Highlights
- The Indie Live Expo's Summer Spotlight event showcased over 50 indie games, including The Great Villainess, a turn-based strategy game with voxel-based art.
- Boyhood's End is a story-rich puzzle game where players navigate a world ruled by a mechanical autocrat, using classic JRPG-style pixel art.
- Chicken Police: Into the Hive is a character-driven, film noir adventure featuring rooster detectives unraveling a global conspiracy in a self-reflective broody mystery.
Indie Live Expo, a Japanese online digital series that presents upcoming indie games, just wrapped up its Summer Spotlight event.
The Expo showed off over 50 games, both upcoming and currently available to play. We’ve highlighted some of the more interesting games that were displayed during the stream.
The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily
The event’s heavy hitter was undoubtedly this upcoming turn-based strategy game. After being falsely accused of regicide, the “villainess” Scarlet enlists the help of rebellious mastermind Lily to face the Imperial Kingdom. The game’s art is voxel-based, a refreshing call-back to a short-lived aesthetic.
The objective of The Great Villainess is to manoeuvre your airship around the battlefield, capturing enemy commanders and turning them into allies. Par for the course in Japanese games, you’ll also be able to strengthen your bond with your allies through conversation.
The Great Villainess is being co-developed by several development teams, including One or Eight (Lost Epic), WSS Playground (Touhou Luna Nights) and Alliance Arts.
Boyhood’s End
This story-rich puzzle game centres around the idea of a “human score”, essentially a social ranking that every human is assigned at birth. The world is ruled by a mechanical autocrat called R. Karellan who dictates every aspect of life. The game’s protagonist Giovanni has the lowest possible human score and faces many hardships as a result. However, his life forever changes when he’s contacted by the eccentric genius Campanella.
Gameplay-wise, the game has classic JRPG-style pixel art and the player’s objective is to travel around, solving puzzles and engaging in conversation. Boyhood’s End is also being developed by WSS Playground.
Chicken Police: Into the Hive
A character-driven, film noir adventure about two veteran rooster detectives? I’m sold. This is actually the second entry into the Chicken Police series, with the first instalment Chicken Police: Paint it Red releasing to positive reviews in 2020.
Into The Hive is completely voice-acted and will play like a detective-style visual novel. In true film noir fashion, the pair of roosters will be uncovering a global conspiracy but while doing so, they may discover some dark truths about themselves. Oh, how I love a self-reflective broody mystery.
Those are our three picks from this year’s Summer Spotlight, but you can see the full list on the event’s website. There is also an accompanying Steam sale taking place, where several games will be discounted until August 7.