Video Gamers Podcast - March Indie Madness!! - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace are diving into the indie scene to highlight the most exciting video games launching this March. From creative surprises to potential breakout hits, we break down the upcoming titles that have the gaming world buzzing and which ones deserve a spot on your radar. If you love discovering new video games and staying ahead of the latest gaming trends, this quick hit episode is for you. Don’t miss this indie focused episode from the Video Gamers Podcast!   Esoteric Ebb https://youtu.be/xayOde6o8J0?si=f1a4mvwN18PTWV8n Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse https://youtu.be/iEWQ59wNlQE?si=m53pPuwqCNZBazCx Slay the Spire 2 https://youtu.be/jbITq1uRxVU?si=Og8z3rhxgC4XkjmA Planet of Lana 2 https://youtu.be/e9FMlakjR60?si=imH4Tnw3xBLxNIDH Peregrino https://youtu.be/DmsJCAvr16I?si=SEOxNx-GvsY93zzC Mr. Sleepy Man https://youtu.be/9RmMhWiXdV8?si=HsqlkgC7f5CGYPgZ 1348 Ex Voto https://youtu.be/cgpw0lZnTR0?si=NYqyUUZUaChzlTdZ Solasta 2 https://youtu.be/yFWkOnzGZCA?si=u0Dg2Udlc6y4Sxn7 Everseige: Untold Ages https://youtu.be/rvrbemhN3OA?si=qzhdams5Qt5PZsaz Tombwater https://youtu.be/i0O5r7tJFhY?si=m2WhwTHVndhf_anz Grime 2 https://youtu.be/ztJHhgO-SV8?si=zg2Neh6-ZOZooybp   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, and Dettmarp   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   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 X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One plus one equals more of the greatest stories. Hulu on Disney Plus. Stories about our survivors. The most dangerous planet. Family. Retribution. Murder. Prophecy.

Beer and propane. Bobby Diller. Blake Pantha. The ultimate. The ultimate soldier. Chicago, all right? The best of the best stories now with even more from Hulu. Amazing.

Have it all with Hulu on Disney Plus. Oh, fellow gamers. And welcome to the video game. podcast, March is shaping up to be one of the busiest months for indie games this year. We've got CRPGs, rogue likes, Metroidvania, survival games, and even Western horror games. Whatever that is. So today, we're going to run through some of the big indie releases dropping this March and see what makes them so interesting. I am your host, Ace, and joining me, if Mr. Sleepy Man has an arch nemesis who never sleeps, it's

Probably him. It's Josh. Oh, man. The truth hurts sometimes, man. You know? Yeah, I have sleep issues. They've not been so great lately. But I'm here for the people, you know?

Any improvement? Actually, I will say this. So for like three nights, over the course of three nights, I got about 12 hours of sleep over three nights. And I was like a freaking zombie. And then last night, I actually got like a solid like five to six hours of sleep. So I feel like a new man, boys. That's pretty reasonable.

I'm ready. I'm ready to definitely step up. Ready for some marathon, man. Let's go play some games. Oh, wait. This is the indie episode. Is that an indie game on this list? I'm ready to troll some of Aces games is what I meant. They're not my games. Don't you dare. Don't you dare try to put me on this one. This is just big games coming out of this month to talk about. Look, because I always start off the episode with this, this is actually a pretty dang solid list of releases this month, man.

It's not bad. It's not bad. There are some here that aren't my flavor. There's one. I'm going to have issue with. Lamb-based. I'm curious which one, but we'll get to it. And joining us is the guy who's already decided which of these games are good based on nothing but the

names alone because he didn't have time to watch the trailers. That is factually untrue. I watch every single trailer. I had much. Shels.

No, I did watch all the trailers. I didn't play any demos if there were demos, but I did watch all the trailers. There were some demos, but I also did. I did not, but I definitely watched all the trailers. All right. Well, it's, you do your homework, Ryan. I will give you that.

I do. Absolutely. I don't know when you had time to watch these trailers. I actually, I actually think I play more demos than Josh does, like of these indie games. What? Yeah. No. Don't even.

Yeah, don't even. How dare you tell the truth? Yeah, you only play demos if Ace makes you play demos. Yeah, which I always does. If I inform him, there is a demo. Yeah, he says, hey, there's a demo, and I'm like, all, I'll check it out. Well, guys, March is already a pretty packed month for games, and indie games are no exception, like, at all.

There are so many indie games coming out this month. I can't begin to list them all. So we're going to try to, we're going to go over as many as we can. before our time runs out and hope for the best here. But we're going to touch on some they've already released because we're a little late to the party on this one. But we're going to start with March 3rd, esoteric ebb dropped,

which was our little CRPG, Disco Elysium-style game with the Dungeon Dragon Rules. We've talked about it before a little bit. It is doing incredibly well, sitting at a 96% overwhelmingly positive on Steam right now. Almost 2,000 reviews too. Yeah.

