Video Gamers Podcast - August Hottest Indies! - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are back breaking down August’s hottest releases, including Big Walk, Kill the Shadow, Bombanana, and more! Which games are worth your time, which deserve more attention, and which might surprise everyone? If you love discovering new video games and keeping up with everything happening in gaming, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. Grab your favorite video games and join us for another packed gaming episode of the Video Gamers Podcast!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps, Bobby S, NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and NightWizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: Milkman, Drewsky, Jigglepuf and BadGam3rDad   Luminous Knights- https://store.steampowered.com/app/1949610/Luminous_Nights/    Big Walk - Aug 4 Grain Rot - Aug 7 Rogue Eclipse - Aug 7 Color Fear - Aug 10 Agent 64 Spies Never Die - Aug 11 Duskfade - Aug 13 Divinum - Aug 28    Kill the Shadow - Aug 4th https://store.steampowered.com/app/2660230/Kill_The_Shadow/   ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs - Aug 6 https://store.steampowered.com/app/3812600/ReStory_Chill_Electronics_Repairs/    IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator - Aug 6 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2950790/IRON_NEST_Heavy_Turret_Simulator/    Twisted Tower- Aug 18 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1575990/Twisted_Tower/    Low-Budget Repairs Aug 13 https://store.steampowered.com/app/3167920/LowBudget_Repairs/    The Lantern of the Laughless Saint - Aug 17 https://store.steampowered.com/app/3849000/The_Lantern_of_the_Laughless_Saint/    Smack Talk - Aug 27 full access https://store.steampowered.com/app/4020490/Smack_Talk/    BOMBANANA! - Aug https://store.steampowered.com/app/4656000/BOMBANANA/     Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@videogamerspod Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod     Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the video gamers podcast. Every month, we dive into the indie scene because there's always something waiting to surprise us. Sometimes it's a game with a massive budget and a giant marketing campaign, but sometimes it's small teams with crazy ideas that make you stop and go, someone actually made this? Oh, I think that a lot. No, like, really? Yeah, you had that quite a few times with this list.

Let it finish. Sorry. And August is looking to be one of those months where the indie scene is bringing every. to the table. So the day, we're taking a look at all the Indies coming out in August that caught my eye at least a little bit. But first,

joining me, the man who will look at a game about fixing a broken window in an apartment and somehow turn it into a 20 minute discussion about the future of simulation games and how stupid they are. It's Josh. All right. So, Ace, I have an outline for this topic that I've

created. Oh, okay. Is it 97 lines long? No, it's only 94 lines. Okay. So when you are playing a sim game, you were simply working for free. Okay. And that time could be spent earning money because you are doing chores in a game when you could be doing chores in real life and then actually getting paid for it. So that's why I see. What if you're streaming it? What if you're, that's true? What if you make money by stream? 99% of streamers don't make any money at all. So we are part of that. We don't even really make money. I say we're part of that. No. Twitch has sent you $47. awesome people that support. Yeah, exactly. That's true. We do get some awesome support. All right. And also joining us, he sees a game about monkeys defusing bombs and Abilis says, yeah, I need to play that on stream right now. It's right. If I have to try to defuse a bomb with you two knuckleheads, like, and we're going to cover like how, what that all means

and why it would be three people in a little bit once he springs it up. But yeah, we'll get to we'll get to that one's interesting I'm just gonna say this right now the world that that bombs exploding the way like we struggle to communicate in a game like on a regular basis I can't imagine let's test this

ready oh no okay let's just let's just pretend like we're playing Overwatch hey hey Ace you and I are supports we're getting we're getting dove we keep getting dove and they keep killing us Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan is Kenji with the back line turn it in the back line

Ryan. Ryan goes, I keep hearing something. Hey, I don't know. Hey, listen. Hey,

listen. Get out of here. It just swats us against the wall. Yeah. Oh, I know what I'll do. I'll leave the four people in front of me.

And, and, you know, all the guys behind that could take care of the one diver. Let me just leave this group and this fight and this battle and leave the point to go help you guys. Listen, Ryan, it's six v. six. There's a front that you have.

another front tank. Oh, really? You guys found that out last night that there's no tank. Yeah, no, we found out. There's not not the case. You want me to stay at the front. The DPS can back, you know, backfill and kind of peel off for you. I don't want to hear this anymore. Dead. It's dead. Yeah, we'll squash that beef for now. Yes. For now. For now that beef is squashed until you let us die to like a she-on six times in the backline. And then you'll hear it again. Yeah, then you'll hear it again. Anyway, we have a ton of games coming out in August. We covered some of them already, uh, previously this week. But we didn't really touch on any of the indies, which there's a surprising

amount of indie games coming out this month that actually look pretty good overall. Like, I know, so you would disagree somewhat, but I think they look pretty good. But before we get into them, I do want to talk about a game that's making its rounds on social media right now. And that is a game called luminous nights, which is a, uh, a kingdom Hart's inspired game. It's catching a lot of heat for basically copying the original Kingdom Hearts for its gameplay and people making fun of it. I just want to say, quit being stupid. Let this person make the game they want to make. Whoa. Ace coming out hot right here. I think people should be if people should be able to make the games

they want to make regardless of how you feel about it. Even if it's blatantly ripping off another game. It's blatantly ripping off a game that hasn't had like a game in that. style for like 20 years. Like, it's fine. There's not been another game like Kingdom Hearts 1 since Kingdom Hearts 1. Yeah. Well, they did. They wanted to announce Kingdom Hearts 4, Ace.

