Nintendo Indie World Showcase April 2024 - Every Announcement, Game Reveal & Trailer

I liked the part where they announced the Silksong release date but only if you played the video in reverse. Blew my mind!

Refind Self, Antonblast, SCHiM, and Animal Well are my highlights.
I'll rate this Direct on 5/10. There was nothing really surprising. Also, it was better than the last Nintendo Direct, ironically.
Also... People waiting for Katana ZERO DLC 🤝 People waiting for Hollow Knight: Silksong.

It's my birthday. sniff

There was supossed to be Silksong. sniff

Honestly Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is too dark and twisty for my tastes, but I absolutely had to replay that trailer about 5 times for that piano song! It's deliciously classical.

Europa is the highlight of the showcase, also containing brilliant music in the trailer. Hopefully that's indicative of its soundtrack!! I feel a little too pessimistic to trust that those gorgeous visuals were ripped straight from the Switch port however...

It was kinda obvious that Silkong wasn't going to be in the direct, considering they have a gamepass day-1 deal.

There were quite a few games I'm interested in! Europa, Stitch, Schim, Animal Well, and Yars were all right up my alley.

Steamworld Heist 2. Finally.

I’m concerned Duck Detective may be hit with some sort of C and D from Disney as it’s part of Gravity Falls lore.

Better than I expected, though Silksong would have been nice, and World of Goo 2, and Plucky Squire, but it’s kind of unfair to judge something on what it doesn’t have rather than what it does, b/c while it didn’t have those 3 games, it also didn’t have a lot of farm sim games either for a change, replacing those with cats and pirates. And despite several games looking like they were made for WiiWare or the DS there was still some variety in the graphics.

I’m impressed w/ Europa, and Cat Quest 3, and AntonBlast looks ok, and TMNT has some potential if it’s couch co-op.

So it wasn’t a total waste of 20 minutes like the last Pokemon Direct was. The bar is very very way down low for all video game presentations for me these days.😩

I thought it was pretty underwhelming honestly. And that’s not really because of silksong, which I don’t care about that much (I didn’t even finish Hollow Knight). I just think there are a lot of other indie games that we know are out there. Nothing really showed up that I was interested in. Anton Blast is maybe the only game in this direct that I will probably buy. But we’ve seen that one before… and several of the other games here too. Most of the games shown had that “twee” vibe that so many indie devs seem to go for and I’m starting to find it downright off putting.

This was the first Indie World I've been able to watch live in some time. And it...was kind of awful. Is the pacing always this bad? It felt like nearly every trailer was dragging its feet. And essentially everything I found interesting was already announced for Switch beforehand, except for BZZZT. Even SteamWorld Heist II was exactly what I had in mind for the end of the showcase, given Thunderful wasn't exactly shy about saying they had a SteamWorld IP tactical shooter planned for the second half of this year - at least we got a formal reveal? There was a lot that looked solid, but it's not very interesting seeing games already confirmed for Switch in these.

The fact that some of the most compelling announcements or games featured were in the highlight reel, or only present in a certain region, like Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus and Bread and Fred, says a lot. At least they didn't end on that this time.

I gave the showcase as a whole a 4. Usually, I walk away from Indie Worlds having my interest piqued by at least one new announcement. Here? Uh...I guess I didn't know about Valley Peaks, and anything aping A Short Hike's vibe is slightly interesting to me? But everything else that caught my eye, I'd already heard of, and most of the games in question were already confirmed for Switch. It's not even that I didn't see a number of things I was hoping would maybe come up (What the Car?, Pseudoregalia, Mina the Hollower, Crypt Custodian, The Big Catch, Laika: Aged Through Blood, Arranger, The Plucky Squire, Void Stranger, even the pie-in-the-sky Pizza Tower port that doesn't seem like it'll ever materialize) - it's that there was a serious lack of anything truly new and compelling. At least some games I was already interested got wider exposure, but man. That was a rough show, and makes me wonder if there really just isn't much more slated for Switch, even though I really doubt the successor dev kits reportedly out in the wild are in the hands of many indie developers.

Maybe the real Silksong are the friends we made along the way

My craving for more Mina the Hollower info continues...

Valley Peaks looks like a climbing version of A Short Hike. Which is cool.
Europa is everyone's darling and I'm also happy with Steamworld Heist 2. Liked the first one. It got a bit stretched in the last third and I might also have preferred Dig 3 but as someone who loves tactical games like XCom and stuff I might pick that one up.

We never get a Nintendo Direct anymore, just these indie ones that keep getting worse and worse. The switch definitely appears to be at the end of its life cycle. When the 3ds was 7 years old as switch is now, it was 2018, and there were practically no games for the 3ds then, and the switch had already been out a year as well. I wonder why Nintendo has basically gone silent now. This isn’t typical Nintendo at all.

