Video Gamers Podcast - The 8 BEST Indie Games of 2026 So Far! - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are counting down the biggest indie games of EVERY month this year! From Quarantine Zone and Mewgenics to Slay the Spire 2, Meccha Chameleon, Big Walk and more, we’re picking the indie that owned each month. Which video games deserve the crown? We’re celebrating the weird, wild, and addictive video games that have made indie gaming impossible to ignore. One game. Every month. Nothing but gaming goodness on the Video Gamers Podcast!   January February March April May June July August     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   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. 2026 has already been an absolutely ridiculous year for indie games. We're talking millions of copies sold, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of players, and tiny teams creating games that somehow compete with the biggest releases in the industry. And the wildest part? Some of these games sound completely ridiculous on paper. A cat breeding roglight, a hide-and-seat game about painting yourself, and a zombie checkpoint simulator.

So today, we're going month by month to see what the biggest interest is. he was for 2026. And what may people care about them? I am your host, Ace, and joining me, if you asked him what the best indie this year was, he'd probably still say Expedition 33 because he's still hung up on last year. It's Josh. Okay. Okay.

Number one, I support a lot of Indies, Ace. I have been playing a lot of demos lately. I've been playing a lot of, the heights of Expedition 33 for you. We've been playing lately. And I think I've played a lot more games than you have. have lately. So if anybody's supporting Indies, I think it's me. That's true. You're about to buy another Indian

employee. Yeah. Yeah. So how dare you? Oh, how dare. Has any indie game lived up to your expectations of Expedition 33? Okay. That's like saying, is a game like an all-timer this year? No, we've had no all-timer top six games. No, you said there have been no

Alzheimer's. Not this year, no. No. How dare you be smirched mech a chameleon? No. Are you disputing that claim? Ames? No, I'm not. Okay. Actually, I was going to say.

Yeah, no, Karen is, Karen comes close for me, but not quite. Not quite to that same massive level that Expedition 33 hits. She's always grumpy anyway. Yeah. And of course, the man who doesn't need sales numbers or player accounts or even market analysis, he just needs to know it's fun. It's right.

I just, I'm living off the vibes, baby. Yeah. Give me the vibes, I'm just playing for the vibes for good. We're just looking to have a good time. That's what it's all about. That is what it is all about in the end.

Guys, I would say, even though it's not as strong a year for Andes as last year, because how can you compete with what came out last year? Yeah. Silk Song, Hades, Expedition 33, dispatch. Like, that's...

Dang, that's kind of... That's a good year, man. That's actually really... That's actually pretty banger list you just threw out there. Dang. That's good. That's kind of really... really hard to compete with,

but the Indies are still kicking a lot of butt this year, like genuinely. So I wanted to go like month by month. But mixtape came out this year. Yeah. What about what about mixed tape? And that's not on your list? It was not a top performer compared to these games.

I protest this episode already. I was like, wait a minute. I'm like throwing in this like the dispatch and all that. And then you threw in mixtape. I'm just nodding along like an idiot. And then I'm like, wait a minute. Mix tape wasn't that long ago.

And then this list is void and defunct. Oh, you're voiding the entire list for the sake of mixtape. Because listen, I'm looking at your game that came out in May and that game sucks. And mixtape was awesome. Oh, it sucks. Oh, my gosh. I hate, I'm beginning to hate that. Save the arguments for when he gets there.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Go ahead. Yeah, you can save your arguments for when we get to. May, sir. I think we should qualify then. I'm not trying to hijack the episode here.

But are these just the highest selling games then? These are some of the highest performing, highest selling games, yes. They've all performed well and they all sold incredibly well. All right. Well, I just want everybody to know right now I dispute May. I dispute May. You all right? We'll hold your comments till May then.

That's a cliff on. Yeah, shut up, dude. Let them do it. Come on. I wanted it to be known. At the top of the show. I am under duress I disagree with this list

what are you even doing that's the sign for duress SOS No that's the sign that they tell women to make If they're being trafficked or whatever Yeah I guess that's what? Yeah you never really I didn't know it was like no

Well I've never seen women under duress Because if you see a woman do this Where she tucks her thumb in and then covers her hand Like, that's, that's, that's a sign that says, hey, I'm like, I'm under duress. Look it up. I'm not making this up. Anyways. I don't think you're making it up.

