The Best Of Steam's Indie Releases: November(ish) 2014

So, originally I was going to try and include every indie release on Steam this month, but then Steam went and deleted the upcoming releases page. Because that's a great way to get people to add upcoming games to their wishlists...a round of applause for Valve's money making tactics please. However, two of the games I found before Steam committed page-murder were so good I couldn't just forget about them, so here they are:

Homebrew - Vehicle Sandbox

A vehicle-building sandbox where your imagination is the only limit. Yes, I'm still trying to wrap my head around 'vehicle-building sandbox' and how cool that sounds too. The demo is available to download through the Homebrew website, so I gave it a go:


So, here I am in the middle of a very pretty map, in a vehicle that I had to spawn in mid-air, rather than on the ground. Let me tell you, it creates a whole new game in itself: "Can-I-Catch-The-Car-Before-It-Slides-Into-A-Lake". Once in the car, I wasn't really sure what I was doing so I drove around for a while catching some of these orbs dotted around the map:

(Gotta catch 'em all!)

The first thing I found was that the controls are a little bit clumsy: steering is limited to just the A and D buttons, and it feels weird having no mouse control. Sharp corners are also a bit tricky, and steering at a slow speed will send you far too wide. After a few minutes on one of the map's dirt tracks I felt comfortable enough with the controls to venture off onto the grass...and shouldn't have. I ended up in a lake and drowned a little bit.

Not that it mattered, because I didn't lose anything. In fact, it worked out in my favour because I respawned in front of The Dome, which I had just been invited to. This is where the cool part of the game plays out; this is where you build and customise your vehicles, buying parts using those orbs I had collected earlier. 


I wandered down to the factory where I was greeted by Dan, and admired his boobs while wondering who he'd killed in the dumpster, and how to pronounce the player-character's name:

I went through a short tutorial where I had to help Dan fix his 'Danvan', which turned out to be simple enough if you follow the instructions, but complicated enough that you have to follow the instructions. On the up side, this means that you can do a lot with this game: like I said earlier your imagination really is your only limit. However, it also means that if you're like me and not particularly mechanically minded, then this probably isn't the game for you. You don't just throw a few parts together and see if they work, you have to tweak every part to create a masterpiece.

But once you've finished in The Dome, you can go back outside and test out your creations. The map is full of dirt tracks to zoom down, ramps to fly off, and I'm sure some of the scenery could be used to create some amazing stunt jumps. That is, if you can get the vehicle to stay upright:

As you can see, finding myself upside down happened a lot, and I couldn't find a way to set my vehicles upright again. This isn't a very big deal as you can spawn as many vehicles as you want, but it is an annoyance. However, when I wasn't trying to drive on the sky I was having a great time, exploring tunnels and setting up huge jumps.

All in all, this is a really fun game and I would definitely recommend at least trying out the free demo, if not going ahead and getting the Alpha. It's planned to be in constant development meaning many more features will be added after launch: boats, armor building and a mission creator are among the planned additions, so you're going to be getting a lot of content for your money. There's also a multiplayer mode with vehicle sharing, meaning you can collaborate with your mates to create the perfect vehicle, or pit yourselves against each other to see who's the building king or queen.

For more info, see Homebrew's website or Steam page, where Homebrew is on sale until 21 November.

Lumino City

A puzzle adventure game entirely handmade from paper and card! The sequel to Lume, Lumino City was three years in the making and as you can see in that video, it looks incredible. Picking up where it's predecessor ended, protagonist Lumi's grandfather is dramatically kidnapped and Lumi is thrust into a whole new adventure to find him again.

As she makes her way through the breathtaking city, Lumi will be able to explore the various building within it to find out more about her grandfather's life and discover that there may be more to him than she thought.

The game is visually stunning - the more I look at it the more I fall in love with it - and if it's anything like Lume then it's unique puzzles will have you scratching your head for a while; this isn't just a pretty game, it's set to be a fun one too.

I can't wait to get my hands on this, but unfortunately Steam is being a prick and won't give an actual release date, only 'Available: November 2014'. 
Lumino City has a release date of 3rd December 2014, which in their own words is nearllllllllly November (in my defense, I did think it was coming out in November when I wrote this). In the meantime, check out the Steam page so you can add it to your wishlist, check out the official site, or buy Lume to experience the first chapter of this awesome story.