ShoreTiles brings deep sea dread to city builders

Happy Friday friends! The weekend is just on the horizon, and as usual there are far too many new games hitting Steam and other platforms. In fact, Gameindustry.biz just posted that over 700 games were released on Steam in one week, and a whopping 74% of them had fewer than 10 reviews.

I came up with the idea of Indie Dispatch for a few reasons. One was that my son had been born, so lengthy essays and reviews were far too taxing on the no sleep schedule and family commitments I suddenly found myself with. The other was to try, in my own very small way, help other indie devs get SOME kind of attention on their releases. It’s why the Dispatch will typically only include one “bigger” indie, and I try to find smaller games that haven’t had much media attention, but look like they are bringing something cool or interesting to the table. It’s a fine line, because I also don’t want to be out here slinging recommendos for unknown quantities, but I think we have a pretty decent balance.

As someone who is gearing up to release a game, the fact that 590 titles released with 0 reviews fills me with a rising sense of dead.

Anyways… let’s get to the good stuff!

What came out this week?

ShoreTiles

Developer: Voxel Studios
Steam rating: N/A
Store link

I feel like every other week there’s a new interesting take on city building, and this week that take comes via ShoreTiles. Described perfectly as a Gloomy tile-placement strategy game, budding city planners will need to use a randomized deck of tiles to build out their town surrounding the lighthouse by day. At night, the beasties from the depths of the dark ocean will rise up, so you will need to defend your turf, which makes for an interesting push-pull between cozy management and tower defense. I really like the aesthetics here too, which surely have taken heavy inspiration from DREDGE, but I still think they fit here rather well.

The devs have gone to great length to share what this game is and is not, which I truly appreciate.

There are not many reviews on the store page right now, and the big caveat here is I have not played it yet, but ShoreTiles looks like it could be my game of the week. There is a demo available, and the game is currently on sale for around $7 here in Japan, so it seems like a good bet.

WheelMates

Developer: Firevolt
Steam rating: Mostly Positive
Store link

Grab a friend and get ready to go on an adventure, because co-op platformer disguised as an RC car adventure WheelMates is here! I have seen this game a few times over the past six months, and it looks like a real great time.

You and a friend are driving small RC cars around a big house, upgrading them with neat upgrades like magnets and rope-swings which will take you to new areas of the home. The emphasis here is 100% on co-op puzzle solving. Sure, you can “race” each other, but you will also need to rely heavily on each other to solve puzzles and unlock more areas to explore.

I am a sucker for small thing in big world, so this is 100% my jam, scratching my deep longing for a new Micro Machines. The other great thing is that WheelMates has what they are calling Friend Pass - one player purchases the game and hosts using a friend invite code. Your other friend can download the FREE Friend Pass mode which will allow them to join. It doesn’t get much more accessible than that!

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault

Developer: Digital Sun
Steam rating: Mostly Positive
Store link

The folks over at Digital Sun are back off the success of Cataclysmo to drop a follow-up to their successful “Zelda but Link is also a small business owner” action game, Moonlighter. This sequel sees the series jump into isometric 3D territory, and the combat looks way more interesting and versatile as a result.

You are stranded in the village of Tresna with nary a coin to your name, so you need to open up shop and start moonlighting. The loop is you roll into dimensional dungeons, fight the baddies and collect glorious loot, then bring it back to town to sell and gain profits! I always really liked the idea, but the first game just didn’t capture my attention as much as I wanted it to. The Endless Vault looks to be adding a lot of combat depth and variety though, so I am cautiously optimistic that I will like it. Chances are, if you like roguelite ARPGs, you will like it too.

BOMBANANA!

Developer: Lefto Studio
Steam rating: Very Positive
Store link

In true “holy shit how has no one done this?” fashion, BOMBANANA! puts friendships to the test under the tale of the three wise monkeys. In this 3 player co-op game, one monkey is deaf, one is blind, and can’t speak. The three of them must work together, despite their limitations, to solve the puzzle and stop the ticking bomb from exploding. It’s like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, but with monkeys and hi jinks. I don’t really think there’s much else to it, but if you have two pals that are game, I would say this will bring nothing but joy for your weekend.

Red Rocket Defencism

Developer: tiny cactus studio
Steam rating: Positive
Store link

“Comrade! The Capitalists are attacking!”. The opening quote of Red Rocket Defencism’s Steam page is enough to sell you on what they are going for here. An anti-capitalist tower defense game where you are holding off the dirty capitalists as your separatist nation attempts to finishing building, and launching your glorious rockets. The goal? Why, it’s to launch the Ideology Realignment Satellite, to help the west to see the dangers of the capitalist agenda that they have been poisoned with.

So yeah, I would normally roll my eyes at this heavy handed messaging. I feel Papers, Please showed us that we can handle these topics with some grace. But Red Rocket Defencism does look to be a pretty fun game, that has a really striking aesthetic and seems to be very tongue in cheek about it all. If you are looking for a small tower defense kick this weekend, and you can handle the snark, I would throw it in the hopper and see what you think.

The Collapse of the Video Games?

One of my favourite journalist/podcasters Rob Zacny met with someone who I don’t really know, but apparently whom is a big deal, to talk about the current health of the video game industry. In a year that has been plagued by layoffs and studio closures, the slow death crawl that Microsoft is going through on full display, and even more mergers and acquisitions, I think there is a gigantic industry shift that we are all pretending isn’t happening. Zacny talks quite a bit about where we are, how we got here, and the potential that video games are just a thing for millennials and are perhaps on the way out. A scary watch as a nearly 40 something year old who has no other skills but video games, but an important one.

That's a wrap!

Thanks so much for reading. If you like what you see, please share it with a friend. If you want to help support me to grab some indie games to get some reviews, please consider dropping some money in the ko-fi cup. Also, hit that subscribe button above using your Bluesky account to get updates from our new home, Pckt.blog - a awesome social blogging platform that uses the same tech as Bluesky. If you’re reading this on Substack, consider checking us out over here.

See you next week!
Steve