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.
Site
RSS
Apple
Recent rankings
Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.
Shared links between episodes and podcasts
Links found in episode descriptions and other podcasts that share them.
Discover shows related to Indiescovery, based on actual content similarities. Explore podcasts with similar topics, themes, and formats, backed by real data.
There is no related content for this show.
No links shared by this podcast
Episode 15: Goodbye (For Now)
Wednesday, July 26, 2023 • Duration 02:27:04
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
Episode 14: A Very Early Halloween Special
Friday, July 14, 2023 • Duration 01:57:18
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
Episode 5: Our favourite indie games of all time
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 • Duration 01:43:16
It’s episode five of Indiescovery and we'd like our listeners to get to know us a little better, so this week we've picked our ultimate favourite indie games and then had a big old natter about them. Talking about all our favourite games would take us into 3023, so we’ve kept it to two games per person, which actually wasn’t as hard as we thought it would be.
To kick off the episode, we introduce the ✨Indiescovery Vault✨ a magical place locked behind a huge, golden door. It's a wonderful place where only the most prestigious indie games may go as selected by the Indiescovery team. The six games we’ve chosen for this episode will have a coveted place in the vault, but more will be added as the podcast goes on. This is the first of many episodes where we chat about our favourite indie games, so the vault will be opened again in future episodes.
The first of our picks is Paradise Killer. Liam chose this murder mystery about gods and demons set on a tropical island dripping in vaporwave aesthetics. Even though she's not played it, Paradise Killer is very much a Rebecca game (it's basically a match made in indie game heaven) so Liam and Rebecca will keep poking her until she plays it.
The second game is Rebecca’s pick, Monster Prom, a game that introduced her to both the indie gaming scene and visual novels. This one is an Indiescovery contender for a standalone episode, one were we all jump into multiplayer for a few rounds then talk about it. If that format is something you’d be interested in for future episodes then tell us by leaving a comment!
A game that sits snuggly in its number one spot on the RPS top 100, Return Of The Obra Dinn sails gracefully into our picks, nominated by Rachel. Turns out the RPS treehouse really like mystery games, so this detective game about a lost ghost ship from the 1800s was destined to be in the vault at some point. Let's put it this way: any game that forces you to learn the difference between a gunner, purser, helmsman, and bosun (and we're not even mad about it) is worth playing.
We’ve time travelled back in time with Liam’s second pick, Hypnospace Outlaw. This is a game we’ve chatted about on the podcast before, but it bears repeating: Hypnospace Outlaw is awesome. Set during the wild heyday of the online world, this ‘90s internet simulator is a gem of a game, so into the pit it goes (Yes, we have a pit in our vault. It was requested by Liam. It’s basically Liam’s pit. Blame Liam.).
Rebecca’s next pick is Firewatch, and wow did she almost have Liam and Rachel in tears talking about it. The feels were out when we were chatting about this one, as we get into the game’s brilliant characters, lovely visuals, and heart warming themes. We're not crying, you are.
The last of our six games is Kentucky Route Zero, which was Rachel's pick. She really loves this game, and when choosing her two games for this episode she didn’t hesitate in choosing KRZ. A magical realist adventure, this American road trip follows a group of drifters as they search for an ethereal highway that runs through an underground cave system beneath Kentucky. It’s a little weird, but also perfect (in our humble opinion).
The squad then quickly list off other indies that crossed our minds when choosing our six (some of which we’ll definitely get into in future eps) and then we dive into our hyperfixations. Rachel's been watching hours and hours of the RPG show Dimension 20, Liam has been watching Brutalmoose’s calming mall and microwave meal reviews, and Rebecca introduced us to mushroom ketchup, which sounds amazing?? Did you know that mushroom ketchup existed? Every day is a school day, apparently.
Indiescovery is a podcast by Rock Paper Shotgun. Our theme music is by Dylan Sitts, specifically the songs Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in. You can contact the podcast by chucking an email to podcast@rockpapershotgun.com, or by chatting to like-minded individuals about PC gaming over in our Discord.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Episode 4: Valentine's Day special
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 • Duration 01:35:52
It’s episode four of RPS’ indie podcast Indiescovery and this week the team got into the Valentine's Day spirit and had a long chat about our favourite indie game romances (any excuse to gush about how hot the characters are in Hades, really). We get gabbing about our favourite game OTPs, the fabulous representation of queer romances in indies, and then finish with a cursed (not horny) Cosmo-style dating quiz.
Just as a bit of a heads-up, we do spoil some of the romantic developments in the following games. No major plot spoilers, but you’ve been warned!
Our initial frolic into the realm of video game romances are the first games we remember playing with romance options. For Liam that would be Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life on the GameCube, the ninth entry in a series that is considered the great great grandpappy of all farming sims. Rebecca’s is the Gabriel Knight series for PC, a game that she remembers being quite sweet in amongst the murder-mystery-ing. For me, I lament about villagers moving away in the Animal Crossing series, which will never stop feeling like you've just been broken up with, and my frustrations with having to choose either Yennefer or Tris in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - of which my choice is NEITHER.