It doesn't play like any of the old Kingdom Hearts. Every Kingdom Hearts game plays slightly different than the other ones. Okay. Because they add more to the combat. They add more to the whole flow of it. Original Kingdom Hearts 1 was very simplistic. Okay. Anyway.

And this is, this falls along that line? Or? Yes. This is the, plays exactly like, Kingdom Hearts one it looks like just straight up. Well, how long has it been out? Like, has it been out for a while? And it's not out yet. He announced the Kickstarter's coming soon. And he got flamed on the internet for making a game that looks like Kingdom Hearts.

Well, it's there a Daffy Duck in it? Or a Donald Duck or whatever. It's not a game that is Kingdom Hearts. It's just got a different name. It's re-skinned Kingdom Hearts, but like, I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't think it's a bad thing to make games that inspire you. What's like the, like, I guess, like, I guess, like, legally though, like, what can they do with that if it's like that close to an IP? Like, do they have? Because they don't have the, like, copyright on the actual

game play. They don't have Nintendo's money. Yeah, they don't have the copyright on the gameplay style. They have the copyright on the characters. Yeah, that's true. You said that there's nothing wrong with making a game that inspired you but you literally copied the game that inspired you. Yeah, what's wrong

with that? It's original, man. It inspired them to copy it. Yeah. I'm sure it will get... I don't know, man. I don't see, like, the reason for people to dog pile this person. The game looks great.

It's just, it's kingdom hearts. If you want more kingdom hearts, here's more kingdom hearts. This is what another game we're going to talk about is doing. It's like, oh, we're going to, I was going to bring that one up because I was like, I've seen this game before. And then I was like, wait a minute. I know this. I feel like I know this.

But yeah, that has nothing to do with the August games. I just wanted to address that because that's a pretty popular topic. So you're in on Luminous Nights is what I'm here. hearing. I'm in on luminous nights. Absolutely. I think this person's making a great looking game. Ace is the same guy that's in on every Metroidvania too. So Ace doesn't need like a lot of originality. That's true. They're all this. Yeah. They're all pretty much the same. Thank you for belittling my point about a virgin, about passion. I love that you're passionate ace. I love it. Don't listen to anyway. Let's hit some quick hits here. So does Amazon with the wrong package they sent you to.

Okay. We're not talking about Amazon right now. Speaking of passion Yeah Yeah Oh sorry People like what That was pre-show content Ace got shipped the wrong package

From Amazon and it was a It was something that you would not expect To get in the mail Let's just say it was the wrong package It was It was I never mind I can't make that joke No no no no

I was like please don't say what you're going to say Ryan Family show Yeah Yeah That'll save that for VGP after dark Anyway we got some quick hits here For games coming out Before we get to the ones

I really want to talk about. Obviously, Big Walk is coming out, or it is out by now. Are we playing Big Walk? We're going to play it, right? We're playing Big Walk. We're playing Big Walk. But I think we're solidifying this now, right? We're going to play it.

I'm going to say we're playing Big Walk. Okay. We've already played Big Walk by the time this episode comes out as far as I'm research. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's coming to everything. We're going to play Big Walk more than once is my question. It's got some pretty high ratings from the early look at it.

So I'm going to say we're going to play it more than. Josh, do you want to go walk? Ryan, uh, sure. You want to go, okay. That way? Wait, yeah, let's, let's walk that way. Over. Uh, Ryan, uh, I see a tree.

A tree. Me too, cool. All right, let's walk more. You want to go play Overwatch? Oh, no. Ryan's disconnected. These are quick hands, we're not supposed to stay along.

A game called Grain Rock, which drops on August 7th. I'm not trying to troll you waste, like legitimately. Explain Grainrod again because I know that you were excited on this one. It's a horror co-op, but I don't remember what this one is.

This is the horror co-op extraction game kind of set in a scorching desert where you have to stay inside your outpost and you'll go down underneath the outpost to gather scrap to keep upgrading the outpost. It's basically if lethal company had like, permanent progression. Okay.

Josh, you like progression? I do like progression. Yeah. And your wooden robots that burn if you go outside. And when you die, your soul pops out and you get to take over empty vessels to come back so you don't stay dead. Okay. So they're like ghost wooden vampires? Yeah, it's basically.

Pinocios. Yeah, possessed Pinocchio. Yeah, and that'll be out August 7th. And then rogue eclipse also will drop on August 7th, which is the, rogue eclipse is basically, the Star Fox Rogue Like that's coming out. Oh. So like, it's a fast-paced Roguelight Space Shooter.

Wait, I think I saw, I was looking through my Steam queue on this one though. Wait a minute, I'm looking this up. Because I saw a fighting game, like a space fighter that actually looked pretty good. And I was like, wow, this game actually looks. This is the game. Yeah, Rogie Clips.

No lie. I was bored yesterday. So if you guys remember, I said, I don't have a game to play. Yeah, you were looking for games. And I was looking for a game. And Steam recommends. this game to me and I was

legit like very interested because it kind of reminds me of the old like X-Wing versus type fighter games. And I was like oh like this game actually looks pretty darn good and I had no idea that it was releasing this soon. So this looks like a really fun like space combat dog fighting

space combat game game. It looks very very promising and throwing the roguide elements into there that's going to make it pretty fun. In fact actually I'm adding this to my wish list. As long as it tells me to do a barrel roll over and over again, I'm in. This being equated to Star Fox, I think is probably not accurate. You don't think it's Star Fox? This is more like a space combat dog fighting type game.

