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· 7 min read

Top 5 Indie Games Released In August

What were the top games launched in August? And what made these titles stand out from the rest? We take a look at just that...

Content Creator at GameAnalytics

#Game Deconstructions
· 7 min read

Another month has passed, and loads of new games have found their way onto the app store. New releases seem to be popping up left and right, giving me plenty of games to dip my fingers in.

It’s been so much fun playing a large variety of games last month, especially when there have been quite a few releases in many different genres. So, for this post, I’ve cherry-picked my top 5 favorite indie games, and explained why each of them is so special. Let’s get to it!

1. Yokai Dungeon

Recently published by Neutronized, Yokai Dungeon is an adorable pixel art dungeon crawler that tells a tale of a lantern festival gone wrong. In the game, lightning strikes an important shrine, which removes the protection label from a cursed jar, letting out loads of evil spirits. Your mission is to smash these spirits with either blocks, crates or jars (pretty much destroying anyone in your way).

You also have bosses to fight, coins to collect, shops to gain bonus items, and a lot of rooms to explore. But if you take too long in a dungeon, a special (by special, I mean immortal) spirit ends up taking your life away.

Random Generation is a great way to add variety

What’s cool about Yokai Dungeon is that the layouts of each room, dungeon, as well as the enemies you face, are all randomly generated. For example, each time you come back to a room you’ve previously visited, the blocks and enemies have been randomly rearranged.

And what’s nice about this is that not only does it keep the gameplay fresh, but it also helps players out if they ever get stuck (for example, on one of the levels I was stuck on, I left, came back, and tackled a completely different set up).

2. Knight Quest

  • Developer: Golden Bite Games
  • Launch date: August 19th, 2019
  • Price: Free, with in-app purchases
  • Available on: iOS

Knight Quest is a Chess-themed, mini-action puzzler where you move through levels as a knight. But to unlock each level, you not only need to collect horseshoes and find that all-important key that opens the chest at the end… but you’ll also need to defeat a bunch of enemies while doing so.

Taking an old concept and making it new

Pretty much everyone has played chess at least once in their life. But what makes Knight Quest so unique is how the developer has merged this concept into a casual mobile game. Taking elements from Chess, the game’s rules are fairly recognizable and easy to learn, and adds a nice twist to the usual endless runner titles out there at the moment.

Introducing the various chess pieces slowly throughout the level bridges the gap between people who haven’t quite got the hang of Chess, and people who do know the original game. As someone who was never really good at Chess, just moving forward through a checkerboard world, it starts to feel like I am not that bad at Chess after all.

3. Rogue Legacy

Rogue Legacy is a 2D action platformer where you need to get as far as you can inside a castle, collecting coins as you go. And because your character killed the king (Jaime Lannister style), you’ll need to fight off loads of guards to stay alive. Each map is procedurally generated, providing variety between each run. Don’t expect to survive in this game, as each ‘run’, you’ll end up dying. But that’s OK, because you get to keep the money you’ve made and use this to get upgrades that will get you further.

What’s different about this game is that when you die, you get to pick one of three family members, each with their own traits, to use in the next run. These different traits make the runs unique and fresh – as it changes the gameplay.

Adapting an old game to mobile

As some of you have probably noticed, this game is not new. In fact, it has been out on PC and various consoles for about 7 years. So as a way to gain traction for this release, the developers added some exclusive content like extra rooms and traits (which I thought was a very clever way to drive existing players to the mobile version!).

4. Mini Archer

  • Developer: Nanovation
  • Launch date: August 12th, 2019
  • Price: Free, with in-app purchases
  • Available on: iOS

Many of you might already be familiar with a game similar to Mini Archer. The aim of this game is to basically fire arrows at targets (some of them will be moving, and some will be still). But what’s great about this game is that you also get to switch between two modes. One mode gives you a set number of arrows you need to fire, and another gives you a set amount of time to nail as many targets as possible.

Its visual effects complete the game

The best part about Mini Archer is the simple, clean, and dynamic UI elements – they just make sense and feel right. For example, whenever you hit the bullseye, confetti would burst into the screen, leaving you very satisfied (a fresh hit of endorphins, a great tactic for any casual-game game). And when you’re running low on time or arrows, the screen would slightly fade in and out with red, hinting that you’re towards the end of the level.

5. Spy Tactics

  • Developer: Evgeny Gubanov
  • Launch date: August 6th, 2019
  • Price: Price depends on the platform
  • Available on: iOS, Android, PC

Spy Tactics is a very polished tactical puzzle game that follows your character’s journey of becoming a spy. To start the game, you have to listen to a brief. And to get to the next level, you need to move around a node-based grid to avoid guards, kill those who haven’t spotted you, and collect various items.

Even the first few levels of Spy Tactics is a challenge, as you will need to count patterns of the other walking characters on the screen in an attempt to find your own path. This means that you’ll be moving around a lot so that you can watch and count the number of tiles your enemies move on, before heading back to the start with the right route in mind.

Clever gameplay, but little instructions

Don’t get me wrong, Spy Tactics is a really clever, polished, and well-made puzzler. But I did find myself a bit lost without a playable tutorial to follow. Luckily, I’ve played Hitman Go (the game that inspired this game) in the past, so I was able to navigate my way through quite quickly. But for those who haven’t played Hitman, I can imagine it taking a little longer.

Think we’ve missed anything?

Tweet us here and we’ll make sure to check it out for our next month’s review. And if you fancy some more reading, check out my article on how to add social elements to your mobile game.