I just never heard of it, but I'm glad to know it now, I guess. Well, everybody knows. Anyways, I hope one day that my- Hey, so why don't you tell us about January, buddy. Let's talk about January. The biggest indie, arguably in January, was a game called quarantine zone, the last check. We have not talked about this game at all. We have not covered this game at all.

somehow this one kind of flew completely under the radar for us but it is a zombie apocalypse meets paper please kind of game and if you don't know what Papers Please is it's like a checkpoint thing you run a checkpoint and you check people's passports to like accurate passports and if they're

good you let them through if they're bad bad things might happen to them but in this one you will be checking survivors for signs of infection of the zombie virus it's a very unique idea it's sold to 600 66,000 copies in January. It's a little on point for a zombie game.

It is a little on point. I think the appeal kind of comes from how simple and easy it is to understand, as well as just being a very interesting idea. What do you guys kind of think of this? Just first little thoughts why this was the big game for January. This game's on my wish list. Believe it or not. Oh, okay.

I legitimately remember seeing this game. It came out. it was actually getting pretty good reviews, very favorable response from people. We had people in our community that were playing. I say people in our community played this. Speaking highly of it, it just looks like a good time. Like it's one of those, it's kind of a dumb game. It's the Papers Please Checkpoint type game where you're trying to find like the inconsistencies with the people and their stories and stuff like that.

And then there's progression in it. There's like puzzles and, you know, you have to be like, you actually have to be perceptive because it gets harder. and they start to kind of mask their symptoms and stuff like that. And I thought this game looked a lot of fun. I wishlisted it and then I just never wound up picking it up. Oh, you didn't think you enjoyed simulator games, Josh. You know, I never should have admitted it because now this is what happens. Never.

All of a sudden, Josh loves sim games now because he'd like that one game for six hours. He wants to be, you know, a simulation of a border guard checking. Everyone. Survivors. DM Josh Sim games now, please. Just like flood his inbox

if you can. Ryan, you're the zombie apocalypse guys. This game appeal to you in any way. I remember, I remember talking about this

and I thought it was unique and cool. I mean, it's not crazy unique, but I thought the idea was neat and I liked it. I'll be honest, I'm probably never

ever going to play this game. I'm sure a lot of people have. This would be the big game for January. Um, no, I think it looks, it looks like it's well made. It looks, uh, I mean, obviously it's sold a lot of copies and the reviews, you know, and the ratings are, are mostly positive. So it's, I mean, they got, I mean, almost 6,000 very positive. So it's doing well, you know, and it's sold well, obviously. So there's, there's something there for sure. So I'm not, I'm not surprised that, um, it looks like it's developed according to what, you know, I mean, is it for an indie game? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it. It's exactly what it promises. Yeah, it was what it promises. It's like, hey, this is what we got.

And it's sold well. And so good for them, man. I hope they cash in on this. And then it, you know, inspires them to make something else, you know, again. Ryan's also. I mean, the other other notable indie games that came out then was a game called Big Hops, which was like a 3D frog platforming game. Mio, Memories in Orbit, which we talked about, ripped that studio.

That was the hand-drawn Metroidvania that's kind of set in space. Oh, my gosh, hand-drawn? A hand drawn? They're all fired, Josh. You guys cannot make fun of them. They don't have a job anymore. Maybe they don't have a job anymore. Computer drawn instead.

And then Karen was the other one, which Karen did not even sell 500,000 copies until February. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This was, Karen came out in January. Yeah. Oh, are you, are you protesting now, Ryan? Are you protesting January? Yeah, I'm protesting.

Yeah. Okay, see. January's bunk. This is straight buns, dude. Yeah, no, there's no way that this is better than Cairn. This out sold Cairn in January, yeah. Well, there's a lot of stupid people out there. I'll tell you that much. I can remember.

I'm sure you think February is all the stupid people then. I'm going to throw one other game out there because my wife actually was really excited for this, and it's the Escape from Ever After, which is the Paper Mario clone. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that came out in January. She loved that game. Like, it was a really, really, really. well done paper Mario.

