Holidays are coming up, and do you know what games sites love to write up for the holidays? Lists. Gotta write those game of the year lists, baby. Maybe write one for trending gamers that champions disability advocates and social activists over centrist idiots and guys who play games with the persona of being an asshole that turns out to be an actual asshole that also admits to cheating on his wife like a week after receiving the award. But anyway.

Another sort of listicle I see around are lists of things people are looking forward to in the future. Like a New Year’s Resolution that says “I wanna play this shit.” And so, I will tell ya’ll guys to play some shit that I’m looking forward to in the future.

UFO 50

 

Imagine Action 52, that game that promised to be 52 games in one that ended up being horrible and a monument of hubris. Now, imagine Action 52, except with more time and actual care put into it, with a genuine effort to live up to the ambition. That’s what UFO 50 seems to be. While most of the games of the infamous Action 52 were platformers or shoot-em-ups that were cookie-cutter clones of each other, UFO 50 seems to have a much greater variety, showing off a whole bunch of distinct games in its trailer. While I’m currently not sure of the length of each individual game, there seems to be a lot of content to dive into.

See, what draws me toward this game is because of Action 52. Action 52 fascinates me as an ambitious project that’s become a punching bag for internet reviewers, but it could have been so much more. It had me wondering, “will somebody ever do this again, but good?” And UFO 50 seems to be shaping up to be that.

The UFO 50 team is small, but has recognizable faces in the indie game scene. Most notably, Derek Yu of Spelunky fame and Ojiro Fumoto of Downwell are two of the devs on this collection and the game’s being published under the former’s studio. Can’t wait for Mossmouth’s Spelunky 2? Check this out, maybe.

10 BEAUTIFUL POSTCARDS

If you know my game preferences personally, you probably aren’t surprised that thecatamites’ upcoming game is up on my list. 10 Beautiful Postcards is another surreal exploration narrative game by him, where you’re a little fellow heading out to explore magnificent hotels. His dream aesthetics and rambly prose continues to characterize his work and its something that continues to pull me in.

The video is a presentation at Fantastic Arcade where thecatamites shows off the game so far and his philosophies on making games. In all honesty, I’m not surprised by how he is in person after playing his games.

Hypnospace Outlaw

Hypnospace Outlaw is actually the first (and so far, only) game that I’ve supported on Kickstarter. In Hypnospace Outlaw, you’re an internet moderator browsing a fictional internet dream space to enforce laws and crackdown on foul criminals like (gasp!) copyright violators.

To me, Hypnospace Outlaw is an exploration game, but instead of exploring a vast, physical world, you’re diving into a deep web of Geosites-esque pages that fully embraces the early Internet aesthetic. There’s these action segments where you drive down a literal information superhighway, but exploring the web seems to be the main draw for a lot of people, me included. It helps that people can make and share their own webpages to explore through, and given the sheer abundance of neo-dadaist memes that you can find on the internet, I’m looking forward to whatever fresh hell people are going to unleash.

If the trailer isn’t enough for you, the project lead, Jay Tholen (previously responsible for Dropsy), also did a Fantastic Arcade presentation of the game that shows off more of the game. Check it out here.

LISA: The Pointless

One of my earliest writings for this site was on the first part of LISA: The Pointless, Mystics of Trash and Violence. While I found it to be difficult (which would be alienating), this small slice of the game was a wonderful take on the world of LISA and it left me wanting more.

So far, there isn’t a lot of information on the game’s future parts, but the next one’s likely to come out next year. I’m looking forward to it, though I hope that it improves on the gameplay front.

I wasn’t sure what to put as the accompanying media, so please enjoy one of the game’s songs.

Crescent Eve

As per my brand, I continue to look forward to RPG Maker games. Crescent Eve is being made by Torch60, that fellow that made Soma Spirits, an RPG that I really liked earlier this year. It’s no big budget RPG, but it’s certainly more sincere about its themes than Persona 5. But anyway. Torch60 follows up on their past work with what’s aimed to be a medium-length RPG where moon phases affect gameplay, because this sure is a game that loves the moon.

There’s already a demo out and I’ve been planning on checking it out, but the dev plans on updating it, so I’ve held off. Heard good impressions about it, though, so I’ll be looking forward to the updated demo and the full game in the future.

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That is my list so far, but I’m sure that there’s a lot of neat indie stuff coming out soon that I haven’t heard of. If there’s something that you’d feel that I’d like, hit me up with it, I’d love to hear about other games!