Indie games are rarely short on ideas, but this latest wave is particularly determined to put strange premises in the driver’s seat. One game asks players to run a bus while policing passengers’ sleeping habits and toenail clipping. Another turns a Napoleonic soldier into the survivor of a supernatural plague. There is a rhythm-commanding army, a platformer built around altering colour, a pig equipped with a power washer and a horror story viewed through the eyes of penguins.
The common thread is not genre so much as range. Several games are arriving across consoles and PC, while others are pairing familiar frameworks with unusually specific hooks. That makes this a useful moment for players who want something outside the largest release calendar, whether they prefer a compact comedy, a long-running co-op RPG, an arcade-like action challenge or horror with a markedly different point of view.
Thank You Bus Driver is Double Fine’s first game after Xbox
Thank You Bus Driver is the first project from Double Fine Action Labs, a label for smaller and experimental releases from Double Fine Productions. It also arrives only a couple of months after Double Fine departed Xbox, making it a notable early indication of what the newly independent studio is pursuing.
The $5 game is built around a deliberately unruly spin on time-limited driving games. Players take the role of a bus driver racing to the next stop while looking for a little appreciation from their passengers. The complication is that the employer continually introduces additional rules to enforce. Riders must not fall asleep or clip their toenails during a trip, for example. The driver can slap troublesome passengers or throw them off the bus while trying to keep the service moving.
That combination suggests a small-scale action-comedy whose pressure comes from competing priorities rather than from realistic transit management. Reaching stops before time expires is the central objective, but passengers turn the journey into a moving list of disruptions. The comedy is in the escalation: a normal bus route becomes an improvised enforcement operation.
Thank You Bus Driver is available for Windows through Steam, Epic Games Store, Itch.io, GOG, Humble Store and Game Jolt. It is Steam Deck Verified. Its appearance following Double Fine’s split from Xbox matters beyond one inexpensive release: it frames Action Labs as a route for ideas that may be briefer, more experimental and less conventionally marketable than a major studio project. The business side of game development continues to shift in highly visible ways, as reflected in other industry discussion around how games are made and shaped by their creative teams.
Valor Mortis brings Soulslike structure into first person
Valor Mortis, from One More Level and Lyrical Games, takes the week’s most overtly combat-focused route. The game is a first-person Soulslike set around a British soldier named William, who signed up to fight for Napoleon. Thought dead after a battle, William is reawakened by a corrupted Napoleon, portrayed by Vincent Cassel. A plague has changed other survivors into grotesque enemies, while William gains supernatural powers alongside firearms and melee weapons.
The term Soulslike generally refers to an action-RPG structure in which difficult encounters, deliberate progression and the risk of losing accumulated resources are central. Here, defeated enemies yield “catalysts,” which can be spent on improvements at checkpoints. That is the game’s progression currency, even if it avoids calling it souls. Players can also find modifiers that change a character build.
Related coverage includes Thank You Bus Driver, Valor Mortis and 8 More Indie Games to Watch.
Its first-person perspective is important. Instead of observing spacing and enemy attacks from behind a character, players must read threats through the narrower view of the protagonist. The supplied details also point to a mixture of ranged firearms, melee attacks and supernatural abilities, so its challenge is not restricted to sword combat.
There is also a Metroidvania influence. Metroidvania is a term for games structured around exploration and gated routes, where newly obtained abilities open earlier inaccessible paths or create shortcuts. Valor Mortis uses abilities in this way, tying combat progression to environmental navigation rather than treating levels as purely linear combat arenas.
Valor Mortis costs $40 on Steam for Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is included with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. A $60 deluxe edition includes an expansion planned for next year. PS5 and PlayStation Portal players with PS Plus Premium have access to a 90-minute trial, a practical option for anyone unsure whether its first-person approach clicks for them.
Ratatan combines beat commands with roguelite repetition
Ratatan is a rhythm-action game from TVT Co. Ltd. and Ratata Arts, with series creator Hiroyuki Kotani involved. It is positioned as a spiritual successor to Patapon, but its structure also incorporates roguelite ideas. A roguelite is typically built around repeatable runs, where failure sends the player back to begin another attempt, often with some form of changing upgrades or persistent progression.
Each Ratatan run puts players in command of a group of minions. Rhythm-based inputs issue commands: attacking, moving away from incoming fire and shielding against damage. The important wrinkle is timing. Meaningful commands are connected to the music loop, so players must work within the rhythm rather than react at any exact moment they choose.
This produces a more fluid pace than a traditional turn-based game, but it also places several demands on the player simultaneously: keep time with the music, manage the player character’s own placement, track enemy attacks and decide how upgrades fit the run. Elemental attack upgrades are part of that mix. The game’s colourful artwork is one of its clearest visual calling cards, while the design asks players to learn its tempo rather than simply mash through encounters.
Ratatan is leaving early access on Steam for Windows and is also available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2 for $35. For prospective players, the relevant question is less whether they enjoy rhythm games in isolation and more whether they want a command system that makes rhythm a condition of tactical decision-making.
Colour, construction and co-op scale up the variety
Colorbound follows a much gentler-looking but still mechanical premise. Panpipe Studio’s platformer casts players as Anku, a boy seeking to reunite his late grandfather’s band for a final farewell. The game draws on Chilean culture and heritage, and its puzzle-solving rests on using colour to alter the environment.
