Welcome to Indie Watch, a regular feature here at P2 where our Editorial team take it in turns to highlight 2 or 3 Indie titles that have them excited. It is our chance to show off some games that you may have missed and a way to help boost the things we love most about the industry. Join us each week for a new edition.
Indie Watch - Dispatch & UNBEATABLE
Dispatch
I’m a sucker for anything involving superheroes, but knowing that Dispatch was made by a team of ex-Telltale Games writers and directors would have automatically piqued my interest no matter what. Touted as a “superhero workplace comedy”, Dispatch puts you in the shoes of Mecha Man – a superhero without his suit, who now has to temporarily take a desk job in order to make ends meet. In between making the type of narrative choices Telltale are known for, you’ll also be in charge of deploying the team of superheroes Mecha Man has been given to manage. It’s emergency services dispatch with a twist, and you’ll need to get to know your heroes in order to work out which one to send on any given job. Sometimes it’s not just about managing which crises are the most important, but about figuring out which one of your team members is least likely to make the situation worse.
It also has an absolutely stacked voice cast, headed up by Aaron Paul and Laura Bailey, whose characters, based on the demo you can play right now, seem to have some very interesting history. I can’t wait to find out more about every single one of the weird (meant very affectionately) team members this game has presented when it launches some time later this year.
UNBEATABLE
UNBEATABLE’s tagline is “a rhythm adventure where musical is illegal and you do crimes”, and honestly, that might just be one of the catchiest taglines I’ve heard in years. This game surprised me when I played the demo as part of LudoNarraCon earlier this year (a demo which you can also play right now, on Steam), and now I can’t wait to play more. I do feel like it’s important to point out that your character, Beat, also seems to do a lot of crimes that aren’t music-related, so the tagline is very slightly misleading, but Beat is also a musician, so it isn’t a lie either.
The game seems to be about embracing anarchy to help others, and there are a lot of mysteries at the heart of it, so obviously I’m desperate to jump back in and find out all the answers. Along with the band-related rhythm mechanics that propel the main story, there are also a bunch of rhythm-driven arcade-style games that you can play along the way – or in their own, dedicated arcade mode. If you’re intrigued by any kind of “be gay, do crime” mentality, I entirely recommend jumping in and trying out the demo – even if you’re not usually a rhythm game person, it might surprise you.
