Uncle Bartek at Fextralife writes, "I spent the last week on a variety of cool gaming-related activities, most of them being Dark Souls 3 or anything Souls-adjacent. In my DS downtime I decided to give two very different indie titles a go. The first one was the groundbreaking Super Meat Boy that opened a lot of doors for indie developers a couple of years back. My second pick was a direct beneficiary of these open doors; the wildly popular Enter the Gungeon. Both games focus on a seemingly endless variety of new challenges and levels that are driven by a punishing difficulty level. Over the last 7 years the term “indie” has become a shorthand for extreme difficulty in game most of us just accepted that as an integral element of independent games."
These aren’t nostalgia grabs or gimmick-laden throwbacks. They each bring something genuinely fresh to the table, mechanics that feel baked into the exploration and combat, not just tacked on.
Play as Dik, a nimble acrobat exploring the depths of Hell to rescue his brother from the Devil’s hands. With no weapons to rely on, success hinges on mastery of physics-driven movement, and quick adaptation to deadly obstacles.
GDC 2025 has revealed the finalists for the 27th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF).
