Indieventure

Now that the nights are well and truly closing in (for us here in the UK at least) and Halloween is behind us, there's just enough time for the Indieventure trio to take one last look at the latest batch of new(ish) indie games we've been enjoying before turning our attention to the serious business of end-of-year celebrations. We say new-ish because, while Rachel and Liam are as on it and up-to-t...

This episode of EXTRA is a particularly special one, as our guest today is none other than our very own Rachel Watts! Rachel has spent the last 12 months writing a book all about COCOON, the 2023 puzzle game developed by Geometric Interactive. The book chronicles the development of the game, including its puzzle design, world-building, and soundscapes. Featuring exclusive interviews with its creat...

There's been a bit of a scheduling pile-up at Indieventure HQ: within the next three episodes we somehow have to fit in our 2nd anniversary, Halloween, and our 50th episode, and make all of them feel as special as they deserve. Working around a lot of real-life commitments at the moment also means that we had to bulk-record a bunch of episodes back-to-back and… look, what I'm trying to say is, yes...

The last time Liam spoke with Ed Thorn, he was days away from announcing his departure from Rock Paper Shotgun. Beginning his career as a guides writer, Ed climbed the ranks to become reviews editor of the prestigious PC gaming blog, before deciding it was time to finally move on. Ten months after that original episode went live (eight when we recorded this - soz for the delay) Ed returns to discu...

OK so here's the thing: as an indie game podcast – even one that we put out for free and entirely just for fun – we can't not acknowledge the recent release of Hollow Knight: Silksong, one of the most anticipated indie games ever, right? But also, as it turns out, for various reasons, none of us have actually played it. What to do, then? Well it turns out that while exactly zero out of three hosts...

Hello, it's me again, the Ostrich that writes episode descriptions in exchange for small amounts of grain. My name is Clive, by the way. Not that any of you asked 🙄 Things have been a bit better for ol' Clive these last few weeks. Liam fell down a storm drain in early August and broke every bone in his body, rendering him unable to lock me in the glass cube that serves as my home. As a treat, I'v...

Hello again, it's me, the Ostrich that Indieventure hires to write episode descriptions while Rebecca is away. Well, I say hire. Liam actually keeps me in a big glass cube in his garage, and whenever my services are required, he uses a large hammer to release me. The entire process is inefficient (and don't even get me started on how much he's spending on glass per financial quarter), but he has s...

In this episode of Indieventure Extra, Liam chats to Aaron Potter about his new book: 50 Indie Games That Changed The World. Aaron is a prolific games journalist with bylines at GamesRadar, Edge, Wireframe magazine and Kotaku (to name just a few). However, real heads may recognise him as the former face of the Push Square YouTube channel, which he briefly hosted alongside a certain northerner from...

Okay, technically there's still a month left before the official end of summer, but who doesn't get a bit wistful towards the end of August? It's probably a hangover from those school summer holidays, even though the Indieventure trio – along with most of our listeners – left those days behind longer ago than we'd like to admit. Still, taking the sting off significantly is the fact that Summer 202...

The Indieventure trio are back from our slightly longer-than-originally planned summer break, and thank goodness, we can just about remember how to record a podcast! Luckily, we've had an idea in the back pocket for a while now that allows us to have a bit of a free-flowing chat as we ease back into the swing of things. The theme of this episode is, broadly speaking, other media we'd recommend to...

Hey there, listener to the Indieventure podcast! Is your least favourite part of any episode the part where we actually talk about video games? Are you one of the surprising number of people in our Discord who actually seem to prefer the nonsense tangents we go off on at the slightest provocation to our years of indie gaming insight and experience? Well, do we ever have the series for you! Welcome...

Hello, I'm the Ostrich that Indieventure commissions to write episode descriptions while Rebecca is on holiday. They pay me in small stones, which I swallow to grind up insects and plants in my gizzard because I don't have any teeth. That's a real ostrich fact, proving that I am indeed an ostrich. Stop EMAILING ME. On this episode of Indieventure (a podcast about indie games that has never mention...

Long-time listeners or observant newcomers will already know that Indiventure is a fortnightly podcast, which comes with its own benefits and drawbacks. One major plus is that it allows us to keep making this show as an extracurricular hobby without getting burned out; but the downsides include sometimes not being especially timely with our topic, if the latest big release happened to drop during...

