Indie Spotlight - Part 15

Desert Race Adventures

Sand, sun, sweat - "Desert Race Adventures" sends you on a rally across Europe and Africa, somewhere between road movie and adventure. You don't just drive to get there, but to survive. Food, fuel, spare parts - everything has to be managed while dust storms rage and bandits appear in the rear-view mirror.

Firedrake Games transforms the rally into a strategic roguelike that blends planning and driving. Every stage is a balancing act between speed and tactics, every stop a new decision. Retro pixels meet modern thrills until the destination almost doesn't matter, because the journey has long since become the real adventure - rough, challenging and full of small victories in the dust.

Indika

A nun and the devil on a pilgrimage together sounds like blasphemy, but feels surprisingly human. "Indika" tells the story of a woman who doubts her faith and is travelling in a world that seems to be made of dogma, snow and guilt. Every scene, every dialogue scratches at something deeper that can hardly be put into words.

Odd Meter, now working from Kazakhstan, has created a play that provokes and touches. The grotesque comedy mixes with spiritual despair, the religious visions with the sobriety of everyday life. The result is a modern parable in pixels and pain that says more about us than we would like.

Whoever embarks on this journey does not encounter a heroine, but a mirror that shows how close light and darkness are to each other. "Indika" leaves its mark like a dream that you never quite forget.

Rez Infinite

This isn't just a game, it's a symphony of light, sound and speed. Everything follows the beat, every hit becomes part of a composition that is constantly changing. Between digital chaos and trance-like calm, a state is created in which you hear more than you play.

What once began as an experimental rail shooter has become a synaesthesia classic. Enhance has refined the visionary template, sharpened textures and created Area X, a free-flowing finale that fuses sound and movement into a single sensation. It is music to steer by, a trip through one's own perception.

And yes - the original version actually came with a so-called trance vibrator, which complemented the experience in a, well, particularly "intense" way. Today, the controller is enough to feel the beat. "Rez Infinite" remains an exceptional experience for all the senses.

The Berlin Apartment

An flat in an old building, a hundred years of history and countless lives: "The Berlin Apartment" tells the story of a place where everything leaves its mark. From the Empire style to the grey concrete of the post-war period, it is not only the interior that changes, but also the soul of the rooms. Where pianos once sounded, neon light now hangs over empty tables - and yet the echo of the residents remains palpable.

Little stories take centre stage, loosely connected but all told through the same four walls. btf transforms the flat into an archive of emotions: Furniture, letters and scratched doors become narrative voices, every object carries memories. There are no puzzles in the traditional sense, just an invitation to look and feel closely.

The style, tone and time change with each episode. Sometimes melodrama, sometimes coming-of-age, sometimes almost surreal. "The Berlin Apartment" thus becomes a playable anthology about the passing of time - poetic, quiet and imbued with a peculiar warmth that allows stories to grow even out of ruins.

Forestrike

Fighting or thinking? "Forestrike" says: both. Here you fight your way through monasteries, villages and nightmares, but only if you have meditated sufficiently beforehand. The trick is to win the fight before it starts: with "foresight", a technique that works like a mixture of time travel and daydreaming.

Hero Yu, a fighting monk with astonishing patience, trains, dies, plans again and tries again until everything is finally perfect. Every death takes him a step further, every opponent becomes a game of patience with fist contact. And those who have no patience are taught humility and timing by the masters.

Skeleton Crew Studio and Devolver Digital serve up a martial arts roguelite that looks as stylish as if it had fallen straight out of a Hong Kong film from the 1980s. "Forestrike" is zen, pain and precision in pixels - a game that feels like the moment when control finally becomes skill.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault

In "Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault", the torch becomes a calculator. Trader Will is back, stranded in Tresna, a place where courage and market value go hand in hand. During the day he decorates his shop with all kinds of relics, at night he fights for supplies in the Vault, where even the monsters know what sells well.

The game remains true to the formula that made the first part so endearing: action RPG meets business satire, but this time with more depth, humour and heart. The city grows with every sale, the characters tell their stories, and even when bargaining there is a hint of adventure in the air. Everything is a little more familiar, but never comfortable, just like an old shop that is suddenly buzzing again.

And while new dangers lurk outside, the old feeling remains inside: that strange happiness when you close the counter after a risky run and know that all the stress was worth it. "Moonlighter 2" is a love letter to those who want to experience adventure but are back in time for shop opening.

Princess Of The Water Lilies

"Princess of the Water Lilies" sends you as a little grey cat into a world that looks as if it has fallen straight out of a forgotten Ghibli storyboard. Raised by a family of frogs, equipped with a magical collar that makes plants grow just by purring: even the intro sounds like a children's book that you secretly continue to read even though you've long since grown up. Each region looks like a hand-painted biotope in which light and water have a life of their own.

The game thrives on its playfulness: at one point you swing on vines through treetops, then you hop over mushrooms that feel like trampolines in a good mood. The collar changes the environment: bridges grow, flowers explode in colour, hidden paths open up as if the world itself is holding its breath. The puzzles range from simple interactions to multi-level combinations that briefly make you feel like a natural architect.

The narrative also remains special: no text, no voice, just emojis, symbols and an orchestra that sets the tone. The cat doesn't speak, but doesn't need to. Each scene is narrated by her gestures, angles and the music. "Princess of the Water Lilies" is like a quiet stroll into a magical memory that you would like to hold on to for longer.

Umami

There are games in which you slay dragons, save kingdoms or at least save a village from destruction. And then there's "UMAMI", a puzzle about wooden blocks, pandas and very soothing clicking sounds. Here you stack pancakes like a pastry chef on speed, build cakes that are physically questionable and discover miniature worlds that look as if someone has left a diorama in the sunlight for too long.

Each level is a small hand-painted scenario, a mixture of crafting lesson, meditation and "Oh, that's cute". The puzzles don't rely on pressure, timers or penalties - the biggest threat is that you forget what the outside world looks like. Between collectible cards, hidden animations and cute animals, an atmosphere is created that is so cosy that you occasionally want to check whether the screen has secretly warmed up.

After a few minutes, you notice how your heart rate drops, your breathing calms down and your brain says: "Can we please do this every evening?" "UMAMI" is no ordinary puzzle, it's the digital equivalent of a cosy, warm soup and sometimes that tastes better than any adventure.

Morsels

"Morsels" begins in the sewers, where a hungry mouse tries harder not to give up than to actually eat. Until she meets a magical mountain of fat - yes, that's right, a talking mountain of fat - who teaches her to turn into little monsters. From then on, it's a steep uphill climb: new forms, new powers, new problems. Especially the cat gang, which rules the surface like a mixture of mafia and house cat flat share.

With every creature you collect, your own monster troop grows, which you can swap around in battle. Each Morsel has strengths, quirks, ailments or peculiarities: sometimes you fire lasers, sometimes you simply stumble very professionally. And in between, you discover bonus levels that look as if someone has shoved different game worlds into one another just to see if you're paying attention.

The real appeal lies in the chaos: fast-paced, colourful, grimacing and always on the verge of getting completely out of hand. "Morsels" feels like a Saturday morning cartoon that has suddenly become a roguelite and is just incredibly good at keeping you coming back for more.

→ If you're already feeling the wanderlust for the next idea, you can find more highlights in our "Level Up" section - and of course in the current issue.