Well, the 2024 digital showcase for this year’s Day of the Devs: The Game Awards Edition was today, and with twenty games featured (which as Double Fine pointed out in a private showing, was whittled down from over a whopping one thousand submissions), this leaves us with quite a lot of ground to cover. As such, we’re going to try and sum up every world premiere, news item, and new development in this article. Though that said, we highly recommend that you check outthe full showcase at the link hereto see a bunch of other impressive upcoming indie games, includingBlue Prince,Kingmakers,andFeltopia.So let’s get on to the big guns from the event…
All of the games will be listed in the order they appeared in during the show, from the earliest reveal to the last one. And in the event that we missed anything that could be considered a reveal, this article will be updated.
The show kicked off with a world premiere from developer Steph Thirion, that being Faraway, described as being a chill experience where players use a single button to control a shooting star that wants to live on by creating constellations. Players will be able to gravitate and sling around stars with a single push, either creating their own constellations or tackling specific shapes and formations to work with in a puzzle mode. Apparently, this has been remade over a decade, but it certainly comes across as a labor of love. Notably, it’s also the first game to also be published by Annapurna since the staff’s resignationearlier this year,though it wasn’t mentioned if the partnership began before or after the split. Regardless, Faraway arrives next year, and looks like a fun, relaxing experience.
Ultimate Sheep Raccoon
A second World Premiere immediately followed, this one coming from developers Clever Endeavor, best known for the 2016 party gameUltimate Chicken Horse,which has been incredibly well-received by a ton of players. So now those players should be happy that a successor was just announced as part of the show. Dubbed Ultimate Raccoon Sheep, the thrill of being able to build your own level on the fly with all of your friends is still present (along with the chaos of adding traps for said friends as well, but now the genre has shifted from platforming to bike riding, though madness still remains. Hopefully the mayhem it brings next year does the original game justice.
As of this moment, the footage for this next game is only availableon the game’s Steam page at the link here;It will be updated here later if possible.
Sleight of Hand
RiffRaff Games' stealth title Sleight of Hand first intrigued us all when it was debuted at the Xbox Partner Previewearlier this year,and now it resurfaces with our first look at its gameplay. The clip shows us how our main character Lady Luck is able to sneak around in various ways, learning to adapt on the fly with whatever hand of cards that grant different abilities is dealt, befitting someone with the title of Lady Luck. With an impressive-looking setting mixing noir and the occult and an equally impressive-looking bit of third-person gameplay where players will have to find unique ways to manipulate enemies, this could be the twist on the stealth genre that fans have been waiting for.
Demon Tides
Fabraz is back, and officially premiering what is described as their most ambitious game yet, with Beebz and company moving on from the hellish world of Demon Turf to the more wet and wild world of Demon Tides. An open-world 3D platformer, the game is already showing some impressive platforming bits, incorporating the likes of wall-running, grinding, and more. Apparently, everything here is designed around expression, from the use of graffiti to create and share to the extensive character customization, and even the ability to modify abilities granted by talismans on the fly and even in the middle of the action, which allows things to get particularly insane. Demon Tides is set to arrive next year, when we’ll see just how well Beebz' biggest adventure fares.
And now we get to a world premiere that oddly hasn’t had much revealed about it yet (as of the time of writing, anyway). Coming from developer kaleidoscube and published by Astra Logical, Recur is a puzzle-platformer set during the start of an apocalyptic event, where our main character has the ability to manipulate and rewind time…and that’s basically all that was revealed, except for a 2026 release window, which may explain things, if it’s still relatively early in development. Still, it looks interesting, and hopefully it delivers a fresh take on the genre, so consider it on the radar.
LOK Digital
A unique take on word puzzles, LOK Digital comes from Letibus Design and Icedrop Games, and is an adaptation of the original LOK puzzle book. It’s a word search where you’re not exactly looking for normal words, though, as you’re instead learning the language of the LOK creatures, helping build their world in the process. Each new word you learn provides a new effect, allowing you to achieve your goal of blacking out all of the cells with some strategic placement. It’s a cozy little game with daily puzzles that you can tackle as well, is being published byDraknek & Friends, and is available…oh, would you look at that, right now. Yes, it’s surprise release time (though the name of trailer may have given that away)!