That one was well received. Yep. Yeah. It's just nowhere as no way as popular as this one. February, game we deep dive, game we played.

Magenics. Yeah, you did not like this one. Tactical roguleg from Edmund McMillan, the team behind the binding of Isaac, you know, you breed, customized train an army of cats,

250,000 copies sold within the first 12 hours. That's crazy. We knew that. 500,000 sold in roughly 36 hours. Yeah. one million copies within the first week. This is undisputed the indie game of February.

Oh, easily. It's a really good game too, dude. Like, as gross as it is. Yeah. It's a really good game. Like, it's legitimately is. Oh, you're still playing it, right? No.

Since when do I ever play a game for more than like? Oh, you're talking about, Josh. You're talking about it. You can't. Well, okay. Well, that's fair. That's fair. That's fair.

Then Ace, you're obviously still playing it, right? I still haven't installed. I haven't played it in a bag. Oh. That's a good mark right there. It's still installed. It is still installed. No, I totally understand why people like this game.

Why it's sold as well as it did. Ryan hates cats. He hates ugly games and he hates turn-based games. I know. Here's a deal. Just lying through his teeth right now. No, I don't, no, I don't hate any of those things. I think cats are overrated.

I think everyone that's a cat person is like, oh, my cat, blah, blah, blah, blah. Cats are pretty like lame and standoffish. You can't even do anything with them and they just like are like leave me alone. That's your thing. That's cool. Not mine. Whatever.

Not a big deal. But like cats and then it's gross and then, uh, you just like, it's turn base combat. So all of it is everything that I don't like in a game. But I understand I could see how it was made and it was a good game. Even if it's not my style and it's not something I like, I can tell that it was a good game. And I understand why it sold so well and people like. it. So I just think it's garbage.

I also says a stupid amount of content. This was competing with games like Rianimal and Creece All Theater Vitals. So there wasn't a ton in February that really stood out. I liked Rianimal a ton, but I think that Mugenics was a better game. Yeah, Mugetics definitely. I mean, I personally prefer Reanimal because I like that more, but

Muginix was a better game. Muginix was guaranteed to succeed regardless because of Edmund McMillan's like, pedigree. Yeah, his pedig. Yeah, they were going to buy it no matter what. He had a leg up, which is saying something because Tarsier Studios also has a pedigree with Nightmares.

Re Animal was so good, by the way. Like, legitimately, I think it's still one of my favorite indies that I've played this year. It was a good game. I definitely think it has some miss potential, but not a ton of miss potential. Yeah, I can understand that. It was short for the price. Like, I understand a few of the complaints, but it was a really good game.

March, you should know all about this next game, Josh. and that was the long-awated Slay the Spire 2 entered early access, probably the sequel to the most influential deck-building roguelike card game ever made. Three million copies sold in its first week. Three million? Yeah. Estimated right at about 5.3 million steam copies sold during the month of March. And it peaked around 571,000 concurrent players.

That's a lot of people, dude. That's a lot of people. playing Slay the Spire 2. It became one of the biggest games on Steam. Take a guess at how many hours I have in Slay the Spire 2, guys. I want to say like 42. So you think I played that game a lot. I do think I played that game a lot.

You played it with Matt and you played it with Steve and you played it. I would say 21.5. 98.9 hours. Oh! Slay the Spire 2 is great. That's a lot of Slay the Spire 2 is 4. Slay the Spire 2 is freaking great. Is that is that burned into your monitor as well?

No, it's not Ryan. The things move a little bit more. Thank you. You laugh, but guess who's going to, the podcast is going to wind up buying me a new monitor riots. That's fine. You deserve it, buddy. You deserve it.

