5 Indies to Watch Out for from the Steam Next Fest
Image credit: Valve
The Steam Next Fest, typically running 3 times per year has been a great way for prospective indie players to find new and interesting games from smaller developers since its inception in 2021. I have happened across many even this year that have been excellent, such as the existential and Lovecraftian horror fishing game, Dredge.
Here are 5 games from this month’s Steam Next Fest that have caught my eye, and hopefully are worthy of your time.
One Lonely Outpost
With an increasing number of “Stardew Valley-likes” hitting the market, there is just something about One Lonely Outpost that stands above the rest. A self published title from US based Freedom Games, One Lonely Outpost finds you founding a colony on a barren wasteland planet, slowly but surely terraforming the space to be more hospitable. This appears to be a combination of the colony-sim aspect of games like Surviving Mars, with the addicting loop and social elements of something like Stardew Valley. There are also robot cows.
One Lonely Outpost is set to release on the 27th of June this year.
Wood & Weather
Wood & Weather is the third game from Australian based Paper House, fusing typical god game elements such as weather manipulation with a more cosy, toy-block aesthetic. Controlling an ethereal blue hand, your goal is to help the citizens of this toy-city with all of their problems, or just to cause as much chaos as possible if you so desire. The dialogue is noticeably Australian, which is always a positive. Its music is also written by Dan Golding, who worked on Untitled Goose Game and the Frog Detective series.
Wood & Weather has no release date yet.
Venba
Taking me back to my childhood, spending way too many hours playing games like Cooking Mama, narrative driven cooking game Venba follows an Indian mother who immigrates to Canada in the 1980s with her family. The first game from Ontario based Visai Games, this story is about restoring family recipes lost in the move, and features detailed, branching conversations with family members. The music is a vibe also, so if you were looking for a short and sweet relaxing cooking experience, this would be the game for you to check out.
Venba will release on the 31st of July this year.
Station to Station
Developed by Galaxy Grove, Station to Station combines an absolutely gorgeous voxel art style with the relaxing atmosphere of something akin to Toukana’s Dorfromantik. The game is about connecting settlements together with train tracks to foster growth between them, and the more connected these areas become, the more lush and vibrant the areas around them will be. There is something so captivating about this art-style, from red tinged gorges to rolling plains. The little steam trains are very cute. This looks like the perfect game to play whilst listening to a podcast.
Station to Station will release in 2023.
Sea of Stars
From Sabotage Studios, who developed The Messenger, a fantastic metroidvania from 2018, comes a very different project this time around. Sea of Stars is a classically-inspired turn based RPG, combining stunning pixel-art with an absolutely gorgeous dynamic lighting system, this may end up being one of the best looking games releasing this year. Definitely a game for fans of the genre, this looks to be heavily focused on nostalgia, whilst looking to modernise a variety of core systems such as combat and traversal. I have been following this for a while, and can’t help but be captivated by its breathtaking art-style. I can only hope that the rest of the game is just as strong.
Sea of Stars launches on the 30th of August.
