Indie Highlight
Sep 24, 2020
Frogsong is a wholesome upcoming adventure game featuring frogs and bugs. Indie game developer Brandon Braun is both devloping and publishing the game. The planned release date for the game is Autumn 2022. The game is currently being developed for PC.
About Frogsong
In Frogsong, you play as Chorus, a small frog with big dreams of protecting the world. However, Chorus is a tree frog, and is expected to devote his life to religious studies. Another barrier to Chorus achieving his goals is his small smize; no one will take him seriously!
But Chorus is dead serious and decides to move to a village named Boreala. There, he begins to train as a member of the Defense Guild with the help of a wise old veteran. Chorus soon realises that things are going to be trickier than anticipated. A powerful army and mysterious rumour are both on the rise. Can Chorus learn how to protect his loved ones before it’s too late?
Features
- Forge friendships and fight foes in this unique hand-drawn 2D adventure game.
- Converse with the cute and kooky characters that you encounter in the world of Salia.
- Explore five unique areas, each containing their own monsters, villages, and bosses.
- Assist your friends in their day to day lives.
- Pay a visit to the blacksmith’s shop to improve your attacks on enemies.
- Engage with a heartfelt narrative covering themes of hope, friends and family, and the true meaning of being important.
- Aim to make the world around you even just a bit better.
Characters
Chorus
Chorus is a young frog with a strong desire to protect the people around them. The other warriors of the village make fun of Chorus for their small size, but this just makes Chorus more determined to prove they matter too.
Elder Bufo
Elder Bufo is the kindhearted leader of Boreala and a veteran member of the Defense Guild. Unable to fight now due to his old age and amputation, he provides advice to the warriors of his village.
Lord Lithos
Lord Lithos is the tyrannical ruler of the Taural Empire. Suffering from an unknown illness, he seeks to cure death and expand his empire at any cost – if he can’t live forever, the next best thing is a legacy.
Basalt
Basalt is the captain of the Defense Guild, a spot well earned. She’s a skilled warrior and has been fighting monsters for years. It’s going to take something really impressive for her to take Chorus seriously.
Espo
Espo is a strange treasure hunter Chorus meets on their travels. He’s traveling the land of Salia, discovering all sorts of strange artifacts from a forgotten time.
More About Frogsong
A crowdfunding campaign for Frogsong went live on Indiegogo on May 18th, 2020. Whilst the release of the game is still quite a way off, the developers of Frogsong are fortunately giving regular updates about the progress of the game. You can follow the game’s progress on Twitter, Indiegogo, and on Steam. An alpha demo of Frogsong is also playable on Steam.
For similarly adorable upcoming games to look out for, check out Garden Story, Lonesome Village, and Little Witch In The Woods.
- Sep 23, 2020
Check out farming, spell casting and meet your spirit companion in the new trailer for Witchery Academy!
For those that may have missed it, Witchery Academy is a super cute Witch/Wizard life sim that is currently being developed by the small team at Cubenary. In this beautifully magical game, you play as a student in the Witchery Academy, who must master all the different aspects of magic become a proficient witch or wizard.
What is Witchery Academy?
There will be much to due by way of magic mastery. Of course, you will have the classics like potion making class and spell casting lessons. You will also get to try your hand at horticulture when your are taking care of adorable planties in your botany class.
And let us not forget about your endlessly important spirit companion, a special kitty which will require your love and care to flourish at your side. Feel free to play games with your little cat. Feed your kitty lots and make to give it all the pettins, to ensure the greatest relationship!
What’s new?
Recently, the developers have released an all new in-depth trailer, which can be viewed below. It gives a closer look at all the things there will be to do in Witchery Academy. Not only that, the devs have also put the finishing touches on their website.
There, you can find much more information on the game, as well as sign up for their official newsletter so you don’t miss any updates in development.
Witchery Academy New Trailer
More info.
For more information on this epic indie, you can check out their official website now! There you will find links to follow them on all forms of social media in which they take part. You can also see my coverage here.