Slay Spire 2, amazing. Is it the biggest? Wait, what were the sale? Oh, yeah, this is easily the biggest. This is easily the biggest. There's not, yeah, I'm looking over there like. esoteric ebb That one did really well

But it did not come anywhere close to touch And when Slate the Spire Yeah not Slate the Spire Slay the Spire 2 I mean At least Slate the Spire 1 also kicked some butt But yeah Good for them Just the early access

That's the crazy part I don't think things are going to change a whole lot When it fully releases In all honesty They're gonna have some artwork But the base game was there I mean there's been some tweaks They've kind of aggravated a few people

by changing some of the things that they've changed. Yeah, I saw there's a lot of angry Chinese reviews. It's like, it's a single player game. Let certain builds be overpowered and stuff like that. And it's like, but this is early access. I get it at the same time. But it was a very complete, I mean, I have 100 hours in it, man. Like, it's a complete game, even an early access.

I can't believe you have 100 hours. Dude, that's so much. It's a rogue-like card-based game. This is literally made for me. It's so crazy. I mean, it was competing against Indies, like, Planet of Lana 2. and esoteric ab as Ryan said. So it wasn't a ton going up against it,

but Planet Atlanta Lana 2 was pretty highly anticipated. Yeah. But it's undisputed that Slay the Spire 2 was the game of March. Per Josh. Per Josh himself. For his 100 hours. Can confirm. The multiplayer is awesome, by the way.

That's one of the things that is different with Slay the Spire 2. And I know a lot of people went like, well, how does the multiplayer? But the multiplayer with friends is freaking fantastic, dude. Like, it does slow the game down a little bit, but being able to, like, talk to your buddy and say, hey, can you kill in this turn or I'm going to die? And then they're like, oh, let me figure it out. And then comboing cards and stuff like that. The multiplayer was a great addition to Slate Aspire. Yeah, that was a smart choice.

April, this one kind of surprises me because I feel like this game came out of nowhere. But April, Windrose introduced early access. Now we're talking. This was the survival adventure game kind of focused on exploration, sailing, building, and multiplayer all focused around pirates. This became very big, very quickly, with 1.66 million Steam copies sold

when it's first weeks. 211,000 concurrent players reached. Major game, major game with no like pedigree, no kind of thing to jump off of. And you played some of this too, in you, Josh? he did the beta I think right it's almost like we're a gaming podcast guys you know and then like we need to play games or something I have this game purchased and installed you always want to guess how many hours I have on it zero zero zero zero zero yeah it's zero you're saying you pick this up and I was like Ryan ain't played windrust I'll say this I want to play it so bad I'm not kidding but I know I know it'll turn into like 40 hours easy I am waiting yeah that's going to 40 hours you're I played the demo for like six hours. This game is fantastic.

It's a wonderful game. It's so much so that it's like I actually want to just experience the full release on this. So I'm going to let them cook on this one. I will 1,000% be picking up Winrose when it releases fully. Oh, well, that's four years. If it's four years, it's four years. That's fine. But this game is worth it.

That's why I hate the early access crap, man. It's just all it's become is crowdfunding to like, develop the game. Like help us develop the game. We're going to give you 80% of it and then we're just going to make you pay for the rest. That's the one tradeoff. You like, you bought it and you've never even launched it. But when it fully releases, Ryan, you have the game for the cheaper price. Usually for like five bucks cheaper.

Still five bucks, ace. That's five bucks. Five dollars is enough for people to head to Patreon and support this show, Ace. Oh, that's true. That's five dollars saved you could be putting towards this show. That savings could be used for. of pre-show content, but maybe don't listen to this pre-show. This pre-show. Maybe another pre-show. Maybe start with a different pre-show. Yeah, you don't want to listen to this one.

But it was competing with Indies like People of Note, which we talked about wasn't super interesting us. That was the rhythm, uh, musical RPG, yeah, I remember that one. Yeah. And of course, Gunboat God, which you also dunked on hard, hard. Gecko gods? Is that the one? No, Gunboat God. That's the one where the guy's, the silhouette, wets on the water. And then a tiny bookshop cozy sort of bookstore management game.

So, and Wydrose didn't have a ton of competition in April, but it still kind of came out of nowhere and took the world. All right, this is the controversial one. Oh, no, take a break before this one, Ace. I don't even want to. Okay, fine. Yeah, let's leave the cliffhanger here, Ace. Before we get everyone all riled up.

