Indie Backlog Cleanup! April 2026

The world of indie games is even more prevalent in today videogames’s landscape: digital storefronts like Steam allowed them to spread like wildfire, and sites like Humble Bundle constantly put bundles on sale at a bargain price. The best part are the events, and annual jams on sites like Itch.io, that allow young talents to emerge and show their early work.

Thinking back to 15 years ago, this world was alien to me. I didn’t know platforms like Steam yet and my PC was mostly used for emulators, since it wasn’t powerful enough for more recent titles. It was between 2011 and 2012 that I moved my first steps into this universe.

Since then I’ve always been fascinated by this world, because it is able to offer complete freedom of creative expression to a creator, and there have been lots of titles that were able to move me. From platforms like Super Meat Boy, who wear their challenge like a badge of honor, titles like Ib, that introduced me to the world of RPG Maker horror, and touching stories like To The Moon. There’s really something for everyone in every genre depending on what you’re looking for.

Unfortunately, with the gaming world as saturated as ever, it’s easy for a lot of titles to slip through the cracks. Often even the fact of buying these games in a bundle makes it even easier to lose them in the chaos of your library, and without enough time in this world, inevitably most of these remain untouched.

Because of all that, this year I’ve decided to do something about it, a sort of clean up! Going back to some titles that got lost in the shuffle and give them a little bit of space in my blog, with the hope of also helping you discover new titles that you never heard of. We’ll just go title by title with brief and succinct reviews, and I hope this little column of mine will be able to help you. So let’s not waste anymore time and let’s dive into our first game!

Ringlorn Saga + Ringlorn Saga Gaiden

Let’s break the rules already by taking a couple of games into exam, games that in their essence are very similar to each other.

In Ringlorn Saga we play as Prince Gerhard, a boy looking for his father who has gone missing in strangers' land. During the adventure he gets knocked out by a group of monsters and all of his equipment gets stolen. He’ll be saved just in time by a nearby village, and just like that, Gerhard has to start from square one and discover the truth behind his father’s disappearance.

In Ringlorn Saga Gaiden we’ll play as the Revenant, a lost soul brought back to life by the goddess Morrigan. The world has been plagued by a dark entity, monsters ransack cities and villages, and the few remaining humans are broken in both mind and spirit. Your job as the goddess’ servant is to travel the world, obtain the blessing of the five spirits and finally save the realm.

Both games share the same type of gameplay: as our main character we have a map to explore, hints and treasures to find in order to reach our goals, while gradually becoming stronger. The main objective of these games is giving us a very old-school experience, so exploring every corner and talking to everyone is key to figure out how to move forward.

For the modern gamer the combat is very atypical. These games make use of the bump system, basically launching yourself against the enemy like you’re about to tackle them. We also have three different types of attack: slashing, piercing and bashing, and it’s up to us to find out which attack is more efficient depending on the enemy we’re facing.

With the Revenant we have an additional mechanic to consider: body exchange! Once we defeat an enemy we immediately possess their body, drastically changing our character. Different bodies have different stats, different types of attack. Some bodies will be able to fly, others can also lockpick. This mechanic offers a lot more depth to the game both in strategy and exploration.

I like to see these two games as Light and Darkness.

Gerhard’s adventure is very typical for the genre: the story of the hero that rises to the occasion to seek revenge from injustice and save the realm from an evil ruler. The presentation is also very colorful and vibrant, reminiscing of titles like the first Legend of Zelda.

For the Revenant, instead, we have a much dreary and dark tone. This isn’t a prince looking to save his father, it’s a lost soul with no memory, a puppet in the hands of a goddess in a world that’s almost entirely dead; Depravation and destruction reign supreme. Our hero needs to possess other bodies in order to fight and yet he’s our only hope to save what’s left of this world and usher in a new beginning. 

Basically the kind of narrative you would expect from something like Dark Souls.

With every new blessing we receive, we also get new hints about the identity of the Revenant, and the truth as to what brought the world in the state it’s currently in.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the twists in this story.

I realize that these are games that require a lot to stomach some archaic mechanics, and a presentation that arches back to 8-bit computers like the PC-88 and the MSX, but if this doesn’t scare you, give them a shot, you might have a lot of fun.

