Control Resonant Leads a Busy Indie Week, With Stick-Figure Office Warfare and a Dog Diamond Heist Alongside It

Independent games rarely move as one neat, easily labeled bloc, and this week’s lineup makes that clear. One release comes from Remedy Entertainment at a $60 price point and across major consoles and PC storefronts; another turns career advancement into a succession of extremely brief, violent corporate coups; another asks a home-alone dog to earn the approval of friends through escalating mischief. There is even a game that makes the humble options menu its entire stage.

The common thread is not scale, genre, or platform. It is a willingness to build an entire game around a strong central idea: a new protagonist and open-world structure for Control Resonant, workplace satire in Stick It to the Stickman, playful destruction in Doggy Don’t Care, and interface comedy in Video Game Menu: The Game. Meanwhile, the next few months bring a substantial Ball x Pit expansion, a narrative sledgehammer adventure, and a puzzle game where shooting is precisely the problem.

Control Resonant is the week’s unusually big independent release

Control Resonant is out now from Remedy Entertainment for Steam on Windows, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox for PC. A Mac edition is planned for Steam and the App Store later this year. It is priced at $60.

That combination of price, platforms and profile makes it an outlier in an indie roundup, but “independent” describes a studio’s ownership situation rather than a strict budget ceiling. The game is therefore a useful reminder that the term covers projects of very different sizes.

More importantly, this is not a conventional return to the first Control. Rather than again following Jesse Faden within the shifting Oldest House, Resonant puts Jesse’s brother, Dylan, in the leading role. It also moves to an open-world format and exchanges the morphable service weapon for melee combat. Those are major design changes, not merely a new chapter with a familiar toolkit.

For prospective players, the distinction matters. An open world is a structure that gives players broader freedom to move through and approach its spaces, as opposed to a more enclosed or sequential progression. Meanwhile, a focus on melee combat means close-range attacks are a central method of engagement. Anyone mainly looking for the prior game’s weapon-centric action should go in aware that the sequel is deliberately taking another route.

Early critical reaction has been broadly positive, although some assessments have raised the possibility that combat may grow repetitive. Accessibility options including invincibility and one-hit kills are available, offering an alternative for players who want to prioritize exploration and narrative should the combat rhythm become a barrier. That is a practical option, not a verdict on how anyone ought to play: players interested in Remedy’s strange worlds may value a smoother path through the story, while others may prefer to keep every combat constraint intact.

The principal appeal, then, is the chance to see how a new lead character, a widened setting and a changed combat identity reshape this particular fictional universe.

Related coverage includes Control Resonant, Stick It to the Stickman and More Indie Games to Watch This Week.

Stick It to the Stickman turns the corporate ladder into a brawl

Stick It to the Stickman, developed by Free Lives and published by Devolver Digital, has left early access on Steam. It supports Windows, Mac and SteamOS/Linux, is Steam Deck Verified, and normally costs $12. A 50 percent discount runs until October 1.

Its premise is admirably blunt: climb the floors of a company building, defeat the CEO and take the top job—only to begin again as a different employee. The game is a satirical, anti-capitalist roguelite brawler, a description that explains both its subject matter and its repeatable structure.

A roguelite typically organizes play around repeat runs in which a player starts with a limited set of tools, gains abilities during that attempt, and then carries at least some form of progress or unlocks into future attempts. Here, runs are designed to take just a few minutes. Players begin with a character trait and a handful of moves, then acquire and improve further abilities while working their way through the building.

The available attacks are as deliberately ridiculous as the office hierarchy: staple guns, flying kicks, hadoukens and thrown coffee mugs all enter the mix. Outside the tower-climbing runs, the overworld adds jobs such as dealing with protesters and a police wanted-level system described in terms familiar to Grand Theft Auto players.

The satire is not limited to the premise. A former colleague who recommends the first character for a position is immediately displaced by that new hire, underlining the game’s vision of workers as interchangeable. Even using earned money to grow the company creates an uncomfortable joke: progress may grant useful perks, but it also makes the player an active participant in the institution being mocked.

The short-run format and Steam Deck Verified status make this the most clearly portable-friendly entry in the current selection. Players seeking something built around rapid retries, escalating ability combinations and cartoonish workplace chaos have a straightforward place to start. Those looking for a contemplative business sim should perhaps not submit a résumé to this particular organization.

Doggy Don’t Care gives Charlie a very bad afternoon

Doggy Don’t Care is an adventure game from developer Rohan Nowell and publisher Rotub Games. It is available on Steam for Windows, is Steam Deck Verified and normally costs $15, with a 10 percent discount running until October 8.

Its hero, Charlie, has been left at home by an owner. Instead of quietly guarding the furniture, the pup’s mission is to make a mess impressive enough for friends. Badges recognize the chaos Charlie causes, and the mischief may extend as far as a diamond heist. Unlockable dog outfits are named “pawjamas,” setting expectations for the overall level of seriousness.

The clearest comparison point is the playful-disruption style associated with Untitled Goose Game and Little Kitty, Big City. That does not establish identical mechanics, but it provides a useful indication of tone: the player is not presented as a traditional conqueror or savior, but as a small animal causing trouble in a larger environment.