Okay. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. This looks good. Like Star Fox is like on rails kind of thing and this one doesn't quite look like that. And then August 11th, we are getting a game called Agent 64 Spies Never Die, which I got to imagine you guys are somewhat excited for this just because it's a love letter to Golden Eye. I'm not.

Really? I know that's weird and I know like people in our server were talking about it and stuff and I saw I think I added this because people in our server were talking about it. I thought you guys would be hype. Shout out to Stylent Steve because I saw him actually log in today. Absolutely shout out to style. And it's it's this to me, this is this is the issue is like I loved Golden Eye. It's the graphics, isn't it? No, it's not even the graphics, dude. The days of GoldenEye are the like the golden years, you know, of like playing games with your buddies late at night.

But like, you don't want to play Golden Eye in today's day and age. Like, that game would be straight butt if you played that in 2026. So it's like, unless they're making this Agent 64 Spies Never Die game modern. I mean, it's online multiplayer. I mean, yeah, but then it's, I don't know. It just looks a little too dated to me. And I don't mean, like, just the graphics. I mean, like, do you really want to go back and play, like, a shooter from like 20 years ago?

I feel, yeah. I guess. That's fair. A game called Color Fear will drop just before Spies Never Die called August 10th. And this is a psychological horror game kind of set around a mysterious children's coloring show where monsters are breaking into your house. I don't actually know what the gameplay is going to be, but the monsters freaked me out a little bit. I'll say that.

I was trying to figure out what the gameplay was too. I was trying to figure out if it was like a Five Nights of Freddy's thing or if it was a It reminded me like Poppy's Playtime because my son plays that. And so like you have like kind of the, the. area that they're in and exploring and stuff and then it gets spooky and I'm sure you get chased through the hallways and stuff but it's got some really unsettling imagery with like the hand coming out of the like TV it was like oh oh oh it was weird and I trolled you a little bit on this one ace because I was like this trailer doesn't tell me anything about this game

at all other than like a weird hand reaching through like a colorful thing and then like there is something oddly creepy about this game even though I still have no clue what this game is other than just game creepy. But yeah, that's basically it. And then dusk fade, which we talked about, which is the colorful like action platformer inspired by PS2 era platformers like

Ratchin and Clank, Kingdom Hearts, where you explore vibrant world, solve puzzles and it's all centered around a coming of age story centered around restoring time. So did this, so did this game get roasted too for being so soon? I was going to ask that, right?

Surprisingly, Dusk fade has not caught a ton of flack. See, that's what's so, like, you can't pick and choose. Like, everything takes influence off something else. And then you see it with music all the time. But, like, for this to be, I mean, because you, I mean, even this looks like almost like, it's more of a carbon copy of modern kingdom hearts. I know that, like, the sword kind of almost looks like the key and stuff.

So, like, yeah, it's in the character model and design looks very similar. I mean, we have dozens and dozens of games in the same genre that take inspiration, like Soulslikes. It's literally taking inspiration of the same exact gameplay and re-skinned it for your own game in the same style as Dark Souls. So why can't we have hearts likes? Hearts likes. Because that name's stupid ace. Hearts likes.

You know what? I don't want to hear it. I'm not going to call him Kingdom likes. He's going to do the heart too. He's going to go, hearts likes. Yeah. No. Start it.

Oh my gosh. Stop it. Oh my God. You can see me in all my HD glory doing it. Oh, God. Dust fade does look good. We covered this on the August game releases. That game looks pretty legit.

It's one of the rare games on this list, too, that is coming out for everything and not just PC. From here on, it's all PC. But that'll drop on August 13th. I'm actually very excited to see where DustFade kind of ends up in the public eye. And then finally, DeVenum, August 28th. I'm very excited for DeVimim. You're very excited for this one. You're super excited for this one.

And I thought to Google what this game was And I'm like, why is they so excited about this? It's got fast-paced, combo-based combat, kind of like Devil May Cry or Dead Cells mixed into a Metroidvania with like really cool builds. It was just an awesome demo. So I'm very excited to get my hands on the full game. It kind of looked like the old ghouls and ghosts.

If you guys remember the ghouls and ghosts. I could see that. Yeah. Yeah. It looks clean. All right. Let's get into our actual one. Wait, wait, wait.

So DeVenum, is this. a Metroidvania ace? Is this just a combat? Is this like dead cell? So it is a Metroidvania. It's a Metroidvania with combat akin to dead cells with a combo meter like devil may cry. Like it's got a lot going for it.

This game does, I want to troll this game ace. It kind of looks good though. It plays it plays so good. You played the demo? Oh, I 100% of the demo. You 100% of the, those are words that you don't hear from people very often.

I did every little thing you could do in that demo. I didn't even know you could 100% of a demo. I didn't know that was the thing. Like, congratulations. You did everything. Like the demo pops up and it's like, please stop playing. This is just a demo.

Please go do something. Once you get to the end and you've done everything, it just shows like, wish this game on Steam now. Just like, nah. It tries to get you to quit out. If you 100% it's just like, yeah, you want this game.

It's like, yeah, we know you want this game. They take away the discount, like the launch discount because they know you're going to buy it. You'll pay it. All right. But anyway, let's talk about these games I want to talk about more in depth here. First up, we're starting with a game that takes- Wait. How'd we do, Ryan?