*Witchery Academy is still currently in production and the developers have revealed to myPotatoGames that they are aiming for a 2022 release on both PC and consoles.*
For more great upcoming magical indie games, check out my coverage of what’s new in Witchbrook.
- Sep 19, 2020
We recently posted an article about Hokko Life’s devlog 3 from July. In case you missed it, you can read all about it here. It seems the solo developer behind the adorable life simulation game is on the ball. This is due to despite being a solo game developer, he still frequently posts devlogs and actively answers questions on Discord.
But even more impressive is the amount of new features and exciting updates he shares in each devlog, with the August one being no exception. With updates and features such as gardening and expressions in the 4th Steam Hokko Life devlog, we just had to share the devlog’s content. But before we dive into the game’s 4th devlog, here’s some background on the game and a synopsis of what we know so far!
About Hokko Life
Hokko Life is described as a ‘cosy, creativity filled community sim game’. The game is being developed by Robert Tatnell who runs his own indie game dev company, Wonderscope. Initially, Wonderscope intended to both develop and publish Hokko Life. However, this is an understandably big feat for one person.
Therefore in April 2020, Wonderscope revealed that they would ‘team’ up (sorry not sorry) with Team 17, who will now publish Hokko Life. Team 17 are notorious for publishing highly regarded games such as My Time at Portia, Overcooked, and Yooka-Laylee. Initially, Hokko Life was expected to release on Steam later in 2020; The impact of COVID-19, however, could (like many games), delay this. The release date for the game on Steam is currently TBA. The price of the game is also not yet known.
Hokko Life begins with your player stepping off of a train. Having taken over your very own (albeit a little dusty and old) workshop, you are free to craft and create to your heart’s content.
The quiet village which you now call home needs your design expertise. Help create an endearing town for its inhabitants. Armed with paint and tools, you can design, build and decorate new homes for your new furry friends.
Players can craft materials and combine them as they wish. Combining them creates amazing new furniture and items for the town. By collecting flowers and mixing paints, you can then design wallpapers, flooring and even clothing.
With an abundance of choice, you can design items from fetching floral wallpaper to interesting urban-industrial furniture. Whatever your taste, with a workshop at hand, you have complete freedom whilst designing the town.
Hokko Life Devlog 4 – What’s New?
Expressions
First on the list of developments in Hokko Life is the introduction of facial expressions. Robert updated the avatar’s head shader to make this happen. With this new Avatar head mesh the team behind Hokko Life set up the texturing in a way that meant details on the face would be handled with different textures. This means that Robert can swap out individual facial features, such as a nose or a mouth, and provide different expressions. Robert also spent this month editing the head shader especially for this as well as adding three new emotions to Hokko Life, which include happy, straining, and winking.
Energy
Robert had been contemplating for a while whether to add a stamina-like system to the game. He decided to trial a first implementation of one this month in order to see if a stamina system suited Hokko Life. He gave a player a finite amount of energy that depletes when doing tasks such as chopping down trees.
When your energy is depleted, your player needs to rest to recharge. Taking a break only replenishes a small amount of energy, so you’ll need to eat food or take a longer rest if you want to do more work. However, your energy bar will never be completely empty and therefore won’t prevent you from working altogether. Robert wanted a nice balance: to reward players for preparing adequately before heading out to gather resources, but to not penalize them in the event that they do run out of energy.
Bridges
The next addition brought to Hokko Life by Robert is a bridge design blueprint. This gives players the ability to design their very own bridges and then place them out in the world.
Farming
Farming was one of the priorities for Robert this mont. He intended to expand a bit upon the simple pre-existing base.
He also decided to add fertilizer to the game;. Players craft fertlizer using the various resources found in the world. If you put fertilizer on tilled soil, it improves the likelihood of growing high quality crops. High quality crops can be sold for money and may occasionally be requested by characters. The fertilizer will only work on a patch of soil for a certain period of time and anything planted there during that timeframe has a better chance of being high quality crops.