That's killer. They have done amazing. I am so proud of them and the devs for what they put together and what they got out of this, even if it's not something we're super interested in right now because of the lack of the voice acting. Yeah, now they have some money to do some voice acting.

Now they got time. But you guys still have interest in esoterica? My interest is actually growing on this game. I think I might be willing to just churn through having to read everything because I this this game looks fantastic the the reviews for it just keep they're hanging out in that high 90s which says something the last time we talked about this game I feel like it had like 200 reviews and it was overwhelming and positive well now it's up to almost 2000 and it's still overwhelmingly positive that tells you something you can tell

by the trailers and just the humor in the gameplay this game I will absolutely play this game at some point. And I'm not just saying that because this is like, I love Dungeons and Dragons. I like witty humor. Like everything about this is just like this is a really, really well done game that I think too many people are sleeping on. I agree. I think you're hit the nail on the head there that a lot of people are sleeping on this game, but somehow it's so good that it's getting out there. I see it on my feed. I got a freaking ad for it on Spotify yesterday. Good. Oh, really? I mean, honestly. On one of our episodes. Yeah.

Wait a minute. Oh. Hey, shouldn't we get a copy of this game at least? Like, what the... Come on. I don't know. But yeah, Satercab is unfortunately still only on PC, but it did come out March 3rd, doing incredibly well.

If you had any interest in it before, now it might be the second information you need to maybe go check it out. March 4th, Nevergrave the Witch and the Curse dropped. It dropped for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X&S, and Switch, which is rare. for an indie game to get that many ports upon launch, but it's not doing so hot, I will say. It is mixed. Remind me, this is 2D, is this another Metroidvania one?

Yeah. This is the 2D action rogue-like Metroidvania multiplayer thing where you, you're the hat, the hat that possesses the enemies and you can build your base above ground and do all the crafting. I remember this. This is the problem. I mean, yeah, the art's pretty, but I think we even, said like it's just it looks like another hollow night clone and yep if you are oh this is the one

where you can become the monsters okay yes use the hat to possess the monsters here's the issue like that is a neat thing to where you can actually be the monsters but like if you're just copying another game at this point it's like you better stand out and the ability to just transform your character into a monster with some different abilities i don't know is enough to carry it you know we always want people to be successful if they can be but I get if this game's not doing that hot I can kind of at least understand why. I checked the reviews. What could a

Metroidvania do to stand out though? Well, there's plenty. Well, you better be, at this point, you better be like, hollow night. Honestly, your artwork needs to either be absolutely incredible and that's tough because this genre has a lot of really incredible artwork.

Yeah, there's a lot already out there. Right. So it's like, I wouldn't want to try to outdo everybody in the artwork department. I would want to figure out how to make my game not look like every other game out there that's a hollow night clone. The other option is your controls and your gameplay and your progression better be so freaking tight and top notch that people just go like, holy crap, this game's amazing. You know? And on top of that, you need a unique mechanic that nobody else has used before, something that makes you stand out. transforming into monsters is like a neat idea,

but it's, I don't know that that's enough to carry a game in all honesty. So that's, yeah, I mean, it's the best part of Super Mario Odyssey, but Super Mario Odyssey is Super Mario Odyssey. Yeah,

this is sitting at mixed reviews, 66% out of 332 users. So that's not. Large portions of the negative reviews are mostly around the rogue like elements, actually, that the roguelike elements are not implemented well. Well, then you shouldn't have said that you are a rogue, you know, like,

don't say you're a, roguelike game mixed with something else if your roguelike elements aren't very good you know yeah i mean that's what dead cells is dead cells is a rogue like metrovania and people look to it when they want to compare what that needs to be if you can't meet that expectation you're going to upset a lot of people and if you can't even get out the door with the rogue like you're really going to upset a lot of people yeah it's true clearly some people do enjoy it if it's mixed it does still get positive reviews but it seems overall it was a pretty negative experience. So I wouldn't personally recommend Nevergrave the Witch and the Curse at its current state.

But, you know, make your own decisions. Don't rely on me for everything. March 5th, Slay the Spire 2 entered early access on PC. Here we go. Now we're talking. I'm going to take a nap for 15 minutes. Well, Josh, now we're talking. I've been playing the heck out of some Slay the Spire, boys.

Slai the Spire. is poster child of the rogue-like deck builder. It is possibly one of the best, if not the best rogue-like deck builder we've ever had. How does Slay the Spire to measure up? It's fantastic. So I'm going to say this. I've been playing, I'm eating good.