We did pretty good. I think we got them 20 minutes. We got them 20 minutes into the episode before he got to the list of days. You bought yourself a little time. We did it. We said, no. You can't do that. And I was me and Ryan are chatting with each other on the side,

and I'm like, let's see how long we can draw this out. That's the quick hitters for you guys. Yeah, there you go. Well, guess what, Josh? Now you get to tell us all about Kill the Shadow. Go ahead. Kill the Shadow actually doesn't look bad, dude. Like, this game harkens back to the old Sierra point-and-click adventures,

which I am a fan of. I grew up playing those games. This is a detective-ish game where you're trying to solve like mysteries and stuff like that. It's got some neat features where it's like at one point they're trying to figure out who killed a dog and then you can kind of see like you rewind time or something like that and then you can kind of see the dogs like shadow and where it was going and who was near it and stuff like that.

This actually looks like you are trying to find clues and put them together. It's got the crazy like red string board where you're like drawing strings between like characters and clues and stuff like that. I think Kill the Shadow actually looks pretty decent. It's voice acted. I wasn't a huge fan of the voice acting because sometimes it sounded a little cheesy, but like... Yeah, sometimes it was me. Yeah, exactly.

But I will say for being an indie game and being a point-and-click adventure, it actually looks like this is a full-fledged detective-based crime-solving point-and-click adventure, which I think is kind of cool. I can't get past the fact that it looks like Dave the detective diver. Yeah, that's... I mean, and it looks cool, but like I can't like... that look, I'm like, this is Dave the detective diver, for sure. Yeah, it has that 2.5D kind of pixel art vibe to it. But yeah, it's a supernatural detective RPG where you'll investigate murders and you'll

have to put all of these things together. And it seems like it'll matter how you do it because it has multiple endings. Yeah. Which is pretty cool. Yeah, it said your choices matter. How you investigate things matters. Like the game changes based on some of the decisions you make. Like it looks like a pretty good full-fledged point-click adventure with some actual like problem solving crime solving type stuff.

Yeah. And Kill the Shadow should be out by the time you're listening to this. It drops on August 4th, same day as Big Walk. So they might see a small dip in their sales because everyone's playing Big Walk. But we'll see. Restory, chill electronic repairs. I've had this one sent to me. I couldn't tell you how many times.

But it's a cozy repair simulator set in the mid-2000s. in Tokyo and you restore old electronics like consoles, phones, cameras and you'll talk to the people, you know, who come to your repair shop and you'll learn their stories. It's not really for me, but I do really appreciate what it looks like and how it

feels. It looks like somewhat accurate. Yeah, it looks accurate. Which is kind of cool. Which made me think of like if they were to create a game like this, that was like a sim game, but it was 100%

tech accurate so then you could actually learn like how to do this stuff while playing a game how cool would that be you know to where you can kind of repair all these items and do that stuff. I think that would be really cool if it actually told you. It was actually like a 100% tech accurate and they could pair up with you know all all the all the manufacturers and stuff to like hey we need your specs we're going to put this into a game. Do you think iPhone and Android are going to give their specs away? They're trying to sue the companies that are

actually fixing these things in real life man. You can't fix our stuff. How dare you? This is said like the 2000s, though. Yeah, they're fixing like the PS and Tomogachis and yeah, Tomogacchis and all that stuff. You're not going to be seeing like an iPad. There's a PS1. But speaking of though, Apple, their, their, their, their, their, their, they literally glue and like in case the batteries.

And then they die within a year and a half or two years or whatever it is, three years. And then you can't replace it, but you can send in to Apple. and they'll just give you a new set for like whatever price. So it's like automatic reoccurring like revenue for them. You get a new phone this way, Ryan. It's great. You always get a new phone every couple of years. Okay.

Yeah. Buh. Buh. I, you're not a cozy guy. What do you think? Restory actually looks pretty good. I am I am always baffled.

I'm a, I'm a electronics guy. I've built computers. I've fixed things. I like taking things apart. I've done like. soldering and all that stuff. You know what I mean?

Like I like this. It's up my alley. I just don't understand the desire to work in a video game. Like my brain and I know people love it. And I know these simulator like power wash simulator. I know they're cathartic. I know that people like the mindlessness of it. But like I just my brain cannot comprehend the I want to go to work all day,

come home, sit at my computer so that I can relax and play video games. and then to work in a video game. Like, part of it is just to sit there and pull the screws out. It's not the same amount of work because you're not expending the energy. But you still have to like spend like three seconds unscruing a screw and there's four screws in the back of this thing. And I'm like, how is this fun for people, man? You know what?

I just don't. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't enjoy it because I know millions of people do. I just, my brain cannot compute why people want to work in a video game. Josh wants to come home after a long day and relax by telling 12-year-olds to uninstall Overwatch. Exactly. This is exactly how he likes to spend his nights in the world. Like the world is progressing and getting better at Overwatch because I am we weaving out. I love that when we streamed the other night or the other day when we had a community morning like on Overwatch that people got to see a glimpse into Overwatch Josh.

A glimpse of Overwatch Josh. Just a little peek under the curtain on. You were rage baiting me, Ryan. Oh, absolutely. I said that I was going to try to bring out Overwatch, Josh. Yeah. But yeah, Restory drops August 6th. I think it's going to do pretty well overall.

I think. It actually looks like a pretty good game. Like, legitimately. It looks like it's well done for sure. Yeah. Even people outside who enjoy this genre are probably still going to enjoy Restory just for what it is. Yep.

All right, Iron Nest, heavy turret simulator. This is a game that is the least of my game. Any game can be. Really? Yeah. Oh, okay. It is a military simulation game focused entirely on operating a massive artillery turret. How do we feel about this game?

