Contributor: Ari Notis
Nintendo aired a 20-minute Direct showcase today, focusing on third-party games from independent developers. Those holding their breath for news of Hollow Knight: Silksong will, sadly, have to continue holding their breath. Still, Nintendo packed a whole lot of announcements in not a whole lot of time. Here’s everything that was announced:
- Chicory: A Colourful Tale, one of 2021’s most acclaimed games, comes out on Switch today. Definitely worth checking out, as Switch is an ideal platform for the creative painting-puzzle game.
- Few games announced today were more striking than Afterlove EP, a rhythm game with visual novel elements. The art style’s undeniably sweet, but the real selling point here was a shoegazey soundtrack from the band L’Alphalpha.
- Aliisha: The Oblivion of Twin Goddesses is a 3D puzzle game out in the spring. Twin sisters are stuck in a temple. You have have to direct both sisters to solve puzzles, either solo or cooperatively, in an effort to escape.
- The creators of side-scrolling action game The Messenger have a new game in the works. Set in the same canon, it’s called Sea of Stars and is an isometric action-RPG partially scored by Chrono Trigger composer Yasunori Mitsuda. Developer Sabotage Studio says you needn’t play The Messenger beforehand. Out holiday 2022.
- Figment, the 2017 musically inspired isometric platformer, is getting a sequel. It’s called Figment 2. A demo will hit the Nintendo eShop later today.
- Loco Motive is a point-and-click whodunit set on a cross-country train in the 1930s. Nice pixel art. It’s out in the summer.
- Let’s Play! Oink Games is a Switch port of bundled board games like Deep Sea Adventure and A Fake Artist Goes to New York.
- Endling – Extinction is Forever is an adventure game, out in the spring, that casts you as the last mother fox in existence. You’re tasked with keeping your three baby foxes alive, and the marketing speak sure makes it seem like those babies could die along the way.
- Skate game OlliOlli World is the next game to clog up next year’s already claustrophobically packed February release slate. Specifically, it’ll be available on February 8, 2022.
- River City Girls 2, the follow-up to 2019’s quirky cartoon beat-’em-up, is in the works from WayForward. It’s out in the summer.
- Dungeon Munchies is a side-scrolling action-platformer, out today on Switch, that’s about hunting, cooking, and eating monsters.
- Yes, as ever, there was a smash-cut indie montage (starting here), revealing Switch releases for games like Grime and Don’t Starve Together.
- Timelie, a game that is impossible to Google because of a middling 2003 action film, stars a cat and features time manipulation mechanics. It’s out today on the eShop, alongside a demo.
- The “one last thing” was Omori, a time-travelling RPG with some seriously pretty visuals. It’s out on Switch in the spring.
And that’s it! You can watch a replay of the whole thing above or over on YouTube.