A lighter colour can make a platform float; a darker shade can bring it down. That is a useful example of a game mechanic being both thematic and functional. Colour is not merely decoration or an art-direction flourish: it is the way players reshape routes and solve problems. Colorbound is available for $15 on Steam, Epic Games Store, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch and Switch 2, with a 10 percent Steam discount running until October 26.
Enshrouded is at the other end of the scope spectrum. Keen Games’ co-op survival action RPG has left early access on Steam and debuted on PS5. Its full map, including a new biome, is open for exploration; the story has been filled out for now; and maximum levels for both players and gear have increased. The update also includes a rendering overhaul, revised early-game material, 14 enemy types and nine spells.
The major addition is Sparkworks, a logic system that allows players to build and share adventures, dungeons and interactive bases. In practical terms, a logic system is a set of creation tools for defining how parts of a player-made space behave or respond. Sparkworks therefore pushes Enshrouded beyond building for appearance alone, toward authoring spaces with interactive behaviour. That could give returning groups new reasons to revisit the game and could give creators a route to make experiences for the wider community.
Enshrouded is priced at $40 on Steam and PS5, with a 10 percent discount until October 29; the PlayStation discount requires PS Plus. An Xbox Series X/S edition is planned for spring 2027. Players considering the game should note the different commitments on offer: its campaign and expanded world support a longer co-op investment, while Sparkworks is aimed at those who enjoy building and sharing their own scenarios.
Cleaning, penguins and survival horror broaden the slate
Pixel Washer brings a knowingly silly premise to early access: a piggy wears a power washer and uses it to remove grime from environments, with equipment upgrades along the way. Valadria developed the game and Acclaim is publishing it. It is $13 on Steam for Windows, discounted by 15 percent until October 22, and a Switch 2 version is planned for 2027. The launch trailer’s narrator is Tim Kitzrow, known as the voice of NBA Jam, giving the game an explicitly arcade-era flourish.
Penguin Colony takes horror in a more unusual direction. Origame Digital, following Umurangi Generation, imagines an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness from penguins’ perspective. Set in Antarctica in the 1930s, it follows birds whose lives are disrupted when Nazis and Kaitiaki arrive looking for an ancient being. Players can switch among penguins, tail the human intruders or investigate the strange location. Multiple playthroughs are required to see everything.
That setup makes perspective the key feature. Rather than simply placing a human protagonist in a hostile Antarctic mystery, Penguin Colony’s animal viewpoint can change what investigation and observation mean. It is $15 on Steam, GOG and Humble Store, is Steam Deck Verified, and has a 10 percent discount through October 30. Switch and PS5 versions are expected in 2027.
Tenebris Somnia also uses contrast to establish its horror identity. Developed by Andrés Borghi and Saibot Studios, and published by New Blood Interactive, it combines retro-style pixel-art survival horror with live-action cutscenes. The live-action scenes are especially significant because they hold the game’s secrets, making them part of its narrative design rather than decorative interruptions. Borghi previously made the gothic fighting game The Black Heart and has worked as a visual-effects artist on films including When Evil Lurks.
Tenebris Somnia costs $25 on Steam, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and Switch, and is Steam Deck Verified. For horror players, its pitch is straightforwardly distinct: it places low-resolution gameplay beside live-action imagery and makes the relationship between them central to uncovering the story.
A compact dog adventure, plus showcase discoveries
Hubert closes the release list on a more pastoral note. Brocap Studio’s shepherding adventure has players guide sheep through difficult weather and terrain with a human companion while protecting the flock from wolves. The game is described as lasting roughly three to four hours, so it is notably more contained than Enshrouded or a repeat-run game such as Ratatan. Hubert is $20 on Steam for Windows, where a demo is available, with a 10 percent discount until October 28. A PS5 version is due later in October. It is not officially Steam Deck Verified, although its developers say it is optimised for Valve’s handheld.
Beyond the releases themselves, recent showcases underline how much more is waiting beyond the immediate launch list. The Cozy After Dark Showcase included more than 50 eerie, mysterious or unsettling games with a cosy edge. One standout, Grave Seasons, is a murder-mystery farming simulator in which the story runs across an in-game year. Starting again can produce a different killer and victims while preserving farming progress, a replayability structure that changes the mystery without discarding all prior work.
Other games highlighted there include DeadRoot, starring a sword-wielding, suplex-performing snail; Usual June, a third-person action-adventure about combat, cupcakes and community; and co-op body-transporting obstacle game FallBearers. Demos for Usual June and FallBearers, among others, are available through a Steam event.
The Galaxies showcase likewise featured more than 50 games, including pinball-based top-down shooter Appulse, first-person Western Soulslike Guns of Eschaton and gun-fu/parkour action game Spine, alongside updates for The Finals and Train Sim World 7. A related Steam event gathers its featured titles. Elsewhere, The Mix Fall Showcase included Saturday-morning-cartoon-inspired Metroidvania Zozo and the Lost Dreams and puzzle platformer Nonolith.
For anyone trying to choose rather than simply add everything to a wishlist, the practical split is unusually clear. Thank You Bus Driver and Hubert look suited to shorter sessions; Valor Mortis is for players comfortable with demanding action and build progression; Ratatan is for those willing to learn rhythm-led command timing; Colorbound puts environmental puzzles first; Enshrouded offers the largest co-op and creation-tool commitment; and Penguin Colony or Tenebris Somnia deliver horror through two genuinely different storytelling approaches.