Not everybody, just me. We're going to take a little break. All right. We're back with the. month of May and the game stupid stupid stupid the game is gamble with your friends yeah rightfully so on its place and the platform of May for all the sales and the amazing development that they did oh no no no no no no what are you talking about what do you what do you hold on what I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me that you think that gamble with friends is a better game than

mix tape. Yeah, you can't. I think, I think Gamble is exactly. For people listening, we do have video. You could have watched that. This is what, listen, because

Ryan loves to keep this Josh hates friend slop thing alive. This is why I hate friend slop. This, because this game is stupid. It's a dumb game. I played it twice. I played it twice with people. complete. It's complete. Trash? Yeah. It has an ending.

It's complete and utter garbage. And then a game like this outsells a game like mixtape, which was a masterpiece of a game. And you were telling me that instead of talking about mixtape being the number one game for May that we're freaking bringing up gamble with your friends. This is the problem with friend slop, dude. What's the ending? Do you end up in an alley and your wife left you? Yeah. Oh, heck if I know. Only one person in our server's ever beaten it. Gosh, this is, this is, this is why, man.

Wait, who beat it? Oh, I think it was a myth for honor. Really? Dang, good for them. That's awesome. I didn't Cass and her friends beat it? I don't know. I don't pay attention to one sitting.

Anyway, Gambling with your friends is a multiplayer party game kind of built around gambling style mini games. It's designed around playing with your friends and creating these chaotic moments that is highly streamable and immediately accessible and understandable. Two million copies sold,

according to the estimates. This game did very, very well. Wait, this is where you left me in the ditch. I remember this game. Yes. Dude, this was fun. It's the sloppiest of the slop. Oh my gosh.

I'm sorry that it's a fun game that is well done and finished and complete. And people can play it together without a lot of investment and they can enjoy their time. Man, Josh, I'm sorry that that imposes on your world so much. Hang on. You know how many hours I have and gamble with friends? Probably less than two. 2.3 hours, which really upset me because I wish I could refund me. Dang, what a grinder.

I wish I could refide. Just missed the refund window on this one. You did just miss the refund window. Other notable indies that dropped was the Constance console port dropped. Just a little game called mixtape, by the way, everybody. Just a little game called mixtape. Alabaster Don. Outbound, which was one of the highest wishlisted games on Steve.

Wait, are you? Okay, there is also, I'm assuming you're not including this one because it's early access, but Subnotica 2 came out in May also. Oh, was that May? I thought that was... According to the internet. We've been doing so much ignoring of Subnotica 2 because we really want to wait for the full release that I hadn't thought to look at it. Yeah. Also, Dead as Disco entered its early access in May.

So, Gable with your friends did really well. Dude, it was so fun. What a game. No, it's just, Josh hates fun is what it is. Yeah, it's so fun that you played 2.5 hours of it, Ryan. So you played 0.2 hours more than I did. And yet you love it so much. It was, it was awesome.

It was a good time. It's stupid. Ryan's trying to keep a straight face. And he knows. He's like, you're right. It was stupid. But I got to keep up my love of friend slop, Shereid. It's not a love of friend slop.

It's recognizing what the games are and what you get out of them. and then appreciate him for that. Like, you don't go. You know Ryan loves to gamble. You got put two hours out of it more than me and I hated the game, Ryan, so you really love this game apparently. All right.

June. June undisputably belonged to Mekyllian. Yeah. Cammillian. I don't think there was another game that competed with Mecca Chameleon in June. I don't think anything was on its level. I don't think so.

unaware, that is the multiplayer hide and seek style game where people will camouflage themselves by painting themselves to blend in with the environment while other people hunt for them. And you can just spam the whistle button to really upset them if you're good. Yep. Yeah, it was developed by a very small team launched for 599, which was

a big appeal to it, I believe. One million copies sold within the first four days, 7 million in two weeks, 10 million and under a month. And then 15 million by early July. Yeah. As of now, they've surpassed 20 million. Yeah, they have sold a lot of copies of this game. Dude. 340,000 concurrent players on Steam. Second highest grossing PC game in June.