For players choosing among the week’s releases, this looks like the least interested in mastery for mastery’s sake and the most committed to a cute, chaotic premise. The badge system also gives mischief a concrete structure, which may appeal to players who enjoy having explicit goals amid a deliberately unruly sandbox.

Video Game Menu: The Game makes the settings screen the punchline

Video Game Menu: The Game comes from developer and publisher Sebastian Gioseffi. It is on Steam for Windows and Itch, normally priced at $4; Steam has a 10 percent discount through September 30. It is also included in the Out Of The Box Games event, a showcase centered on titles with unusual mechanics, distinctive art or unconventional storytelling.

This is a short entry in the emerging Fake OS category. A Fake OS game presents an invented operating system or software interface as the environment the player navigates. In this case, the concept is also a parody of the genre: rather than treat menus as a neutral gateway to the “real” game, it makes the menu system itself the game and sends its logic spiraling into nonsense.

The settings options establish the approach early. Players can select an emotional-depth level for challenges ranging from “I Just Wanna Kill Some Zombies” to “Sophie’s Choice.” Enabling gore adds a blood effect when settings are toggled. A random-score option caters to the peculiar satisfaction of numbers rising without obvious meaning, while airplane mode has consequences best discovered rather than explained.

That restraint is especially appropriate here. The game’s value is in seeing familiar interface conventions manipulated as jokes and surprises. It is a compact recommendation for people who want an experimental, silly diversion and who enjoy the possibility that changing a checkbox might be more consequential than starting a campaign.

Ball x Pit: Risen Ballbylon arrives November 12

The Risen Ballbylon expansion for Ball x Pit is due on November 12 for $7. Developed by Kenny Sun and Friends and published by Devolver Digital, it will be available on Steam for Windows and Mac, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox for PC, iOS and Android. The Steam version is Steam Deck Verified.

The DLC is set to add eight characters, more than 45 passive abilities, 24 balls—including a Kaiju ball—a new resource type, and additional structures for the game’s city-building component. Crucially, it will also introduce four levels with new enemies and bosses. Those stages are described as more difficult.

That difficulty point is significant because progression can make the base game easier once players improve stats and discover powerful synergies. In game-design terms, a synergy is an interaction where two or more systems, upgrades or tools become more effective together than separately. In Ball x Pit, finding the right combinations can turn levels that once took around 30 minutes into very quick clears.

New bosses and tougher stages should therefore do more than add inventory to a familiar loop. They may offer veteran players fresh situations in which to test the new characters, abilities and ball combinations. Anyone returning primarily for demanding new encounters should pay closest attention to those four levels.

Two more games built around destructive constraints

Virtue and a Sledgehammer is scheduled for October 27 on Steam at $15. It is developed by Deconstructeam and Selkie Harbour and published by Devolver Digital. The game is a narrative-led walking simulator in which the player uses a sledgehammer to smash androids and buildings.

The androids are not presented as mere targets. They are essentially digitized ghosts of people from the protagonist’s hometown, and they add context as the story explores the character’s past and family relationship. That combination gives the destruction a potentially uncomfortable narrative charge: breaking through a space also means encountering preserved echoes of its inhabitants.

Its October date may make it easier to give the game room than the crowded November window, which is already anticipated to include large releases. For broader context on one major November launch, see this look at how one publisher views sharing a date with GTA 6.

Laser Guy, from developer and publisher Point N’ Sheep, is further away, with a March 2027 release window planned for Steam. A demo is available now. It began as a game-jam project six years ago, and its central constraint is immediately readable: the protagonist cannot stop firing a stress-induced laser beam from their eyes, but must cross an office without killing coworkers.

It is described as a twin-stick game, a term usually referring to a control setup in which one stick handles movement and another controls aiming or direction. Here, though, the usual promise of aiming at targets is inverted. The puzzle is to control—or safely redirect—an unavoidable beam. Office objects can shield colleagues; furniture may be destroyed; and even momentary contact with a coworker means restarting the room. Explosive objects introduce further hazards.

That reversal is what makes the demo premise compelling. It is not simply a shooting game with a non-lethal rule attached. Its basic tool is a liability, and the player has to protect people from it. The approach also neatly complements Virtue and a Sledgehammer: both feature destruction, but one uses it to investigate a past and the other asks players to contain its consequences.

A practical shortlist for the next few weeks

• For a large-scale, story-world follow-up: Control Resonant, provided its shift to Dylan, open-world design and melee focus sounds appealing.
• For rapid, repeatable combat: Stick It to the Stickman, especially for Steam Deck players and anyone drawn to a sharp workplace satire.
• For low-stakes animal mayhem: Doggy Don’t Care and Charlie’s badge-worthy domestic catastrophe.
• For a short experimental comedy: Video Game Menu: The Game, which turns a usually functional screen into the whole joke.
• For a future challenge bump in an existing game: Ball x Pit: Risen Ballbylon on November 12.
• For demos and upcoming curiosities: keep Virtue and a Sledgehammer in mind for October 27, and try Laser Guy’s Steam demo ahead of its March 2027 window.

It is an unusually broad spread of ideas, but not an incoherent one. Whether the player is navigating an open world, a corporate tower, a dog’s disaster zone, a hostile settings screen or an office full of laser-vulnerable coworkers, these games all foreground a distinctive premise over a familiar template.