[Event] Fantastic Fest: 10 Indie Titles You Need To Know About

Fantastic Fest is all about a festival of things that are fantastic. Sony hosted Complex in Austin, TX to see first hand what fantastic things they and others have on presentation. As you all may very well know, Sony has a great track record of indie titles offered on their PlayStation Network. Flower might be one of the titles that instantly comes to mind, and the developers behind the game - thatgamecompany - are certainly not done showcasing their titles on the PSN. Here are 10 indie games that you need to know about. Don’t make the shameful mistake of passing up on them.

Play as Jesus or Darwin. What starts out feeling like battle bots as you construct dinosaurs or humans begins to turn into a vindictive race to create the most mobile and efficient being to score points. While Jesus and Darwin swing up ahead attempting to pass one another (a visual representation of the current score) you’ll learn how to put the Tetris-looking pieces together in a way that makes best use of their attached wheels.

Far away in the depths of space, you control a shooting star as it searches for clusters of stars to create constellations in infinite procedural outer space. One button controls your star, as it gravitates towards other stars that you pass by while attempting to stay on track towards your guided destination where there are the largest clusters of stars to be found.

Like shoot-em-ups? Do you enjoy hectic environments with lots of enemies and upgradeable guns? Sidescroller is the next side scroller that should pique your interest. There are three weapons to start off with that you can switch between at will to modify your fighting strategy, and enemies that both chase you and are a part of the environment. Secret passageways mostly led to our death, but Sidescroller features explorable levels riddled with hazards.

Fishing is a peaceful experience. You cast your line and wait for a bite while soaking in the cool breeze and warm sun. But Radical Fishing is an entirely different experience. You don’t want your fish to bite too quickly in this game. The deeper into the sea you go, the more fish you can accumulate before pulling them out of the water and throwing them up into the air. No, you’re not celebrating your overzealous victory. This is the portion of the game where you shoot to kill as many fish as you caught. Maybe it’s not the most humane of fishing tactics, but it’s certainly the most unique.

Another fantastic (see what we did there) gameplay mechanic we saw was in Closure. Closure is a game that let’s you control your environment by shining light where you want the environment to be revealed. You can create pitfalls and holes by turning lights off, or moving them where you would rather walk. Find keys, open doors, activate buttons. As you interact with the environment, you can progress through the levels. Our favorite part about this game, however, is the art direction. You control different characters through different levels, all rendered in black and white, and all of which represent weird looking aliens.

What would it be like if a graffiti artist turned into a 2D drawing of himself? It’d probably be very much like Sideway: New York, if such a thing was possible. While traversing the New York cityscape as a spray painted figure on its walls, you can rotate and walk on ceilings and other walls as you turn the environment sideways. Besides the unique urban art, the gameplay creates a new dimension of thought that you’ll have to wrap your head around in order to move about the landscape.

Are you telling me I can rob banks in a clown mask? You and four teammates walk around in sleek, fitted suits with blue gloves, setting up a heist with one another while quelling enemy threats. We spent a lot of time going through buildings painted by graffiti work, and planting bombs to ensure we got our loot. Intense, first-person shooter action with friends and dressed up as total badasses. Need we say more? There’s a thing about collaborative games, though, and that is that it can sometimes be hard to coordinate with one another, particularly when strangers online are so apt to wander on their own. But Payday: The Heist ensures you always know the status of your teammates in the UI. So maybe (hopefully) that will get those bastards’ attention to keep the pace together.

You may not know anything about Papa & Yo. Maybe you know that it centers around a small boy named Quico, his robot and his friend Monster. You may know that the three interact on very particular senses of relationships and elicited emotions, and that the objective is to use your crew to solve puzzles in a surreal world. What you may not know, however, is that the personality of this game comes from a very close part of the Creative Director, Vander Caballero. The tale is a metaphor for his alcoholic father. Monster is similarly enraged by consuming poisonous frogs. We yet have no idea how Quico will have to react to his monster suddenly charging at him, but we imagine that the struggle is a complicated one, as you love Monster and he (sometimes not always obviously) loves you, as well. We may not know this yet, but we’re curious to learn more soon

You play as an adorable, pixelated Gomez, who is very much reminiscent of my favorite alien. Although Gomez is a 2D figure, you’ll have to wrap your head around the concept that the 3D world can be shifted and turned. This smart mechanic takes a bit of getting used to, as you can create seemingly invisible ledges by having Gomez cross over to other sides of the level. The demonstration throws you into his 2D world with lovable and silly villagers, but entering various doorways, you’ll explore complex 3D worlds with lots of items to collect and more doors to open.

By far our favorite choice of the festival was thatgamecompany’s latest creation: Journey. Besides being an absolutely gorgeous game with incredibly realistic sand dunes and colorful skies, Journey tells a story and portrays emotions without saying a word. As you complete levels, collecting what appears to be energy from flowing ribbons and thereby creating a bridge that you can traverse to the next entrance, a mysterious figure who we can only assume is your very powerful and wise ancestor greets you and grants you with an extra pattern on your dress for your accomplishments.

Journey is about exploration, and learning to collaborate with a silent, co-op partner. You can boost one another’s energy, which is used to jump and gracefully glide through the air for a short while. You can each explore on your own terms, and eventually even come across other players on their own journeys. Visual storytelling is often hard to pull off, especially with expressionless characters, but thatgamecompany has created a beautiful environment with compelling and, frankly, adorable characters. This is one of those games that will have you on the edge of your seat waiting for it.