Indiescovery

We begin this episode with a little bit of sad news: the Indiescovery podcast is going on hiatus, due to the fact that Rachel and Rebecca are both leaving Rock Paper Shotgun for pastures new. However, there's no need to be too downhearted, as your favourite indie-loving trio has every intention of continuing to collaborate on video game-related projects. Who knows, maybe we even drop a few subtle hints about what we've got planned next.

Onto the episode proper: our first topic is a round-up of our recent experiences as jury members for Indie Cup UK '23, a festival celebrating indie game devs that ran throughout May and June. As jurors for the Critics' Choice award we enthuse over our shared love for the well-deserved winner VIDEOVERSE, before diving into our slightly more divided opinions on the category's other nominees, the highlights of which for us included Phoenix Springs, Full Void, Loco Motive, and No Body. Ultimately though we all agree that it was an incredibly strong showing all around, so our congratulations again to everyone who participated: not just the winners and nominees, but everyone who submitted a game for consideration, and indeed to the organisers! As you may be able to tell, we had a lovely time.

Even though we could probably keep talking about the Indie Cup all day, we next turn our attention to another group who deserve our thanks and recognition: you, our dear listeners. To mark the end of the podcast's first season, we dive back into the mailbag and get very sidetracked while pondering some of your questions, including (but not limited to) the topics of our favourite very short indie games, and the genres we'd love to see enjoy an indie renaissance.

We end, as ever, on our hyperfixations. Rebecca's been laid up with a fever and so has had the dubious luxury of reading and playing whatever she likes for a few days: Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, and the Animal Crossing: New Horizons manga series all emerged as comforting favourites. Liam puts in a good word for yet another rather sad book (Strong Female Character by Fern Brady) before really ramping up his efforts to make his co-hosts cry by listing off some of his favourite articles Rachel and Rebecca have written for RPS, the big loveable dork. He's also put the author of this synopsis in a very awkward position by promising links in the show notes, so here you go:

Rachel:

Why Citizen Sleeper’s cast of interstellar nobodies matter

A Space For The Unbound review: a supernatural teen romance with a wonderful sense of time and place

TikTokers have created a player-generated RPG full of money-dealing cats, and it's absolutely wild

Rebecca:

Where are all the good Stephen King games?

Returning to The Sims 1 in 2023 is a weird challenge I fully recommend

A decade later, the Lutece Twins are still the best thing in BioShock Infinite

Finally, Rachel unintentionally brings the season full-circle by talking about The Traitors Australia, the (you guessed it) Australian version of the social deduction TV show she was hyperfixated on when we recorded our very first episode.

Indiescovery is a podcast from RockPaperShotgun.com. All music is by Dylan Sitts; the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. Thanks for listening, and don't be strangers!

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This episode it's Halloween in July, as Indiescovery sets out to answer our listeners' most burning question: "Now that Rachel and Liam have both had a turn, when does Rebecca get her main character moment?" It starts now, friends, as your resident horror maven takes you on a whistle-stop tour of her favourite indie horror games, ranging from the silly (Simulacra) to the serious (Detention), and from psychological spooks (Layers Of Fear) to outright jump-scares (Dark Deception).

Once Liam and Rachel have been coaxed out from their hiding places behind the sofa, they submit some further suggestions that expose them as the secret horror fiends I kind of suspected they were all along. Recommendations for Devotion and The Missing: JJ Macfield And The Island Of Memories prompt some further enthusiastic discussion, but we also touch on Mundaun, Iron Lung, Signalis, and Cultic, and the output of DreadXP in general.

Exhausted from the terror, we turn our attention to our latest batch of hyperfixations, which given that we haven't recorded an episode in over three weeks is quite the crop at this stage. Liam's been watching Love Island, but is keen to gloss over that in favour of finally getting into Pizza Tower and discovering the joys of the Half-Life 2: VR Mod on Steam. Rachel has been thoroughly absorbed in the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective series of tabletop games, while Rebecca has been listening to the Bardcore stylings of Hildegard Von Blingin' (check out their amazing cover of Orinoco Flow!) and literally crying on the beach reading The House In The Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune.

