Top 5 Best Upcoming Indie Games of January 2020
If you can survive this month’s indie games you can survive anything.
Welcome to the future indie fans. It should be interesting to see where the ’20s take us in terms of indie games. The last two decades have a proven a meteoric rise for the once fledgeling industry setting standards and pushing the boundaries of what video games are cable of as a medium. Let’s take a look at what we have in store this month.
5. The Blind Prophet
The Blind Prophet is a vibrantly stylish point and click adventure in which you play the apostle, Bartholomeus, on a deeply divine mission to liberate the corrupt city of Rotbork.
Inspired by the neo-noir aesthetic of futuristic titles like Blade Runner with a story-driven approach similar to the Broken Sword series, The Blind Prophet builds atmosphere and intrigue within a dark sense of ambience. With its hand-drawn, comic-book visual style, it presents an engaging narrative with a dark sense of humour and challenging puzzles.
The point and click genre has seen somewhat of a revival over the last few years and it seems like The Blind Prophet is looking to add to that. The game is set to release on Steam on the 10th January.
4. Through the Darkest of Times
Through the Darkest of Times seems unfortunately relevant in an age where the lurking threat of fascism continues to grow within Europe. Set in 1933, this strategic adventure game tasks you with leading a small resistance group committed to subverting the regime.
Its a game of survival in many ways, as you deal small blows to the grand fascist machine in your efforts to inform citizens and the world of the real horrors being perpetrated. Presented as a ‘historical resistance strategy game’ reflecting the sombre mood of the period through its visuals, Through the Darkest of Times aims to highlight the real struggle of the average person living through the rule of the Third Reich. Although set during wartime it’s not a game about violence – it’s about saving the people you can.
Through the Darkest of Times is set to release on Steam on the 30th January.
3. The Pedestrian
The rather novel and quirky platformer The Pedestrian has been looking good for some time now but it’ll finally be in our hands this month. It’s a game that is better described through a series of gifs than words, as the premise is quite simple.
Inspired by the multitude of signs that fill our lives, The Pedestrian takes the mundane, everyday settings and brings them to life like the imagination of a bored office worker. As a stick man, you traverse this world of symbols and signs intent on breaking free and escaping. Featuring a series of challenging puzzles there’s something quite unique about its style and aesthetic. It somehow makes the everyday backgrounds come alive in an interesting and creative way.
The Pedestrian is due to release on Steam on the 29th January.
2. Survive the Blackout
Post-apocalyptic settings remain in vogue in the 2020s with Baby Bison Games offering up the latest iteration with Survive The Blackout. This narrative-driven survival game is set in a world spiralling out of control following a global power outage.
It’s your job to pick up the pieces of what’s left of humanity as the leader of a small group of survivors. The goal, as with all tales of the apocalypse, is to reach a safe haven, somewhere untouched by the chaos enveloping the shattered remains of society. As you can imagine there’s going to be a lot of tough choices to make on the road to salvation and resources are scarce. Nothing explores the human condition better than putting people in the most extreme of environments. Survive The Blackout does just that with plausible characters and a rich story.
Survive The Blackout is scheduled to release on Steam on the 23rd January.
1. Moons of Madness
The red planet has always held a certain mystic among humans and was explored plenty during the early days of sci-fi as a genre. People imagined whole civilisations living up there only a couple of million miles away. Moons of Madness aims to take us back to sci-fi’s roots again with a story-driven Lovecraftian horror that follows a scientific exploration gone wrong.
You play an engineer stationed on the Trailblazer Alpha, a state-of-the-art research outpost designed to identify the true nature of the message. Unaware of the full gravity of the mission it’s your job to keep the station’s systems running and functional. It soon becomes apparent that all is not well as parts of the facility begin to fail and fall apart. What follows is a supernatural experience of visions, hallucinations and horror. It seems the truth of this signal is more terrifying than anyone could have imagined.
Moons of Madness comes to Xbox and PS4 on the 21st January and is out now on PC.
Seems like we have a pretty solid start to a new decade of innovative and explorative titles in the indie game scene. You’re certainly going to need the will to survive this month as what’s on offer takes you to the limits of what human beings can endure. Are you up to the challenge?
If you’re still interested in looking back on the last decade of indie games then why not check out what we think were the 20 best games of the decade.