Indie Zoe: Raider of the Lost News (23 October 2014)

Can we please pause this year? It’s going by far too quick for me. I don’t have nearly enough time for all the things I want and need to do. To make things worse (or better) all my most anticipated games and series are coming out now, vying for the precious hours of time I have. Here, have some indie news to add fuel to the fire.

First up, Lucas Pope (the man behind Papers, Please) has released a playable demo of his new game, Return of the Obra Dinn. It’s still incredibly early build, but you can play it and give him feedback, or at least see what his next great project will be. I enjoyed Papers, Please so much, but I think I’m going to wait to play this demo until the game is a bit further in development.

In good news I’ve told you about but you might have missed, The Stanley Parable and Space Engineers both crossed the million sales mark. This is an excellent milestone and great news for the independent games industry.

In less excellent news, an idiot sent death threats to Gabe Newell over issues with his game’s listing on Steam. His game has since been pulled and he has resigned from the company, and seemingly left the industry. Does anyone think death threats ever work? Of course, if you make a game about death threats and murder, then you could make Hatred, an ultraviolent game that is getting a ton of attention. So channel that hatred properly.

If you’re looking to pick up some cheap indie games, Bundle Stars’ Supernatural bundle is full of creepy indie titles. Also, the Humble Bundle store has some crazy discounts, including on for Post Master, a game I just discovered and might make me go postal. I think I need it.

Prototype of the Week

This week’s prototype comes out of a game jam at Free Lives. Called Mehrgehrzerds, the game is based on the Power Rangers universe:

Have you ever noticed how, although each ranger has his own dinosaur, they never ever use them and they always join up immediately, and then they have five people piloting one zord. The only thing that would make any sense is that each person only gets to control one limb. This game will eventually be intended to be played by two teams of two to five people, each controlling only a couple of limbs and I intend to build a custom controller for it at the upcoming hardware jam.

Last Updated: October 23, 2014