September is here, hopefully bringing an end to three solid months of UK heatwaves. Judging by the rest of the world, we’re not the only ones ready for things to cool down.
It also marks the beginning of one of gaming’s busiest release periods, with enough AAA games on the horizon to assault your console, PC, and bank balance. Even so, it’s worth making room for the smaller releases that could become your game of the year. Here are some of September’s most interesting indie games.
Grail is a deckbuilding autobattler where your cards do the fighting for you. Your job is to upgrade, enchant, and attach stickers to them, creating cascading effects that can tear through monsters and rival players. Finding the right combinations will require plenty of experimentation, while the lovely art style should make all that strategic tinkering even more appealing.
Aerial_Knight’s MrFreezy is a light-hearted puzzle game about collecting as many heads as possible. There is, admittedly, quite a lot to unpack there. You play as an axe-wielding serial killer, arranging heads and building combos to remove them in a single slice. With different head types introducing new complications, it promises a strange mixture of score-chasing puzzles, dark humour, and unsettling storytelling.
Worming from Home lets you live your best corporate life as a worm who works from home. You’ll fling your spineless body across a keyboard, answer messages, fill out spreadsheets, exercise, invest, and occasionally pick up the phone. It looks completely preposterous, in the best possible way, and there’s a demo available now for anyone desperate to discover whether they were always meant to be a worm.
What if you were a dog trying to survive aboard a monster-infested train racing through Antarctica? That’s the excellent premise behind Fright Train, a third-person survival horror roguelite starring paranormal special agent Doug Barker. You’ll need to manage a limited inventory, time your reloads, maintain the train, and make careful use of scarce resources. It looks wonderfully tense, with plenty of B-movie horror charm thrown in.
BloomKeeper looks set to join the proud tradition of games that are, at least a little bit, like Pikmin. Playing alone or in co-op, you’ll guide magical creatures called Pouics as they work to restore the devastated island of Hedera. Bringing the world back to life is only half the battle, though, as you’ll also need to prevent the ashes from reclaiming everything you have saved. It looks adorable, but its real-time tactical decisions should give the environmental magic some welcome urgency.
Trine 6: Together in Time is the latest entry in the long-running co-op puzzle-platforming series. This time, a magical mishap brings two new adventurers together with returning heroes Amadeus, Zoya, and Pontius, sending them on a quest to save the realm from a dangerous warlock. Its puzzles have been designed with co-op in mind, so gather up to three friends and prepare to combine your abilities, coordinate your movements, and occasionally blame each other when everything goes wrong. Solo play is also supported.
Wind Runners is a high-speed bullet-hell dogfighting roguelite about turning a lone pilot’s fight for freedom into a full-scale resistance. You’ll dash and roll through relentless waves of enemy fire, take on colossal bosses, and unlock new weapons and upgrades between runs. Its pixel-art presentation gives it a wonderfully old-school look, while its progression systems should keep each flight feeling fresh.
Decklings combines creature collecting, survival, crafting, and deckbuilding into one visually striking card-based adventure. You’ll explore different islands, gather resources, build a base, and tame more than 100 magical Decklings on your journey to become the Deckling Champion. Each creature has its own abilities and moves to develop, giving you plenty of team compositions and synergies to experiment with. You can even hunt for rare holographic Decklings, which should speak directly to anyone who has ever opened a booster pack.
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