Robert also added templates for two new characters. One of them is the farmer character who will induct you on farming and provide you with crafting recipes for your first pieces of equipment. When you’re more adept at farming, the farmer sells a variety of seeds, as well as some farming crafting recipes. The seconf character provides your player with farming challenges. The challenges are essentially requests but with deadlines.
Sprinklers
And talking about making your farming life easier brings us onto the next update. Sprinklers. Robert added two types of sprinklers to Hokko Life. The first sprinkler waters in a ring, whilst the second waters in a line. You can own both of the sprinklers by purchasing the sprinkler crafting recipe from the farmer. The sprinklers can then can crafted with just a handful of resources and will hands down make your farming life a whole lot easier.
Gardening
Intended to tie in with farming, Robert recently added gardening to the game. With this new feature, players can grow plants and flowers in the world from seeds. Whilst plants and flowers did exist previously, they would sprout in random locations. Additionally, players couldn’t really move them. As a result of the recent gardening update, players can now dig holes and plant trees and flowers as seeds. They are more low maintenance than crops too. Seeds don’t need water and grow nicely on their own. Additionally, plants and trees are movable. (even whilst still growing). The only exception is big trees, which need to be chopped down if you want rid of them.
As well as allowing players to be more creative and have more control over their town, flowers serve another purpose besides looking pretty: They can also be used in some crafting recipes.
UI Stuff
Largely because of the new farmer character providing players with an abundance of seeds and other goods, Robert decided to make a system in the UI where players can see detailed information about items. This new feature is more helpful than you might think. One example is that players need to know how long a seed takes to grow. A second example is that players need to know the required resources to craft a recipe.
Piece Packs
And the final new addition to Hokko Life is Piece Packs.
Once you are further into the game you will unlock more pieces. Pieces are used to design items with. In August, Robert implemented the necessary things to make this work. This brings us on to his introduction of “Piece Packs”. Piece packs are essentially collections of pieces to use when designing. Piece Packs are unlocked as a bundle for a set price.
As Piece Packs are purchased items, Robert updated the Design Tool so the packs show as groups. He also added filter buttons. which allow the player to show or hide different packs based on the materials needed.
- Sep 18, 2020
Hokko Life is described as a ‘cosy, creativity filled community sim game’. The game is being developed by Robert Tatnell who runs his own indie game dev company, Wonderscope. Initially, Wonderscope intended to both develop and publish Hokko Life. However, this is an understandably big feat for one person. Therefore in April 2020, Wonderscope revealed that they would ‘team’ up (sorry not sorry) with Team 17, who will now publish Hokko Life. Team 17 are notorious for publishing highly regarded games such as My Time at Portia, Overcooked, and Yooka-Laylee. Initially, Hokko Life was expected to release on Steam later in 2020; The impact of COVID-19, however, could (like many games), delay this. The release date for the game on Steam is currently TBA. The price of the game is also not yet known.
Hokko Life begins with you stepping off of a train. Now the proud owner of a kinda dusty old workshop, you are free to craft and create to your heart’s content. The quiet village you’ve moved to, needs your help to create an endearing town for its residents. Armed with plenty of paint and tools, design, build and decorate new homes for your neighbours.
Players can craft materials and combine them as they wish. Combining them creates amazing new furniture and items for the town. By collecting flowers and mixing paints, you can then design wallpapers, flooring and even clothing. With an abundance of choice, you can design items from fetching floral wallpaper to interesting urban-industrial furniture. Whatever your taste, with a workshop at hand, you have complete freedom whilst designing the town.
July Hokko Life Update – Gone Fishin’ 🐠
The first game element to be discussed in the July Hokko Life update is fishing. It’s already been announced that fishing will be a feature for players to look forward to. For example, the game’s Steam page informs us that the fish have unique habits. The advice therefore given is to switch up your approach, and to anticipate each catch presenting unique challenges when reeled in.
The game’s fishing feature, however, has since been switched up. And we’re ‘searious’ when we say it’s possibly one of the best updates yet. We’re not even ‘squidding’!
