Indiescovery: Recent Episodes
Rock Paper Shotgun
Indiescovery is Rock Paper Shotgun’s official indie game podcast. Join us fortnightly as we explore the wonderful and diverse world of indie games and chat about upcoming releases, our current hyperfixations, hidden gems, and more.
We begin this episode with a little bit of sad news: the Indiescovery podcast is going on hiatus, due to the fact that Rachel and Rebecca are both leaving Rock Paper Shotgun for pastures new. However, there's no need to be too downhearted, as your favourite indie-loving trio has every intention of continuing to collaborate on video game-related projects. Who knows, maybe we even drop a few subtle hints about what we've got planned next. Onto the episode proper: our first topic is a round-up of our recent experiences as jury members for Indie Cup UK '23, a festival celebrating indie game devs that ran throughout May and June. As jurors for the Critics' Choice award we enthuse over our shared love for the well-deserved winner VIDEOVERSE, before diving into our slightly more divided opinions on the category's other nominees, the highlights of which for us included Phoenix Springs, Full Void, Loco Motive, and No Body. Ultimately though we all agree that it was an incredibly strong showing all around, so our congratulations again to everyone who participated: not just the winners and nominees, but everyone who submitted a game for consideration, and indeed to the organisers! As you may be able to tell, we had a lovely time. Even though we could probably keep talking about the Indie Cup all day, we next turn our attention to another group who deserve our thanks and recognition: you, our dear listeners. To mark the end of the podcast's first season, we dive back into the mailbag and get very sidetracked while pondering some of your questions, including (but not limited to) the topics of our favourite very short indie games, and the genres we'd love to see enjoy an indie renaissance. We end, as ever, on our hyperfixations. Rebecca's been laid up with a fever and so has had the dubious luxury of reading and playing whatever she likes for a few days: Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, and the Animal Crossing: New Horizons manga series all emerged as comforting favourites. Liam puts in a good word for yet another rather sad book (Strong Female Character by Fern Brady) before really ramping up his efforts to make his co-hosts cry by listing off some of his favourite articles Rachel and Rebecca have written for RPS, the big loveable dork. He's also put the author of this synopsis in a very awkward position by promising links in the show notes, so here you go:
Rachel: Why Citizen Sleeper’s cast of interstellar nobodies matter A Space For The Unbound review: a supernatural teen romance with a wonderful sense of time and place TikTokers have created a player-generated RPG full of money-dealing cats, and it's absolutely wild
Rebecca: Where are all the good Stephen King games? Returning to The Sims 1 in 2023 is a weird challenge I fully recommend A decade later, the Lutece Twins are still the best thing in BioShock Infinite
Finally, Rachel unintentionally brings the season full-circle by talking about The Traitors Australia, the (you guessed it) Australian version of the social deduction TV show she was hyperfixated on when we recorded our very first episode. Indiescovery is a podcast from RockPaperShotgun.com. All music is by Dylan Sitts; the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. Thanks for listening, and don't be strangers! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This episode it's Halloween in July, as Indiescovery sets out to answer our listeners' most burning question: "Now that Rachel and Liam have both had a turn, when does Rebecca get her main character moment?" It starts now, friends, as your resident horror maven takes you on a whistle-stop tour of her favourite indie horror games, ranging from the silly (Simulacra) to the serious (Detention), and from psychological spooks (Layers Of Fear) to outright jump-scares (Dark Deception). Once Liam and Rachel have been coaxed out from their hiding places behind the sofa, they submit some further suggestions that expose them as the secret horror fiends I kind of suspected they were all along. Recommendations for Devotion and The Missing: JJ Macfield And The Island Of Memories prompt some further enthusiastic discussion, but we also touch on Mundaun, Iron Lung, Signalis, and Cultic, and the output of DreadXP in general. Exhausted from the terror, we turn our attention to our latest batch of hyperfixations, which given that we haven't recorded an episode in over three weeks is quite the crop at this stage. Liam's been watching Love Island, but is keen to gloss over that in favour of finally getting into Pizza Tower and discovering the joys of the Half-Life 2: VR Mod on Steam. Rachel has been thoroughly absorbed in the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective series of tabletop games, while Rebecca has been listening to the Bardcore stylings of Hildegard Von Blingin' (check out their amazing cover of Orinoco Flow!) and literally crying on the beach reading The House In The Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. Indiescovery is a podcast from RockPaperShotgun.com. All music is by Dylan Sitts; the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. Thanks for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We begin this episode talking about ghosts, because of course we do. We also chat about E3's influence and our relationship with it as both fans and games journalists, but honestly that bit isn't nearly exciting as when we're chatting about spooky things that have happened to us. We eventually remember what this podcast is actually about, quickly moving on to chat about our favourite games from this year's endless parade of Not-E3 showcases. Kicking us off, Rebecca can't wait to open her own portable second-hand bookshop in the brilliant looking Tiny Bookshop. She's also keen to get her hands on Still Wakes The Deep, an enigmatic horror game set aboard an oil rig off the coast of Scotland. Rachel on the other hand can't wait to play more of En Garde!, but she's also been enjoying clambering up cliff faces in Jusant and is intrigued by recursive puzzler Cocoon (which our Ed also reckons is good). True to form, Liam is excited for anti-capitalist cat game Revenant Hill, the gorgeous Sword Of The Sea and the quiet, rural vibes of Kibu. Seeing as its pride month (happy pride month!) section two is all about our picks from Itch's generous Queer Games Bundle. As always we wrap things up with our hyperfixations. Rachel has run out of things to watch, and insists you all give her recommendations by sending an email to podcast@rockpapershotgun.com. Rebecca has been reading Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli and Liam has been reading Hot Milk by Deborah Levy. Indiescovery is a podcast from RockPaperShotgun.com. All music is by Dylan Sitts; the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. Thanks for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This episode is roughly structured as a pub-crawling night out, starting with who we're texting to hang with and who isn't making it past pre-drinks, bless 'em. We mention a lot of characters, including expert mixologist Donovan from The Red Strings Club who would be whipping us up some mean martinis, and the entire gang from Monster Prom (guess whose suggestion that was 👀). One character that isn't making it past pre-drinks is Undertale's Papyrus who is 100% a lightweight and would definitely be in a corner somewhere completely conked out with spaghetti all over himself. Onto the actual pub crawl, and again, far too many characters to go over in some quick show notes so here are some more highlights. We all agree that a nice cozy fireplace chat with Yorkshireman Morris Lupton from I Am Dead would be lovely, that Veronica Villensey from Overboard! would totally ‘forget’ to get in a round, the cat from Stray would make the perfect beer garden buddy, and that Stanley from The Stanley Parable is definitely the most deserving of a pint. Also, who invited the Goose from Untitled Goose Game? Next up is our new mailbag section of the pod, where answer listener questions. A big thanks to Pete, Ben, and Jonh H for submitting their Qs for this episode! If you have any burning questions to ask us, you can email us at podcast@rockpapershotgun.com or hop into the RPS Discord and chuck it in the podcast section. We love hearing from you, so get those in! For our hyperfixations this week, Liam is enthralled with the social experiment / courtroom drama Jury Duty, Rachel is having fun controlling groups of people with her God-like powers in Humanity, and Rebecca is reading a whole host of Miss Marple books throughout the year with this month's pick being A Pocket Full of Rye. Indiescovery is a podcast from RockPaperShotgun.com. All music is by Dylan Sitts; the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. Thanks for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices