Gun jams, Flies with no wings, and a nice road trip

Hello everyone! This week has kinda been a whirlwind for me. I have been travelling and dealing with family life, and while there are some very exciting prospects on the horizon, the final moments of limbo before big changes arrive are a little exhausting. It’s always darkest before the dawn, or however that old saying goes.

So I am skipping over the usual “this is what I’ve been playing” segment because I honestly have been playing not much at all. Dabbled with some more Citizen Sleeper 2 (it is VERY good), and I am making my way through Onimusha: Warlords on the PS2. But largely this has been a week lost to the admin of life.

So let’s get to it, shall we?

What games came out this week?

Keep Driving

Developer: YCYJ Games
Steam rating: Positive
Store page

A fun summer road trip across the country to hit up a festival in the early 2000’s sounds like a dream right about now, and that is what YCYJ Games are serving up in their management RPG about life on the open road in Keep Driving.

Your goal is to make it to the music festival on the other side of the country. How you get there… that’s up to you. Along the way you can pick up hitchhikers, complete odd jobs, explore dusty country roads, or stick to the highway. It’s totally up to you! However your choices could be the difference between having a great time at a festival, or never arriving there at all.

Keep Driving has multiple endings, taking 1-4 hours to complete which makes this sound like a really fun game to kick back with on a weekend. The vibes look incredible on this one, and I feel like this is going to scratch that “I want a strategy game but also want a narrative game… oooh you have some random elements here” thing that is going through my brain right now.

SWORN

Developer: Windwalk Games
Steam rating: Very Positive
Store page

I have been following Windwalk Games for a while now. A team formed from former League of Legends developers, I spent quite a bit of time in their debut title Enemy on Board, which was fun albeit a little basic. Seems like they are really ramping things up with their second game however, because SWORN feels like a much bigger project.

SWORN is a 1-4 player action Roguelite, that sends your party into a fallen Camelot where you will face off against corrupted members of the the fabled Knights of the Round Table, and eventually, King Arthur himself. I know that Snark and Blue have a love and understanding for the legends, whereas my expsoure was largely based on my time with Pendragon a few years ago,

The art really leaps off the screen, and that is largely thanks to the fact that the team has partnered with famed comic artist Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy, artist on B.R.P.D and many others). Sure, it maybe has a little bit of some “Hades, but co-op” juice going on, but I’m definitely not against it.

Welcome Back, Commander

Developer: S.C 16 BIT NIGHTS S.R.L
Steam rating: Positive
Store page

This one actually came across my desk via Bluesky (you can follow us there too), and I just really loved the name for some reason. Turns out this is a neat little strategic tactics combat game with some randomized events and multiple endings. Military + Lovecraftian horror? Sounds pretty good to me.

You will be managing resources between combat encounters with the beasties, and there are multiple achievements to grab during your runs. Each run is apparently quite short, with an emphasis on replayability and the randomness to keep you coming back for more.

This is part of an ongoing series from this team, who have a few games under their label now. Color me curious.

FlyKnight

Developer: Wabbaboy
Steam rating: Overwhelmingly Positive
Store page

Our weekly obligatory “it’s a PSX-era art style” slot, this time we have FlyKnight, a classic dungeon crawler with a strange setup. An evil witch has performed a curse that has prevented everyone in the realm from growing wings. That’s a bit of a problem, seeing you are a fly in shining armor.

Yes… a fly. The big point here aside from the robust 2-4 player co-op, is that FlyKnight’s combat is limb-based. You will be trying to chop off arms and legs, and heads, and each weapon will need to be considered when you are facing off against the enemies that await you.

This looks kinda crazy, but in a very cool way. I need to make time for this one.

HOLE

Developer: NEGAFISH
Steam rating: Very Positive

Another game that I saw on Bluesky this week (thanks Megan Fox!) this week was HOLE from Japanese developer, NEGAFISH. Labelled as a “Casual & Hard FPS. Be careful with jam”, HOLE seems to be a lo-fi extraction shooter with short levels that ramp up the tension with jamming guns and hardcore gameplay.

I would type out some more, but I am just going to put a screenshot of the store description because… well… I think it’s perfect.

And that’s a wrap!

Nothing new or extra to report this week. However I will say that the next month or so, I may have to skip a release or two. We are gearing up for a big house move across the country, which is going to take a lot of planning and spinning of plates, and the Indie Release Dispatch may suffer as a result. I shall do my best! We will have another “convo series” piece going up next week for sure, so we won’t be entirely radio silent.

Thanks for reading as always. Feel free to join us over on Discord to talk about cool things, and perhaps make fun of our dismal choices in our Fantasy Critic league. If you really enjoyed the newsletter, please share it with a friend. If you found it super useful, consider dropping a dollar or two in our Ko-Fi cup.

Hopefully see you next week!