If you were at PAX East, or more likely weren’t able to attend, you probably missed some great Indie Games that should be on your Steam wishlist. After roaming the halls of the Boston Convention Center, here are 10 games that should be added to your wishlist immediately! These games range from small experiences to big multiplayer games, where at least one may be exactly what you’re looking for to scratch that nagging itch.
Love Eternal
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Developer: BRIKA
Publisher: Ysbyrd Games
Love Eternal is a personal story of family and love in a psychological horror platformer. It is a harrowing game akin to Celeste, where instead of dashing around, you flip gravity around. All to avoid spikes and lasers, get through difficult obstacles, and make it out of these memories alive. What works is how great the controls feel. The biggest challenge is understanding how gravity will affect your movements and flipping in time to avoid danger.
Coming soon to PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.
Fretless – The Wrath of Riffson
Developer: Ritual Studios
Publisher: Playdigious Originals
A turn-based RPG that lets you create music with your attacks. Fighting in a battle of the bands, you select defenses, attacks, and AOE attacks to fight fellow bands. Plus, landing exact timing hits on enemies, and the same for enemy attacks, can quickly change the course of battle. And its pixel art art style gets really creative with this setting. Finally, there are lots of customization options to make this turn-based game your own with guitar and pedal upgrades.
Coming soon to PC.
Demon Tides
Developer/Publisher: Fabraz
If you liked Bowser’s Fury and want more open-world platforming, you’ll love Demon Tides. Here, you’ll play as a demon child who got stuck in the open ocean after her ship crashed. She needs to work together with her friends to find the dark secrets about why Ragnar’s Rock is getting corrupted. What really makes this game stand out is the transformations. Beebz can change into a bat to jump further, an eel to swim faster, and more to unlock to find tons of secrets and rewards.
Coming soon to PC.
Constance
Developer: BTF
Publisher: ByteRockers’ Games
Constance takes that difficult metroidvania feel and mixes it with paint. Using a paintbrush, you’ll need to navigate a decaying world and find the cause of Constance’s mental health. What really makes Constance stand out is how it utilizes paint and paint-like mechanics.
Dodging and abilities use your paint resource to get through obstacles and beat enemies. Using too much of it will result in Constance. greying out and using her health instead. It’s so creative in how it takes 2-D metroidvanias in a an very fun and new direction.
Coming soon to PC.
MotionRec
Developer: HANDSUM
Publisher: PLAYISM
MotionRec was an excellent puzzle platformer. The gimmick here is that you need to record your moves to get through each room. Your jumps, falls, and everything else get recorded and can be replayed to reach inaccessible areas. You may even need to use previous recordings to create new ones to get through certain rooms. It’s creative and makes you think outside the box while appearing so simple.
Coming soon to PC.
Nocturne
Developer/Publisher: Pracy Studios
We’ve had rhythm games that also use combat mechanics, but what if the rhythm game WAS the combat mechanic? And it uses Guitar Hero-like mechanics to have the combat play out. That’s Nocturne. Each fight brings up a four-column grid where you need to hit the notes at the beat. Charge up enough and you can land a hit on your enemy. Enemy attacks also charge up over time as the song plays. And when they’re close, the grid turns orange, encouraging you to land a hit now to deal even more damage.
Each fight is graded, where the higher the grade you get, the more songs you unlock for that fight. Pracy Studios revealed that each enemy will have at least three songs to unlock and can be replayed at any time, too. Plus, it has a really deep story as it takes place in a digital afterlife as you hunt for your brother, who was uploaded before you.
Coming 2026 to PC.
Revenant’s Reach
Developer/Publisher: Shatter Flask Syndicate
Revenant’s Reach takes a souls-like and mixes it with 2-d characters in a 3-d parallax world. Even the fifteen minutes played on the show floor showed that it’s very difficult, with lots to learn, to conquer the challenges. For instance, you can grapple with exact aiming to land where you want.
You can also deflect attacks by hitting projectiles as they are about to hit you. Understanding the deflect window completely changed how the game was played, and turned a long boss fight and made it die exponentially faster.
Coming soon to PC.
Whirlight – No Time to Trip
Developer/Publisher: Imaginarylab
Whirlight is a modern point-and-click adventure. With voice acting, you play as a wacky scientist whose every invention ends in failure. It captures those ’90s point-and-click adventure games. Unique solutions that require you to think outside the box, funny scenarios, and tons of character wherever you look or interact with. Plus, it has a really unique art style that takes those classic games looks and makes them feel modern while hitting the nostalgia factor excellently.
Coming 2025 to Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Swapmeat
Developer/Publisher: One More Game
Roguelikes aren’t normally my thing, but Swapmeat hit. It’s one that I would definitely like to check out more of. A 3-D shooter where you play as a mutant meat guy completing objectives on alien planets. Swapmeat takes loadouts and makes them personal.
You need to change out body parts to create unique builds, with your head, chest, and legs having their own health, abilities, and more. In my run, I ended up with a spider-leg guy that could climb up walls and a head that shot lasers. Swapmeat is wacky in all the best ways that doesn’t take itself seriously while telling you to do the same.
Coming 2025 to PC.
Gigasword
Developer: Studio Hybrid
Publisher: Akupara Games
Gigasword was my second-most favorite game from this year’s showing. Weilding a massive great sword, you need to navigate a castle and take out enemies with it. The issue is with a sword so massive that you’ll need to leave it behind to get to certain areas and leave yourself vulnerable. Its mix of puzzle platforming and difficult combat pushes you to think quickly and carefully to survive. Plus, it’s another great 2D platformer that we can always get more of.
Coming soon to PC.
