With January over and done with, we can all sigh a breath of relief that we were able to get through the hardest two months of the year. As a little pick-me-up, you may want to jump into some indie games to get over the winter blues.
Egging On
If, like me, you ate a few too many chocolate bars, turkey sandwiches, and other treats over the holidays, you may be feeling a little egg-shaped, so why not complete the transformation and become one! Egging On puts you in the shell of a fragile egg with the goal of getting as high as you can go. Developer EgoBounds has mastered egg physics to make the egg-themed environments as challenging as they are fun.
As you roll and jump your way up and up the structures, coming across new and interesting obstacles, you’ll have to avoid whoever left that chainsaw running, or even an angry rooster. Being an egg doesn’t have to be pale and bland; however, customize your egg with a variety of decorative shells so you can look your best while you try not to crack under the pressure.
KILL IT WITH FIRE! 2
I don’t know about you, but my heating bill is too high, I’m sick of wearing 4 jumpers, and I need to find a new way to keep warm, while warding off the horde of spiders surrounding my couch. Thankfully, KILL ITWITH FIRE! 2 has me covered, and if you’re in the same position as me, it could be for you too!
(Someone please pay my heating bill.)
Casey Donnellan Games LLC is back with the equally hilarious spider-exterminating co-op experience. Play the campaign solo or with up to 8 friends in online multiplayer, as you wage war on the spider world to exterminate as many as you can with an array of 45 rip-roaring and hilarious weapons, from big flipping guns to rolled up newspapers.
Each one of the seven worlds will test to see how many legs you can count and how many critters you can squash. Craft potions in a bubbling cauldron, destroy entire cities in tanks, or even be a spider and annoy your friends. Not for the faint-hearted if you have a fear of spiders, although it might be a bit therapeutic to you, I’ll let you figure that one out.
KILL IT WITH FIRE! 2 is available now On Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and supports handhelds, Xbox Cloud gaming, and a part of Xbox Play Anywhere, meaning that when you’ve burned your living room to the ground, you can then move to your bedroom, snuggled up in your warm bed, and jump back in with your friends on your phone via cloud gaming. Wait- what did I just feel on my toes…
Dustland Delivery
If you’re in the mood to build an empire and become a tycoon from old tires, gears and rusty nails, developer Neutron Star Studio’s new business simulation game, Dustland Delivery, might be up your dirt path.
In a post-apocalyptic, zombie-filled wasteland, you and your ragtag group of misfits will travel from town to town, trading, buying, and selling rations, taking on rival gangs, and recruiting more to join your caravan, slowly building your empire, wheel by wheel. Build your truck (your mobile base) to tackle more difficult parts of the world, modifying it to withstand the harsh world outside to take on hordes of zombies or rogue gangs trying to steal your goods.
Your goal is simple: to become the source of all resources and the capital of the wasteland. Dustland Delivery only launched to Xbox on January 22, meaning that if you’ve been wanting to drive through the Dustland for the last year, the game is ready for you to jump into on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, and Xbox One. There’s no handheld compatibility yet for this title, but the game does support the Xbox Play Anywhere Program, meaning you can build your empire on your PC and then watch the credits roll in on your couch.
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check
If you want the post-apocalyptic zombie experience but only the admin side, then look no further than Quarantine Zone: The Last Check. Brigada Games’ new simulation game puts you in charge at a vital checkpoint, making sure that no one who could be potentially infected gets through.
The job is simple enough; you’ll see one person through the checkpoint at a time. Using advanced screening tools and your own instinct, your job is to figure out who can stay in the safe zone and who must stay behind. Suspicious of someone, or not sure if they are infected or not? Send them to the quarantine zone for observation, or to the lab for additional screening. If you think they’re healthy, send them to the living block, but are you sure you didn’t miss something?
Each person you save, or each infected you identify, will give you some money, which can be used for a variety of things, including upgrading your equipment, power generators, security upgrades, and more.
Once you’ve got the hang of keeping the zombies out, you’ll be tasked with experimenting with survivors to try and find a cure, improve your lab with new tests and equipment, and one day, you all those harvested brains and organs might be worth it.
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check is available right now on Xbox PC and compatible handhelds. The game is included in the Xbox PC Game Pass subscription. Currently, there is no word on a console release for the title, meaning the game is aptly quarantined to PC.
Rhythm Doctor
If you cast your mind back to the Xbox Showcase at Tokyo Game Show, you might remember a trailer for a pixel art rhythm game that boasted that everything in the trailer was a piece of unbroken gameplay footage, and showed a blood-pumping rhythm game called ‘Rhythm Doctor’. A new take on the genre, 7th Beat Studio delivers a game that’s designed to teach you rhythm and rhythm theory, without even realizing it.
The game focusses around a new intern at Middle C Hospital. Confined to a chair behind a computer screen, the intern, Ian, has the job of trying out a new experimental treatment for patients, defibrillating their hearts in time with their heartbeat. You have one job: to press the button with your really long arm in sync with their heartbeat when you line their heartbeats up properly, you’ll cure what is making them ill.
The premise is simple enough, but the fun comes in when the Rhythm Doctor (that’s you!) must deal with more complex rhythm patterns, including polyrhythms, hemiolas, irregular time signatures, and probably more that is increasing my heart rate at the thought of it.
With over 20 unique levels, each featuring its own story and rhythm theory concept, you’ll experience the rhythm genre like never before, with a catchy soundtrack and gorgeous pixel art. If you’re up for the challenge to save lives to the beat, Rhythm Doctor is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, Xbox One, and compatible handhelds. The game is not a part of Xbox Game Pass, but it is a part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program, so you can pick up and play on any Xbox-compatible device when you can’t get those tunes out of your head.
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