Indiescovery is a podcast from RockPaperShotgun.com. All music is by Dylan Sitts; the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. Thanks for listening!

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We begin this episode talking about ghosts, because of course we do. We also chat about E3's influence and our relationship with it as both fans and games journalists, but honestly that bit isn't nearly exciting as when we're chatting about spooky things that have happened to us. We eventually remember what this podcast is actually about, quickly moving on to chat about our favourite games from this year's endless parade of Not-E3 showcases.

Kicking us off, Rebecca can't wait to open her own portable second-hand bookshop in the brilliant looking Tiny Bookshop. She's also keen to get her hands on Still Wakes The Deep, an enigmatic horror game set aboard an oil rig off the coast of Scotland. Rachel on the other hand can't wait to play more of En Garde!, but she's also been enjoying clambering up cliff faces in Jusant and is intrigued by recursive puzzler Cocoon (which our Ed also reckons is good). True to form, Liam is excited for anti-capitalist cat game Revenant Hill, the gorgeous Sword Of The Sea and the quiet, rural vibes of Kibu.

Seeing as its pride month (happy pride month!) section two is all about our picks from Itch's generous Queer Games Bundle.

As always we wrap things up with our hyperfixations. Rachel has run out of things to watch, and insists you all give her recommendations by sending an email to [email protected]. Rebecca has been reading Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli and Liam has been reading Hot Milk by Deborah Levy.

Indiescovery is a podcast from RockPaperShotgun.com. All music is by Dylan Sitts; the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. Thanks for listening!

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This episode is roughly structured as a pub-crawling night out, starting with who we're texting to hang with and who isn't making it past pre-drinks, bless 'em. We mention a lot of characters, including expert mixologist Donovan from The Red Strings Club who would be whipping us up some mean martinis, and the entire gang from Monster Prom (guess whose suggestion that was 👀). One character that isn't making it past pre-drinks is Undertale's Papyrus who is 100% a lightweight and would definitely be in a corner somewhere completely conked out with spaghetti all over himself.

Onto the actual pub crawl, and again, far too many characters to go over in some quick show notes so here are some more highlights. We all agree that a nice cozy fireplace chat with Yorkshireman Morris Lupton from I Am Dead would be lovely, that Veronica Villensey from Overboard! would totally ‘forget’ to get in a round, the cat from Stray would make the perfect beer garden buddy, and that Stanley from The Stanley Parable is definitely the most deserving of a pint. Also, who invited the Goose from Untitled Goose Game?

Next up is our new mailbag section of the pod, where answer listener questions. A big thanks to Pete, Ben, and Jonh H for submitting their Qs for this episode! If you have any burning questions to ask us, you can email us at [email protected] or hop into the RPS Discord and chuck it in the podcast section. We love hearing from you, so get those in!

For our hyperfixations this week, Liam is enthralled with the social experiment / courtroom drama Jury Duty, Rachel is having fun controlling groups of people with her God-like powers in Humanity, and Rebecca is reading a whole host of Miss Marple books throughout the year with this month's pick being A Pocket Full of Rye.

Indiescovery is a podcast from RockPaperShotgun.com. All music is by Dylan Sitts; the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. Thanks for listening!

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Somehow it's June already, which means it's time for the Indiescovery crew to suppress our existential dread at the fleetingness of existence and take a look at our favourite indie games from the first (almost) half of 2023! Don't worry, we very quickly realise that June has such a slammed line-up we can probably give it a best-games episode all of its own to make up for the fact that we tackled this topic a bit early.