It's episode 40(!!) of Indieventure, and this episode, we’re checking in with what we’ve all been playing recently and turns out it’s a fantastic bundle of indies! Who would have guessed!   Our May 2025 list includes the bonkers immersive sim Skin Deep, the cutesy mystery adventure The Beekeeper's Picnic: A Sherlockian Adventure, the introspective, interactive essay Many Nights a Whisper, Rusty La...

In this episode of Indieventure Extra, Rachel chats with puzzle bestie and Thinky Games colleague Joseph Mansfield about - you guessed it - thinky games! Joe is the head puzzle expert over at Thinky Games.com and is the brains behind the Thinky Games database, the Thinky Awards, ThinkyCon AND the brand new and upcoming Thinky Direct puzzle showcase! That's quite the puzzle-focused CV, not to menti...

Welcome, welcome to Indieventure's second-ever episode recorded in-person! Your fabulous trio of hosts recently secluded ourselves once again in a caravan in Yorkshire and this time our resulting nonsense is even more unhinged than last year's "live" episode. What began life, several months ago, as an idea for a fairly straightforward character-led Vault episode has instead brought us here, to Ind...

The end of April also marks the official end of the previous year's games calendar, as all of the Big 5 games industry awards shows (Golden Joysticks, The Game Awards, DICE, Game Developers' Choice, and the BAFTAs) have now been and gone. Which is useful because it means that here at Indieventure, we get to draw a line under 2024 at long last and turn our attentions firmly to the future of games r...

Not to get too big-headed or anything, but I think it's fair to say that here at Indieventure we knew about Blue Prince before almost anyone. The demo that sparked obsessions in both Rachel and Rebecca over the past few months has now transformed into 2025's most highly-rated game release so far, garnering early GOTY predictions not just within the indie space, but even when compared to this year'...

I don't want to alarm anyone, but the 2020s are already half over. This horrific revelation doesn't have many upsides, but one of them is surely the fact that – with five years of this rotten decade under our belts – we can start to think a little bit about the current shape of the gaming landscape, and how it'll be remembered when we inevitably arbitrarily lump it all together in another five yea...

Sakes alive, we're 35, and in this episode we've been inspired by the recent release of Wanderstop to turn our attention to the nebulous topic of cosy games. Is "cosy" a genre? A theme? A vibe? Are all cosy games broadly the same, or is it just a blanket term that can refer to any game without a central combat mechanic? Is "cosy" even still a valid classification now that we've moved so far past a...

Hello and welcome back to Indieventure Extra, our bonus series where we interview key members of the games industry. Liam recently sat down with Davey Wreden (The Stanley Parable, The Beginner's Guide) and Karla Zimonja (Gone Home) to chat about Wanderstop, their recently released game about a burned-out warrior attempting to find solace by running a tea shop in the woods. If you've yet to play Wa...

Do you need to say #SPON #AD if all you're advertising is your own free-to-join Discord server? That's the question our intrepid Indieventure trio ask ourselves this episode, as we return to answer more of your listener questions in a shameless plug for the lovely little community space we've built up for ourselves over the past few months! If you've ever wondered which indie game character would...

Welcome back to Indieventure EXTRA, our bonus series where we interview key members of the games industry. In this episode, Liam sits down with the directors at Kaizen Game Works to chat about their highly anticipated next title: the open-world mascot management crime adventure Promise Mascot Agency. Rachel Noy (Art Director), Oli Clarke Smith (Game Director) and Phil Crabtree (Technical Director)...

It's Valentine's Day(ish, still, shush) and so naturally the Indieventure trio have turned our attention to… horror games! Yes, we're really on-form with our historic refusal to do normal seasonal celebration episodes, as it's recently occurred to us that it's been about a year and a half since we last did a dedicated horror deep dive. And since resident goth-at-heart Rebecca is steering the ship...

In this episode, the Indieventure trio ask ourselves a surprisingly complicated question: how do you play video games specifically in January? Do you take the time to go back over some exciting titles from the year before that you still haven't got around to yet, or do you write all that off and start the new year with a blank slate ready to fill up with brand-new releases? Obviously we're all gam...