That's just behind Fortnite on Epic Games. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. Fortnite, they probably spent so much money trying to make money. And then, oh my gosh, that's, here's a deal. though, like these games, do you guys think that now for six bucks? Some of like this, this reminds me of like the, I don't know, a lot of people have seen the clips or seeing stuff like with ringback tunes and all that stuff. And I know we've talked about it in the past, but like Acon said that he like started designing songs or writing songs to be like ringback tones. I remember this.

And all that stuff. He's like, oh, wait, I get how much for selling a song, but like how much for a, ring back tone. He's like, oh, I'll just do that. He's like, that makes a lot of money. That's true. So is this something where, because these are so streamable and with how big like the streaming industry is with, especially with the youth, like, is this something that you think they're not only designing, yeah, indie games and they're designed for streamers. Friend games, but designed specifically to burn hot. You'll get two months out of it. It'll stream crazy. you'll sell 20 million copies

and then you'll never hear of it again which I mean they made they made their money and they moved on and like everybody had a good time but like I feel like that's that's where these are headed and that's what this design is for I unlike Josh I'm all for it because like I'll have a fun time and I'll pay $6 but

I don't think it's ruining gaming this was clever as well this was a twist on a game mode people already enjoyed which is prop hunt people love prop hunt and then they sold it for an incredibly cheap price and then they sold it on the vibes. Everyone was just like, this looks fun. This looks great.

Look at all these people on the internet having fun with this game. You see all that? Your buddies hit you up and then normally you're like, you know, but it's like, oh, it's only $7. And it worked on 15 million people. All right. Yeah, I'll get it. I had fun with mecha chameleon.

We had multiple community nights that were an absolute blast. This was a good time for $6. It's hard to argue with that. do either of you have any plans to ever play mecha chameleon again unless somebody asked me unless someone asked for another community night i'm not playing by myself so so let me ask you this though did you get your six dollars worth that's why oh you got six bucks worth so there you go i'm trying to say i'm trying because i don't want people labeling me as grouchy but it's like for six dollars the amount of fun that i had on this it's hard to deny it's hard to deny that for

six dollars that you can have a ton of fun and there's people that are still playing in this game. Like, it's not dead. Oh, for sure. You know, um, and that one's tough, man. The, Ryan, you said, like, the main point that you make with like, you know, my, my major point, right, is the industry always chases the money. So when I say that I think friend slops bad, I will use gamble with your friends as the perfect example where imagine if mixtape didn't get made because that studio is chasing the friend slop idea of let's sell something that's going to sell five million copies and then we don't get a game that's a masterpiece like mixtape but instead we get how many people really don't like mixed tape but those people are dumb let's be honest I think I feel like you

forgot how much how many people like that's that's the internet and that's the people are like oh they're holding their control they're going like I didn't even have to play this game and it's like dude mixtape is an experience it's like fire watch it's like what remains of edith finch it's like dispatch it's like they just those people don't understand that games are aren't just call of duty. You know what I mean? And, and, like, these, and I'm talking about, like, the internet sheep. If you played mixtape and you didn't like it, fine.

At least you tried it. Yeah, that's fine. I'm fine. But my point is, I worry that, you know, the studio that made mixtape went, wow, well, we spent three years making this and we sold, let's just say, two million copies, which in theory would make them happy. But then they look at gamble with your friends and go, those guys made this in their mom's basement in two weeks, and they sold five million copies. Instead of putting all this effort

into making this masterpiece of a game, we're just going to chase the friend slop trend from that on. That is my concern when I talk about friend slop being bad for the industry. I'm not, I'm not saying that the games aren't fun. I had a blast with Mecha Chameleon. Now, I think gamble with your friends is trash, but Meca Chameleon, I thought was a lot of fun, you know? And so, you know, that's my concern. Nobody's saying that these games aren't fun. Nobody's saying that the price to fun ratio doesn't make sense in that case. It's more just the, I worry that we're not going to have games like mixtape

because they're chasing stupid stuff like Gamble with your friends instead. But that's like you look at, and I know we always end up going to food, but like that's like saying there's not going to be any good restaurants because McDonald's makes, you know, billions of dollars. You know,

there's... Drive down Bell Road, how many franchise crappy restaurants do you see? Oh, of course. Of course, there's going to be those, but you're going to get the people that have passion and care about it. And then that's when you're going to get the quality and you're going to get the things that you're truly looking for within a game. And then they get st stumped out because the chain restaurants put them out of business because people go to the slop instead of the higher end restaurant. It's big friend slop, you know, getting us again.