Personally, I feel this genre of games, that combines old-school design and presentation with technological freedom of today, can offer an adventure that can really combine the best of both worlds, and I’ve always found them fascinating.

Unwording

We now enter the realm of videogames whose focus is more about using the media as a way to spread awareness and share experiences in a few hours. In the case of Unwording we explore themes of depression, in particular negative thoughts.

The game is divided into three different days following the routine of our main character. Interacting with various objects in the world will unlock a puzzle, which solution will reflect the emotions that are awakened in our character’s mindset.

During the first phases all these thoughts are gonna be pessimistic, a vicious circle that debilitates your mind and pushes you into isolation, convincing you that no matter what you try, it’ll always end up badly. The artistic style reflects this perfectly, it is very minimal, two dimensional, and almost deprived of color.

It’s only when our character finds the strength to finally break this cycle that everything slowly takes new form and color, our protagonist starts to live once again. By consequence, even the puzzles are gonna try to push us into exploring every perspective and find a more positive and encouraging meaning. The game also includes very useful lecture notes to further explore the themes of the game.

I felt this theme very close to my heart, and it’s beautiful to see how a videogame can approach such a subject with the utmost of care. Sometimes you have to find a way to shut up that inner voice that keeps telling you everything is gonna end badly, that you’re not enough, that you’ll never be accepted, that your efforts are worthless. Because it’s in that very moment, when you stop listening to all that self deprecation bubbling up inside you, that you can really start living a full life rich with new experiences.

For being only a couple of hours long I feel stories like these can touch on very important points for someone that, unbeknownst to them, are trapped in this cycle without even realizing and need that final push in order to finally break out of these schemes.

Astalon: Tears of the Earth

I often hear about the fact that, if you’re not having fun with a game, it’s better to just turn it off and move to something else. I do agree with this sentiment, time is limited and it’s hard to justify insisting on something which hasn’t left a good first impression.

Astalon: Tears of the Earth is set into a post-apocalyptic world, where humanity struggles to move forward in the face of perils. In a village, the water supply has been poisoned and it’s believed that is being polluted by a nearby tower.

Our group of heroes, Arias the warrior, Kyuli the thief and Algus the mage, are setting off to the tower to finally uncover the truth: but not long after entering it, they’re slaughtered by the Black Knight, lord of the tower. Everything seems lost, when it’s discovered that Algus has made a deal with Ephimeteus, the titan of death, thus allowing him and his companion to return back to life. This alliance however requires a price and Algus will be forced to pay in due time.

My first impression with this game wasn't the best. The game itself is a Metroidvania, a genre I’ve always enjoyed, and the possibility of playing with three characters was very interesting, since this type of adventure is usually relegated to one character. Through the tower you can find various bonfires which will allow you to switch characters. Each character has its own traits, both in exploration and weapons.

The problems start to emerge when all the characters share the same health bar: It won’t always be possible to rest at the bonfire to recover some health, and healing points are sparse around the map and won’t be restored after being used. To make things even worse, your life bar is very small, and the level design will constantly force you to backtrack to the nearest bonfire to switch characters, making it even easier to die by impatience.

Dying is an inevitable component and very important for this game. Defeating monsters will award us with points that we can spend with Epimetheus in order to power up each character, extend our life bar or get one of the many special objects offered to us by the titan. And this is where choice paralysis hit me like a truck! As much as the most obvious choice would be to just put everything into the characters, especially at the beginning, I didn’t know what of those objects would’ve been better to buy sooner rather than later.

This combined with the fact that progression was very slow and backtracking was becoming tiresome, almost made me wanna drop the game and move on to something else… But I didn’t do it, I kept pushing forward and slowly everything started getting better.

Slowly I was opening new shortcuts, I found new NPCs that gave me some very good rewards for my characters, I found hidden power ups that became a huge help, such as being able to deflect projectiles with Arias’s blade or Algus’s magic projectiles doubling in size and making them a hell of a lot more lethal.

The tower and its secrets were slowly unraveling in front of my eyes. I discovered the story of the black knight, learned to enjoy the atmosphere of the tower, and that challenge that at the beginning felt insurmountable, was slowly becoming a cakewalk.