Review: Neon Abyss
Neon Abyss is a highly playable action-roguelike with a huge number of perks and weapons to take on the ever-growing horde of monsters that show up.
Neon Abyss 2
Veewo Games makes their return with Neon Abyss 2, the sequel to2020’s acclaimed roguelike run-and-gun game.And the clip shows, the main draw this time around is an all-new weapons system that has a greater emphasis on mix-and-match combat, be it melee or ranged, with the end result being…well, the insanity that you can see in the trailer, with quite the massive amount of bullets and enemies (and a touch of basketball as well). The game is set to arrive next year in Early Access with a bit of an assist from Kepler Ghost, and that won’t be the last time you hear about Kepler in this article…
PBJ: The Musical
See, this is why more and more people tend to prefer the Day of the Devs to whatever the actual Game Awards offers these days. Sure, you could tune in and maybe get a glimpse of the new Mafia game or something, but will you get to see the premiere of PBJ: The Musical, a game from Kamibox that’s a musical about the creation of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich where you drag, pull, and push everything you can to guide a strawberry and a peanut through handmade collages built out of vintage cookbooks, all with Shakespearean prose and set to music created by British performer and comedian Lorraine Bowen? No, no you won’t. And so The Game Awards misses out on being able to show off what will likely be a future GOTY candidate. After all, are you really supposed to deny the genius of a PBJ-focused musical?
Bionic Bay
Well, we told you that Kepler Interactive will be popping up here again, this time with Psychoflow Studio and Mureena Oy’s atmospheric platformer Bionic Bay. Centered around a scientist attempting to escape from a biomechanical planet, the game has garnered a lot of hype for its swapping mechanics that allow you to manipulate your environment in various ways, be it switching places with an object or reorienting gravity on the fly, as well as its absolutely breathtaking pixel art. And now as seen via the clip above, we now know when we can expect this adventure: March 13, for the PC and PlayStation 5. So we only have three months to go before we can dig into some of this insane platforming action.
Uhhhh…okay, Blippo+ might be a hard one to describe. Basically, it’s described as being “a broadcast communications service that provides the best in news, community, and entertainment” from Panic, YACHT, and Telefantasy Studios, and…well, that’s all we seem to know right now. While it may seem like a perfect match for Panic’s own Playdate, the platforms are officially listed as “Steam, ^^(`~*, and ?'%^*9” (seriously, save for that last quotation mark, that’s what it says). It certainly seems like it’s going for over-the-top comedy in the vibe of Adult Swim, though, so any fans of that may want to stay tuned for further developments.
Hyper Light Breaker
Heart Machine’s latest venture into the Hyper Light universe,Hyper Light Breaker,sees the series moving in some bold new directions. A shift to 3D instead of 2D, an emphasis on multiplayer, procedurally-generated worlds, and more. However, it looks like it’s still going to keep a focus on the swift movement and combat that its predecessor was known for, as players control the titular Breakers, mercenaries sent out to explore a mysterious land known as the Overgrowth. When do you begin to explore the Overgrowth, you may ask? Next month, as revealed during the quick gameplay walkthrough here, as Hyper Light Breaker will arrive in Early Access for the PC on January 14, being published by Arc Games.
Finally, the showcase ended with the world premiere of developer Alpha Channel’s new game TankHead, which automatically gets points for the name alone. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where humans upload their consciousness into drones to explore the land and survive, the game places a focus on exploration, where players learn more about the game’s world and salvage parts from tanks, as well as an emphasis on vehicular combat, as hinted at by…well, the whole “tank” part. It’s tank combat that fully embraces tank controls and has the titular tank bosses, as seen with the massive being in the clip above. So when can we get in on all of this tank action? As it turns out, right now! That’s right, this Day of the Devs ends with a surprise shadow drop (though again, the trailer name may have spoiled that), as TankHead is now available on the Epic Games Store. It’s a nice way to close out the show, and also sets a bit of a bar for The Game Awards to clear now…