I'm playing Marathon. I'm playing Slay the Spire. Those are my two games right now, till Crimson Desert comes out. We're good to go. You know what I mean? Which is literally next week, which is crazy. Yeah.

So everybody loves Slay the Spiret. Spire 2. I love Slay the Spire 2. So in an attempt to try to like be realistic, I am going to say something negative about it. It, it, it don't hear what I'm not saying. People, I freaking love this game. Okay. So before the internet loses, it's mine. I'm like, do I don't. Josh H. Slay the Spire 2. No, I know. Get ready to clip this. Get ready to clip this, age. But I will say it feels very, very similar to Slay the Spire 1 to where it's almost like this is kind of Slay the Spire 1.5, at least right now. My biggest problem is that the starting classes are all returning.

Now, there are two new classes in this game, which I like to see. But like the decks for the returning classes have all the same cards that they had before. Like, yes, there are some new cards. There are new cards. Don't get me wrong. And there are a ton of new enemies and there are new things. But like, you know, I wanted to kind of see the return of the character. but with all new cards, man.

This is Slay the Spire 2. Right? Like, Slay the Spire 1. That's fair. Fantastic. But don't give me the same. Like, it's like, it's like 80% the same cards and 20% new cards. And it's like, I freaking love it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm playing the heck out of it. And it's amazing. But I really would like to see as they continue early access to replace the older standard. It's because it's like I'm still going for the same builds that I went slay the Spireland. Yeah, exactly. It's like one complaint right now. And it's an early access and I'd like to see them evolve it.

And maybe they did this to just have that comfort for people. But I would like to see more new. I think that's fair. I was going to ask how it measured up as a sequel. I guess because what makes it a sequel then? Is it just the four player co-op

and the two new characters? Co-op is supposedly works well, right? It works very well. It works very well. And it is a last. I will, there's, the animations are all like way better.

So like the graphical style has been improved while still maintaining that like feel of Slay the Spire. But like it has way better animations now. There is a plethora of, uh, enemies. I've probably done 20 runs at this point. And I still come across creatures that I've never seen before.

So like that part's really cool. There's more of those weird random events and they've changed up some of the stuff in the game where like it used to be when you. you beat an act, you would just, you'd get the same three choices. Do you want more energy? Do you want another card draw or whatever? And it's like, everybody would just, the more energy you could get the better, right? But so now they've kind of fixed that with like, that's not all you're going for anymore.

So I think there's a little bit better variety to some of the random events and that kind of stuff. The problem is that it's still playing off of the same builds that you had in Slay the Spire 1. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Yeah. I understand that they would put that in there for comfort, but also that it could be... But also play Slay the Spirits. A crutch. A bit of a crutch.

This is an amazing game, dude. Amazing. Yeah, like, so where, what would be, like, a number that, that would feel comfortable to you, where you have some familiarity with the cards, but then also is a lot of a new ability. Yeah, because you clearly wouldn't want all of it gone. So, like, like, 20% of the old cards and then, like, a bunch of fresh stuff. Yeah, I mean, you're going to have your basic strikes and defense, which you're very, very basic cards. And, like, I get that.

But, like, yeah, like, honestly, honestly, you, You can even do 50-50 if you wanted to. Yeah. You know, but, and I hope they worked towards that, but it needs to be like, I'm familiar with the characters and like, they're kind of motif on how you play them, right? But like, I really want new cards to dive into and, like, I don't want this. Like, it's like, I don't know if they even removed cards from these characters so much has just added a pool of like 20% new cards or something.

Now, maybe it's there. and I've you know maybe you need a hundred runs to be able to determine that but that's my complaint and it's not a big complaint don't give me wrong but that's no no that's that's a pretty I mean especially in early access these are things that can be smoothed out before the official release if this game didn't launch in early access I would tell you this would take into game of the year just based on numbers one other quick thing on this because I know a lot of people the count the amount of content right now is equal or better than what they had in slay the spire one so the early access thing, don't let that put you off because normally I wait, but you're there's tons to experience and yeah, usually you're very, if you're early access. You're not huge.

But if you're thinking like, oh. You trust these devs. All right. March 5th, we had the launch of Planet of Lana on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch. This is a cinematic puzzle platformer with an emotional sort of storytelling beat to it. It's very similar to like the limbo games or inside.

those kind of not really chill games, but interesting games. Cinematic is the best word for it. It's very cinematic. Peaceful. Peaceful. Peaceful. Seamatic. I like that.

