tbh i think its a bit of a shame that whenever devs try to make an “indie crossover game” they potentially struggle to gain relevancy because they don’t include only the well known heavy-hitters, the indie scene doesn’t have to be just shovel knight, meat boy, and bit.trip you guys!!!!!!! play some indie games that dont have 100k+ reviews on steam for gods sake!!

enough about that, indie pogo is visually, quite delightful, every fighter is really fun to look at, there’s actually a lot of specific visual flair that i really enjoyed, like each stage having unique countdown animations, i thought that was cute. they managed to make welltaro look like, cute, and not this weird pointy-limbed thing that fraymakers did. as well, the trophy system is a fun way to include some smaller-scale indie stuff without having to go through the effort of making a whole new fighter. (underhero rep will always win me over tbqh)

the gameplay itself is… fine? the pogo mechanic won’t click with everyone and that’s fine, im all for weirdo game ideas, although, movement could stand to be a little quicker. personally i thought it was pretty fun once i played around in singleplayer modes, although i imagine the player base has gotten to that point where its small enough that everyone who still plays regularly is a god gamer so going online basically means you’re going to get bodied instantly (i didnt touch the online so i might just be talking out of my ass). also the boss at the end of the arcade mode is a motherfucker

spooky’s is a very interesting game, it’s sort of a weird, double-layered joke, spinning a typical “haha horror game that very blatantly makes fun of horror games” demeanor into a very legitimate and decently solid attempt at like, you know, actual horror. i would probably describe it as taking the piss out of games that are themselves taking the piss out of indie horror games.

my main issue with the game comes from the main campaign’s pacing, the randomly generated rooms will just never live up to how interesting and unique each specimen’s little intro setpieces are, even if the chases afterwards are fairly fun and tense (at least, the first time you encounter them)