{"id":1902193,"date":"2026-04-25T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1902193"},"modified":"2026-04-25T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T08:00:00","slug":"vampire-crawlers-peter-molyneuxs-return-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1902193","title":{"rendered":"Vampire Crawlers, Peter Molyneux&#8217;s return and other new indie games worth checking out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/3lW8.crUlZTPSrihxXpIew&#8211;\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD02NzU-\/https:\/\/d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net\/images\/user-uploaded\/vampire-crawlers_7972.jpg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article id=\"article-27089b58-e628-42aa-b674-adada6c39a3e\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"mx-auto md:px-10 md:max-w-[1220px]\">\n<nav class=\"prestige-breadcrumb relative mx-4 md:mx-0\" aria-label=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<ol class=\"no-scrollbar overflow-scroll whitespace-nowrap text-battleship\">\n<li class=\"inline\">\n<li class=\"inline-block cursor-default last:pr-10 md:last:pr-20 font-bold\">Gaming<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/nav>\n<header class=\"mb-4 px-4 md:mb-6 md:px-0\">\n<h1 class=\"layout-h1 my-2 font-bold leading-tight\">Vampire Crawlers, Peter Molyneux&#8217;s return and other new indie games worth checking out<\/h1>\n<h2 class=\"my-2 text-[18px] font-light leading-5 md:max-w-[660px] md:text-[20px]\/[28px]\">Plus, photography-based heists and a slice-of-life soccer game.<\/h2>\n<div class=\"flex-col items-start lg:flex lg:flex-row lg:items-center lg:justify-between mt-6\">\n<div class=\"relative md:mr-[10px]\">\n<div class=\"flex items-center\">\n<div class=\"flex mr-2\">\n<div class=\"shrink-0 cursor-pointer inline-block size-[42px] lg:size-[48px]\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt role=\"img\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full rounded-full object-cover object-center shadow-[0_0_0_2px_#ffffff]\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/KAmpaC2kDwlaab0GSBqF_A--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTgwO2g9ODA-\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/creatr-uploaded-images\/2023-12\/22e56d00-a0e5-11ee-9d5f-464f2df9bf13\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"inline-block\">\n<div class=\"w-max text-sm\/5 font-semibold lg:!flex flex items-center\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col\">\n<div class=\"flex w-max items-center\">Kris Holt<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"font-normal sm:before:inline-block\">Contributing Reporter<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"lg:hidden\">\n<div class=\"text-xs text-dolphin dark:text-shark md:text-sm\/5 pt-4\">\n<div class=\"inline-block\"><time datetime=\"2026-04-25T11:00:00.000Z\">Sat, April 25, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC<\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ml-0 mt-4 flex items-center lg:ml-3 lg:mt-0\">\n<div class=\"ml-0 mr-2\">\n<div class=\"relative flex\">Add Engadget on Google<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"hidden lg:block\">\n<div class=\"text-xs text-dolphin dark:text-shark md:text-sm\/5 pt-4\">\n<div class=\"inline-block\"><time datetime=\"2026-04-25T11:00:00.000Z\">Sat, April 25, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC<\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-1 gap-x-8 lg:gap-x-0 mx-auto md:px-10 md:max-w-[1220px] md:grid-cols-[[main-start]_1fr_[main-end_right-start]_min-content_[right-end]] lg:!gap-x-8\">\n<div class=\"md:col-main\" data-i13n-boundary=\"true\">\n<div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-[[fullbleed-start_body-start]_minmax(auto,750px)_[body-end_fullbleed-end]]\">\n<figure class=\"relative col-body mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative overflow-hidden fig-image-round left-1\/2 w-screen -translate-x-1\/2 md:left-0 md:w-auto md:translate-x-0\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"object-cover object-center\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/_DpGXPizXqyEDc0j5vzPOg--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyNDI7aD02OTk-\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/uu\/api\/res\/1.2\/4Sc7bEmyfDLMiZIWtA9f8Q--~B\/aD0xMDgwO3c9MTkyMDthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg--\/https:\/\/d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net\/images\/user-uploaded\/vampire-crawlers_7972.jpg\"><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-[0.875rem]\/[1.25rem] figure-caption mt-1 line-clamp-2 mt-2.5 md:mt-2 pr-2.5\">\n<div><span>Poncle\/Nosebleed Interactive<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:grid-cols-article lg:max-w-[750px] drop-cap\" data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Welcome to our latest roundup of what&#8217;s going on in the indie game space. If you&#8217;re looking for something new to play this weekend, we&#8217;ve got a bunch of options for you. We&#8217;ve also got some interesting upcoming games to tell you about as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">In a press release announcing that Playdate Season 3 is coming later this year, Panic included a line that I&#8217;ve been thinking about a lot this week. &#8220;Panic is currently relieved and happy that people can make amazing games for Playdate with just 16 megabytes of RAM,&#8221; it said, a nod toward the ongoing RAM crisis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The Playdate doesn&#8217;t exactly have a lot of technical oomph, and I&#8217;m frequently delighted by what developers are able to do within its limitations. Restrictions foster creativity \u2014 many folks had to get pretty inventive on Twitter back when they only had 140 characters to play with. Here, Panic offered a welcome reminder that you don&#8217;t necessarily need an ultra-powerful rig or console to have access to more great games than you&#8217;ll ever actually be able to play.