Prepare yourself. This trip to the indie neighborhood will be a little darker than usual. I played two demos and downloaded another title from Game Pass, and while it'd be easy to give each game its own article, I believe in brevity over needless rambling (believe it or not)! We'll kick things off today with disgusting abominations that shouldn't exist, but do anyway!

'Everything is Crab' Is An Addictive "Animal Evolution Roguelite" With Delightfully Dark Undertones

The above image somehow explains everything and nothing about the soon-to-be indie sensation, Everything is Crab. You play as an adorable blue blob named "Darwin", and your goals aren't too dissimilar from real life. Survive. Evolve. Thrive. At the start of a run, you have a basic "Shove" attack. You find other creatures, you shove them to death, and you eat them before others can. Once you fill your progress bar, you choose how Darwin evolves. Do you grow horns, increasing the range of your attacks? Maybe you get a thicker skin and make yourself an evolutionary tank! You also have a shifting ecosystem to deal with, various biomes, and challenging boss encounters.

As a Chaos Connoisseur, I loved what I played of the demo. There are so many evolution variants, and inevitably, you have to decide what kind of large-and-in-charge fiend you are. Me? I'm too aggressive to not play as a predator that goes around, devouring creatures, getting big, and bullying every other species that dares to oppose me. However, maybe you prefer the herbivore lifestyle! Senseless violence isn't necessarily set in stone, but if you're going to play a less antagonistic role out in the wild? You better at least be prepared to defend yourself when the apex predators come a-knockin'!

'Vampire Crawlers' Is My New Favorite Way To Experience Roguelike Indie Bliss

When I finally boarded the Vampire Survivors hype train once the indie bullet hell roguelike hit Game Pass, I understood. I sunk a good amount of time into it. I really like Survivors, truly! It's the perfect "I want to play something for either five minutes or five hours" experience to gobble up a lazy afternoon. Vampire Crawlers, though? 20/10 game. The sounds, the sights, the expertly paced progression, the combos and build compositions -- Crawlers is poncle exclusively making a game for me.

I already have an unhealthy obsession with deckbuilding roguelikes. But Crawlers hooked me the instant it dropped me into the tutorial and gave me a taste of its complexities. I had my Battle of Helm's Deep moment when I fought wave after wave of ravenous flying demons, trying to reach the other side of a bridge to get to the next level. I was confident. Knowledgeable, even. But the numbers game just decimated my schemes. Over and over. But every time, I was a little closer to the end of the bridge. I could feel myself getting stronger and smarter. That's what you want from a roguelike; when you get that "Just One More Run" cycle going, it's magical!

'The Darkest Files' Adeptly Scratches That Detective Itch, Making Me A Prosecutor Following One Of History's Most Terrifying Regimes

I don't have a cute introduction for The Darkest Files, but here's what I'll tell you from what I played of the demo. This is one of the most harrowing, satisfying detective games I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing -- indie or otherwise. I say that as a tried-and-true detective genre snob. You're Esther Katz, and you've been invited to join a special unit to prosecute... ...criminals who perpetuated horrific crimes against anyone who threatened their Regime. (This takes place in mid-1900s Germany. That should tell you exactly what we're dealing with here.)

You're reviewing documents and interrogating people over events that occurred years ago. The Darkest Files doesn't hold your hand, trusting you to recreate old crime scenes to punish those who reveled in the brutality of their actions and escaped accountability due to systemic corruption. Every person you meet has an interesting backstory intertwined with your investigations. The interrogations are tense as you face off against people who could be mistaken, misremembering, or outright lying about the past.

And the devastating part? You can fail. Horrible people might walk free if your deductions don't hold up in court. When justice is hard-won, every step to balance the scales must be taken with the utmost care.