Let me introduce myself. I go by Halios and have been writing for Streamer Square for many fantastic years. My love for Indies runs deep, going back to my first PAX convention in 2014. Ever since then, I’ve been diving into the indie game scene weekly and streaming them to help people find their next favorite game.

If you’ve been under a rock for the last few years, you might’ve missed the prevalence of the indie game genre. With games like Stardew Valley and Binding of Isaac taking the game scene by storm, they’ve proven that even the smaller companies (fun fact: Stardew Valley was made by ONE man) can compete in this market.

How about we start with the basics: Indie games are those developed by individuals or smaller teams without the major backing from large game publishers. We often refer to the larger games as “AAA” games due to the higher development budgets that come with these companies. While a game like Halo might have a budget of millions of dollars, a game like Stardew Valley had a pocket budget that the developer could afford on their own.

My goal is to cover a few indies per article. I will aim to bring a couple games to light and even include the games of past indie glory so that people who may have missed the title gets a second coming to the chance. With all said, let’s get to the first game of The Indie Corner:

Wildermyth

Platform: Steam
Developer:  Worldwalker Games LLC
Publisher: Worldwalker Games LLC
Price: $19.99
Current Steam User Rating: 95% Overwhelmingly Positive
Release Date: Nov 13^th 2019

Imagine if a choose-your-own-adventure book met a hexagonal board game, fell in love, and had a child. That child grew up with Dungeons & Dragons as an uncle who always came to family dinner. This is the playground that is Wildermyth. From the start, you can see this isn’t your regular tactical RPG.

Characters have actual stories developed by you. You are presented the story in a comic book style with you making the ultimate decisions on how your characters grow. They start as simple farmers but can grow beyond this with the right guidance. They can even fall in love or form rivalries with one another, providing benefits or penalties depending on how it plays out.

One of the most unique but toughest character decisions comes when they fall in battle. Afterwards, you must make choice of letting your character die or keeping them with a permanent disability. The options could be loss of an eye (where accuracy is permanently decreased) or losing a hand (they can’t hold anything on that side) along with many other scenarios! Yes, I am excited about this feature. It provides a variation on permadeath that really hasn’t been seen before. It makes every character valuable and every decision that much tougher.

Combine this with an overworld territory system, where you fight over controlling territory to produce materials, an intuitive tactical combat system where the landscape can be manipulated, and constant new content releasing.

What makes this a game I want to stream : YOU develop the story. Imagine writing your own adventure in a pop out book style and including your community on the way. Name your characters after community members and laugh at their blunders, triumph in their victories, or cry together if their character eventually must pass on. Let your community develop their characters as they see fit. Have members fall in love with one another and giggle at the nervous chatter afterwards. The sky is the limit!