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_24h9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_44h9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">For instance, my favorite game of the year so far, <em>Titanium Court<\/em>, works on Macs that are capable of running macOS 11 (the 2020 version of the operating system) or later. On PC, you&#8217;ll need a graphics card that&#8217;s compatible with OpenGL or DirectX 9, the latter of which was released in 2002. For what it&#8217;s worth, the game would also fit on a CD-ROM.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There are tons of other great indie games new and old that&#8217;ll run just fine on lower-powered machines. Bear that in mind the next time a current-gen console or other gaming system gets a price increase because of the RAM shortage. The DLSS 5 debacle aside, you probably don&#8217;t <em>need<\/em> a 50-series NVIDIA GPU either. Maybe just pick up a Playdate instead.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"heading-mb col-body heading-text-style font-bold charcoal-color\" data-jump-link-target id=\"new-releases\">New releases<\/h2>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">While many of the weapons, characters and enemies are the same, <em>Vampire Crawlers<\/em> is a fresh spin on <em>Vampire Survivors<\/em>. It&#8217;s a turn-based roguelite deckbuilder. Instead of automatically firing whatever weapons you have at nearby enemies, you&#8217;ll play cards to conquer the mob that you face in each fight. You can still modify and evolve your weapons and abilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Each card has a casting cost, so you\u2019ll need to consider which ones to play in a given moment and the order in which you do so. As such, it\u2019s a slower-paced, more strategic take on the original game, albeit with a similar level of visual chaos should you put together a particularly powerful build.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_2bh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_4bh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">I&#8217;ve played a ton of <em>Vampire Survivors <\/em>and the <em>Vampire Crawlers<\/em> demo lured me in too. Its approach to turn-based battles is working for me. I&#8217;ve only played a little of the full game so far, but there&#8217;s every chance I could lose days of my life to it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Vampire Crawlers <\/em>\u2014 from <em>Survivors <\/em>creator Poncle and co-developer Nosebleed Interactive \u2014 is available now on Steam (for PC and Mac), Xbox for PC, Xbox Series X\/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch for $10. It&#8217;s included with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Fable creator Peter Molyneux and his studio 22cans are back with another god game. In <em>Masters of Albion<\/em>, you can construct and modify settlements as a literal hand of god. You&#8217;ll design buildings (which are immediately constructed and usable) and manage workers. You can also assume control of a human or animal in the world to take on quests and hunt for treasure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There&#8217;s a tower defense element to this as well. You&#8217;ll need to prepare your towns from nighttime attacks from various creatures. You can fend off these foes as the god or battle them on the ground as a hero. There&#8217;s a lot going on here, but perhaps my favorite part is this apparent warning in the mature content description section of the Steam page: &#8220;Players are also able to use crude, adult hand gestures at will in the game.&#8221; Yes, that means you can flip the bird while playing as the god hand. Yes, I am very mature.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_2hh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_4hh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Masters of Albion<\/em> is now available in early access on Steam. It typically costs $25, but there&#8217;s a 10 percent discount until April 29.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Snap &amp; Grab<\/em> caught our attention at last summer&#8217;s edition of the Day of the Devs showcase. This is a cartoonish heist game in which you&#8217;ll carry out your robberies in two parts. You play as Nifty, a famous fashion photographer. In the setup phase, you&#8217;ll take advantage of your position to take snaps of loot, threats and opportunities and then use those to construct a plan. With the help of some henchman, you&#8217;ll then try to execute the heist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The game\u2019s developer No Goblin is taking an episodic approach to <em>Snap &amp; Grab <\/em>as it&#8217;s releasing the game in five parts over the course of this year. The first episode is available now on Steam (usually $8, though there&#8217;s a 10 percent discount until May 1).<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_2nh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_4nh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Snow Day Software&#8217;s follow-up to <em>Indoor Kickball<\/em> is <em>Indoor Baseball<\/em>. It&#8217;s an arcade game in which you play baseball inside buildings, funnily enough. You&#8217;ll play 1v1 matches against the CPU or a friend in local multiplayer. You can also dive into a 14-game season or check out the story mode, in which you&#8217;ll try to play your way back onto your school&#8217;s baseball team (and maybe do some chores to make up for smashing too many things at home).