indie games

Review: Xbox vets debut ‘Roundguard,’ an accessible blend of the most addictive games

by Thomas Wilde on March 13, 2020March 13, 2020 at 1:56 pmComment

I called Roundguard dangerous when I saw it at last year’s PAX West, and now that I’ve played the full version, I’m standing by that. It’s a deliberate fusion between… Read More

Hands-on review: Panic’s Playdate device pairs old-school games with new-school content delivery

by Thomas Wilde on December 15, 2019December 11, 2019 at 11:07 amComment

The most impressive thing about the Playdate is that it’s being made at all. Portland, Ore.-based Panic announced its new portable gaming handheld back in May, and has been clear… Read More

Review: The gig economy collides with psychiatry, AI, and tech industry burnout in Seattle-set visual novel ‘Eliza’

by Thomas Wilde on October 15, 2019October 15, 2019 at 9:57 amComment

It’s tough to make a traditional recommendation for Zachtronics’s Eliza. It’s a thoughtful, short visual novel – an interactive, illustrated story – that makes a point of realistically depicting someone… Read More

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Q&A: Ex-Bungie CEO Harold Ryan reveals his latest project as a ‘new category of gaming company’

by Thomas Wilde on October 11, 2019October 11, 2019 at 10:27 am1 Comment

Harold Ryan has had a long career in the video game industry. His first job was as a tester for the 1996 Windows game Hellbender. From there, he worked his… Read More

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Honk: Why ‘Untitled Goose Game’ has become one of the most unexpected success stories in gaming

by Thomas Wilde on October 1, 2019October 1, 2019 at 6:27 pm 3 Comments

In a month that was riddled with big video game releases, the most unexpected success story of September turned out to be the indie game about being a very rude… Read More

Wiki giant Fandom makes video game publishing debut with dungeon crawler ‘UnderMine’

by Thomas Wilde on September 22, 2019September 24, 2019 at 1:59 pmComment

Fandom is probably best-known for its network of fan wikis. The San Francisco-based entertainment platform was originally founded in 2004 as Wikicities, by Angela Beesley Starling and Wikipedia co-creator Jimmy… Read More

A rundown of all 19 Pacific Northwest indie games in the spotlight at PAX

by Thomas Wilde on September 8, 2019September 8, 2019 at 2:21 pmComment

The depth and breadth of projects coming out of the Pacific Northwest indie gaming community was in the spotlight earlier this month at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. PAX… Read More

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Game review: ‘Rebel Galaxy Outlaw’ is a great space Western — once you figure out what you’re doing

by Thomas Wilde on August 31, 2019August 30, 2019 at 5:12 pmComment

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw ($29.99 on the Epic Games Store) is a sprawling, open-ended game of space trading and combat that is aggressively uninterested in teaching you how to play it.… Read More

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Seattle publisher and developer tinyBuild unveils new games and a release date for ‘Secret Neighbor’

by Thomas Wilde on August 30, 2019August 30, 2019 at 8:23 amComment

tinyBuild, notably weird indie video game publisher based in Bellevue, Wash., kicked off its Penny Arcade Expo on Thursday evening by announcing several new games, as well as a release… Read More

GeekWire Calendar Picks: PAX West; LEGO Robotics; chaos engineering; and more

by Nicole Tanner on August 23, 2019August 23, 2019 at 10:39 amComment

— Every Labor Day weekend, thousands of gamers descend upon the Washington State Convention Center for PAX West, the Pacific Northwest’s largest gaming convention. The 2019 edition marks the… Read More

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Review: ‘The Church in the Darkness’ game is a creepy, difficult trip through a South American jungle

by Thomas Wilde on August 5, 2019August 5, 2019 at 6:15 pmComment

The Church in the Darkness, a game from Seattle-based Paranoid Productions that took nearly five years to develop, is a difficult and often unfair stealth/suspense thriller with a heavy dose… Read More

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Review: Myst creator Cyan Worlds breaks into indie publishing with ‘Zed,’ an interactive memoir in VR

by Thomas Wilde on June 4, 2019June 4, 2019 at 11:08 amComment

Cyan Worlds, the Spokane, Wash.-based studio that produced the best-selling Myst franchise, today debuted the first game out of its new Cyan Ventures division. Last year, as its prolific PC… Read More

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Review: Seattle studio Tribetoy brings its space pirate reality show out of VR with ‘Bow to Blood’

by Thomas Wilde on May 27, 2019May 26, 2019 at 10:07 amComment

Bow to Blood: Last Captain Standing isn’t perfect, but at least it’s really weird. It’s the sophomore release from the Seattle-based studio Tribetoy, and feels as if it was made… Read More