We then jump into our favourite romances in indie games. Liam kicks us off with Gregg ‘Be Gay, Do Crimes’ Lee and Angus Delaney from Night In The Woods. Rebecca’s OTP is Anna and Ashely from Simulacra, a surprise pairing in what is an incredibly creepy horror game. Rachel’s vote goes to Red and her giant sword boyfriend from Transistor, which leads to the gang chatting about their favourite dateable weapon in Boyfriend Dungeon.
We then get into a bit of chatter about representation and how indies have recently led the charge for queer romances outside of the hetero norm. There’s been a great deal of progress in a short amount of time for LGBTQIA rep, so we dive into why that’s the best thing ever.
To sign off on all our romance hot-takes, Liam has prepared a saucy (but, again, not horny) dating quiz where Rebecca and Rachel each get coupled up with an indie game through hilarious - and completely cursed - multiple choice questions.
This episode is a little more loosely structured, so here is a quick list of other games we mention in passing: A Year of Springs, Monster Prom, Firewatch, Unpacking, Bustafellows (and otome games in general), Mystic Messenger, Stardew Valley, and a big ol’ chat about Hades.
For this week’s hyperfixations, Rebecca has started Danganronpa 2, a dangerous decision for someone who became completely obsessed with the first game. Rachel is diving straight into the deep end in cosmic horror fishing sim Dredge, and Liam is trying to recover from the emotional devastation of finishing the first season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead (hopefully listening to Paramore’s new album is helping, bud).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Episode 3: Our Steam Next Fest demo recommendations
Wednesday, February 8, 2023 • Duration 01:43:00
Wow, is it episode three of RPS’ indie podcast Indiescovery already? How time flies! In this episode, the Indiescovery squad reccomend a handful of awesome demos from this spring’s Steam Next Fest for our lovely listeners to check out - six demos to be exact! We recorded this episode on a Friday instead of our usual Wednesdays so, yeah, major end-of-week vibes in this one.
After a little general chatter about Steam Next Fest and our own personal histories with demos, we jump straight into our recommendations!
Rachel's first chosen demo is It’s A Wrap!, a smart puzzle platformer where you use different tracks of an editing suite to affect each level and then need to guide your character through the perfectly timed chaos you’ve just coordinated. Her second pick is Super Adventure Hand, a slightly cursed action-platformer where you play as a disembodied hand. This demo also prompted the three of us to go completely feral over the game’s questionable disembodied limb lore (which yes, is definitely a thing in the game).
Liam’s picks include Cook Serve Forever, a fast-paced cooking demo that shot his anxiety levels through the roof…in a good way(??). He follows up with a much more relaxing pick, laid-back city-builder Outlanders, which looks incredibly soothing. This is also part of the podcast where Rachel may or may not admit to thinking the characters in Outlanders look tasty and then spiral into how she wants to eat Wallace and Gromit.
Rebecca kicks off her picks with All Of Us Are Dead, a post-apocalyptic zombie horror visual novel which is the most on brand Rebecca pick ever. Her second is 2D detective game SherLocked: Escape Room Adventure, where you must use your wit and cunning to help Sherlock deduce his way through a series of puzzling rooms. Curious, indeed!
We end the episode with our current hyperfixations! Liam has been punching robot baddies to the beat of Hi-Fi Rush, Tango Gameworks’ surprise January drop. Rebecca has been on a medieval murder mystery spree by playing Pentiment and then reading The Name Of The Rose (quick side note: American mystery-drama show Monk is totally not about, like, actual monks.) Rachel has been gawking at the gorgeous animation of Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, a Shrek spin-off that is pretty good, actually.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Episode 2: Our most-anticipated upcoming indie games for 2023
Wednesday, January 25, 2023 • Duration 01:37:08
Proving that our ability to organise recording an episode wasn't some sort of one-off fluke, the Indiescovery crew are back! Indiescovery Episode 2: Electric Boogaloo begins with a nice little chat about what we've all been playing since we got back from our Christmas hols. Rebecca extols the virtues of Tiny Life, a pixel art spiritual successor to classic The Sims; Liam likes similarly retro-styled Nightmare Of Decay because it's like Resident Evil, but somehow even gorier, and also puts in a good word for upcoming open-world parkour-platformer Ballistic Zen; and Rachel has lately been all about magical coming-of-age '90s nostalgia trip A Space For The Unbound.
After that little catch-up we take a whistle-stop tour of our most-anticipated indie games expected to release in 2023. During this trip we take in the promising sights of Anemoiapolis: Chapter 1, Inescapable, Dreamsettler (and its spinoff Slayers X), Gunbrella, Romancelvania, Terra Nil, and Thirsty Suitors. We conclude the discussion with a big love-fest for Demonschool because, as it turns out, we're all very stoked for Demonschool.