Yeah, serene. Yeah. They're tagged with cozy, but these games never look cozy. It looks pretty stressful. It's my kind of cozy game, for sure. Yeah, it's up there with your kind of cozy. But this is a very highly anticipated sequel for people who really enjoyed the first game.

It's doing fairly well as well. Not nearly as well as esotericabit. I would slay the Spire 2, but who could be? 91% out of 200 reviews. Still not bad. Not bad at all. Moving on to our mid-March releases, March 6th, we had the launch of Peregrino,

which is a dark survival adventure. We explore a cursed forest by day and manage your traveling caravan by night. It's been compared to don't starve as, or I guess don't starve and don't starve together as an easier version of those games. You guys into these kind of survival games like this?

Well, that was my ultimate survival game was Don't Starve. This one actually looks kind of cool. Will I play it? Probably not. Probably not. But it did look super neat. If you're in this style and in this type of game,

if it's a little bit easier than Don't Starve or don't starve together, which is uneniably relentlessly hard. That game is really hard. Yeah, that game's real hard, dude. It's so hard. It's ridiculous.

That was one of the first games I got when I got the switch. I was like, oh, what's this? And then I played it. And I was like, oh, this is tough. This is, I keep dying. Like, oh, three days. Oh, I made it six days. Oh, cool.

Look, you know, and you just keep going. But, uh, yeah, I think if, if you like that style, this is probably a good, uh, softer entry, um, into that world. It's a, yeah, it's a softer entry, but upon checking the reviews on Steam, you will see that it is, mixed. Oh, no. Not good. A lot of people are claiming this game is false advertising as there's a lot of survival elements, but not a lot of those caravan management elements that I was talking about.

And people kind of just feel cheated by the game a little bit. And I can understand that if that's what you were looking for in this game and you didn't get it. So now was that from like what the dev said or was it from like a, uh, this is from several negative reviews on the game. Okay. Yeah. It's like the game doesn't play like it looks in the trailers, basically.

Like it looks in the trailer. Yeah, it's a very misleading, apparently, with what it shows. Like those mobile games? It sucks. Because it actually looks good, man. It looks really good. It reminds me of dredge. Like with the art style.

The dredge art style is right there. The inventory system was the exact same as dredge. Like, it looked great. It looked very promising. Yeah. Unfortunately, very mixed. They could possibly come back from this and fix it. but this game launched on PC.

It's not early access. This was full launch too. That was full launch. Yeah, that's what's rough here. So now is that a common thing? Ace, you're obviously into the indie world tenfold more than we are. Like, is that something that's common where these games will come out that, you know, are almost kind of like a scam to where, you know, they build up the hype, they build up supporters

and Patreon supporters and all that stuff and then they don't deliver. and then it just kind of goes, but they get their money and they run away? It's not as common as you would think, but it does happen. And it's also why we're starting to see a somewhat turn on indie developers because they're writing on that goodwill

that we have built for people like them. Yeah. For independent, you know, workers. And they're riding on that coat tails of that and pulling the rug out from under people and then that's giving other indie developers a really bad look. where you get to the point where you don't trust people.

People should listen to this podcast so that we can tell you which games are legit and which are not, you know? Well, speaking of games that are legit. That's the segue. I was going to do it if you didn't. I was going to do it if you didn't. March 10th, boys, my highly anticipated game,

Mr. Sleepy Man launched for PC and Nintendo Switch. Don't stay and night. Do you do, do, do. do do do do I love that game so much. I have actually been playing it quite a bit because we, of course we're going to play it. We interviewed the dev. We've talked here and there about it.

Devin's dope. Devon's awesome. I got to watch, like, I'm part of his server, so I got to watch their little launch party and see how that all went. But for those unfamiliar with Mr. Sleepyman, if you're just turning in, if this is your first episode of the podcast,

hello, welcome. But Mr. Sleeping Man is a nostalgic 3D platformer that just reminds you, old N64 collect-a-thon days, very akin to Banjo-Kazoo-y, but the whole game kind of feels like it's in a time loop. Yep. And it has like a sandbox feel to it. And a little bit of an acid trip dream at the same time.

Oh, definitely a little bit of a lucid acid trip dream. How would you know, Josh? What do you mean? Just, that's the description on Steam. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the super, super cool thing about Mr. Sleeping Man, all of it is done by Devin. 100% of it. Yeah, he's a solo developer.

Solo developer. Music and all of it, right? Music, vocals, directing. Music is awesome, dude. The music is a banger. I want to know how many music or how many instruments he plays. Like how many he can't play.

I would love to know. I mean, he's got to play a ton of instruments. So early reaction, because I don't, we're probably not going to have time for a deep dive on this or anytime soon anyway. No, there's no time. Unfortunately. I know that you've been playing it.

