Annapurna teases new games from creators of Katamari, Kentucky Route Zero, and more

theverge.com:

The Annapurna Interactive Showcase 2022 took a somewhat different approach to the video game publisher summer showcase format. Instead of a fire hose of trailers, sizzle reels, and gameplay videos, Annapurna slowed it down a bit, doing all of the above while also taking time to show off the people who are making some of the best indie games in the industry.

Here are the highlights of this year’s show.

Thirsty Suitors from Outerloop Games features a skateboard-loving South Asian woman named Jala, who, after leaving behind a trail of broken hearts, must now duel the owners of those hearts while trying and failing to live up to her parents’ expectations. We get our first in-depth glimpse of gameplay, highlighting all the ways Jala will fight, cook, and rail grind her way to self-love. Thirsty Suitors launches on Game Pass, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch in 2023.

Hindsight from Prune solo dev Joel McDonald is coming soon. This mysterious narrative game is evocative of Gone Home and has players examining the life of a woman through her memories and how the story of those memories change when looking at things from a different perspective. Hindsight launches August 4th on Nintendo Switch, Steam, and iOS.

Cardboard Computer, the Chicago-based three-person development team, took a moment to talk about how the team met, its creative process, and how it managed to make the narrative masterpiece Kentucky Route Zero. The team also shared that it’s working on a new game that’s intended to be livelier, funnier, and faster than KRZ.

Bounty Star combines the peacefulness of farming and base-building with bad-ass mecha fighting. The freshman title of Dinogod (who has the most bitchin’ tagline I’ve seen from a developer in a