I was like, we don't have time for you two to argue friend slop in June. All right. We need to move on to July, which was not Friend Slop to break the trend here. This is how you do a game. There's a little game called Powell World launched into its full access. The full game of Power World dropped, and I think the world just stopped for a minute. For those who don't know, it released an early access in January of 2024. Full access, July 10th.

This is the creature collecting, survival crafting, Pokemon with Guns game. That's what everyone calls it. Pokemon with Guns Game. Incredible. game. Power World's so much fun. If you like survival crafting or you like Pokemon, this game is right up your alley. You'll love this game.

As soon as that 1.0 drop, it returned to almost 1 million concurrent team players again with a 9601,000 peak of concurrent players. Its original peak was 2.1 million, by the way. It has a lifetime sales about 30 million

plus. It's still going. Power World is indisputably the biggest indie of July. Imagine if Pokemon spent all that money. Yeah, they just prove, like, if Pokemon would really put the effort in, people will buy it. Like, you can get 30 million plus sales. On the lawsuits and the attorneys, like, imagine if they spent that to do it. But I will say also with their, this is why I hate early access.

A long time ago in a distant, distant land, we went somewhat viral on a video. We had a cool strategy. Ace was part of the thing and Paul, a former host of the show, was on there as well. Guess when that was, guys? It was in 2024. It was January of 2020. We were playing this game.

It's, it's freaking end of August in 2026 and you're like, oh, well, Powero got launched. You know, that's why I don't like the early access stuff. A million people were fine with it, though, because a million people came back. Dude, I don't know. It's crazy to me. That's good for them, man.

Good for them. I love anyone sticking it to Nintendo and all that Pokemon stuff and their, you know. Yeah, and it was competing with other Indies like Dino Blades. Sir, we have an orc problem, which we haven't talked about, but that was like a strategy action game. And then Denshetak, which we have talked about, which is like the Tony Hark subway car race game, which did super well, by the way. So you two can stuff it. Oh, I remember that. I play that demo.

Yeah. Did you mention the shift at midnight? That one did really good. Sold almost a million companies. That one did very well as well. What genre is that game, Josh? That's a friend slop for sure. Yeah, that's absolutely a friend's love game.

And then coming up on the Big August, where we are right now. There's not, it's early, it's early, but I'm going to go ahead and say, we'll call it for this episode. That Big Walk is the indie of August. Cooperative Adventure by House House, the creator's own titled Goose game. You know, players explore a massive world together, and they walk. and talk. That's what we do. Oh, you're not going to interrupt me this time, Josh? It's only one game for August, A, so I don't really know. But also, I know that this was a running joke, especially during our community nights and Ryan, you know, poking the bear and stuff. But like, I legitimately don't consider Big Walk a friend slop game. I do consider it a hangout party type game. It's just too well developed. It's a cooperative adventure game. It's too well developed to be considered friends. If you want me to keep making up names for it. What was the other one we played?

The machine party? That's a party in the name, Ryan. It says it's machine. No, you just keep coming in a way. Everything, everything you guys can like categorize aside from friend slop is what you do. Just to, oh, I had fun. Oh, this isn't friend slop. Yeah.

Exactly, Ryan. That's how it works. But it was competing with games like Restory, Grainrott, Rogue Eclipse, and Dusk Fade, which just dropped. but nothing's come close to what Big Walk did with its one million copies sold within the first week. I don't know, we even know where it's at right now. It's probably even higher. Good for them.

Just having an idea. Their other game, Untitled Goose game, took three months to reach a million sales. Yeah. Big Walk's an interesting game, man. It is, I had a lot of fun with our time with it.

I don't plan on playing it again, but you can tell that when they develop this game, they actually put a lot of thought and effort into it. the puzzles. We just covered it. If you want to hear our thoughts on Big Walk, literally, we just did the deep dive on it.

