As per usual, I didn’t actually end up playing all that many games at Gamescom and instead spent 90% of my time talking to people. But my love for indie games is well known, so I made sure to spend what little moments I had at the booths with the smallest titles, but the biggest of hearts. Here are some of my favourite indies at Gamescom 2025!
Recur
We’ve seen a lot of time manipulation games already, but this one had some extra unique appeal with the simple concept of moving right = moving time forward, moving left = time goes backwards. The short demo I played is a great showcase of the mechanics at work, but I have to admit I was stumped once on how to solve a (in hindsight) simple puzzle.
In the demo of Recur, I had to change the time a train departs, making the cars stop or not, at the red light. Manipulating this correctly allowed me to carry a heavy battery to a place I wouldn’t have been able to, without solving the little logic puzzle. But I did need to ask for a hint, haha. What followed next was the scene from the trailer with the explosion as you walk on top of a train and rewind it, with accompanying sound and visual effects all rewinding alongside it. Very cool effect, very excited for the full release.
Please, Watch The Artwork
Thomas Waterzooi (a Belgian dev!) has made it his trademark to use famous works of art in his games, and he keeps reinventing the wheel. After the massively successful and critically acclaimed Please, Touch The Artwork 2, a hidden object artventure played on the works of James Ensor, he’s now turning towards the States and giving us what is essentially Five Nights At Freddy’s in a museum.
Play as a night guard and watch as the paintings of Edward Hopper come to life at night. Spot the differences, keep an eye on the weird behaviours of the people depicted on the canvas, or beware of the sad clowns!
I struggled a bit in the first run, to find all of the active anomalies, but as you get more familiar with the paintings and what their “default” state looks like, it becomes progressively easier. As the title implies: Please, Watch the Artwork!
Cult of Blood
Note: I wanted to show each game in action with a trailer, but this 11-month-old one is not the best depiction of the current state of the title, so check the one on Steam instead. (didn’t find how I could embed it)
Cult of Blood is an old-school Resident Evil-like title with tank controls, though it’s not yet definite if those will be kept or will be a toggle option in the game’s settings. It looked decent enough with moody lighting, some wooden tank controls and cutscene animations (that felt kind of retro, so I’ll forgive it), but the game really wowed me once I got my hands on a gun.
It really felt like the developer had solved the age-old tank controls + weapon aiming problem, at least with mouse and keyboard controls. You have the typical movement setup you’d expect with your character, and dodging is especially important, and you aim with the cursor, but it snaps to the enemies’ weak spots (usually their head) with a very nice version of “aim assist” that is very welcome in such a title. It felt super satisfying and accurate to pop the enemies in their heads. (more on an AA or AAA title later, where I had more issues than here)
The Quizards Domain
Couldn’t find a recent trailer for this one, but Yogscast played it during Tiny Teams and it makes a great showcase of the concept.
The Quizards Domain (my advice to the developer was to rename it to Quizzards) is what would happen if you smash Jackbox Party Pack like party Quizzes, with some Super Smash Bros Melee combat. Yeah, you heard that right: knowing the answer to the question is not enough: you’ll have to defend your spot in the right square and maybe kick the others out of it. Or maybe you knew the other answer was correct all along and you were playing mind games with your opponents?
Brilliant concept that needs a little more time in the cooker gameplay-wise (controls) and could also use some easier questions to kick things off. Luckily, you can pick the topic of your questions, and from the moment I was getting game-related ones, it became a lot more fun. Keep an eye on this one!
OPUS: Prism Peak
I love photography in games, and it felt like this one has a story to tell. You end up in a weird place with supernatural apparitions, that you need to capture on film to solve puzzles or talk to spectral entities. It’s simple gameplay-wise, but looked pretty darn pleasing to the eyes and from what I could play, OPUS: Prism Peak will be an adventure to remember.
Gunboat God
Gunboat God is a 2D shooter where you control a gunboat that can jump, dive and most of all: shoot a ton of bullets! Yeti, a Swamp crocodile, joins you in your journey and constantly adds upgrades to your boat as the fights you face get progressively harder.
If you master the movement and steady your aim, you might even get a 5-star rating on the level (but the max I ever got was 4, haha, living up to my “journalist at a games event” name!)
What makes it stand out most of all though, is its signature style. With Flashy background colours, but white & black characters on screen that really stand out and also feel ever so juicy as you move around and shoot them. It’s immensely satisfying and if I were to get accepted in the playtest and try it out at home, I could easily see myself getting addicted to this.
I played some other upcoming indie games I’d like to tell you more about later, but I think there will be a better time later when I can preview them or find one of LifeIsXbox writers to cover them! We love indies!
Robby lives and breathes video games. When he’s not playing them, he’s talking about them on social media or convincing other people to pick up a controller themselves. He’s online so often, he could practically list the internet as his legal domicile. Belgian games-industry know-it-all.