Rebecca kicks things off by talking about Birth, a lovely chill puzzle game about natural decay and the bonds between people, and then revisits pixel-art life sim Tiny Life now that it's out in early access. Rachel submits the emotionally-charged open-world cycling mystery Season: A Letter To The Future, and Liam can't get enough of retro shooter Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance Of The Slayer which is (a) excitingly being released today and (b) deserves to win some kind of award for the most subtitles in a video game name, seriously, Kingdom Hearts can only dream. We also all still love Dredge but decide we've gushed about it enough on the podcast already, and that you should go back and listen to Episode 8 if you want to hear our opinions on why that's a very likely GOTY contender.

In the episode's second half we summon the Ghost of Games Yet-To-Come and list off some of the indies we still hope to see by the end of 2023. Liam can't wait to get his hands on El Paso Elsewhere, the From Dusk Till Dawn-esque action-shooter we never knew we needed this badly; and Knuckle Sandwich, a colourful turn-based RPG where the combat plays out through WarioWare-style minigames. Rebecca opts to chant a list of upcoming games with a TBC release date as a kind of protective spell for all the hard-working indie devs out there, before naming the recently delayed Goodbye Volcano High as one she's still hopeful of seeing before the year's out. Rachel, meanwhile, is sending good vibes to the developers working on dimension-bending storybook platformer The Plucky Squire and nostalgically radical skate/bike/parkour adventure Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, both of which aim to release later in 2023.

Finally, and as ever, we delve into our current hyperfixations. Following his secondment to cover The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom for some of our console-acknowledging sister sites, Liam has discovered that this hidden gem from Nintendo is a really good game, actually. Rebecca has been playing visual novels again (surprise, surprise), and is enjoying the contrast that comes from following up the very-not-indie Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries Of Honjo with the extremely-indie fangame Love Is Strange. And while Rachel never expected to be talking about Kylie Minogue on an indie gaming podcast in 2023, she simply can't get the new single Padam Padam out of her head!

The gang are also pleased to announce that we're jury members at Indie Cup UK '23, an online festival celebrating indie devs, so be sure to check out our pals at IndieCup.net to see what we're up to!

Indiescovery is a podcast from RockPaperShotgun.com. All music is by Dylan Sitts; the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. Thanks for listening!

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Whoooo we’re officially in the double-digits gang! We’ve somehow managed to make it to episode 10 of Indiescovery without going completely feral and wrecking the joint. I say that, but this week’s episode is a little, shall we say, unhinged? Rebecca, Liam, and Rachel hadn’t really had a proper chat all week so there’s a lot of Friday energy and catching up, and the energy levels only increase when we start to talk about our main topic of this episode: Eurovision! And indie games, of course.

Yes, it’s a Eurovision-themed episode, and more specifically, which indie game characters we think would make the best Eurovision entries. We’re looking for kooky, campy, gimmicky, vibrant, and super queer showstoppers. Oh and a good song would also help, too.

But first, we kick off the pod with a chat about Disney World, as Rachel has just come back from a very fun but very tiring 10-day trip to Disney World Orlando. Then there’s some very cursed Goofy chat, which we’ll leave for you to listen to without spoilers.

So which indie game characters do we think would make great Eurovision entries? Rebecca’s first up with Monster Prom’s Liam de Lioncourt, a hipster vampire with a love for eccentric music. Chuck a keytar in his hands and we think this topknot, suspender-wearing weirdo would go down a treat. Rachel and Rebecca then both agree on Junebug’s performance from Kentucky Route Zero, is a mesmerising ballad that would knock the party hat off anyone in the audience. Liam's choice is the Chowder Man from Hypnospace Outlaw, a synth-rock entry whose major sweaty dad vibes would win the hearts of Europe.

We also chuck some others into the mix including Lady Love Dies from Paradise Killer with her absolute banger of a track ‘Paradise (Stay Forever)’, the Hades cast giving a super bi-sexual rock song in the same vein as Måneskin, any of Red's songs from Transistor, a drag queen pop anthem from Undertale’s Mettaton, and (Liam’s exact words) a yassified Harry Du Bois from Disco Elysium, which would be immense.