If there’s a theme that always comes back a lot in Astalon, it’s learning from your failures. Every death you face will make you stronger, every little progress will open a new shortcut, your knowledge is expanding, and with time you’ve become a master. Is that sensation of constant improvement in front of insurmountable odds, the same that games like Dark Souls never actually manage to fully pass down to me, that I felt instead with this little indie game.

It’s a teaching that should be taken into heart even outside of videogames.

Astalon: Tears of the Earth is a game I really learned to enjoy, in spite of some terrible first impressions. If you're a fan of Metroidvanias it’s a small little gem that should be added to your collection. It’s a damn fun game and with tons of content for the price that has been sold at.

and Roger

We go back into talking about awareness, with a game that treats another extremely delicate subject that I feel I’ve never seen being treated in a videogame. Being that this game is still very recent I won’t go into much detail about it, I actually suggest you go play it right now, but I still would like to talk about my experience.

When this game starts we are playing as a young child. We wake up in our room, go through our daily routine, but something isn’t right. On the couch, where we expect to find our father, there’s a stranger.

Bewildered by this, the child wakes up the man and asks him the whereabouts of her father. The man is not keen about answering a question that he seems to have received many times by now, completely ignoring her pleading tone. So he tells her, bluntly, that is time to take her pill.

The child at that point panics: Who is this man? What’s that pill? Where’s my dad? I’m in danger! I have to run away! I have to find my dad!

This is the opening to a story that is going to move in a non linear fashion through the life of this child and we’re gonna piece together her story, bringing the truth about what’s actually happening in that opening scene

This game since the very beginning grabbed me with its presentation, very minimal, but with a very masterful and impactful use of color. You feel every emotion thanks to this and it’s perfectly conveyed by the gameplay.

The game is fundamentally a point and click, but it’s not as simple as clicking on something and perform the action, because depending on how the main character feels we’re going to have more or less hurdles to overcome: the screen will shake, the objects you need to interact with will resist your actions, some decoy objects will appear with the only intent of disorienting you and making you live through that panic and anxiety that the main character is going through.

The gameplay also has another function: giving you clues to the truth of what’s happening around the main character, sometimes in a very subtle but incredibly effective way. It’s a story that in just one hour manages to perfectly bring to light all the hardships and destructive aspects of life when we try to do everything we can to take care of others.

It really gives me the feeling that this was a life experience by the author, and I feel is more than ever important that the world of indie games gives space to this kind of stories that more often than not are just discarded and unheard. If you also lived through something similar with your loved ones, the impact this game can have to you is incalculable.

It pulled me in from the very first moments and didn’t let go until the end, a game that in just one hour can put you through a storm of emotions that not even games that last 100 hours more can manage to equate.

The game is extremely cheap, so don’t wait any longer, play this game and let me know what you think about it. I can’t wait to hear from you in the comments.

Shrine’s Legacy

Let’s go back to more laid back tones with a game that wants to be a little trip back to the past, especially for those that just like me grew up with the Super Nintendo.

Shrine’s Legacy takes full inspiration from the action RPGs of the time like Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past and Illusion of Gaia. Playing as a couple of heroes, Rio and Reima, we explore the various dungeons of the world of Ardemia, find the 8 elemental gemstones to defeat the ancient Aklor, which just broke free from the seal that kept him prisoner.

An extremely typical plot for the genre, to the point of almost being clichè, and in truth at the beginning I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the story. Even the main antagonist, Aklor, for being this ancient entity from a different dimension, looked like a giant animated armor, a very boring design.

In due time though, I started to grow attached to the characters.

Rio, in spite of being a descendant of the heroine that managed to defeat Aklor the first time, It’s not exactly thrilled by the call to action. Initially is often forced to run away, he gets demoralized and makes mistakes, to the point that he starts to feel like he doesn’t deserve to be a hero just like his past ancestor.

Reima instead, is very impulsive, guided by a desire of revenge against Aklor, who was responsible for the death of her sister. More than everyone she’s arrogant and way too sure of herself and her abilities, to the point that she tries to steal the sword which belonged to Rio’s ancestor, hoping that she could use it to defeat Aklor by herself.

