The best indie games I played on the EGX 2023 show floor

14 October 2023 , 06:00

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The Spirit of the Samurai utilises a unique stop-motion art style to make action and exploration more cinematic (Image: Digital Mind)

The UK’s biggest video game event, EGX London 2023, has returned in full force this week with plenty of smaller inventive titles on show.

Just because this year sees the release of several blockbuster AAA titles still to come, like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Super Mario Bros Wonder, Modern Warfare 3 and more, doesn’t mean that there aren’t still plenty of smaller indie titles worth getting excited about. You only need to hop along to EGX 2023, taking place at the ExCeL exhibition centre in London from now until Sunday, October 15, for proof of this. The show floor is stacked with cool treats to see – ideal for filling the gaps between bigger releases.

I spent Thursday and Friday on the EGX London 2023 show floor to determine what you should play should you attend. And even if you aren’t able to, these indie games are worth looking forward to. Here’s a handful of the best indie games I played.

Yellow Taxi Go Vroom

A CRT filter works alongside 3D polygons to really convey the throwback vibes. (Panik Arcade)

Don’t be dissuaded by the tongue-in-cheek nature of this game’s title. Yellow Taxi Go Vroom is an unabashed throwback to that 90s era of game design where hub worlds were all the rage and PlayStation One polygonal graphics pushed tech boundaries. Described as “an arcade bump'a'jump platformer” by developer Panik Arcade, you play as the titular yellow taxi, zooming and vrooming several different zones while helping nondescript NPCs like “Morio” and his metal counterpart.

Yellow Taxi Go Vroom absolutely nails the look and vibe of those early 3D games, immediately putting me in mind of the likes of Ape Escape and Kula World. The difference here, however, is that I never found myself fighting the controls. Working out how to reach places and ledge using the handling of a taxi cab appears to be where most of the challenge comes from, in what is easily a charming little car-based platformer.

Abandoned prison which caged dangerous cartel killers found by urban explorer

The Spirit of the Samurai

The Spirit of the Samurai is played primarily using the right analogue stick in a break away from other side-scrollers (Digital Mind Games)

That a team as small as Digital Mind Games are able to create a wildly atmospheric and evocative 2D metroidvania game like The Spirit of the Samurai is seriously impressive. My EGX 2023 demo saw me take control of Takeshi as a silhouette, battling what could be undead demons against the smog and smoke plumes in brutal fashion. The kicker here is that, while parrying is mapped to the trigger and rolling/jumping the face buttons, swinging with your sword is all done with the right analogue stick. It's a wild concept, but one that works to great effect to let you inhabit the samurai role.

Dialogue is sadly performed by AI right now, but the developer assured me that this will be resolved by the time The Spirit of the Samurai releases on PC and consoles next year. The side-scrolling sections are broken up with cinematic cut scenes that almost play out in stop-motion, giving the game its own unique vibe and movie-like quality. If you played Trek to Yomi when it was released last year and were disappointed, Spirit of the Samurai is primed to fill that void.

Robobeat

Robobeat lets you wield two guns at once and challenges you to shoot on the beat (Simon Fredholm)

There have been a lot of rhythm-based first-person shooters released recently that task you to shoot and perform crucial actions on the bear in order to survive. Robobeat differentiates itself from the likes of BPM: Bullets Per Minute and Metal Hellsinger, though, by replacing the usual heavy metal music with pulsating techno beats and a neon-lit art style.

Robobeat cares so much about its soundtrack that it makes cassette tapes a collectable, encouraging you to hop and bounce around stages to seek them out; you can even swap them mid-battle. Then there’s the act of parrying your enemies’ shots, which adds another layer to the ‘pat your head, rub your stomach’ way of thinking we’ve come to expect from this musical genre. Techno fans finally get the rhythm-shooter they’ve been begging for with Robobeat.

Prison City

Prison City isn't shy about its inspirations, but that's what's great about it. (RetroWare)

8-bit style platformers are a dime a dozen these days, ever since the likes of Shovel Knight, Panzer Paladin, The Messenger and others locked the art style down. That said, Prison City also mixes in plenty of satirical pokes to other popular video games and ‘80s movies, right down to the fact that characters talk to each other codec call style a la Metal Gear Solid. Prison City plays differently to a lot of other games of this ilk in that the hero doesn’t shoot a gun or swing a sword, tackling techno-terrorists using a throwable Chakram.

Prison City is actually already available to purchase and play now if you’re on PC, but console players are left waiting a little while longer to beat down bad guys while venturing through a dystopian metropolis. The platforming itself took a little while to get my head around in terms of grabbing ledge, scaling walls and leaping while trying not to descend to my death, but fortunately, it’s not as punishing as the era of game it successfully apes.

Behind

Behind opts for a pixelated art style, differing from Super Smash Bros in that you can only land attacks from, well, behind. (Nervous Knight Games)

The indie-est of indie titles that you probably haven’t heard of, Behind is a multiplayer platform fighter game in the vein of Super Smash Bros. where four players duke it out in a bid to rack up the most kills. However, as if the game’s title didn’t already make it obvious, you can only do so by finding a way to get behind your enemy and landing a hit. Doing so makes for rather chaotic scenes, moving around platforms, dashing and jumping to get around rivals as they try to do the same.

Behind’s cat-and-mouse approach to a genre that Nintendo most definitely holds the crown to is a simple but effective enough twist that it drastically changes your way of thinking. Every character’s back glows a different colour to make your target clear. But actually hitting your friend’s backside is just as much about patience as it is cunning thinking. Expect to see Behind hit Itch.io (entirely for free) in the near future.

Aaron Potter