Our favourite indie games from the 2023 summer games showcases
As with every June since 1995, the conversation around the games industry has been dominated by the big budget games. Fable, Starfield, Star Wars Outlaws, Assassin's Creed Mirage — the type of games that already have hundreds, if not thousands, of people behind them, not to mention hefty marketing budgets to ensure they don't escape anyone's notice.
Yet in the past few years we've seen the rise of several showcases that do a great job of presenting everything happening in the indie space, from Wholesome Direct and Guerrilla Collective to the veteran-run Day of the Devs.
Sadly, these tend to be somewhat drowned out by the noise surrounding the AAA titles, so the GamesIndustry.biz team wanted to do our part to help elevate some of the titles we believe deserve to be on people's radars. Below are each of our picks, plus a handful of honourable mentions, as we look at the most interesting titles that caught our attention in the past week.
In our first podcast of the year, I said I wanted 2023 to bring more weird, silly games with very loose goals. Henry Halfhead from Swiss developer Lululu Entertainment seems to fit that brief perfectly. Unveiled a couple of months ago and given an in-depth spot at last week's Day of the Devs, it appears to be Kirby and the Forgotten Land meets Untitled Goose Game and is poised to bring me uninterrupted joy as a half head turning off their alarm, making their bed, or pretending their toilet seat is a singing mouth. Honestly not sure what else you'd want from your weird silly video games.
For many years I felt like there were so few games to appeal to the (very) non-competitive part of my brain, and I would turn to my other hobbies when in need of non-goal-driven activities (aka reading).
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