Review: ‘Swag and Sorcery’ from tinyBuild is a lot of things, but mostly it’s about the grind

by Thomas Wilde on May 19, 2019May 16, 2019 at 2:11 pmComment

tinyBuild, headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. and Amsterdam, is a development studio and publishing house dedicated to bringing out video games that are just plain weird. You can’t really accuse tinyBuild… Read More

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Review: Paint a fantasy landscape with indie game ‘Eastshade,’ developed by Seattle-area studio

by Thomas Wilde on May 12, 2019May 12, 2019 at 8:26 amComment

Eastshade feels like somebody made an entire game out of a launch trailer. About five minutes after you start a new game, it turns into an endless series of interactive… Read More

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Ex-Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor reveals new solo indie project ‘Intergalactic Space Empire’

by Thomas Wilde on April 24, 2019April 25, 2019 at 1:43 pmComment

Today at the annual GamesBeat Summit in Los Angeles, veteran Seattle-area games developer Chris Taylor made a long-awaited announcement about his next project. His new game, Intergalactic Space Empire, is… Read More

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Nintendo reveals surprising new Switch game ‘Cadence of Hyrule,’ a Zelda-themed sequel to recent indie hit

by Thomas Wilde on March 20, 2019March 20, 2019 at 1:01 pmComment

Nintendo made a surprise announcement Wednesday morning at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, unveiling a crossover between one of its tentpole franchises and a recent independent hit that… Read More

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Washington-based brothers behind ‘Dwarf Fortress’ to unexpectedly launch cult indie game on Steam

by Thomas Wilde on March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 at 12:21 pmComment

The cult indie hit Dwarf Fortress is unexpectedly coming to Steam. Silverlake, Wash.-based designer Tarn Adams, the primary creator of Dwarf Fortress alongside his brother Zach, announced via the company’s Patreon… Read More

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Indie developer Red Hook Studios working on ‘Darkest Dungeon 2,’ a sequel to 2016 hit

by Thomas Wilde on February 19, 2019February 19, 2019 at 2:17 pmComment

Vancouver, B.C.-based indie game developer Red Hook Studios announced on Tuesday that it has begun work on Darkest Dungeon 2, a sequel to the hit 2016 dungeon crawler. The announcement… Read More

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Game review: Explore and colonize other worlds in ‘Astroneer’ … if you can get past the learning curve

by Thomas Wilde on February 12, 2019February 12, 2019 at 5:06 pm1 Comment

Even after spending the better part of 12 hours exploring it, I still don’t quite feel like I have a handle on Astroneer. It’s got a decent tutorial mission, which… Read More

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Game preview: Create your own ’90s newspaper in editor-in-chief simulator ‘Above the Fold’

by Thomas Wilde on January 21, 2019January 21, 2019 at 11:40 am 2 Comments

It’s early 1998 in Above the Fold, when the internet was still a slow-loading hell of animated GIFs and your flip phone was strictly for making calls. You’re the new… Read More

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Game Review: Play through the occasionally frustrating adventures of a 16-bit superhero in ‘Grapple Force Rena’

by Thomas Wilde on January 19, 2019January 19, 2019 at 5:18 pmComment

The Sega Genesis is best-remembered for Sonic the Hedgehog and its lineup of sports games, but one of the backbones of its library was a particular sort of platform game.… Read More

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‘We’re going to find out if it’s a horrible idea’: James and Michelle Silva put a physical edition of their indie hit ‘Salt and Sanctuary’ on store shelves

by Thomas Wilde on December 11, 2018December 11, 2018 at 10:58 am1 Comment

On Tuesday, Ska Studios’s Salt and Sanctuary releases its “Drowned Tome Edition” for the Nintendo Switch. The package includes the game, a download code for the original Salt and Sanctuary… Read More

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‘Celeste’ and ‘Into the Breach’ take home prizes amid a few surprises at the Game Awards 2018

by Thomas Wilde on December 7, 2018December 8, 2018 at 9:46 amComment

The annual Game Awards presentation in Los Angeles on Thursday night included a few surprises, a lot of big announcements, and occasionally, the presentation of a trophy. The Pacific Northwest… Read More

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Pacific Northwest-made indie video game ‘Celeste’ picks up long shot Game of the Year nomination

by Thomas Wilde on November 14, 2018November 14, 2018 at 6:10 am1 Comment

The Vancouver, B.C.-made indie game Celeste picked up a surprise Game of the Year nomination as the annual Game Awards announced their nominations Tuesday. It’s the only independently-produced game in… Read More