<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There are several different levels, each of which has a variety of ways for you to make a home run, from smashing a window to landing the ball in a toilet. It seems light and fun and as a burgeoning baseball guy, I dig the idea of this one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Indoor Baseball<\/em> is available now on Steam, Xbox for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X\/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. It costs $15.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"heading-mb col-body heading-text-style font-bold charcoal-color\" data-jump-link-target id=\"upcoming\">Upcoming<\/h2>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">I love <em>Another Crab&#8217;s Treasure <\/em>very much and so I&#8217;ll always be interested in whatever Aggro Crab is up to. Given that the studio also co-developed the smash hit <em>Peak <\/em>(alongside Landfall), I imagine many other folks feel the same way.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_2uh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Crashout Crew<\/em> is another multiplayer game from Aggro Crab. This one adopts the chaotic co-op formula of games like <em>Overcooked<\/em>. As a team of forklift drivers, you and your buds will work together to fill orders in warehouses while dealing with obstacles like blackouts, cacti, fire and bees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">It&#8217;s coming to Steam, Xbox on PC and Xbox Series X\/S on May 28. It&#8217;ll be available on Game Pass on day one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">I&#8217;m very much here for slice-of-life games based around soccer (I still need to play <em>Despelote<\/em>!). <em>Kick<\/em> is another such title. This is a side-scrolling, anime-inspired game from solo developer nospacelost and publisher Shoreline Games, in which you dribble a ball as you make your way to school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There are 23 levels with people to dodge and obstacles to overcome. You&#8217;ll need to avoid damaging anything as you try to pull off tricks by kicking the ball at the correct angle, all while making sure you get to class on time (you can switch off the timer for a more relaxed experience). It looks pretty, and it never hurts a game&#8217;s prospects to have a pup accompanying the main character.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_34h9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">No release date for <em>Kick <\/em>has been announced. It&#8217;s coming to Steam at some point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Elfie: A Sand Plan <\/em>is a cozy sandcastle building game from Pressed Elephant and Sol&#8217;s Atelier. There are more than 180 levels in which you&#8217;ll build sand sculptures to match what Elfie, a small elephant, has in mind. There are three difficulty levels too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">It looks cute and I adore elephants (oops, I just started fostering another one), so I&#8217;m interested in checking it out. <em>Elfie: A Sand Plan<\/em> is coming to Steam for PC and Mac on May 12. It&#8217;ll cost $7, and there&#8217;ll be a 10 percent launch discount.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_3ah9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">It took the team at Realmsoft 14 years to bring <em>Clockwork Ambrosia<\/em> to fruition and if this latest trailer is any indication, that long development cycle could have well been worthwhile. This is a side-scrolling action platformer in which you can customize half a dozen weapons using more than 150 modifiers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">You play as an airship engineer who tries to survive on a steampunk island full of aggressive robots and creatures following a crash. I really dig the art direction here, which features lush hand-drawn pixel art and lovely animations. Realmsoft made the game using a custom engine the team built from scratch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">I&#8217;m looking forward to checking out <em>Clockwork Ambrosia<\/em>. It&#8217;s coming to Steam on May 12.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:grid-cols-article lg:max-w-[750px]\">\n<div class=\"commerce col-body\" data-pw=\"disclosure\">\n<div class=\"mb-7 flex items-center rounded-lg p-3 p-5 w-fit flex-col md:flex-row\">\n<p class=\"text-[12px] text-battleship dark:text-gandalf md:text-[13px]\">If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"md:col-main grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:grid-cols-article lg:max-w-[750px]\">\n<div class=\"no-scrollbar col-body mx-4 mb-8 mt-2.5 overflow-x-scroll whitespace-nowrap md:mx-0 md:max-w-[750px] md:overflow-x-visible md:hidden\">\n<div class=\"mx-auto max-w-screen-sm\">\n<ul class=\"inline-flex text-xs md:text-sm\">\n<li class=\"mr-6\">About our ads<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:grid-cols-article lg:max-w-[750px] drop-cap\" data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Welcome to our latest roundup of what&#8217;s going on in the indie game space. If you&#8217;re looking for something new to play this weekend, we&#8217;ve got a bunch of options for you. We&#8217;ve also got some interesting upcoming games to tell you about as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">In a press release announcing that Playdate Season 3 is coming later this year, Panic included a line that I&#8217;ve been thinking about a lot this week. &#8220;Panic is currently relieved and happy that people can make amazing games for Playdate with just 16 megabytes of RAM,&#8221; it said, a nod toward the ongoing RAM crisis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The Playdate doesn&#8217;t exactly have a lot of technical oomph, and I&#8217;m frequently delighted by what developers are able to do within its limitations. Restrictions foster creativity \u2014 many folks had to get pretty inventive on Twitter back when they only had 140 characters to play with. Here, Panic offered a welcome reminder that you don&#8217;t necessarily need an ultra-powerful rig or console to have access to more great games than you&#8217;ll ever actually be able to play.