As nice as that taste of spring was, one more round of winter weather gives many of us one last excuse to stay inside for a day. From egg adventures to waking nightmares, why not nestle up with something small, strange, and uncanny with a few indie gems from the previous week?
Developer: itamu
As seen in Noclip’s Computer Worlds on Thursday, Mama’s Sleeping Angels takes the already nightmarish co-op horror extraction genre and bends it into something nearly unrecognizable. As one to four friends at a sleepover, your shared dream sees you venture out into uncanny, sunless spaces seeking tributes for “Mama,” a goddess cast in porcelain. Armed with low-polygon weaponry and flip-phone powers, seek out relics bearing curses to complete your ritual. The more potent the curse, the more Mama likes, though some carry hexes that may prove dangerous to carry around during your excursion.
Developer: The Crayon Eating Company
3D platformers have always revolved around collecting items, but in Funi Raccoon Game, you’re nabbing everything that isn’t bolted down. Scurrying around a colorful void, you can take on quests, dodge traffic, and cause mayhem in pursuit of filling your dumpster with a variety of stolen goods. Speaking with creator Cí Malone in one of my zines last year, I was told the Irish dev had limited first-hand experience with the famed trash bandits, believing them to be “mystical rare creatures.” Even if based solely on the animal’s reputation, as an Ontarian whose summer camp candy was taken right out of the cabin by some bold ones, I’d say the game is 100 percent accurate.
Developer: VOLE.wtf
Enjoy the satisfaction of scrubbing something clean, but want a more modest project than power-scrubbing the side of a house? Glasses Cleaning Simulator brings the opportunity to wipe something smaller down without sacrificing the frustration in doing so. Free on your browser, this game adds a meter to measure your smudged-up frames. As anyone with glasses already knows, there exists no terry cloth on earth to simplify this chore, each swipe and circle seemingly taking you two steps back for each step forward.
Developer: increpare games
Increpare, the famed puzzlesmith behind Stephen’s Sausage Roll, is back with the breakfast foods, though this time tackling a tough-as-nails platformer. Ascending a fortress in soggy weather, you must navigate the egg through hostile architecture and traps. Though not a fragile little eggy, the off-center weight will prove compromising enough in this roost.
Developer: alevgor
Lastly, two infamously challenging types of retro gaming smush together into Haunted Lands. The endless monster mashing and sidescrolling surprises of Castlevania, with the relentless cruelty and chunky color palette of EGA classics like Duke Nukem and Monster Bash, make for a mean demon-slaying machine. Choose between six misfit heroes, each with different fighting styles and supernatural quirks, to survive a gauntlet summoned from the fiercest vintage crypts.
