Day of the Devs 2023: The Game Awards Edition has just concluded, and with it came many surprise announcements and updates to some major titles. We know this week is a busy one, especially with The Game Awards tomorrow, so to help you catch all the announcements made today, we’ve prepared a round-up, showing off some incredible upcoming indie projects.
Day of the Devs 2023: The Game Awards Edition Round-Up
The Mermaid’s Tongue
Developer and Publisher: SFB Games
Steam Page: The Mermaid’s Tongue
In the pitch-black waters beyond a long-abandoned fishing town, the enigmatic captain of the world’s strangest submarine has been murdered. Some say he was an immortal time-traveller. Others say he was a vampire, cursed to stay hidden beneath the waves forever… Found alone in a locked room, with only an ancient stone cauldron to suggest how he might have died, it’s up to Detective Grimoire and Sally to piece together what really happened. Was it a curse, released from the cauldron? One of the submarine’s eccentric crew? Or does the bizarre truth run even deeper…
A murder mystery detective adventure game set on a mysterious submarine, balancing occasionally heavy themes with light-hearted humor.
Braid Anniversary Edition
Developer: Jonathan Blow, Publisher: Thekla
Release Date: April 30, 2024
Solve puzzles by changing the flow of time in this remaster of the classic, award-winning game Braid
Cryptmaster
Developers: Paul Hart, Lee Williams, Publisher: Akupara Games
Release Date: TBA
Cryptmaster is a dungeon-crawling narrative adventure with a nostalgic visual style about a party of recently awakened dead heroes.
Assets can be found here
Dome-King Cabbage
Developer: Cobysoft Co., Publisher: HYPER REAL
Release Date: TBA
Psychedelic visuals, immersive beats, and a kaleidoscopic story. Encounter an unprecedented gaming experience.
Drag Her!
Developer and Publisher: Fighting Chance Games
Release Date: Q1 2025
Drag Her! is a high-drama, effusively camp 2D fighting game that asks, “What would a less-gay Mortal Kombat look like?”
Flock
Developer: Hollow Ponds, Richard Hogg, Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Release Date: December 31, 2023
Flock is a multiplayer co-op game where players take on the role of flying shepherds, each tending to their own unique herd of adorable flying creatures.
Nirvana Noir 2
Developer: Feral Cat Den, Publisher: Fellow Traveller
Release Date: TBA
A noir adventure beyond time and space.
Hermit and Pig
Developer and Publisher: Heavy Lunch Studio
Release Date: TBA
Steam Page: Hermit and Pig
In this story-rich RPG, Hermit and Pig’s solitude is disrupted by a villager in need of help. These unlikely heroes soon become lost in a whirlwind of industrial stooges, violent wildlife, and bad bad times. Hermit and Pig must explore, forage, and fight to save their woodlands and unravel the mystery of a legendary mushroom at the center of an evil corporate plot, all while keeping Hermit’s social anxiety in check.
Holstin
Developer and Publisher: Sonka
Release Date: TBA
Steam Page: Holstin
Holstin is a psychological survival horror set in an eerie, isolated 90’s Polish town.
Home Safety Hotline
Developer and Publisher: Night Signal Entertainment
Release Date: Q1 2024
Steam Page: Home Saftey Hotline
Home Safety Hotlineis a text-based horror game about working in a 90’s call center. Using your state-of-the-art 1996 PC interface, you are tasked with answering incoming callers’ questions about what’s inside their homes. Read through a vast catalog of common pests, household, and increasingly cryptic terrors, and do your best to become an expert in home safety.
Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (and a witch)
Developer and Publisher: Fuzzy Ghost
Release Date: 2024
Steam Page: Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (and a witch)
JDM explores the anxieties and horrors of what it is to be a renter in a world run by landlords. …and your landlord is a witch.
Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (and a Witch)(JDM) is a story-driven, non-violent, escape room, horror-comedy. It is a supernatural take on the very real anxieties of what it is to be a renter in Australia during the housing crisis. It is set in the house that the developers lived in for many years, but also features real life stories submitted from all over the world
Kind Words 2
Developer and Publisher: Popcannibal
Release Date: TBA
A game about being kind to real people.
Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story
Developer and Publisher: Digital Eclipse
Release Date: TBA
Gridrunner.Revenge of the Mutant Camels.Tempest 2000.Llamatron. In the British gaming universe of the 80s and 90s, nobody made games like Jeff Minter. Now, in a new interactive documentary from Digital Eclipse, you can play the history of one of the weirdest, wildest game developers to ever exist–a man who loved shooters and sheep, lasers and llamas.
Journey back in time to an era of cassette tapes, photocopied zines, and README.TXT. An era in which a kid with a Commodore VIC-20 and dreams of radioactive sheep could become one of Britain’s best-known game makers. A virtual museum of design documents, playable games, and all-new video features tell the fascinating story of a true independent game designer
Loose Leaf
Developer and Publisher: Kitfox Games
Release Date: TBA
Manage a tea room between worlds with the most in-depth tea brewing simulation ever.
Militsioner
Developer and Publisher: TALLBOYS
Release Date: TBA
Militsioner is a first-person surreal immersive runaway simulator.
ODDADA
Developer: Sven Ahlgrimm, Mathilde Hoffmann, Publisher: Sven Ahlgrimm
Release Date: 2024
Steam Page: ODDADA
A no-pressure roguelite music builder. Drop cute houses onto all kinds of places and be rewarded with your own little hand-crafted music track.
Open Roads
Developer: Open Roads Team, Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Release Date: Feb. 22, 2024
One fine fall day, Tess Devine and her mother, Opal, discover a cache of old notes and letters carefully stashed away in the attic of their house. Hints of deep-rooted family secrets, decades-old burglaries, a lost treasure somewhere near the Canadian border… What they uncover suggests a much darker mystery, best left well enough alone.
But that’s not going to happen.
RESISTOR
Developer: Long Way Home, Publisher: PQube
Release Date: TBA
In the year 2060 the world’s governments have long since destroyed one another and in their place stand self-contained city states presided over by a league of powerful corporations. Within the walls of these dense urban metropolises, citizens enjoy a life of comfort and excess, far removed from the harsh realities of the scattered communities that scrape a living in the endless desert wastes of the outside world.
To remain“competitive but friendly”, the corporations take turns hosting an annual racing tournament for the masses setting the finest teams, and bravest challengers, against one another ina series of exhilarating, high-speed death races. The ultimate prize? A one-way ticket to permanent citizenship and a better life, inside the cities.
For Aster, this year’s event, sponsored by Dekker Industries, represents an opportunity to secure the vital healthcare needed to save their ailing mother. But is life beneath the glossy veneer of EthanDekker’s corporate utopia truly as idyllic as it seems?
A battle for the podium soon becomes a war to smash the system! Gather your teammates, fire up your plasma-engines, and above all, RESIST.
Thank Goodness You’re Here
Developer: Coal Supper, Publisher: Panic
Release Date: TBA
Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a comedy slapformer from Coal Supper, published by Panic.
Ultros
Developer and Publisher: Hadoque
Release Date: Feb. 13, 2024
You wake up stranded after seemingly crashing your ship on The Sarcophagus—a giant,space-drifting, cosmic uterus holding an ancient demonic being known as ULTROS. Trapped in the eternal loop of a black hole, you will have to explore The Sarcophagus and meet its inhabitants to understand the part you play. Are you the gruesome breaker of this cycle, or can you become a link from destruction to rebirth?
Leximan
Developers: Knights of Borria Publishers: Marvelous Europe
Release Date: 2024
In a stroke of good fortune, you’ve enrolled in the world’s most exclusive magic school: Academy Elementinia. But on the downside, this is a world in which magic is a bit embarrassing.
Still, you’ve got something special. You alone have the ability to use Leximancy, a hitherto unimaginable power driven by something as fascinating as it is enchanting: language.
That’s all from today’s showcase! There are many exciting titles to look forward to next year; which one caught your eye the most? Let us know! Oh, and be sure to check back in here tomorrow, as we’ll have coverage of every announcement made during The Game Awards. All we can say is, get ready for some surprises!