But this is a well developed. Yeah, go listen to that because it's right there. Interactive. I will say I heard through the Discord Grapevine in our Discord that there's another room. There's one that we all got stuck in

for five minutes. There's a 30 minute room. And I was like, you can miss me on that one, buddy. I'm just going to, I'll let my guys sit there and I'm going to walk away, do something else.

I'm not sitting there for 30 minutes. minutes. So I will say some people had said that it doesn't respect your time that much. And I think it's intentional. Yeah. I do think that's intentional. It wants you to play the game and live in the game for a bit. Also, I might have to concede that Subnotica 2 was definitely the better Andy for May because I'm just seeing it now that they updated their sales numbers to be, it was $4 million before. But I did wonder if it's because it's early access. I think it just didn't show up in any of my searches because it was early access, even though Slate Aspire 2 did.

That's weird. Well, and then Windrose's early access as well. Yeah, I don't know. That's very strange. Although, to be fair, we have not talked about Subnotica 2 hardly at all because all of us are very excited for this game, but we don't want the early access. We want to just say, hey, yeah, when it releases, we will absolutely dive in. I freaking love Subnotica.

I can't wait to get my hands on Subnotica 2, but I don't want to play early access Subnotica 2. Yeah. I feel like the weird thing here is, is there's no real pattern to why these games are successful. There's no, like, big reason I can point out to why each and every one of these games. Well, I know why. Because there was Didley Squat in May, so Gamble with Your Friends stood out.

And there was Didley Squat in June, so Mecca Chameleon stood out. Like, I mean, I know Ryan's shaking his head already. But, like, legitimately, we went into summer. If people remember, we went into summer going, oh, my goodness, we get a break, right? Because there's not a lot of releases coming up. We get to play our backlog. We get to have a little bit of a break, catch up, breathe for a minute. And then that is the perfect time to release games like this because people are looking for

something to play. And when you don't have big major titles that you're competing with, it's a lot easier to stand out and get noticed, especially on social media, which is where these friend slop games thrive and they go viral and then everybody in the world picks them up. So legitimately, I think that May, June exists, these two games exist because it's the dead of summer and there's just not a lot of other releases happening. That's fair. Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, and it's, I also think that these big multiplayer games just do really well during summer breaks for the kids.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Good timing. They're cheap games. It's a good time for everyone to be up late, just playing their friend slops. And every TV has a YouTube app and then like all the real. the reels and the shorts play on it nonstop so yeah they're gonna

see it yeah those are our biggest indie games at least sales wise I would say so far this year and I don't know that I would say it measures up to 2025 no I don't think it does it all even remember not yet not yet anyway and they're not doing poorly by any means I mean look at Slate Aspire 2 like grief favorite favorite game on this list that's a good question

minus Slate Aspire 2 I'm gonna go with Winrose Winrose is mine. It's the game you play. The game he hasn't played. The game you haven't even opened. I'm invested in it is all, you know, I'm going to support it. I'm going to give it to Mugenics, man.

Mugetics just has so much going for it. I really enjoyed Mugetics, but Slay the Spire 2 is just a complete Josh game. Yeah. And to all our friends out there playing Power World, I know you're so screaming Power World right now. We understand. We get it. But, you know, I think that's all. we have for this one, guys.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review five stars if you're on Apple, a comment if you're on Spotify to tell us what your favorite indie of the month was. Maybe you have a best indie of the year, which I'd love to hear.

I'm still saying Karen is the best indie of the year. You're about on that same boat as me, Ryan? Me too. Yep, that's my favorite so far. Yeah. And if you want to go that extra mile and support us, we have a Patreon. You can support as little as $5 a month.

Helps us a ton. We really appreciate it. And you'll get a little shout on the show, which is always nice. And we have an amazing. amazing Discord full of gamers you absolutely have to meet. And we have the best community ever in gaming, period. Like, no lie, not a joke.

Join us. Everyone joins. They're like, oh, you've got to be exaggerating. You've got to be pretending. And then they get bombarded with happy people and people who want to know what your favorite game is, what your least favorite game is. And it's always such a surprise. People are like, oh, you weren't kidding.

He's like, no, we were not kidding. We have an amazing community. But I think that's all the time I have for this one. So until next time, happy gaming. See ya. All right. See, everybody.