I haven't played Pizza Tower yet.... but isn't AntonBlast a ripoff? The gameplay looks similar and the artstyle too!

A lot of timed/console exclusives. I’m excited for the TMNT rogue like and the Yar game by WayForward.

Nintendo are playing their cards close to their chest. Although, soon I expect after Endless Ocean and Paper Mario release in June we will get what will likely be the last fully focused Switch only direct.
It will likely show Luigi's Mansion 2 HD as that will be releasing by that point imminently, plus whatever Nintendo has planned for July to December.
We are probably looking at a couple of remasters and a relatively strong third part exclusive to pave out the second half of the year along with what's already announced, perhaps a small price cut too... We will see, I guess.

Steamworld Heist 2 is my big hype!

Wait, no farming sims??? I thought they were mandatory for Indie Worlds. 😂

Premium tears for all of us expecting Silksong

I loved this indie direct! I'm very into RPGs and was expecting some of that, but honestly after watching everything I reaaaally don't mind they were missing. Most games look very chill and I've been leaning towards that recently. The art in most of them is beautiful, and even Schim, which didn't impress me at first, is so creative that I'm eager to play it. 10/10

In order of excitement:

1. Yars Rising
2. Stitch
3. Little Kitty, Big City

I could go the rest of my life playing only Indie Games and Mario games.

I'm interested in Stitch. That's basically it at the moment.

Ok, could we get an article detailing what games and demos are available now? I don’t want to rewatch the direct, and I don’t want to search the Coming Soon just for the new Demos. Anton was a demo out now, but there was others?

Laser Eyes looks dope, it's giving me Killer7 vibes. Europa looks great and Little Kitty might be fun for a chuckle. That's all for me though.

@Yoshif3 No it isn't. Anton and Pizza may share some specific traits in gameplay and visuals, but they're both very different games(if you played the demo you'd see that) and their developers have been aware and incredibly supportive of each other's efforts. To discredit Antonblast as nothing but a Pizza Tower ripoff(which is stupid because they're both inspired by Wario Land)is both dismissive and kind of disrespectful.

@Yoshif3 Actually the Anton series predates Pizza Tower.

Not gonna lie. I know Nintendo's having a rough year and just threw this out for us. I was not expecting anything. Silksong never crossed my mind once. That said...
The Little Cat game looked alright. Like a cross between Stray and Untitled Goose. I've played Stitch on my iPad, big fan. Totally chill game. Love it. Anything from Wayforward is almost guaranteed solid. Love anything with "Steamworld" in the title. So, from what looks to be a dry year, this may keep us from getting too thirsty.

I'm happy we got the Indie Direct. Some news is better than no news. But the showing today was pretty weak IMHO.
I know it's a meme to expect Silksong at this point, but it still sucks that it wasn't here today.

@Xeacons Thanks for sharing about Stitch, I was going to ask if anyone had played it! Looks like a nice puzzle game to sit down with.

• If Europa plays as well as it looks, should be great. Plan to try the demo
• Played original Cat Quest a few years ago. Found it reasonably entertaining, but passed on II. Have to admit Cat Quest III may motivate me to try the franchise again.
• Stitch looks interesting. will need more information on how the puzzles actually work. A demo would be nice.
• BZZZT looks good, but depends on how 'challenging' it turns out.
• Duck Detective looks like it could be fun.
• Although I didn't finish the original Steamworld Heist, I enjoyed it enough to look into the sequel as it gets closer.

@N00BiSH @Axecon thanks for the info.... I was actually asking a legit question as I haven't played either of them and I've been interested in Pizza Tower for a while. So I wanted to know what is up with that situation.

If it isn't a ripoff or a copy/paste then I'll add it to my wishlist.

It seems I wasn't the only one confused about the situation:
https://www.destructoid.com/antonblast-is-already-being-defended-over-unfair-pizza-tower-comparisons/

They do look eerily similar from the perspective of an outside fan to either of both games.

I thought it was a very strong Indie Showcase. The game jumping in the shadows and the stich puzzle game looked very nice. I could list them all tbf, (I won't, but there wasn't anything really stand out disappointing to me.)

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Silksong fans suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

I didn’t get anything i was hoping for, but still a good direct with lots of interesting titles. The TMNT roguelike is my most likely purchase. Antonblast , Little Kitty Big City, Animal Well, Europa and Yar’s Rising all appeal to me. Thanks for compiling this list!

It's a great Direct for cat lovers.

More information and even release dates for a few games on my "Missing-in-action-gamelist" (Schim and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, which both look promising when it comes to artstyle and gameplay) and showing some new games that also have my sincere interest (Europa and Refine Self) is always a good thing. But at the end even surprising me with a sequel to one of my favourite games from the 3DS-era (Steamworld Heist) is just utterly great . Overall I thought there was a lot of variation in what was on display, so not a bad Direct if I may say so .