There’s a quick chat about what a Eurovision game adaptation world look like, be it a party game, visual novel, something like Just Sing, or a new Danganronpa game where each act gets a brutal execution. We also get back onto Disney again and look up the internet’s top 10 hottest Disney characters, so enjoy that!

We end the pod with our current hyperfixations. Rachel’s is Eurovision (surprise surprise) and she's going all in this year with scorecards, Reddit threads, Twitter discourse and more. Rebecca’s first pick is the Murder, She Wrote series from PushingUpRoses, a YouTube series she gave a shout-out to last episode, and the very good Ace Attorney podcast Turnabout Breakdown by Jay Castello and Diego Nicolás Argüello. Liam’s first is murder mystery Grave Expectations by RPS’ very own Alice Bell (whooo!) and his second is sci-fi novel Frontier by Grace Curtis.

Indiescovery is a podcast by Rock Paper Shotgun. Our theme music is by Dylan Sitts, specifically the songs Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. You can contact the podcast by chucking an email to [email protected], or by chatting to like-minded individuals about PC gaming over in our Discord.

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We’re one episode away from being in the double digits, folks! Whoop! But for now, let’s dive into episode nine of Indiescovery.

Kicking off the episode we actually have a special guest (and definitely not one of Liam’s many personas), it’s Father Dringus Godliman! The Father guides the Indiescovery gang to a totally real and not metaphysical confession booth where we can safely reveal our Steam sins. After a quick chat about how many games each of us has on our Steam accounts, and how many of them we’ve actually played, we get into our most-played indies.

Rebecca is up first with Max Gentlemen: Sexy Business!, a fun NSFW dating sim with business sim elements, which also acted as the perfect springboard for a quick chat about NSFW indies in general. Rachel’s top game is the farming timesink Stardew Valley which surprised absolutely no one, and Liam’s is the action roguelike dopamine hitter Vampire Survivors.

The next topic of our sinful purge are indie games we own with shocking low playtime. You know what we mean, those games that we all longingly look at in our Steam libraries and swear that one day we will return to them. Liam admits to the cutesy city builder Outlanders and vibrant dark fantasy FPS Amid Evil. Rebecca’s games are the beasty RPG Disco Elysium (totally understandable, that one) and The Infectious Madness Of Doctor Dekker, a Lovecraftian FMV game. Rachel’s picks were tear-jerker Ori and The Blind Forest and tough-as-nails survival platformer Rain World.

And last, but not least, our most shocking confessions: shameful unplayed indie games that we really should play but have not - the greatest of all sins! We’re surprised the whole booth didn’t burst into flames of retribution. Liam’s are story-rich RPG turned full-blown cult Undertale, cosy management sim Spiritfarer, and Disco Elysium - a game which you've really gotta be in the right mood to play. Undertale makes a second appearance in Rebecca’s picks, alongside the adorable exploration game Haven Park, and her aforementioned match-made-in-heaven game Paradise Killer (which she WILL play one-day folks, promise). Rachel’s pile of shame includes the gothic visual novel The House In Fata Morgana and the turn-based death march Darkest Dungeon.

And thus, the purge is complete. After a fond farewell to Father Dringus Godliman, the squad chats about the games we’ve been playing recently. Rebecca’s been rolling dice in the off-beat RPG Betrayal At Club Low (this month’s RPS Game Club pick), Rachel’s been reading folks’ fortunes in The Cosmic Wheel Of Sisterhood, and Liam has been feeding beavers countless jars of pickled goods in gorgeous city-builder Against The Storm.

It’s hyperfixation time! Rebecca has been playing lots and lots and lots of Honkai: Star Rail, at first for work but now for fun, making her question if it's actually a hyperfixation or a hostage situation. Rachel lists way too many YouTubers who have the best video essays including Mike’s Mic, Sarah Z, NakeyJakey, Jacob Geller, Jenny Nicholson, Super Eye Patch Wolf, and Quinton Reviews (she also missed out ContraPoints, Defunctland, and hbomberguy so here they are retroactively). Rebecca chimes in with the Murder She Wrote videos of PushingUpRoses and Liam suggests Lady Emily’s video on the almost downfall of the band Gorillaz. Liam ends with another devastating book recommendation (one that was recommended to him by fellow RPS Treehouser Ed) called Stoner by John Williams. Liam is really out here trying to make us all cry with sobering, life-changing book choices, huh.