You may not be super far in, but like, you know, we love Devon, but we have to be honest. Like we, you know, honesty to our listeners is,

paramount to everything else for us. So what is your initial reaction to this game? Initial reaction. I am incredibly impressed with how polished this is for not only his first game, but a game he developed all by himself. Yeah. The movement is tight and fun to use. There are some hard platforming challenges.

I really appreciated. The world is very well connected. And there are ways that you can use the collectibles to skip mechanics that might be annoying sometimes. Like I really just appreciate the game as a whole for what it is. If you don't enjoy 3D platformers, you're not going to enjoy this game, obviously. Yeah. But as for me, this is a great game.

And people should definitely check it out. I will say this. I play the demo on this. And the demo was awesome. Like, legitimately, it was so good. It gives you that like glimpse into that you can tell that this game was well developed. You can tell that he loves this game. He loves just making the game.

And it plays like that too. So I would say I have not played the game itself But having played the demo And knowing the developer This is one that people should Absolutely check out Like if you're a fan

If you're a fan of 3D platformers This is the homage To 3D platformers That looks a little goofy But that that humor is there And it looks goofy for a reason Because it's like That's the best part

Yeah exactly Yeah the humor is great He's a funny dude He's a very funny person Like that's his motto is you should have fun playing video games. And so he made his video game fun. Yeah, I ran into some character,

because he voices every character in the game, too. It's very much like Cocker's Bad Furde where they had like two voice actors. But this time, it's just him. I ran into these like rats in the sewer that were Italian. And they were just called the dirty rats. But they just gave, oh, we got a wise guy here.

We got a wise guy. You would bring up the rats, too. Out of everything you experienced. It's because the voice is funny. It's because the voice is really, really funny. All that you've experienced in the game and you bring up the rats, get out of here, A's. Oh, my God.

It's, uh, it was a great, it's been a great experience so far. I might make a little solo review if I have time. Now, it's not a lot of reviews. It's at 63 reviews. The game just launched. So, but it is at 98% positive. So the people that have, he just hit very positive this morning are really, really enjoying this.

So. Yeah. You can tell it's polished. You can tell there's passion. I think there's one of those that just get in front of people. It just needs to get in front of people. It just needs people to talk about it. Yeah.

People need to put word of mouth out and people will love it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We got a few more games to cover for this month because it is packed. But we will do that right after this break. We are back with more games from March. Boys, March 12.

We have a game called 1348 X Voto. Terrible name, by the way. Hey, it's awful. Terrible name. Ew. Why would you call it that? This is a cinematic medieval adventure game following a night traveling across a plague-stricken Italy on a brutal quest. Have you guys heard of this game in any form?

Yeah, unfortunately. Oh, I imagine you have. This is the problem with the internet, you know what I mean? I have heard of this game, but it's for dumb, it's for dumb reasons. People don't like the main character being ugly. It's just dumb. So I will say I think the game itself actually looks pretty good. It's not out yet.

so we don't know. I don't like when the internet decides they don't like a game for really dumb reasons. I mean, like, honestly, this is equivalent to, like, people getting mad at Resident Evil Requiem because Grace didn't have a better figure in the game.

And it's like, this is the dumbest thing the gamers have ever done, man. So stop it, number one. I think the game looks really, really good. You know, judge the game on the gameplay, judge the game on how it plays and whether it's entertaining or not, because this is why we play video games. all the other stuff is just noise.

So we'll see. I think the game actually looks good though. This was a game I hesitated to put on this list just because I knew it's going to upset some people. I know it's going to. We don't worry about upsetting people. But I'm not worried about upsetting you. I'm going to put good games in front of you because they look like good games. Yeah.

And good games don't care about your feelings. Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's, yeah. That's the thing is it looks like it's well designed. will, uh, created like the story looks neat. Like it, it, all of it, the gameplay looks cool. Like so, so for people to just, man, the one thing is, is, um,

social media, the internet, all that stuff has, has been a fantastic, uh, advancement in human technology, but it's also been a horrible thing. And, and this is one of the reasons is because you can, you can find faults with anything. And out of however many millions, hundreds of millions of people, they're going to let their voice be known. You know, and so you get that and you get the,

you know, the gruff from all these people. But, you know, if you created something great, just trudged through and, and push through and, and the good people, people will find it.