Rio and Reima initially do not get along, but with time and various hardships they manage to form a bond and become a very believable couple of friends. Rio learns from his mistakes to become a hero worthy of his ancestor, and Reima learns to rely on others, not having to do everything by herself, and overcome her own guilt over the death of her sister.

As much as I dislike his design, I ended up also enjoying Aklor as a bad guy. I like when antagonists decide to be proactive instead of just staying in the backrow and watching events unfold, and Aklor does his job well enough to even manage a couple of wins on occasion.

The fact he also wants to assimilate, and take away the free will from every world he ends up conquering, also gives him something more as a character. There’s always the doubt whether the soldiers at his command are simple automathons or innocent creatures whose will got stolen after being conquered.

The ending was the cherry on top: I was expecting some kind of twist, but I wasn’t able to predict what it was going to be. I appreciated the surprise and ended up elevating the story quite a lot in my eyes.

In spite of the very typical plot and some very predictable developments, what ended up making me appreciate this game has been exploring the world of Ardemia and interacting with its characters. For as much as the plot can move pretty fast at times, it’s apparent that the creators really cared about the world they were creating.

The game is also very fun to play, we have two characters who can be switched in real time, a nice level of customization to make them more peculiar, spells which are not just useful in battle but also in exploration and puzzle solving, and the game also supports a local multiplayer mode, which I feel is the best way to play the game.

Shrine’s Legacy is clearly a title that proudly wears its inspiration and doesn’t really try to be more than a light fun adventure to live with your friend. I can’t wait to replay it in the future once the free DLC drops to see if my opinion will still remain positive.

Venba

We dive deep into the narrative experiences with this last game, a title of Indian origins that is gonna make sure you both feel emotional and hungry once it’s finished.

Venba is a story of an Indian couple who migrated to Canada in search of a better life. The two will find them to be parents pretty soon, and through the eyes of the mother we’ll live through their lives during a period of many years.

To link all these stories together is gonna be food: every narrative section is gonna be broken by a cooking minigame where, playing as Venba, we’re tasked to cook the various recipes. On our side there’s only a faded and worn-out recipe book, with only just the essential clues to proceed, and figuring out how to best cook our meals is gonna be our job.

This approach makes Venba very similar to a puzzle game. Don't worry about not being able to decipher the clues, there’s hints and tips that will guide you step by step.

There’s not an elegant way of saying it, this game will make you ravenous, helped by the fact that everything is so visually delicious! It’s a cartoony and colorful style, with the food so detailed you can practically feel the fragrance from the images, and Venba and her family are just adorable together.

Personally I had Indian food only a couple of times, but both times have been a very interesting experience. I never got to try any of the meals shown in this game, and I’m happy to have a recipe book included with this game so that one day I might try them for myself. This game is basically cultural exchange in digital form.

Don’t be fooled into this being all sunshine and tasty meals, because hidden between the sparkling colors and mouthwatering dishes, there’s a story that talks about the many difficulties of a family emigrating in stranger lands. A story that will feel way too familiar to anyone that has migrated or has been born into a family of immigrants.

The hope of a better life overseas is always big in these scenarios, but it’s not always what the truth ends up being. The difficulty of finding your place in a land that wants to keep them apart, the prejudice and abuse reminding you daily that you don’t belong there. The hardship for a kid to integrate himself with his schoolmates while constantly being reminded of the fact that his skin color is different, his food is weird, and no matter how hard he tries he will never be like them. All of this finally leads to the one question…

Is this really my home?

Venba is a story that talks about the big hurdles which are now more real than ever for an immigrant, especially with the current climate that is inciting even more violence. It might lure you with its sweet colors and exotic courses, but it’ll make sure you remember that this is a work of other humans, people like you, that all they want is a place that they can call home where they can finally live their best life.

That’s all for today!

I hope you enjoyed my first column dedicated entirely to the indie world: I’m aiming to make this a recurring thing, there’s really way too many games on my list and way too many new games popping out, and each of them deserves a bit of space.

Now I wanna hear your voice. Did you know the games I’ve talked about? What games did you play? What caught your attention the most? Do you have any particular recommendations? Let me know in the comments, my ears are always open!

See you in the next column!