Indiescovery is a podcast by Rock Paper Shotgun. Our theme music is by Dylan Sitts, specifically the songs Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. You can contact the podcast by chucking an email to [email protected], or by chatting to like-minded individuals about PC gaming over in our Discord.

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This week on Indiescovery it's a game review bonanza! Rachel has been playing Storyteller, and despite feeling like she already experienced everything its inventive puzzle mechanics had to offer during its Steam Next Fest demo last year, she still had a great time seeing it through. Liam had similarly thoughts about Terra Nil, feeling that its early Itch incarnation provided a slightly rougher experience that hammered home its themes surrounding environmentalism and saving the planet from the effects of climate change. You can watch the video he made during the 2020 lockdown about the game that he mentioned during the episode here. In a coincidence that proves we all have the same brain, Rebecca felt like the demo for monster kissing metroidvania Romancelvania altered her thoughts about the final version of the game, but has still been enjoying her time deciding which fictional creature is the hottest of them all.

The gang have also been playing Dredge, which they discuss at length in section two. The trio agree that this eldritch fishing adventure by Black Salt Games is one of the best things they've played all year (so far, anyway).

For our hyperfixations this week, Rebecca has finished high-school murder mystery Danganronpa 2 and has been completing a cross stitch from Etsy seller GriffinwingWorkshop to celebrate. Liam has just finished You Exist Too Much, a novel by Zaina Arafat about a young woman's struggle with love addiction. Meanwhile, Rachel has been invested in the recent disappearance of the Lofi Girl, and the subsequent appearance of the Synthwave Boy.

Indiescovery is a podcast by Rock Paper Shotgun. Our theme music is by Dylan Sitts, specifically the songs Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. You can contact the podcast by chucking an email to [email protected], or by chatting to like-minded individuals about PC gaming over in our Discord.

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It's episode seven of Indiescovery and this week, wow, the gang is tired. With a busy four days in Boston for PAX East, Rachel and Liam's brains are basically mush, so Rebecca - an absolute angel - graciously said she could host a special PAX East episode where she chats with Liam and Rachel about the indies they saw on the show floor as they desperately try to string together a coherent sentence. She also made bullet points of our entire chat so writing up the show notes would be easier. We do not deserve her.

Saying that, it doesn't stop us from kicking up a riot over the BAFTA Game Awards at the start of the episode. We then delve into our PAX East indie round up and, as always, we end with our current hyperfixations.

It was the BAFTA Game Show the night before we recorded this episode, so we start off chatting about what we thought of the winners as well as a general natter about the nominations. The three of us were very happy that Vampire Survivors won big, snatching both Best Game Design and Best Game, but we also thought that some other games were particularly snubbed. Rebecca's particular beef was that cat sim Stray didn't take home any awards (a sentiment that Liam had some spicy words about), and I felt particularly attacked over the fact that Citizen Sleeper missed out on Game Beyond Entertainment. We all agreed with Tunic and Rollerdrome winning an award or two - we love to see it.

Onto the PAX chat! Rebecca was keen to know more about Demonschool and Goodbye Volcano High, so Rachel jumped into why both games are pretty great. In one, you fisticuff with a slew of demons that have entered our world from an open gate to the depths of hell, and the other is a sweet coming-of-age tale about teen dinosaurs who want to make it big as an indie band. We'll let you figure out which is which.

Liam then chats about Pacific Drive a survival roguelite roadtrip where you need to navigate through a an area in the Pacific Norwest called the Olympic Exclusion Zone, scavenging for resources to keep your station wagon running while dealing with the zone's strange anomalies. It sounds SO GOOD and Rachel cannot not hide how gutted she is that she missed out on this demo. Deceived. Bamboozled. Swindled.