And this game looks like that. This game looks like Kingdom Come deliverance, too. Like, if people are wondering what the actual, like, style of this game is, it's very much in that style. You know,

it's third person over the shoulder, perspective a la kind of god of war but for an indie game this game looks absolutely incredible like graphically it does like animation wise like all everything about this screams a quality game I mean I already knew it was a quality game because Jennifer English is in it and she only is voiced in quality game so far yeah she is an incredible voice actor

but this is launching on PC and PS5 as I said March 12th so pretty soon actually I think when this episode comes out right Yeah, tomorrow, yeah. Yeah. So if you have any interest in that, go check it out. I will also say this. This game will absolutely get review bombed. Oh, it's going to get bombed to have.

And so if like I said, Dude, that's so sad. It is. It's very sad. The game might suck. Like, don't hear what. It might. Honestly, the game might be terrible. Who knows?

But what my point is is that it looks good in the trailers. There is going to be a lot of noise around this game. It will get review bombed. So if you're interested in this game, sift through the reviews because you will be able to find actual reviews, both good and bad, I'm sure. But if they're bad, they'll explain why they don't like the game, you know, instead of like, oh, the character is ugly, you know, or something like that. Where it's like, okay. So if you were interested in this, which I think you should be because this game looks really impressive, just remember that the reviews are probably not going to reflect what the game is actually like. And you're going to have to sift through those a little bit if you're trying to make a decision.

Yeah. That's well said. Well said. Thanks, Ace. All right. I tried really hard. Stop it. Stop it. You do. You try so hard. What are you doing? Yeah. Also on March 12th, we have a game called Solasta. I think that's Solasta 2, which is only coming out to PC in early access. I know, early access. We all hate it, but it's fine. This was the sequel to Crown of the Magister, if I remember right. Salasta. I believe so. Yeah. We actually saw a trailer for this during the game awards. Very good CRPG. I am a massive fan of CRPGs. You just have to be willing to devote 60 to 80 hours into them because they're usually pretty massive.

No big deal. I mean, Balder's Gay 3 is, you know, that's like the crowning example of, you know, a CRPG. So if you got that Balders Gate 3 it's, this will definitely help you scratch it. This is a tactical RPG built on the same. Oh, yeah. You're right. Very good voice acting. Well, Ben Stars in it.

I think he's the least character. Great and everything. Oh my gosh. I love Benstar. I don't know that this is on the level of Balders Gate 3, but it's probably close-ish and looks like it's really well done at the same time. Like this game, I would love to get my hands on this game at some point if we ever have like a three-month lull where there's not a game coming out that we need.

Man, we got to get real lucky. We got to get real lucky. I love a good CRPG, man. Yeah, me too, man. A good tactical CRPG, especially one like this, where we follow the tabletop, like D&D rules and things like that, I really enjoy. And this one is also multiplayer just like Balders Gate 3 was.

So if that's something that interests people, there you go. But that's also coming out March 12th on PC. All right. A little farther down the line now, March 26th, ever siege the untold ages. Boy, oh boy, guys, we're putting the roglight in an interesting genre mix here of a Mova Tower Defense game. have what a weirder

I've seen this before I don't like this one's interesting I don't like mobas but I love tower defense this also has very much like an RTS vibe to it although I don't know that you're trying to do like the resource generation and stuff with a little bit of is it they are billions with the horde defense

where it's like you know you you were trying to protect your city against just an overwhelming number of like enemies oh I think yeah I think I know what you're talking about yeah And those games can be a lot of fun, man. So this actually looks like a really interesting mix of genres to me. This is one where it's like I, I'm going to 100% base this off of like the reviews that people give this game. Because if they come out and they're like, yo, I know this is like a blend of three genres, but man, does it work?

Like my hype level will shoot way up. But if it's like, if it gets like not good reviews, then I'm like, great idea, probably not executed. the best. Yeah, it's a great idea with poor execution. Yeah, but it looks... I have hope in this just based on the quality. The graphics alone were very, very good looking, as well as they kind of prop up that this is

a PVE game with co-ops. You can play this with your friends too, which is awesome. That's a cool feature for sure. Yeah, a lot of the comments on there, like, you know, this looks like such a cool game. I hope it does well. Oh, this one looks promising. I think that's where we're at.

Like, you know, I... This looks kind of neat, but, you know, we're going to wait and see. We're going to wait and see. Yeah. But it looks very interesting. My favorite comment on this from the trailer was, oh, boy, we got League of Warcraft. It's kind of like that. Like, League of Warcraft with, like, tower defense mixed in.

But, dude, if they can pull that off, that's a heck of a mix. This could be a very big game. Very big thing here. I have never seen a roguight in a Moabah before. So, yeah, that'll be very interesting. And that's only coming to PC, unfortunately, but it's a MoBA. You already knew that. PC Master Race.

