The work of Flying Oak Games and E-Studio has already captivated us from its premise: a hybrid between Dead Cells and Celeste. If that does not deserve to sneak into the first meaning of "eroticism", nothing makes sense anymore. ScourgeBringer promises precise leaps and thrilling action with a fluent from another world, especially in air combat. And this is important, since you are intuited a difficulty that will force us to play and replay your levels. We hope that, as in Celeste and Dead Cells, that has its reward. Lovers of pixel-art and the most demanding action platform can check it from February 6, when their Early Access came out on Steam and the PC Game Pass.
Kunai (Turtle Blaze)
Kunai caught the attention of many users when it was announced in 2019. Now, Turtle Blaze's efforts have gone from being a mere project to a reality as blunt as the katana strokes that the protagonist distributes. Kunai puts us on the circuits of a tablet-ninja that lives in a post-apocalyptic Earth in which humans have disappeared from the face of the earth. Well, not quite. Human souls give life, emotions and identity to new earthlings.
Tabby, the nice protagonist of this indie, is one of those robots with a tablet face and human soul, only that his is that of an old and fierce ninja. A warrior nature that is noticeable in the game: here we have come to feel like a ninja. Pure Metroidvania, Kunai proposes to explore the scenarios in pursuit of secret abilities with which to devastate enemies at a blazing speed. Kunai has a ninja soul in the most literal sense. It encourages a very agile and aggressive gameplay, one that is hard to keep up with, almost inherited from parkour. You can now test it on PC and Nintendo Switch.
LUNA The Shadow Dust (Lantern Studio)
LUNA The Shadow Dust proposes a classic point & click, of those that many mysteries and smiles offered us 20 and even 30 years ago. It tells us the adventures of Luna and her friendly companion in a truly enigmatic tower. The work of Lantern Studio offers an incredible cinematic experience through a graphic section that, perhaps, is the best we will see in 2020 in that regard.
To do this, it uses traditional animation, the drawn frame by frame with 12 frames per second and three layers per frame. Along the same lines, the lighting of this indie is an audiovisual show that helps generate an atmosphere of intrigue. We also like that you do not need great dialogues to tell your story and that all the puzzles have a solution for themselves, without the need to backtracking and search for any hidden object. There is something wonderfully organic and simple in this project that has captivated us. If Luna achieves the success she deserves on PC since February 13, we guarantee that we will soon enjoy her adventure on consoles.
Heading to March
It is obvious, right? February promises to continue what we predict as soon as the calendar is released: 2020 will be a year full of essentials. And we dare to say that the level of the coming months will be the same or better, so we invite you to follow the news of independent development through the news, Reviews and reports of FreeGameTips.