You actually have some thoughts on this game. I'm going to tell you my thoughts because I went ace. This is a rip off. And then since we're talking about luminous nights ripping off Kingdom Hearts, Iron Nest. I'm watching this trailer and I'm like, did this game change its name? Because like I have seen this before, dude. and maybe they changed their name because I like the the game's name was really hard to say.

But I legitimately thought that they just changed the name of the game. And then I started doing some research on this and it's not. This is so Iron Nest heavy turret simulator looks exactly like a game that we have talked about on this show before called PVKK. No, don't you want me to try to say anything. So PVKKK, planetary, version. Gertin Gunzgenekko Commandant is a game that's been in development for a long time. And is this exact game. And I said, Ace, this Iron Nest is completely ripping off this PVKK game.

And then you gave me some little descriptor that was like, apparently the devs for Iron Nest answered a complainer a question that said, did you guys rip off PVKKK? And they went, no, no, our game is a head. heavy turret, PVKK is an orbital gun. And so in PVKK, you're trying to stop things from falling through the sky or that are flying. And in our game, even though it looks exactly the same, you're just targeting things that are on land. It looks so much the same. Oh my gosh. So there you go. I mean, if you, if you'd rather, if you'd rather command a heavy turret versus is an orbital cannon.

But like, let me ask you something, guys. You're, okay, we're all military members, right? Ryan, listen, you're going to get deployed. Do you want to go work the heavy turret or do you want to go work the orbital cannon? Which one are you picking? I'm going to the mess hall, boss. Ryan doesn't want to work any guy. Who doesn't want to fire an orbital cannon, dude?

That sounds so much cooler than a heavy turret. Even in like helldivers, like the orbital cannon, you're like, that's exactly my point. So you rip this game off and then you made your gun more lame. Other than that. Other than that. Other than that. Other than that.

For what? Dunkin on Iron Nest. Dude. Listen, I was just about to say that it looks like a really well done game, but also you completely ripped off PVKKK. And just to make sure, because I was like, well, which one started development first? I researched this. And PVKK started development way before Iron Nest did. So they're obviously just ripping them off at this point.

But it actually looks like a pretty well-done game. It does kind of look pretty sweet. Like the way you can calculate longitude, latitude, get everything set up. And then you can, you know, there's all the other calculations you can do to kind of set up to how your ballistics are going to go. So it looks pretty neat for sure. Yeah. And that's releasing the same day as Restory August 6th.

So any of y'all are interested in these kind of military. Terry simulation style games have at it. I'm sure you'll really enjoy it. As for me, no. And what we'll do is in the episode of description, we'll put all the games that are exact copies of other games. And we'll list them there for you.

I'm sure you could go back far enough and find some AAA game that they copied. All right. Right. Everything is, nothing's original truly. Everything is somewhat inspired by something. Absolutely. It just depends on how much. Some people choose to just copy it a little bit more directly.

than to mix it up a little bit. All right, we got a few more games to cover, but that's going to have to be right after this break. All right, we are back. We are going to be talking about Twisted Tower. It's a narrative-driven horror shooter set inside an abandoned amusement park. This is a weird game, guys. This is a very, very weird little game.

What did you guys think, just off the rip? Right. I think there's, I mean, there's a reason that they separate India and triple A, maybe? This one wasn't, I don't know, it just seemed. This game saw a massive spike in wish list today, by the way. Just today? Like, what happened today? Covering it on the pod.

That's why. There you go. Maybe that's what it is. They know, they know. Yeah. You see aspects of a lot of different games in this. but I don't know I even see like a slight glimpse of like

BioShok maybe Yeah There's a little bit there But it's not one that I'm going to throw on the I may check this out oh I'm definitely going to pick this one up It's not on that right guys list I will say this

It looks well done You know it looks like it's well developed I have to give them credit there It definitely gives the Bioshock vibes to a degree. It also looks like it's like just kind of like a fast-paced. I don't know if it's fast-paced shooter,

but it's just a weird shooter. I don't know how good the shooting mechanics are to carry this game. It's more like the visuals. Intense gun play. Yeah, it promises that. But they're not going to be like, hey, guys, play our game that has lame gunplay.

You know, nobody's ever going to say that. So it very much looks like a weird carnival gone wrong theme. you know, circus type horror thing. I love the setting. I think the setting is great. Yeah, it just,

I'm curious to see how much, like, how good the gameplay is. Like, the aesthetic is cool. I just don't know how much else there's going to be to back that up.

I do like the aesthetic. I do think it definitely stands out. It looks creepy. This scary circus thing going on kind of works. But this is very much marketed as like a first person shooter. And I just don't know how good the shooting elements are going to be.

No, that's fair. I think waiting to sort of see how that's received and how people feel about that is totally valid. Yeah. I do appreciate how much thieving went into it with the weapons. Oh, for sure. It's definitely on point. All of that.

Yeah. Like, you know, water, one of those little water guns where you have to fill the clown up and burst the balloon as one of the weapons. He had a slingshot for some reason. Like, there's a lot of unique fun weapons. The crank, like, bubble gum gun. Yeah, the crank bubble gum gun. Yeah.

It was a lot of really cool things. But Twisted Tower will drop on August 18th. I don't think it looks bad at all. I think if I see enough good things about it, I might actually look into it and play it myself. All right, Ryan, I want you to talk about this one, a game called Low Budget Repairs. Oh, brother.