It’s ‘Ofishal’, In Hokko Life You Get An ‘Oppor-tuna-ty’ To Fish. But There’s A Catch: Actually Catching Fish… 🐟🎮
The majority of Wonderscope’s work this month has been dedicated to working on and improving the fishing gameplay. Robert from Wonderscope has kindly decided to walk people through how fishing works in Hokko Life to show how far the game has come!
After re-starting the inventory, Robert was able to add bait to the game! Players can attach the bait to an equipped fishing rod. Having bait on your fishing rod will alter your chances of reeling in certain fish. Players can craft bait using different resources found in the game: but only once you’ve unlocked the crafting recipes.
If you right click on a certain type of bait in your backpack, you will then be prompted by a message. The message will give you the option of attaching the bait to your fishing rod:
Cast your line so that your bait and hook are in the water. It’s then just a matter of waiting for a fish to spot them. Resist the urge to try to reel in the fish as soon as it nibbles. The fish could take quite a few nibbles at the bait before being hooked, so patience is key. You’ll know when the fish has taken the last bite as the action UI will pop up. When this occurs, you have a short amount of time to press ‘Interact’ to hook the fish before it gets away.
Come On Guys You’re Just ‘Krilling’ It Now! 💀💫
But because nothing in life is easy right? Wanting to make Hokko Life that bit more challenging, Wonderscope have added another step which players must complete before that fishy is theirs. That next step, or challenge is the fishing mini game. The aim of the game is to keep the fish in the ring until it reaches the goal line. Naturally, the fish have minds of their own and the pests will try and swim away. This means you’ll need to position your rod left and right, and press ‘interact’ to reel a fish back into the ring.
If the fiendish fish remains outside of the ring for too long, it’ll get away and you’ll fail the mini game… 😒
On the other hand, there’s a chance that a chest could emerge in the mini game. If you manage to guide the frustrating fishy through this chest, it’ll pop open! And voila! You’ll get your fish and a random reward!
Robert said that he recently tried out a “diorama” look for the fishing mini game. He decided upon building a little scene to make the mini game look more appealing and generally aesthetic. The dev confessed to the mini game originally resembling a boring rectangle and likes the cuter direction he has taken with the fishing aspect. Robert also excitedly added that depending on the location you fish in, the diorama will change in accordance with it!
Oh For Cod’s Hake! I’m Not Shore I Wanna Buy The Game Now! I’m Gonna Have To Mullet Over! 😂🎣
Fishing challenges were also added to the game more recently. These challenges will unlock for players after they’ve been fishing for a while. Furthermore, Hokko Life will offer a weekly challenge where players can get bonus rewards.
These challenges are generated once an (in-game) week and necessitate players to catch a specified amount of fish within a certain time. These can either be specific fish, or any type of fish. The time limit varies and is based on the rarity of the fish, as well as if there are any nearby. But don’t worry, if you fail you can always go back and retry! Also, things can occur behind the scenes too, making sure that you have a chance of winning the challenge. I smell something fishy there. 🤔
Robert wanted more variation in the challenges, but explained that setting them up and getting them to work took considerably longer than expected, so he decided to settle with just one type for now. On the plus side, he excitingly added that the system is now there for challenge types to be added in the future.
Whilst the fishing update was the most prominent part of July’s Hokko Life devlog, other updates were also covered. These include:
Brief Updates On Avatars (Because Apparently They Looked Ugly). RUDE. ☹️😂
- Spending more time working on the animation system
- Improving how equipping and un-equipping tools works behind the scenes, among other things.
- Attempting to make changes so that the system is less buggy
- Simultaneously aiming to improve the game’s overall appearance whilst de-bugging
- Changing simple things like adding an acceleration to the player to make the transition from standing to running look nicer.
- Adding equip animation variations to fit the different ways the player can hold an item.
- Working on some of the avatars animations. Mostly focusing on improving their weighting and timing.