In our latest collection of hyperfixations, Rebecca has a full-blown case of the post-game blues after finishing the whole Ace Attorney Turnabout Collection. Liam has been reading Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, a novel beloved in the industry right now for its compelling insights into game development and the rarely-spoken-of love that exists between true collaborators. And Rachel unboxes her copy of the Frostpunk board game live on air, accompanied by excited audio description.
Indiescovery is a podcast by RockPaperShotgun.com. Music by Dylan Sitts: the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Episode 1: Our favourite indie games of 2022
Tuesday, January 17, 2023 • Duration 01:14:30
Back in December, the Indiescovery crew got together to record a Christmas-themed test episode for our new podcast, with the idea of launching the show properly in January. Well, in the end we loved our "unreleased pilot" so much that we decided to release it anyway. Christmas episodes in mid-January may not be the norm, but this kind of random silliness is surely well in the eclectic spirit of indie gaming.
We begin by highlighting our favourite indie games of 2022, with Rebecca bringing us retro horror point-and-click Lily's Well, Rachel picking sci-fi RPG Citizen Sleeper, and Liam staying true-to-form by talking about rogue-lite bullet hell Vampire Survivors.
Our seasonal section on the topic of stocking stuffers brings a selection box of lovely little indie games to your attention. Featuring brief summaries explaining why you should definitely ignore your family over the festive break in favour of playing A Little To The Left, Chop Goblins, Placid Plastic Duck Simulator, Paradise Marsh, Mount Your Friends, and A Building Full Of Cats.
We close out the episode with a run-down of our current hyperfixations. Rebecca can't wait to tell everyone about a fanmade Life Is Strange dating sim called Love Is Strange she saw on Itch.io. Rachel can't get enough of live-action social deduction series The Traitors on BBC. And Liam is obsessed with TikTok account @therealpovcook, documenting the daily working life of a diner cook living somewhere in America.
Indiescovery is a podcast by RockPaperShotgun.com. Music by Dylan Sitts: the songs are Tahoe Trip, Pool Sticker, and Express Check-in.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Episode 13: Our favourite indie games from Not-E3 2023
Wednesday, June 28, 2023 • Duration 01:47:57
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
Episode 12: The ultimate indie game pub crawl
Wednesday, June 14, 2023 • Duration 02:03:38
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
Episode 11: Our favourite indie games of 2023 so far
Thursday, June 1, 2023 • Duration 02:11:00
Somehow it's June already, which means it's time for the Indiescovery crew to suppress our existential dread at the fleetingness of existence and take a look at our favourite indie games from the first (almost) half of 2023! Don't worry, we very quickly realise that June has such a slammed line-up we can probably give it a best-games episode all of its own to make up for the fact that we tackled this topic a bit early.
Rebecca kicks things off by talking about Birth, a lovely chill puzzle game about natural decay and the bonds between people, and then revisits pixel-art life sim Tiny Life now that it's out in early access. Rachel submits the emotionally-charged open-world cycling mystery Season: A Letter To The Future, and Liam can't get enough of retro shooter Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance Of The Slayer which is (a) excitingly being released today and (b) deserves to win some kind of award for the most subtitles in a video game name, seriously, Kingdom Hearts can only dream. We also all still love Dredge but decide we've gushed about it enough on the podcast already, and that you should go back and listen to Episode 8 if you want to hear our opinions on why that's a very likely GOTY contender.
In the episode's second half we summon the Ghost of Games Yet-To-Come and list off some of the indies we still hope to see by the end of 2023. Liam can't wait to get his hands on El Paso Elsewhere, the From Dusk Till Dawn-esque action-shooter we never knew we needed this badly; and Knuckle Sandwich, a colourful turn-based RPG where the combat plays out through WarioWare-style minigames. Rebecca opts to chant a list of upcoming games with a TBC release date as a kind of protective spell for all the hard-working indie devs out there, before naming the recently delayed Goodbye Volcano High as one she's still hopeful of seeing before the year's out. Rachel, meanwhile, is sending good vibes to the developers working on dimension-bending storybook platformer The Plucky Squire and nostalgically radical skate/bike/parkour adventure Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, both of which aim to release later in 2023.
Finally, and as ever, we delve into our current hyperfixations. Following his secondment to cover The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom for some of our console-acknowledging sister sites, Liam has discovered that this hidden gem from Nintendo is a really good game, actually. Rebecca has been playing visual novels again (surprise, surprise), and is enjoying the contrast that comes from following up the very-not-indie Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries Of Honjo with the extremely-indie fangame Love Is Strange. And while Rachel never expected to be talking about Kylie Minogue on an indie gaming podcast in 2023, she simply can't get the new single Padam Padam out of her head!
The gang are also pleased to announce that we're jury members at Indie Cup UK '23, an online festival celebrating indie devs, so be sure to check out our pals at IndieCup.net to see what we're up to!
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
