This weekend’s INDIE Live Expo is packed with games, and no small few of them land in our coverage of RPG and adventure games at RPGFan. I encourage you to check out the full lineup and games outside our coverage, like Blade Chimera, a stylish Metroidvania from Team Ladybug, who brought us Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth in 2020. But enough of my love of that genre, here’s what’s featured at the INDIE Live Expo Winter 2024 event:
Artis Impact
We just talked about Artis Impact following its appearance in the MIX Fall Showcase, but it’s featured again at INDIE Live Expo. From solo Malaysian developer Mas, the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting with an emphasis on character growth and exploration, with turn-based combat. Oh, and did I mention the stunning pixel art? Not only is it elegantly minimal, the animations are incredible. While there’s no release date yet, Artis Impact is coming to Windows via Steam, where you can also try out a demo for yourself. Also, fun fact: Mas states that two inspirations behind his game are the original Harvest Moon and Terranigma.
Astromeda
While a post-apocalyptic setting and stylish pixel art may sound familiar after Artis Impact, in Astromeda, the setting is a future Earth, where an asteroid hit the planet and ended all life. From that asteroid, an alien bacteria was released which “rapidly multiplied and all the bacteria born absorbed the leftover DNA of humans and animals on Earth.” Interestingly, Astromeda features both turn-based and action combat, inspired by the likes of Undertale, Pokémon, and Hollow Knight. And if its Steam page is anything to go by, could turn out to be a pretty entertaining time. There is a demo available on Steam, and Astromeda will be available on Windows, macOS, and Linux, plus Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 & 5.
Deserter
Deserter is a stealth RPG that puts you in the shoes of AWOL soldier John Holden, who must use his skills to escape the city though any sneaky means necessary: breaking and entering, stealing food, and more. While at a glance, the gameplay doesn’t look squarely in the RPG genre, Deserter will feature over 100 skills and talents to learn, a non-linear story, and gameplay that is meant to be open-ended enough to allow you to choose how to tackle your thievery, and enemies can be dealt with in both lethal or non-lethal fashion. Oh, also, there’s a plague, which may explain that blue fella in the screenshot below. Developers AskaLot Games are aiming to bring Deserter to Windows via Steam sometime in 2025.
Dreamed Away
Our first game from the INDIE Live Expo that doesn’t feature a post-apocalyptic setting, Dreamed Away may still unsettle you. It’s an RPG that at first glance seems inspired by EarthBound and Undertale, but beneath its cute exterior, psychological horror elements are at work, giving the whole affair a decidedly more spooky atmosphere (okay, maybe that is still like EarthBound or Undertale). The developer describes the game as “a story-driven action-adventure RPG with dark elements set in France in the 90s. Play as Théo, a boy lost in a mysterious world. Explore a unique reality, duel against darkness and mind your choices.” Dreamed Away does not include random encounters, and the battles eschew traditional combat for various minigames like time-based inputs (seen below), dodging falling elements, and more. All in all, the game is shaping up to be one to keep an eye on. Dreamed Away is coming in 2025 to Steam (Windows, macOS, and Linux), Nintendo Switch, and Xbox. And it too has a demo available now on Steam.
Escape from Ever After
RPGs inspired by Paper Mario keep cropping up these days, and while they may not always land the way we hope, perhaps Escape from Ever After will fare differently. Like Nintendo’s long-running series, characters are paper cutouts in a 3D world, pitting adventurer Flynt Buckler against his arch-nemesis, the dragon Tinder. What Flynt doesn’t expect is that Tinder’s castle has been converted into a mega-corporate office using cheap labor to turn a profit on the ripe market of storybooks. The varied settings and art style are beautiful, and the twist of merging classic fairytale worlds and characters with a modern setting to defeat capitalism (without having to escape to the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism) is very enticing. While originally considered a late 2024 release, Escape from Ever After does not currently have a release date, but it will be coming to Windows, Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
RE:Choice
If you’ve been waiting for someone to make Groundhog Day into an anime-styled action RPG with visual novel-esque dialogue choices, have I got the game for you! Or maybe the late hour is getting to me. In any case, RE:Choice presents a compelling scenario and problem for our protagonist: their favorite livestreamer is going to vanish in ten days, and they are trying to prevent this with their ability to read peoples’ memories, and the help of a fellow fan… a mysterious talking duck. But once those ten days pass, they’re sent back to the beginning of the time loop to continue trying to learn more about the disappearance and prevent it. RE:Choice will let you increase your character’s stats and uncover clues through dialogue and through diving into peoples’ memories to battle “the sci-fi beasts lurking within their memory world.” I’m not sure where Bill Murray lands on defeating sci-fi beasts, but… actually, wait, yes I do. Well, maybe he’ll get a cameo. Um, anyway, look for RE:Choice on Steam (Windows and macOS) sometime in the future.
Sea Fantasy
We briefly reported on Sea Fantasy earlier this year. A combination of fishing and deadly serious RPG tale, developer METASLA makes one thing clear: “This is not a peaceful fishing game. The destruction of the world is imminent…” So, put aside all your thoughts of how peaceful this will be (though, look at those screenshots — I’m sure some of it is still chill). Sea Fantasy follows two men sailing the world, looking to catch SeaAZ (this game’s name for sea life). The game also features a crafting system and dungeon exploration, and teases an “epic” story. Sea Fantasy is coming to Windows via Steam on January 7th, 2025.
Shinehill
What better way to shake up the farming sim trope than to make your playable character an alien? Granted, they look human, but that’s to blend in with the locals. Shinehill places you in the role of a being sent from another planet to win over the villagers and learn why your commanders even want you to observe them in the first place. Farming, friending, romance, fishing, cooking, and dungeon diving are among the activities you can get up to, and while the game looks very cute on the surface, the premise and some images allude to a darker side. Shinehill is the only game on this list already available, albeit in Steam Early Access, with the latest release being version 0.2.0. This patch, released on November 27th, added the finale of the main story, among other updates, and developers Peach Bite seem to update it routinely.
Even More Games from INDIE Live Expo Winter 2024
There are even more RPGs and adventure games at this month’s INDIE Live Expo worth keeping an eye on:
- The Magic Garden: A fantasy action RPG with many multi-genre features, including farming, crafting, roguelike elements, dungeon crawling, and even bullet hell. From solo developer AKIHA0416, this ambitious indie title also features incredibly stylish comic/manga-style cutscene panels. It’s one to keep an eye on when it hopefully releases in 2025 for Windows via Steam. Check out the demo while you’re there, as well.
- Marisa of Liartop Mountain: A tabletop-inspired RPG where you make decisions, sometimes based on the roll of the dice, to find the missing Marisa in a mountain of mysterious books. This one is coming to Windows via Steam, and while there’s no release date yet, there is a just-released Steam demo you can check out.
- Urban Myth Dissolution Center: A “single-player psycho-detective mystery adventure” with atmospheric and effective (and cool as hell) pixel art graphics, tasking you as rookie investigator Azami Fukurai with solving the paranormal mysteries of the Dissolution Center. Coming to Windows via Steam, Switch, and PS5 on February 13th, 2025.
I’d like to thank the people at INDIE Live Expo and Stride PR for inviting RPGFan to be a Media Partner for this event and letting us share updates on so many promising indie games. Be sure to check out the INDIE Live Expo website for more updates, info, awards, and more from this weekend’s showcase!
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