I've never seen a Mova not on PC. March 31st, end of the month. Game called Tombwater will be dropping on PC exclusively. This is a Soulslike Western RPG where players will explore a curse frontier town. Dang it, Ryan, you didn't even let him get through the description. No, I didn't even make it. trying to hold it together. Didn't even make it. I was trying so hard to hold it together, Ryan.

I was like, I knew it. I'm going to let him get through this. I'm going to let him get through it, man. And then Ryan starts making faces. Oh. I take it you don't like the graphics of Tum water. Atari called. They want their game back. That's all I'm saying on this one, man. I try to install it on my phone and my phone said, ew.

Yeah. And then it's, I'm sorry, whoever the developer is, we love you. We do, whoever you are out there. But man, I made it 30 seconds into this trailer and noped out quick, dude. Really? Oh, wow. You did not make it. Dude.

They show off some really cool elements. Do they? Do they? Like three pixels versus four? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's certainly not graphics. They don't show that. I just can.

This is a game that's going to live on its gameplay. Here's the other problem that I have with this. Like pixel snobbery aside, the field of view in this game is like three feet. And that really bothers me, dude. It is very zoomed in. That was something I noticed. To the character and what you can see around you that I don't know why, man. But this really bugs my brain for some reason.

And I can't. I just can't with it. It might be an incredible game, but I, ew. I love the second Ace. brought it up. I knew I knew this one was going to get it. I kind of figured based on like the look of this one to all the other ones. In this all the great. It's like tarry game guys. Like we're not even talking like Nintendo or Game Boy. You know what I mean? Like you know, I don't want like I said like you know because we're kind of friends now. But like we're like there's a developer that said, hey, we're going for that classic Game Boy to look. And I'm like, okay. Cool. But like this game's going for Atari. Like, and I'm like like like originally. Atari look. Like, what are we doing, man? Like,

Devin Santi can make Mr. Sleepy Man look the way that it did. Then, like, you don't have an excuse other than like, maybe you need more training as a developer. It's an art style, Josh. It's an art style. Devin Sampi, built this in a cave with a bunch of scraps. Thank you. Thank you. That's exactly right, man. I'm sorry. I'm not Devin Santee. We're going to have to clip that, send it to him by the He might think that's pretty funny, actually, yeah.

As long as he doesn't know, it's us dunking. Sorry. I'm not really dug it on Tombwater, by the way. Sorry, Tombwater. I don't. I can't get into your game. I will say the setting is very interesting, and I do love the idea of a weird west sort of Eldridge Western Roguelight, or not

Roguelight. What is? Sol's light part. Pardon me. Pixel light. Pixel light on the pixels, man? Graphic light. I do.

I'm in if people like, say the game play is really, really good, I might pick it up because I really do enjoy like the good. You ain't picking this. You're not playing this game, dude. You're not? Okay, maybe I'm not. We'll see. You know how I know?

Because you're going to be playing Crimson Desert Ace. Yeah. That's a good point. That's a very good point. And then you're going to be playing replaced. And then you're going to be playing other games that would be way better than this game. That's fair. All right.

Final game on the list. So we can wrap this one up. March 31st again, this game is the one that's probably going to take all the place. There's, uh, grime to highly anticipated sequel Metroidvania. Oh my God. I know you guys hate the word Metroidvania.

You're so used to hearing it from me. It's getting even saying it anymore without being like, oh, I did it again. I know, I know. This is a surreal, just wacky, odd space, sci-fi nutcase world. This is the character that had the black hole for the head. Yes, the original had the black hole head

and it was more soulslike than it was. Metroidvania. Yeah. Yeah. This game doesn't interest me, but I don't know why because it looks like a good game. It looks incredible, though.

Yeah, it does. This is not, I'm not slainering the game. It's just the first one didn't interest me a whole lot. I'm very curious. How good did the first game do? What's the day?

That's a good question. Why don't you take a look? I'm taking a gander here. Well, the first Grime definitive edition, okay. I mean, 90% out of 2000 reviews. Oh, wow. So.

Grime is a pretty popular Metroid, That's why I'm not afraid to say highly anticipated sequel. This is a one people have been waiting for. You got to be careful saying that ace. Some people are going to get you. I know. I know. He's like every game's highly anticipated.

I'm too loosey-goosey with my wording sometimes. The big thing, Grime One was using your parry to pull armor off of enemies and to use that to restore your basically your Estes flask that you could heal with. In this one, it seems like it'll be using a pari. to copy enemies and steal their techniques and their abilities. It's kind of cool. Knock a healing flash out of a boss's hand so they can't win. It's like, it was a very cool trailer they showed.