The next game is Cobalt Core, a cool-looking sci-fi roguelike with cute animals and fun deckbuilding that Liam played. Continuing on with the themes of animals and roguelikes, Rachel brings up the chaotic junk food-swiping sim Pizza Possum, an arcade-style hide-and-seek game about being a ravenous possum. We then jump into Wrestle Story (and, by association, WrestleQuest and Wrestling With Emotions) and finish with both Liam and I saying how much we enjoyed Animal Well, our bestest best indie pick of the entire show.

For our hyperfixations, Liam chats about how PowerWash Simulator has taken up his evenings which leads to us all chatting about the game's DLC and then onto some incredibly feral conversation about the potential for Life Is Strange content which I'll leave for you to listen to without spoiling. Rebecca's hyperfixation is Life Is Strange: Steph's Story, a LiS novel written by Rosiee Thor (if you're an RPS supporter you can Rebecca's good words about Steph's Story in last week's supporter post). Rachel wraps up the pod by banging on about how much she loves pins. She blame PAX's pinny arcade and Fangamer for making such nice pins. You can check out Liam's documentary about Pinny Arcade here.

Indiescovery is a podcast by Rock Paper Shotgun. Our theme music is by Dylan Sitts, specifically the songs Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. You can contact the podcast by chucking an email to [email protected], or by chatting to like-minded individuals about PC gaming over in our Discord.

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In our sixth episode, we belatedly turn our attention to the question of just what the heck we're doing here anyway. The issue of "what makes an indie game an indie game?" is full of twists and turns, and nobody has ever really come up with an answer that covers all the bases. Lucky for us, that's not really what we're talking about here, although we do use that as a jumping-off point for our chat. Instead, we try to come up with an Indiescovery Manifesto, one that will guide us in the future when we're thinking about what games we ought to cover on the pod. We achieve this through a lively discussion that mainly involves Rebecca playing devil's advocate by throwing out ridiculous edge cases until Rachel and Liam want to break down and weep. (What can we say, Rebecca never saw a fence she didn't want to touch just to see if it's electrified.)

To help us calm down after that, the second part of today's episode is a more laid-back catch-up on some new indie game releases we've been playing over the past few weeks. Liam immediately walks back some of the good work he did in the first half by admitting he really wants to talk about Resident Evil 4, but he's also been enjoying Rhythm Sprout lately, so all is forgiven. Rebecca and Rachel have both been playing Anemoiapolis: Chapter 1 and spend some time comparing notes. Rachel has also been playing Paranormasight — a horror visual novel from Square Enix and therefore not technically indie but with some vibes an indie-loving audience will no doubt appreciate — and The Pale Beyond, a Frostpunk-esque narrative survival game set on a boat. We love boat horror here at Indiescovery!

As always, we close things out with our latest batch of hyperfixations. Liam still wants to talk about Resident Evil 4, and truly, who can blame him when his favourite game of all time just got a remake that lives up to the original? He's also been binge-listening to Let's Make A Rom-Com, a new podcast from the team behind last year's Let's Make A Sci-Fi, in which a trio of comedians bring in expert advice to help them write a Hollywood-grade movie script. Since the surprise announcement of a new Professor Layton title at last month's Nintendo Direct, Rachel has been reliving happy memories of adolescence by revisiting every previous game in the series she can get her hands on ahead of the impending closure of the 3DS eShop (RIP). Rebecca has been non-stop crying with joy ever since Everything Everywhere All At Once cleaned up at the Oscars, and elects to shout out some of her favourite video game fan art Twitter accounts to browse for a quick emotional pick-me-up, including Paula Peroff, Kiana Mai, Johnson Blazkowicz, Nastia Croft, and Angie M.

Indiescovery is a podcast by Rock Paper Shotgun. Our theme music is by Dylan Sitts, specifically the songs Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. You can contact the podcast by chucking an email to [email protected], or by chatting to like-minded individuals about PC gaming over in our Discord.

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