Well pretty disappointing. Animal Well looks pretty cool and I like the Yar girls personality despite her looking bland and the world's looking pretty bare.

I like when there aren't upcoming games I want since that just means filling up backlog with on sale games instead.

This direct was very good for me. Several games interested me. I bought stitch as soon as I got home. After 10 minutes, I love it. It’s like Piczle line game, but I like the visuals, UI and puzzles much better. Of course I just started and don’t know the difficulty curve yet, but there are help options. I really like it so far.

I am happy with this Direct!

Schim looks very cool. I always dreamt of such a concept: jumping from shadow to shadow.

Lorelei and Refind Self seem very interesting too.

I watched first the Japanese Indie, and the game called Bô to Tsukiyo no Aoi Hana (translation: something like "Bô and Moonlit Azure Night) looks amazing! This game seems to mix gameplay from The Messenger (especially the multiple jump that we can "reload" by striking different things) and Ender Lilies, in traditional Japanese mythology:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIxBA5lmJR0

@MSaturn Agreed. I'm sure it is great for some people, and that is cool, but personally I'm really disliking the pretentious, cozy-style games that are being showcased here. So many gimmicks, and they're obviously hoping to be the next viral social media break-out.

I think all of these dev's definitely have a lot of talent, but I find the subject matter pretty off-putting myself.

Also, so much vocal fry. The voice over in that Yars trailer made me queasy, I couldn't skip it fast enough.

Antonblast and Cat Quest III (though not my ideal aesthetic) look pretty great though.

I don't mean to be so negative, but it all seems really transparent, shallow and trend-chasing.

This was honestly the worst Nintendo presentation I've ever seen and I will not buy any of the games shown in the video. It's the first time I've ever seen an Nintendo software showcase where there's not even one single title I want as usually I want at least 2 to 3 of the titles shown.

Also, the style of having the developers drone on about their game is boring as heck. Imagine a magician coming on stage and talking about his magic trick before he does it. The crowd would go to sleep. Show the game and talk about the game while you're showing the game. I don't care what the developers look like. I don't want to meet them and I don't want to know about them.

I wasn't on the gaming doomsday wagon, until now. Starting to look like we got a long drought in front of us and that's not a direct comment on the indie landscape.

@Captain_Toad Happy Birthday!

It was a good direct with a lot of variety! I'm not actually planning to buy any of the games, but there'll be loads in there for others. My one criticism is that the showcase announcers were insufferably annoying throughout the whole thing. I actually turned the volume down so I didn't have to listen to them. Hopefully they'll be less off putting in the next one.

I'm mainly excited for the cat-based games, but the personality test and Laser Eyes pique my interest.

3 games I have interest about so far:

1. Cat Quest 3
2. Europa
3. Little Kitty, Big City

@Diogmites Thanks!

ngl, every time they announce a Steamworld game that's not Dig 3 I'm a little disappointed. It's not fair because I haven't tried the heist games and I'm sure they're good but... man. I want Dig 3.

Wow I thought Antonblast was vaporware...nice to see its actually coming out even if it's not for a long time. The yars reboot looks...interesting. But considering WF hasn't had the best output lately I'm gonna remain cautiously optimistic.

An okay Indie direct. not bad that is.

Cat Quest III, Europa and Steaworld Heist II for me only I think.

@wollywoo I HATE the steambots, but man are these games fun to play! Steamworld Heist is every bit as addictive and fun as dig was to me. And usually it's dirt cheap, so no big risks there!

@AJB83 @Msaturn @abrader Glad that you expressed this. I was watching it and was feeling that I just must have very old fashioned tastes or something. The tone/vibe it was all leaning toward just wasn't for me. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that made me feel it, but a lot seem to be aiming for a 'cozy' vibe? Which is a bit of an overused term at this point, but I don't know. I am happy for anyone who likes anything here and that they get an audience/sales, but I am obviously not the demographic for what was on offer on this occasion.

Oh, have to agree with those that found the announcing/presenting style boring and a bit distracting. I think the way Nintendo handle it with one voice actor for all titles lends itself better to the overall presentation aspect. I realise that would probably take away the indie aspect if they got too involved though!

BZZZT is the only game in the direct that we already know is quality (it launched on PC in November).

It's got a MetaCritic "91".

An old-school, intense, precision platformer. It's short and can be beaten in only a couple hours. But you can ramp up the difficulty and go for flawless level runs to extend the fun.

It goes for $12 USD on Steam, and is on sale now for $7 and change.

I don't get why people aren't talking about Schim, it looks AMAZING. One of the absolute highlights of the Direct for me, probably along Europa and TMNT

Edit: forgot about Little Kitty, definitely picking that up