You're speaking of my language. So here is a time where normally I am with Josh on simulator games or anything like that. You have to have a really good reason to make me want to do, chores or projects in a game. And this one kind of hit the head there, the nail on the head

for me. This is a, this is a, it's a, it's a sim game. Like you go in and you're doing repairs on properties and, and apartments. Basically, there's a demo that is pretty long, which, I guess, I don't know, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

I very much loved the trailer that I saw. And I was cracking up. There's a lot of really good. It's so, it's so, so much good comedic nature and being somewhat a I'm a decently handy man I've basically rebuilt my whole dang house I've redid my kitchen my bathrooms all the stuff so I've done a lot of work and I've done a lot of work at other people's homes and and to see that the thing the things that they did in this like I've personally seen people that have done this when I came like behind them

afterwards and saw the project that they completed completed quote unquote um it was just making me crack up and laugh. Like there's, there's like, he just drills a bunch of holes in the wall and it didn't work. So then he just puts a picture over it. And, you know,

there's all kinds of funny things. I did play the demo. I played it for about an hour and a half. I was disappointed in, in what the demo offered because it was just the beginning of the game. So it was just all the intro and all the story and heads up to all your indie developers. If I watch your, your trailer and I'm cracking up and I'm loving it,

give me all that stuff that that was fun in the demo and then I'm more likely to buy the game. That's fair. That's totally fair. That's totally fair. And so that turned me off

a little bit from it, but I started to get a little bit into the repair model stuff and then the demo ended. So then I was kind of like, oh man, come on. Like I was ready to like start getting into it,

but I don't know. Maybe that's by design to make me want to play the game. It does make you want it. It's definitely you got this crazy. You're getting a house from your old aunt or something

that you're in, is it in Ukraine or it's in Poland? Poland? Yeah, Poland. So yeah, you're in Poland and you're there and there's all these crazy people and vagabonds and people living in the house and you've got to kick them out and clear out and clear out the trash and do simple stuff like that. So once that's done, you get a job to survive by doing handyman work and the dude that you're getting the job from dies.

And then he's like a ghost and he guides you along the way as a ghost, which is pretty funny. just a drunk old Polish dude, which is hilarious. He keeps asking you for vodka. But it's really, it's one of those games that it did peak my interest a lot because it's a little bit different as a sim game.

But I would be interested to see more of what's there once it all the way comes out. But it's definitely something to look at, because it has that comedic nature and it is kind of funny. I would not pay more than probably 10 bucks for it. It just be something 10, 15 bucks, have fun.

That's a C-15. Crack up, yeah, laugh, make you have a good time and then, you know, you don't play it anymore, but yeah, it's, go ahead. This is where, I was just going to say, when it comes to a sim game, like, for me, at least, and I kind of feel like this is for Ryan, like, it's more the humor involved. You got to offer something, yeah. Right, exactly. It's not the, like,

cool, I'm doing home repairs. This is the, this game is hilarious and entertaining because of how cheap and, like, you know, bad I can do these home repairs. And, and then try to cover it up to get away with it kind of thing. Like that seems to be like the angle that they're going for. I will say, again, the trailer looks really good. It does look funny.

I didn't play the demo, but it does make me curious enough because I feel like it's offering more than just chores at that point. So for me, at least, this one looks better as a gameplay option than the Restory does. It's for sure one of the better like sim-looking games that I've ever seen for sure. I mean, the title on it is like it's good enough or whatever. whatever. It's like good. Yeah, it's like, all right. Yeah, you know, like, and then you can do like, you can, he like just, he's like, you got to get the couch out of the way. And then he just pushes it out the window and then he just gives it the bird as he like pushes it off and stuff. I'm like, yeah, okay, this is, this is pretty funny. So if you offer that within a sim game, and then even, um, there's a part in the trailer where he's trying to fit a window and he takes the measurements, but they're wrong. So then the window didn't fit and he just put a bunch of bricks below and then it still didn't fit. So then

he just foamed the outside of the window and I'm like I know I know contractors that would do that I'm like that that's that's that's to me that's hilarious but uh I don't know how well it'll resonate with everybody but it was it's funny I think they did a lot of really good things to like make it unique and and funny if it's going to be a simulator game they clearly have some experience in that field oh yeah the jokes definitely land especially the pushing all the debris behind the flower pot like the proof yeah yep yep But yeah, no. Lomitra pairs actually looks pretty good.

And it comes out August 13th. I'd say it'll probably do pretty good with the simulation crowd if it keeps that humor going. Yeah. All right. I think this is the one you guys probably been waiting for. This is the lantern of the laughless saints. An old school inspired open world RPG focused on exploration, choices, and discovery. It's basically a multiplayer oblivion.

But Ace. How do we feel? Ace, we have oblivion at home. Yeah, we have Oblivion remake at home. Yeah. Also, also, I personally would say because this is what I thought before I did anything but watched the trailer, I said, this looks like Morwin. And then you see it right on the thing and then it says like inspired by Morwin. Dude, I would say it's, I would say it's much more Morwin because more Morwin.

Yeah, Morwin was early 2000s. It was like 04 or something like that. We're talking about games ripping off other games. They literally rip off the font. It's the same. bond. It's the same bond that they have in the Elder Scrolls games, guys. Like, what are we doing people? This is why I say we have

Oblivion at home because it's like, come on, man. This is multiplayer oblivion. Okay. I mean, you're telling me there's not a mod where I can't play like Oblivion or Skyrim with friends. I don't know. Probably. I don't know. There probably is. I just, listen, I think this game looks really well done. I just don't know why I would want play this game over playing Oblivion remastered or Skyrim at this point. Like you literally have ripped off everything about this game, including the font on the

equipment. You know what I mean? Like, why should I give you my money when you're giving me a game that has existed for over 10 years now? I mean, it'll have its own original story, World to Discover quest. I can discover all that Skyrim. Like, I have that Skyrim story. This is going to be Lantern the last.

