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Japanese Indie Game Gets Themed Rooms At Kyoto Hotel
3.11.2021
In the past, Kotaku has introduced themed rooms at Japanese hotels. Typically, these rooms are for established franchises like Kingdom Hearts. But now, one Kyoto hotel is offering a room plastered in Japanese indie game Unreal Life. Read more
15 years later, did indie game discovery happen like we thought?
21.10.2021
What's changed in game distribution, tools and platforms since?
I’m Gonna Play The Heck Out Of This Lo-Fi Spin On Pokémon
19.10.2021
The elevator pitch for Cassette Beasts, a forthcoming indie game, can’t fit on a single line. A lo-fi monster-hunting game clearly inspired by Pokémon? Or, oh, oh, how about a top-down role-playing game with gorgeous pixel art and killer music? Surely it’s something distinguished by being awash...
Epic Finally Admits Among Us Inspired Fortnite's Impostors Mode
12.10.2021
If it walks like Among Us, talks like Among Us, and quacks like Among Us, it was probably at the very least inspired by the runaway success of Innersloth’s murder mystery party game. Epic Games is now finally copping to that in the patch notes for a new update to Fornite’s Impostors mode.Read more
Dev Reveals Exploitative Nature of Most Game Contracts
17.8.2021
Receiving a publishing deal from an indie publisher can be a turning point for an independent developer. But when one-man team Jakefriend was approached with an offer to invest half a million Canadian dollars into his hand-drawn action-adventure game Scrabdackle, he discovered the contract’s terms...
Everything Shown During Today's Nintendo Switch World Showcase
11.8.2021
It’s time once again for Nintendo’s Indie World, a semi-regular showcase of some of the cool indie games coming to the Switch in the coming months. This latest presentation features a combination of exciting, brand-new games and old favorites making their Nintendo Switch debut. Here’s all...
Happy Indie-Penance Day!
5.7.2021
Shhhhhh, all the grown ups are distracted. Kotaku’s proper employees are all off doing whatever it is Americans do on Independence Day, and in a woefully ironic act, have allowed a Brit to take over the site. So aside from leaving crates of tea everywhere and graffitiing “Long Live King George...
User Reviews Are Still The Best Tool We Have
5.7.2021
It’s an increasingly common refrain: user reviews, particularly on Steam and Metacritic, are increasingly unhelpful. We’ve covered all the facets of review bombing for years, but what’s interesting is that some developers themselves are backing the idea of scrapping user reviews altogether.Read more
PlayStation Is Hard To Work With, Devs Say
1.7.2021
After yesterday’s industry-wide discussion of the cost of being visible on Sony’s PlayStation Store, Kotaku has heard from multiple independent developers and publishers expressing similar frustrations and fury.Read more
Sony Charging Devs At Least $25,000 For PlayStation Store Visibility
30.6.2021
In a furious tirade on Twitter, independent games publisher Iain Garner of Neon Doctrine has unleashed his frustrations with trying to publish games on a major games console—one he says that isn’t made by Microsoft. During the spleen-venting, he suggests that getting prominent promotion for a game...
Wholesome Games Respond To Backlash In The Classiest Way
9.6.2021
Wholesome Games is a gaming community, focused around a Twitter account, that brings attention to gorgeous, sweet, friendly games, for no reason other than the sheer joy of it. So of course, after they recently announced a second, higher profile Wholesome Direct showcase for this weekend, June...
Every Indie Game Shown During Today’s Guerrilla Collective Showcase
5.6.2021
It’s officially E3 season. Between the marquee E3 pressers (Microsoft, Square Enix, Ubisoft, et cetera) and individual events from publishers gone E3-rogue (what’s up, Sony?), you can catch a handful of events focusing on smaller games. The first of those, at least per the calendar, is...
Epic Games Store Adds New Apps Including, Um, Another Game Store
22.4.2021
Epic announced today that a slate of new non-gaming apps are now available on the Epic Games Store. The most interesting new app added is the indie games storefront Itch.io, potentially giving the thousands of smaller games on their store a huge new audience of EGS users. Read more
Japan's Biggest Indie Game Event Will Be Held This September In-Person
20.4.2021
BitSummit, Japan’s biggest indie game event, will be held this September in Kyoto. It will, however, not be open to international attendees, but rather, only Japan residents.Read more