And the, the dev kind of explained everything to me too, so I didn't have to try to decipher it for myself, which I really appreciated. Yeah, neat art style. I mean, honestly, like, you know, the game actually looks pretty good. I'm just not a fan of Metroidvania's,

but like this one actually looks really neat. It's got good animation. It's got good art. The combat that exists in this game actually looks good. The original Grime got a lot of awards. So if you are a fan of this genre like ACEs, then this is probably one that you should have on your radar or at least your wish list.

Yeah, I agree. I'm a lot higher on Metroid Vennios than Josh's. Castlevania is one of my favorite games of all time. This one, it has a lot of cool depth to it. Like the world looks unique and neat, and that's what you look for in a Metro. Vena, you always look for like, what am I going to be seeing the whole time? Is this going to be something that entices me or makes me excited? And this one seems to fit that, that mold.

But one thing that just, I don't know if it's just lack of innovation or design or I'm just so sick of Metroid Vaneas where there's just like spikes everywhere and they're like, oh, you got to do this, this and this and there's a spike room. Always a stupid spike room and you got to get past the spikes. And it's just like, Come on, we got to, there's, there's got to be something else that we can create or come up with. Lava. Video game, it's been around for a while, right? Like, come on. We've used every, like, every single combination for level design at this point.

We've had to have. There's got to be something, man. But other than that, like, I think it does look like a pretty neat game. I may check this one out. I like Metroidvanias, and I'm always down to kind of check out something worthwhile. So this may be one of them. I guarantee you we'll hear about it again by the, of the year.

All right. I'll give us some time. Let them marinate. Yeah. I'll do a quick recap here in case anyone missed any, but you're not getting more than the names. So listen closely. We had esoteric ebb, never grave the witch and the curse,

slay the spire two, planet of Lana two, Peregrino, Mr. Sleepy Man, 1348 X Voto, Solasta 2, ever siege the untold ages, Tombwater and Grime 2. A lot of twos, guys. A whole lot of twos. lot of sequels, yep. But oh my gosh, is that a packed month for indie games?

It's a good month for indie games, man. Like, honestly, there's some actually really good games. Esoteric Ebb, Slay the Spire 2, Mr. Sleepy Man. Exvoto remains to be seen, but looks really impressive. Solosta, if you like, CRPGs is a very good, like the first one was very well, like, received by people. Eversiege is the one for me that's like the big unknown. like this could be great or it could just completely flop that's the wild card it is the wild card yeah so

that's one i'm i'm curious to follow up on and see how it's doing but yeah what a month for indies dude any of these stand out to you ryan as ones you want to keep your eye on from here i know we're about to go in a crimson desert everything's about to black out i know everything disappears it's kind of hard to imagine on it honestly just knowing that like knowing devon and speaking with him and then like uh the the enjoyment that i had from playing the demo and then also like even though you like you you enjoyed it and you loved it like that platformer like old n64 style was like my childhood so i really want to check it out so that that's the most i haven't been able to get into it yet i know it came out you know yesterday two days from

the release of this episode but uh i'm super stoked to check that one out uh mr sleepy man it's it's gonna be good for sure i agree yeah i assume josh is just super hype to keep playing to play the Spire too. Yeah. I'm actually very excited to have time for Mr. Sleepy Man. Like that might be the game that we go. Like honestly,

like this game is going to be great people. Like we're telling you right now. Like, Ace has been playing it. We've played the demos. You know, you can see the quality and the passion that went into this game. This is one where it's like when we get into like May or like early summer where it's like

and we have a little bit of a gap. A little bit of time. Yeah. A little bit of time. Like I would like to come back and actually cover Mr. Sleepy Man and put it. in front of more people because I think it deserves it. All right,

gents. I think I've used up all of our time now talking about all these great indie games. So, I think it's time to wrap it up. So if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate our show five stars. Leave us a review if you are on Apple Podcast. A comment if you are on Spotify. Love to see the comments.

Love to see that people are interacting. If you were planning on picking up Mr. Sleepy Man, let me know. I'd love to know. I could send the screenshots to Devon since we get Get that direct line. And if you want to go that extra mile and support us, we have a Patreon. You can support those little $5 a month.

Get awesome perks in our Discord as well as access to our pre-show, which is quite long this time because we could not get started for the life of me. Well, we could, Ace just kept going and going. Oh, yes, it was my fault. It was my fault. It was my fault. Ryan couldn't find the animation he was looking for. I found it, though. I found it, though. You did find it.

I will give you credit. You did find it. And like I mentioned, we do have a discord with amazing gamers just like you. Come on, stop on by. We're about to jump into Crimson Desert, which means we're going to go radio silent there. But then you're just going to see lines and lines of spoiler text to look at. But yeah, I think that's all we have. So until next time, happy gaming.

See ya. All right. See, everybody.