This character thinks that the deletion of avatars is quite rude! Finally, Hokko Life Devlog #3 contained some brief updates on improvements to other avatar assets and features. These include face and head shapes, tweaks to hair styles, and deleting ‘ugly’ old clothing items and old avatar assets. Robert said deleting the old ugly stuff felt good, so we’ll take his word for it. But seriously though, please give the basic avatar assets some clothes and features before showing them to us. Especially when they seem to be crazily wielding weapons of some kind… #NightmareFuel 😱😂
This character definitely thinks that the deletion of avatars is quite rude! Make sure to stay tuned for our coverage of Hokko Life Devlog #4! The game is really shaping up, with some new features and updates you won’t want to miss! 😊
Click here to check out an exclusive interview with the game’s solo developer.
For more info on the game be sure to take a peek at this article
You can also visit the game’s website here.
- Sep 18, 2020
Lonesome Village reached full funding on Kickstarter in under 24 hours.
For those of you that don’t follow the indie scene, Lonesome Village is a super cute life sim game about a little coyote named Wes who’s been tasked to save his village, Lonesome Village. Help to save the inhabitants of the town, and uncover the secret of Wes’ dark past in the process.
About Lonesome Village.
Lonesome Village has become a quiet little sleepy town after it was ravaged by some unknown travesty. The inhabitants are still struggling to return their lives to the way they once were. That’s where Wes, the brave coyote protagonist, comes into play.
Doing a bit of gardening. The game focuses heavily on puzzle solving to make exploration that much more invigorating and challenging. Solving puzzles will be your primary means of unlocking the next chapters in the game, but progress will also be determined by your interactions with the locals of Lonesome.
What to do in Lonesome.
There will be plenty of people to meet and friends to make and help along the way. Save them from the perilous tower and bring them back home to safety. Help enough people out and you can even earn yourself a rightful place in town, one that can be customized inside and out to your liking.
Moving a bed in house customization. Like every awesome life sim, you will also be able to spend some of your free time in productive frivolity. Do some fishing to display your mastery of the sea, or tend your garden to hone your horticultural skills. Whatever your hobby preference, there will plenty to do in Lonesome Village.
Lonesome Village Kickstarter Trailer
More info
For more information on Lonesome Village, as well as the chance to help the game become everything that it can be…
Check out the Kickstarter Campaign now.
Lonesome Village has been confirmed to be coming to the Nintendo Switch, as well as PC via Steam.
For more great indie games coming soon to Kickstarter, check out my coverage of Ova Magica.
- Sep 17, 2020
Get transported to the world of Nox where you are the only human at a bustling wizard school.
In my humble opinion, there could never be enough games where I get to play with magic. I could (and have) spend countless hours casting spells and crafting potions, just to test the creativity of a developer against my own imagination.
I can honestly say that, from what I’ve seen so far, there will certainly be many hours rightfully spent on exploring the world of Vox in the upcoming magic school simulator, StoryArcana.
What is StoryArcana?
StoryArcana is a magic school role-playing game where you take on the role of Clay Quilt, an adventurous young lad that has been transported to an all new world. This world is called Vox, and comes complete with a magic school, as well as a bustling city full of interesting folks to meet.
Clay must now explore the school, the city and the world around him to discover why he is here, and find a place for himself in this new environment. To do so, he will need to make friends and learn the ways of magic so that he may truly be a part of this enchanted universe.
Features of StoryArcana
There will always be plenty to do on the world of Vox. Being that you are the only student in the school that is not of this planet, when you are not tending to your studies (learning new spells and crafting crazy potions), it is a good idea to interact with your peers, make friends and foes to really chisel yourself into your surroundings.
If you find that you are running into more friend than foe, be sure to hone your magical dueling skills, you’re gonna need em. You might even get a chance to compete against your rivals in an exciting game of “broom sport”.
Once you’ve done a bit of schmoozing at the school, feel free to take a train into the nearest town, Voxrose City, to meet some locals and do some shopping. By engaging with the townspeople, you will unlock quests that can come with some pretty sweet rewards, like new wand parts and maybe even a magical flying broom.