Laughless Saints story. Like, yeah. You're telling me that the story and lantern of the Laughless Saint is going to be better than Skyrim. Like, I don't know. I don't understand. And this is, this is to the indie devs out there. Listen, if you want to use inspiration for a game, that's understandable. If you are directly ripping off everything about a game that already exists and has existed for 10 years.

and you're making it not as nice because your graphics don't hold up your game probably doesn't hold up because you're trying to rip off a game that had like 300 developers and was developed over six years you're just making an inferior version of a game at this point I don't understand it dude

it just doesn't make sense to me and I get that you know the developers of this game are probably like no no we're totally different but it's like but everything in your trailer makes it look exactly the same just not a lot of it.

as good. Like, where is the incentive for me as a gamer to try this game? I guess they were just assuming because you enjoyed Morrewind and Oblivion. I did enjoy Moroen and oblivion, but this game doesn't look like it's as good as either one of those. So, like, why? I don't know.

It's cheaper than them both. Maybe. Maybe, but I already own those two games, too. This is what frustrates me because I legitimately think that this game looks, like, well done. This can't have been easy. to develop. It's got a good art style for the most part. It definitely leans more towards Marrowand graphics than like Skyrim graphics. You know, it's not Skyrim. But like, but it looks like a

well done game. I'm just frustrated because all of the effort that they're putting into this, I feel like, is only trying to go, we're a lesser version of a game that people loved and played 10 years ago. And it just makes it to where I personally as a gamer go, I don't have any interest in your copycat game that looks like it's inferior in every one. way to the game it's trying to copycat. Like, you're going to have to do something better than what they did to get people's attention. And if you're a small development team, you don't have the capacity to do that at this point.

And you can also, you can buy Oblivion for $3.74. Yeah. And the more wins like $5. Here's the other problem. They're also releasing into early access. So when this game comes out on August 17th, it's not even the full game. It's releasing into early access. So which is annoying.

And so it's just doubly annoying because it's like your game's not ready for the world. And you're trying to get money so that you can continue to develop this game. But your game is never going to be as good as the games that you're trying to rip off because you are directly trying to rip this game off instead of making it your own game and then hoping that, you know, you can do something better. It's just, it frustrates me, man, because they're going to fail. They're going to fail. This game's not going to make the money that they were hoping for. And then they're going to be like, oh, we don't know. We spent years making this game, and it's like, because you copied, you can't copy Skyrim,

an oblivion and make an inferior version of that and then think that people are going to jump all over it. Like, it just doesn't happen, man. What would you, what would you recommend, I guess, you know, because they're going to have their own story and lore and design and all that stuff. What, I guess, would you recommend to the devs or them for, like, design-wise, or how do you, how do you say, I love these games, I love action RPGs, and I love. love these depth like adventure worlds.

How do I create this without just copying it? So there is a game called Crystalla, K-R-I-S-T-A-L-A, that I think is out now, actually, that is a Skyrim clone, right? It is a Skyrim-ish type clone. And it is, they have made themselves different enough that you can tell it's the same genre, but it is a different game. You know what I mean at this point? And it looks well done and it's got good combat and things like that in it.

they weren't that was a game where I think it's like it was influenced because it even looks like they have the cajit in there like with the cat you know the like the feline race that obviously was borrowed the kejit right sorry for from you know the elder scrolls games but the game stands on its own and has its own vibe and its own thing whereas this game it's not inspired by it is literally a rip-off of morrowand brought to you by yeah and and it's just like I just don't understand this. And look, you know, we talk all the time and we complain that innovation is dead. And I'm not trying to go on a Josh rant here, but I'm ranting a little bit because there's nothing about this game that stands out to me other than it just looks like an inferior

version of Marowind. And it's like, you have to set yourself apart enough so that when I look at your trailer, I don't go, guys, you literally use the exact same font as the elder scroll. Like that is, that is such you ripping off and trying to copy a game. Stop it. Make you own game. Like make your own game. You're ripping off the elements and the font and the style and all this stuff and it's like, why? Just make your own game.

All right. I'm done. Saving that one. All right. Then. Well, that was Lancer to Laughless Saint for anyone who's still interested. August 17th. I feel bad for the devs on this, man, because the game looks decent. We've seen way worse, man.

All right. Smack Talk. It's a chaotic multiplayer platform fighting game where you use your voice as the weapon. Players will use spoken commands in order to pull off powerful attacks. Josh's biggest weapon. You'll see. Exactly. PC turn off. Smash talk.

Uninstall. Xbox turn off. Yeah, no, right? Right. Those are the best. I love those. And it's like,

blah, blah, blah has left the party, you know? So this is like, what is, so this is just like smash bros, but you like, yell at people? Yeah. Yeah, it's Smash Bros, but you'll yell your attacks. So everyone's kind of trying to get their Crotch punch!

Clutch! Clutch! Liny Bowl! Liny Bowl! Fireball! Draw! It's a very silly fun idea. It's been in early access since last year, and it's overwhelmingly positive with 800 reviews.

I'd like to see this in practice. I would be very interested to see, like, I mean... Well, everyone's... constantly trying to make the next platform fighter for PC because we're never going to get like smash Bros on PC. So it's like everyone really wants to smash this game for PC.