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_24h9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_44h9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">For instance, my favorite game of the year so far, <em>Titanium Court<\/em>, works on Macs that are capable of running macOS 11 (the 2020 version of the operating system) or later. On PC, you&#8217;ll need a graphics card that&#8217;s compatible with OpenGL or DirectX 9, the latter of which was released in 2002. For what it&#8217;s worth, the game would also fit on a CD-ROM.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There are tons of other great indie games new and old that&#8217;ll run just fine on lower-powered machines. Bear that in mind the next time a current-gen console or other gaming system gets a price increase because of the RAM shortage. The DLSS 5 debacle aside, you probably don&#8217;t <em>need<\/em> a 50-series NVIDIA GPU either. Maybe just pick up a Playdate instead.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"heading-mb col-body heading-text-style font-bold charcoal-color\" data-jump-link-target id=\"new-releases\">New releases<\/h2>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">While many of the weapons, characters and enemies are the same, <em>Vampire Crawlers<\/em> is a fresh spin on <em>Vampire Survivors<\/em>. It&#8217;s a turn-based roguelite deckbuilder. Instead of automatically firing whatever weapons you have at nearby enemies, you&#8217;ll play cards to conquer the mob that you face in each fight. You can still modify and evolve your weapons and abilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Each card has a casting cost, so you\u2019ll need to consider which ones to play in a given moment and the order in which you do so. As such, it\u2019s a slower-paced, more strategic take on the original game, albeit with a similar level of visual chaos should you put together a particularly powerful build.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_2bh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_4bh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">I&#8217;ve played a ton of <em>Vampire Survivors <\/em>and the <em>Vampire Crawlers<\/em> demo lured me in too. Its approach to turn-based battles is working for me. I&#8217;ve only played a little of the full game so far, but there&#8217;s every chance I could lose days of my life to it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Vampire Crawlers <\/em>\u2014 from <em>Survivors <\/em>creator Poncle and co-developer Nosebleed Interactive \u2014 is available now on Steam (for PC and Mac), Xbox for PC, Xbox Series X\/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch for $10. It&#8217;s included with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Fable creator Peter Molyneux and his studio 22cans are back with another god game. In <em>Masters of Albion<\/em>, you can construct and modify settlements as a literal hand of god. You&#8217;ll design buildings (which are immediately constructed and usable) and manage workers. You can also assume control of a human or animal in the world to take on quests and hunt for treasure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There&#8217;s a tower defense element to this as well. You&#8217;ll need to prepare your towns from nighttime attacks from various creatures. You can fend off these foes as the god or battle them on the ground as a hero. There&#8217;s a lot going on here, but perhaps my favorite part is this apparent warning in the mature content description section of the Steam page: &#8220;Players are also able to use crude, adult hand gestures at will in the game.&#8221; Yes, that means you can flip the bird while playing as the god hand. Yes, I am very mature.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_2hh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_4hh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Masters of Albion<\/em> is now available in early access on Steam. It typically costs $25, but there&#8217;s a 10 percent discount until April 29.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Snap &amp; Grab<\/em> caught our attention at last summer&#8217;s edition of the Day of the Devs showcase. This is a cartoonish heist game in which you&#8217;ll carry out your robberies in two parts. You play as Nifty, a famous fashion photographer. In the setup phase, you&#8217;ll take advantage of your position to take snaps of loot, threats and opportunities and then use those to construct a plan. With the help of some henchman, you&#8217;ll then try to execute the heist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The game\u2019s developer No Goblin is taking an episodic approach to <em>Snap &amp; Grab <\/em>as it&#8217;s releasing the game in five parts over the course of this year. The first episode is available now on Steam (usually $8, though there&#8217;s a 10 percent discount until May 1).<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_2nh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-body mb-4 hidden pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:block\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_4nh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Snow Day Software&#8217;s follow-up to <em>Indoor Kickball<\/em> is <em>Indoor Baseball<\/em>. It&#8217;s an arcade game in which you play baseball inside buildings, funnily enough. You&#8217;ll play 1v1 matches against the CPU or a friend in local multiplayer. You can also dive into a 14-game season or check out the story mode, in which you&#8217;ll try to play your way back onto your school&#8217;s baseball team (and maybe do some chores to make up for smashing too many things at home).