5 Mini Reviews of Indie Games

Greetings, gamers. The holidays are quickly approaching and we’re in the midst of several, long-winded games including Watch Dogs 2, Dishonored 2, FFXV, and this isn’t even including the backlog of games like Witcher 3 or MGSV (yes, I’m still playing that too) that I still need to wrap up. With that in mind, we decided to take our review Wednesday moment to highlight some indie games we’ve played lately in case you’d rather consider a brief distraction from running side questions in Final Fantasy or trying to tame the frustratingly independent Trico.

Here now are 5 mini reviews for mini games.

This Is Fine

Inspired by the infamous web comic, This Is Fine is a quick 5-minute surrealist experience that you literally can’t fail. In the wake of a tragic election for at least 52% of the population, the sentiment of this game can really hit the spot. Touching music, cute characters, and a message of hope despite the world falling apart, this is the comfort food we need right now.

Sweeter than you expect

Rating: Buy it here.

Flight Sim

Playing this game while on a flight was one of the most unintentional meta experiences I’ve had. With that said the game is as much fun as a fireplace simulator. See the screenshot below? Well, you’ve experienced most of what this game can do.

Well, yeah, that’s about all there game is.

Rating: Skip it

Strawberry Cubes

Deliberately obtuse and seemingly broken throughout, Strawberry Cubes is one of the most bizarre platforming experiences you can have. The game already has a significant following thanks to its glitch aesthetic and complete refusal to provide even the slightest hint as to what to do. You will likely check out after a few minutes but the game does beg you to learn its rules which, while completely abstract, are consistent suggesting progress is achievable if you’re willing to try.

Logic and reason are not welcome here

Rating: Worth a try! We can’t recommend it anymore, yet, as we can’t tell if this controlled chaos amounts to anything or is just, well, chaos.  Find out for yourself!

Read Only Memories

At first glance we were turned off by the simplistic aesthetic, but Read Only Memories’ retro point and click gameplay reminded us a lot of classic games from our childhood like Déjà vu. The game received a significant Kickstarter backing apparently for tackle progressive issues rarely included in games, namely LGBT relationships. There’s a good story in addition to that but we applaud the developers for focusing on these topics that other developers typically avoid.

Turing makes an awesome companion! Hopefully we haven’t seen the last of it

Rating: Worth a try but it does feel steep at $20.  See it here.

One Show Only

A young trapeze artist has falling to her death and you’re tasked with uncovering the culprit and reason behind this tragic event. One Show Only arguably one of the most creative indie games we’ve played in a while though it’s remarkably simple. You can basically navigate across a few rooms by swiping the screen, interrogating various witnesses through conversation trees to determine what happened. The conversations themselves are played out as a card game where you try to advance your lines of questioning, overpowering the interviewees cards to prevent them from locking you out of additional questions. It doesn’t make complete sense, but it’s a novel way to gamify basic conversation trees and made this title very recommendable.

It’s simple, but oddly satisfying when you win.

Rating: Buy it. It’s a great 10 minute experience and stands apart from most other indie games.  Get it here!