It's failed. It's not going to work. Quit copying other games people. Is that just your thing today? Dude, that's not my thing. That's this list of games, Ace. Literally,

I mean, think about this. Well, you know what? Ace, I thought your list was great, Ace. Yeah,

I thought it was too. But Smack Talk will be out on August 27th. Now let's talk about bomb banana. which is a chaotic co-op puzzle game where three monkeys will have to attempt to defuse a bomb while only communicating through either well one of them's going to be blindfolded one of them has headphones on and the other cannot speak and you have to find a way to communicate and disarm the bomb. I love this idea. This is a great idea. I literally called in my wife and I was like, honey, honey, honey, honey, come here. Look at this.

Look at this. When I watched the trailer, I was like, could you imagine us trying to play this like me, us three? And I was like, could you imagine this? And she's like, oh, God, no. She's like, you're going to die. I want to play this game. This is the game I was talking about. This is the one you're out.

I'm shocked. I'm shocked. This is the one. Because this game looks great. And it looks like keep talking and nobody explodes, which I don't know if you guys have ever played that. But it's an amazing game. Well, it is a copycat.

Because it is very much ripping off keep talking and nobody explodes. Although it is at least differentiating itself by saying one person can't talk, one person can't see and one person can't hear. See no evil. you know, speak new evil. Yeah, yeah. It's doing that. Right. Yeah. So that's the premise behind this and I love that. I think that that adds a uniqueness to it. Otherwise, it very much is keep talking and nobody explodes. But at least they mixed it up a little bit in this case.

I want to play this game. We're playing this game because this looks like so much fun. All right. What is the actual date on this one? I just says August. It just says August. It's near the end. I had it and I think I lost it. You should reach out to them. Yeah, we should reach out to them. If you're listening, it just says August. Yeah, just August for now. But it's coming and it's going to be near the end of the month.

But this looks pretty fun to me too. I think this will be a great. I think it's just going to have us screaming in each other in the back of a van. Yeah, but you're not going to be able to hear me because I'm, I don't want to to hear any of the screaming. One person can't scream at all. Yeah. I love it.

This is going to lend itself to so much chaos and just fighting. And like, dude, and they showed off how you could communicate through the emotes and stuff like flipping each other.

Oh, yeah. The one monkey was flipping off the other monkey and I was like, yeah, I'm in for this one, man.

It's going to be good. It's going to be great. All right, we got a heavy list of games here to re, go over one last time before we close it out. That was Luminous Knights,

which is not going to be out anytime soon, but it's worth mentioning that you should go support it if you're interested in Kingdom Hearts and you're not a big dummy like Josh who hates fun games.

Big Walk, grain rot. Rogue Eclipse, Color Fear, Agent 64, Spies Never Die, Dust Fade, Devonim, Kill the Shadow, Restory, Chill Electronic Repairs, Iron Nest, Heavy Turret Simulator, Twisted Tower, Low Budget Repairs, The Lantern, The Saint, which Josh hates the most, which Josh hates the most, Smack Talk, maybe, actually you might hate that one more. I hate that one. And Bomb Banna. That was a lot of games, guys. Out of all these games, is it Bomb Nana, the one that stands out the most, and the one you want to play the most. Nana. Yeah. For as far as like a fun time with your friends type game. Yeah. I'm definitely still

going to check out the low budget repairs once it comes out if it's, you know, not $20 or something. Because I do want to mess around. It made me laugh and it made me crack up. So it's something that I would take a peek at. Ryan finally wants to be the guy who gets to take the easy way out instead I have to clean up after him. Hey, good enough. Let's let's get enough. You've kind of got me interested in DaVitka. Let's go. You've got me interested in DeVenum now, too, Ace. I think DeVanum's going to be great. I'm still hyped. the most for DeVenum, I think. It's going to be a great Metroidvania. And it really is going to break the mold with how it does its combat.

So that's worthwhile to me. Sweet. Anyway, that was a lot of games, jents. That was a lot of indie games to cover. I'm glad we got to, you know, most of these. Some of these probably should have stayed in the shadows, but whatever. That's what we're here for. We're here to bring the news to the people.

But that'll be it for this episode. So thank you. you all so much for listening. If you want to support us, be sure to leave us a five-star review if you're on Apple podcast, a comment if you are on Spotify, letting us know which of these games you're most excited for, or if we missed any, which ones you think are, you know, we're worth mentioning that we totally whiffed. Like, I will be the first to mention.

I totally miss some games. My algorithm is not the same as yours. But if you truly enjoyed this episode and you want to go that extra mile, you can support us on Patreon as little as $5 a month. The link is in the description. You don't even have to look us up. Ryan, make it easy for him, right? Yeah, episode description. I'll put

everything in there and then I'll put all the links to all these games. All the game links will be in there. Yep. These are professional folks. Allegedly. And if you want to meet other professionals who want to talk about indie games, you should join our Discord, which is full of amazing gamers. It's where we do all our announcements for our community nights.

It's where you'll get notifications when we go live on Twitch. If you want to watch us play some games, we play machine party recently. That was a blast. That was awesome. We should play that again, actually. I kind of want to play. I want to play another round or two of that.

Yeah. Another round or two machine party is not a bad idea at all. But I think that's all for this episode. So until next time. Happy gaming. See ya. Hey, Ryan, just past the milk. Can you hand me DeVenum?

Why did you do that joke again? That's the second time. I know. It was worth another shot. Okay. It didn't land the first time. Bye, everybody. I'm sorry.

Bye. Bye.