The Indie News Roundup: Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption, Dimension Drifter, and Lost Words

Indie-spensible news.

Welcome back to another weekly injection of indie news. With stories about new games and new partnerships, let’s not waste any more time with niceties and get straight to the stories.

Souls-like Sacrifice for Redemption Arrives this month

For those of you who – like our Sarah – have managed to platinum Bloodborne and had your time with the Dark Souls series, the “hard but fair” gameplay of Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption could be worth your attention.

The game, which is developed by Darkstar, has you play as Adam as you fight your way through the end of the world while tackling a set of bosses who each reflect one of Adam’s past sins.

The gameplay takes inspiration from the methodical approach to combat that we’ve seen in From Software’s game in the past, though Darkstar has also admitted that they’ve taken inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus in the design of the bosses.

The way Sinner looks set to distinguish itself from the other Sols-like games is through the progression system – or lack thereof. Because with every boss fight, Adam will actually level down, choosing which of his attributes to sacrifice in order to continue, the name of the game makes a little more sense now.

Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption will arrive for PS4, Xbox One, and the Switch on October 18, with a PC release later this year initially going through Discord exclusively before coming on to Steam at a later date.

Dimension Drifter is available now

Who likes things moving fast? Who likes stuff being ultra-violent? Well you… over caffeinated psychopaths, have we got the game for you! Because Dimension Drifter from Blue Eagle – who also made the equally violent Unloved – is available on Steam right now.

Dimen Drifter supposedly takes inspiration from DOOM, though the third-person view, along with the vibrant colour scheme and the… ahem, rather buxom characters, don’t show too much of that inspiration. The game does look pretty violent though.

Drifter sees the world’s timeline fall out of whack, giving way to an unending string of strange events. Fast forward a century or so and now portals have opened up, with demons pouring out which no-one is really a fan of.

So, it’s up to you, the drifters who’ve been exiled by the rest of humanity, to take out the demonic trash. The levels you play through are all randomly generated, though the rooms are all handmade, meaning you’ll probably end up with level with a bit of variation in layout but all look quite similar.

If you like the look of Dimension Drifter, you can pick it up on Steam in its early access state, though there’s no word yet as to when a full release is expected.

Modus Games set to Publish Sketchbook Games’ Lost Words

Puxxle-platformer Lost Words, developed by a rag-tag group of talented so-and-so’s at Sketchbook Games, has been picked up for publication from Modus Games.

Lost Words offers a charming little adventure where you solve puzzles in a diary before playing out these memories in a platform style of game. The puzzles will have you arranging words to create bridges or moving text around to uncover hidden pieces of text and pictures too.

It’s been a fairly long journey for Lost Words, originally starting out as a project for a 2013 GameJam, its creator Mark Backler decided to continue working on it. Having picked up a series of grants and other funding, Backler managed to assemble a little crew who’ve banded together to make a delightful little game, and the endorsement from Modus Games, who are also behind titles like Override: Mech City Brawler and 2019’s Ary and the Secret Season, should give the game the legs it needs to get your attention when it finally relases.

When will that be? Well, there’s no specific date yet, but Lost Words will be arriving on PS4, Xbox One, and PC at some point in 2019.