It’s Developer Appreciation Week among the Blaugustans and I wanted to mention a few cool people that have been working on some very cool titles and just say a few nice things!
For starters, there’s Hopoo Games: A small studio originally consisting of three people that worked on challenging but innovative titles like Risk of Rain, Deadbolt and Risk of Rain 2! I did write a post on them where I really praised their work already, and I still love and appreciate their efforts to create challenging but fun games with interesting ideas and characters in them! I may very much be a Hopoo fanboy and I’m really looking forward to future titles by these devs, especially if Chris Christodolou is on board again for the soundtrack.
Next up, there’s Stuffed Wombat, a solo developer that has been working on a plethora of titles ever since Covid started. I did already write about two of Stuffed Wombat’s games, qomp and Gutwhale, in the past and honestly, it’s another one of those devs that manages to create interesting experiences that are challenging but fun. It’s something that I value in games: Using an existing formula and adding your own little twist to it to create something fresh and new. It’s lovely and great and I’m looking forward to playing Ord and 10mg soon. I mean, I already bought them because I know that I’ll enjoy them, so I’ll probably write a review as well.
And then there’s obviously, The Molasses Flood, an independent studio consisting of former AAA developers who decided to take their own path. Just like with the previous titles I love their ideas and the execution of exactly those ideas. The Flame In The Flood, their debut title, combines the Roguelike-formula with Survival mechanics and thanks to the flow of the game (haha) you can’t really settle down somewhere and will always have to make decisions to save a run or go down the drain. But their latest title, Drake Hollow, also had interesting and surprising ideas, mashing the Survival-genre with Colony Sim and Management aspects while also adding satisfying combat mechanics and super adorable little creatures called Drakes to the game! It all works really well together and I just love the world of it. Oh, and The Molasses Flood is also hiring new minds for their next game, so… take a looksie at that right here if you’re interested.
Another Studio I love is Spearhead Games, a Montreal-based Indie Studio that creates lovely games with innovative narratives. Omensight is one of my favourite titles and I absolutely loved the combat mechanics, the story and the characters. The soundtrack was amazing and the time-travel mechanic was very interesting and kept me engaged up until the very end! I really loved it. Their other game, Stories: The Path of Destinies, also follows into that route with interesting mechanics and a “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” approach where you can only find the right solution by trying out all the wrong ones first. It’s interesting and lovely and I’m really looking forward to their next title, Witchstone! I can’t wait to see what that game will be like!
Either way, I figured it’d be fun to write about this prompt, especially as it’s a whole themed week! I could have talked about many other posts but honestly, these few popped up in my mind right away and I wanted to write about them for sure… and I’ll probably end up writing another one of these posts soon-ish! Hope you liked this one. What are some devs/dev studios that you really appreciate? Do you have a favourite studio? Let me know!
Cheers!
This post is part of the Blaugust 2021 event. For more information on that, check out this post!
This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!
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