<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There are several different levels, each of which has a variety of ways for you to make a home run, from smashing a window to landing the ball in a toilet. It seems light and fun and as a burgeoning baseball guy, I dig the idea of this one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Indoor Baseball<\/em> is available now on Steam, Xbox for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X\/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. It costs $15.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"heading-mb col-body heading-text-style font-bold charcoal-color\" data-jump-link-target id=\"upcoming\">Upcoming<\/h2>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">I love <em>Another Crab&#8217;s Treasure <\/em>very much and so I&#8217;ll always be interested in whatever Aggro Crab is up to. Given that the studio also co-developed the smash hit <em>Peak <\/em>(alongside Landfall), I imagine many other folks feel the same way.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_2uh9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Crashout Crew<\/em> is another multiplayer game from Aggro Crab. This one adopts the chaotic co-op formula of games like <em>Overcooked<\/em>. As a team of forklift drivers, you and your buds will work together to fill orders in warehouses while dealing with obstacles like blackouts, cacti, fire and bees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">It&#8217;s coming to Steam, Xbox on PC and Xbox Series X\/S on May 28. It&#8217;ll be available on Game Pass on day one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">I&#8217;m very much here for slice-of-life games based around soccer (I still need to play <em>Despelote<\/em>!). <em>Kick<\/em> is another such title. This is a side-scrolling, anime-inspired game from solo developer nospacelost and publisher Shoreline Games, in which you dribble a ball as you make your way to school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There are 23 levels with people to dodge and obstacles to overcome. You&#8217;ll need to avoid damaging anything as you try to pull off tricks by kicking the ball at the correct angle, all while making sure you get to class on time (you can switch off the timer for a more relaxed experience). It looks pretty, and it never hurts a game&#8217;s prospects to have a pup accompanying the main character.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_34h9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">No release date for <em>Kick <\/em>has been announced. It&#8217;s coming to Steam at some point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><em>Elfie: A Sand Plan <\/em>is a cozy sandcastle building game from Pressed Elephant and Sol&#8217;s Atelier. There are more than 180 levels in which you&#8217;ll build sand sculptures to match what Elfie, a small elephant, has in mind. There are three difficulty levels too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">It looks cute and I adore elephants (oops, I just started fostering another one), so I&#8217;m interested in checking it out. <em>Elfie: A Sand Plan<\/em> is coming to Steam for PC and Mac on May 12. It&#8217;ll cost $7, and there&#8217;ll be a 10 percent launch discount.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_3ah9nam95feiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">It took the team at Realmsoft 14 years to bring <em>Clockwork Ambrosia<\/em> to fruition and if this latest trailer is any indication, that long development cycle could have well been worthwhile. This is a side-scrolling action platformer in which you can customize half a dozen weapons using more than 150 modifiers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">You play as an airship engineer who tries to survive on a steampunk island full of aggressive robots and creatures following a crash. I really dig the art direction here, which features lush hand-drawn pixel art and lovely animations. Realmsoft made the game using a custom engine the team built from scratch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">I&#8217;m looking forward to checking out <em>Clockwork Ambrosia<\/em>. It&#8217;s coming to Steam on May 12.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/gaming\/vampire-crawlers-peter-molyneuxs-return-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110000340.html&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/3lW8.crUlZTPSrihxXpIew&#8211;\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD02NzU-\/https:\/\/d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net\/images\/user-uploaded\/vampire-crawlers_7972.jpg&#8221;] Gaming Vampire Crawlers, Peter Molyneux&#8217;s return and other new indie games worth checking out Plus, photography-based heists and a slice-of-life soccer game. Kris Holt Contributing Reporter Sat, April 25, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC Add Engadget on Google Sat, April 25, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC Poncle\/Nosebleed Interactive Welcome to our latest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,63],"class_list":["post-1902193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-engadget-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1902193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1902193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1902193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1902193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}