Indie Watch October: Three new games and one classic title you may have missed

October has been a pretty fruitful month for new Indie games with titles like Dispatch, RV There Yet? and Absolum receiving glowing reviews and strong sales despite the holdover popularity of titles such as Silksong and Hades II. My interests can run a little different though (although I’m planning on trying out all the titles I’ve already mentioned) and there’s a lot of good titles that you may have missed so here are three new games — and one classic just for the season — you might not have heard of yet.

Undusted: Letters from the Past

Undusted (also available on Switch) is a cozy little ASMR game in which you play as Adora returning to her childhood home. There you’re tasked with cleaning the dirt and grime off of various items from your past, revealing the story about your family along the way.

I’ve played through the first chapter so far and I can already tell the narrative is going to go in some very emotional directions. The cleaning is done well with some fun little touches — cleaning over the holes of an ocarina plays music — although the precision required to 100% the cleanup may be more frustrating than relaxing for some players. There is an ability that highlights the parts that still require cleaning after completing a specific percentage but even with that those last bits of dust may be hard to find. Fortunately if you’re more interested in the story than the achievements you can consider it done at 99% and move on.

Despite the finicky nature of the cleaning it is very tactilely satisfying to do so. Coupled with an engaging story this is a title I’m looking forward to playing more of over the next few days.

ILA: A Frosty Glide

It’s not Halloween without witches and ILA: A Frosty Glide (also available on Switch, Xbox, and Playstation) has you play as Ila, a young witch-in-training exploring a frosty magical island as you search for your missing kitty Coco. With the help of your trusty skatebroom you navigate a 3d platform environment filled with navigational puzzles to overcome and items to collect revealing the story of the island, clues to the location of your cat and stylish new witch outfits.

I’m normally not one for platformers (I’m more fond of 2D metroidvanias) but ILA is a charming little game. The navigation can get squirrelly in places but fortunately the game is generous with unlockable hopshrooms that will help you get back to where you were if you miss a jump as well as potentially unlocking new spots. The game can also be unintuitive in places — I literally just realized while watching an autoplay video on the store page that I was avoiding a jump because I thought the stars (as seen in the pic above) represented a requirement, not an assistance.

Ignoring my own ineptitude the vibes of the game are really cool (no pun intended). The music and artwork are well done and the background story is compelling if simple. I’ll very likely try to 100% the game.

Riddlewood Manor

The lone entrant of this article I haven’t had a chance to play yet, Riddlewood Manor is a perfect selection for Halloween. A 1st person point-and-click adventure set in a fully explorable haunted house, Riddlewood Manor is full of logic puzzles and spooky encounters — complete with jump scares that fortunately come with an optional warning system. Oh and there’s a doll named Suzie that just wants to play with you.

Since I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet I can’t say how well the game pulls it off but the player reviews are strong, even comparing it favorably to the genre classic series Rusty Lake. I look forward to giving this one a try even if I have to do so with the all the lights on.

Classic title of the month: The House in Fata Morgana

I’ve highlighted this title before but Halloween is the perfect time to visit The House in Fata Morgana (also available on Switch). You awaken in a cursed mansion with no memory of who you are. Your only companion is a woman who calls You the Master of the house, and she is Your Maid. She leads you to experience the tragedies that have befallen other residents in the past in the hopes that doing so could help restore your memories. Who is the White-Haired Girl that sits at the center of so many tragedies? Why is the mansion cursed? And who are you?

While Fata Morgana has some choices that could lead to different endings, it’s a pretty straightforward VN with dark atmosphere, compelling characters, and a mystery that won’t let you go. There’s also a sequel that furthers explains the origins of the curse that has befallen the mansion — but definitely don’t play it until you’ve played the original.

That’s all for October but be sure to let us know in the comments if there are any other new Indie titles you’ve been playing!