StoryArcana Gameplay Teaser
More Info
Whatever it is about the magical world that draws you in, you are sure to find it in StoryArcana. This game is currently being developed by a small team, and has a release date announcement set for sometime next year.
For more information on StoryArcana, you can find the game on Steam, and don’t forget to wishlist while you are there.
For more great magic school indie RPG’s, check out my coverage of Lawmage Academy!
- Sep 17, 2020
One Lonely Planet aims to capture the spirit and charm of beloved farming simulator Stardew Valley and adding new twists to an already popular genre.
One Lonely Outpost is a unique farming simulation game that is more in-depth than most games I have played in this genre. You find yourself on a far away deserted and lonely alien planet – that of course you can name, it is your job to bring it back to life and create a thriving community.
Go organic.. or synthetic
Unlike most farming games where the only decision in growing crops is which vegetable or fruit you wish to plant, in this game you must decide whether you want to genetically modify your crops and grow glowing veggies, or if you prefer to grow organically.
The choice matters, while going the genetically modified route may make your crops more drought resistant and grow a lot quicker, you may end up with fuzzy tomatoes that sell for much less. Organic crops on the other hand take a little longer to grow but will result in a much healthier fruit allowing you to sell it for more.
Get hands on with your crops
One Lonely Outpost goes even deeper when it comes to its farming simulation. Tending to crops isn’t done in a single click anymore. You will be prompted with a close-up of your plant where you can take scissors to trim rotten leafs and make sure its as healthy as can be.
Farming is made to be fun and engaging in One Lonely Outpost, being able to choose how you want to grow your crops and taking environmental impacts into account creates a unique and fun farming experience.
Explore and build a community
Even though the in-depth farming may get you carried away, don’t forget that the deserted planet you find yourself on, is full of mysteries waiting to be discovered.
There are ruins that you can explore but be aware some of these might have alien robots willing to test you, if you succeed you shall be rewarded generously.
Don’t be lonely, make friends and get married!
You don’t have to be alone forever just because you find yourself on a lonely far away planet in the beginning, as in addition to farming and exploring you will also be building a thriving community, add homes and shops and other villagers may join your adventure.
Every villager that will join you, given you provide enough food for them, will feature a unique character with unique dialogues. Once you get to know them you might become friends… or even more? You can get married if you happen to find your one and only!
Play the Dating Game
You will be able to meet a bunch of characters that you can date and get married too if that is your choice. Aaron, Sally, Sydney, Finnick, Dirk and Eve are among the available candidates.
Of course One Lonely Outpost features everything you come to expect from a farming and life simulation game. Spend your days on the farm, do some fishing, mining, exploring and more!
One Lonely Outpost is on Kickstarter
One Lonely Outpost has successfully been funded on Kickstarter and has passed its goal by a great amount! The game is launching on Nintendo Switch and PC and bakers can choose their preferred platform.
You can already wishlist the game on Steam and even check out some more details about One Lonely Outpost.
Take a look at the gameplay trailer below for some more insights on this unique farming and village simulation game.
- Sep 15, 2020
The developers of Ooblets have announced that they will be releasing a new spooky update this month!
Ooblets is the cutest creature collection indie game that everyone should currently be playing. Ooblets are little creatures that you grow from the ground, befriend, and then use their help to get into dance battles with anything feelin’ froggy.
Well, the game is already getting even better with its very first big content update. The update will bring an all new zone to explore. This new area will be totally themed with an all-too-familiar and always welcomed Halloween vibe.
What is this new region?
The new zone is called Nullwhere, and give us access to all new Ooblets, ones that will undoubtedly fit the same theme as the rest of the update. The update will also bring a few new characters to meet and interact with.
The developers also went on to mention that…
“It’ll [(the update)] be permanent. The game should auto-update (if you bought it legally!) when the update comes out sometime this month.”Announcement Tweet
More info
For more information on Ooblets, you can check out my coverage here.
For more super cute creature collection indie games, check out my coverage of Ova Magica.