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Exato Games’ ‘Elo Hell’ is a video game sitcom about e-sports athletes, and it’s about the struggle

by Thomas Wilde on October 22, 2018October 22, 2018 at 12:51 pm1 Comment

A term that describes video game frustration has itself inspired a game from a Seattle-based independent studio. Elo Hell is a new narrative-based adventure from Exato Games. Not sure what “Elo hell” is?… Read More

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The Tim’s PAX Indie Game Awards

by Tim Ellis on September 9, 2018September 9, 2018 at 7:56 pmComment

[Editor’s Note: Tim “The Tim” Ellis is a regular GeekWire contributor and perennial PAX attendee.] Every year at the PAX video game expo in Seattle, rather than facing the growing… Read More

‘Fake news’ video game HEADLINER lets players destroy society with propaganda

by Clare McGrane on October 3, 2017October 3, 2017 at 10:56 amComment

I can’t decide if I like HEADLINER or not. It’s an addictive game — when I sat down to try it out at the Seattle Indies Expo over Labor Day weekend,… Read More

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PAX West in retrospect: The most exciting and surprising indie games

by Tim Ellis on September 12, 2017March 1, 2018 at 10:55 pmComment

Now that I’ve had plenty of time to recover from four solid days of PAX West over Labor Day weekend (my twelfth PAX West in a row!), I’d like to… Read More

Seattle’s ‘thriving’ indie game community gets creative at the Global Game Jam

by Clare McGrane on January 23, 2017January 23, 2017 at 3:39 pmComment

Seattle’s SoDo industrial district might not be the place you would expect to find a den of game developers. But just a few blocks south of the city’s pro sports stadiums, through… Read More

Review: Xbox vets debut ‘Roundguard,’ an accessible blend of the most addictive games

Hands-on review: Panic’s Playdate device pairs old-school games with new-school content delivery

Review: The gig economy collides with psychiatry, AI, and tech industry burnout in Seattle-set visual novel ‘Eliza’

Q&A: Ex-Bungie CEO Harold Ryan reveals his latest project as a ‘new category of gaming company’

Honk: Why ‘Untitled Goose Game’ has become one of the most unexpected success stories in gaming

Wiki giant Fandom makes video game publishing debut with dungeon crawler ‘UnderMine’

A rundown of all 19 Pacific Northwest indie games in the spotlight at PAX

Game review: ‘Rebel Galaxy Outlaw’ is a great space Western — once you figure out what you’re doing

Seattle publisher and developer tinyBuild unveils new games and a release date for ‘Secret Neighbor’

GeekWire Calendar Picks: PAX West; LEGO Robotics; chaos engineering; and more

Review: ‘The Church in the Darkness’ game is a creepy, difficult trip through a South American jungle

Review: Myst creator Cyan Worlds breaks into indie publishing with ‘Zed,’ an interactive memoir in VR

Review: Seattle studio Tribetoy brings its space pirate reality show out of VR with ‘Bow to Blood’

Review: ‘Swag and Sorcery’ from tinyBuild is a lot of things, but mostly it’s about the grind

Review: Paint a fantasy landscape with indie game ‘Eastshade,’ developed by Seattle-area studio

Ex-Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor reveals new solo indie project ‘Intergalactic Space Empire’

Nintendo reveals surprising new Switch game ‘Cadence of Hyrule,’ a Zelda-themed sequel to recent indie hit

Washington-based brothers behind ‘Dwarf Fortress’ to unexpectedly launch cult indie game on Steam

Indie developer Red Hook Studios working on ‘Darkest Dungeon 2,’ a sequel to 2016 hit

Game review: Explore and colonize other worlds in ‘Astroneer’ … if you can get past the learning curve

Game preview: Create your own ’90s newspaper in editor-in-chief simulator ‘Above the Fold’

Game Review: Play through the occasionally frustrating adventures of a 16-bit superhero in ‘Grapple Force Rena’

‘We’re going to find out if it’s a horrible idea’: James and Michelle Silva put a physical edition of their indie hit ‘Salt and Sanctuary’ on store shelves

‘Celeste’ and ‘Into the Breach’ take home prizes amid a few surprises at the Game Awards 2018

Pacific Northwest-made indie video game ‘Celeste’ picks up long shot Game of the Year nomination

Exato Games’ ‘Elo Hell’ is a video game sitcom about e-sports athletes, and it’s about the struggle

The Tim’s PAX Indie Game Awards

‘Fake news’ video game HEADLINER lets players destroy society with propaganda

PAX West in retrospect: The most exciting and surprising indie games

Seattle’s ‘thriving’ indie game community gets creative at the Global Game Jam

CANCELED: Norwescon 2020

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