Indie jungle, the mighty jungle.

Hello and welcome back to yet another of our Indie News Roundups. It’s been a busy ol’ week in games but E3 is just about closing up shop for another year and we saw a fair few indie titles that are worth keeping an eye on if they slipped past you over the last few days. So, get a cup-o-something, get a seat, and get caught up.

Carrion will let you play as body absorbing nightmare monster in 2020

Had enough of always being the stalked in horror games? Do you want to be the one who gets to carve out some horror? Am I starting to sound like I’m selling this game? Well, maybe but Carrion from developer Phobia Games looks like a terrifying horror game where you – finally – get to play as the terror.

Selling itself as a reverse horror game, Carrion has you playing as an amorphous monster that’s able to bound around levels, eating people and generally being scary as you spread panic and violence across the game’s dinge looking facility.

Carrion’s Steam description also notes that your monster will “grow and evolve,” suggesting that Carrion will have a Metroidvania quality to it.

There’s no specific release date for Carrion but developer Phonia Games is aiming for an early 2020 release for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Cadence of Hyrule – Crypt of the NecroDancer is out later today

Nintendo announced during its E3 Direct show that the Zelda meets Crypt of the NecroDance crossover, Cadence of Hyrule, would be released on June 13, which – if you didn’t know – is today.

The rhythm-based dungeon crawler should be available (depending on when you’re reading this) now after Nintendo moved to put off the game’s release until the evening of June 13.

Cadence of Hyrule marks something of a milestone, being the first Zelda property to be developed outside of Nintendo, instead, it’s being handled by the Crypt of the NecroDancer team Brace Yourself Games.

We reported a while back that Cadence of Hyrule was going to be released on June 20 after its release date was spotted in the store page source code but it seems that both Brace Yourself and Nintendo want the game out a little sooner and we’re certainly not complaining.

And finally… 12 Minutes’ developer explained why the game’s environment is so small (five years ago)

12 Minutes was one of the few titles that got a fair amount of time during Microsoft’s E3 conference, giving us just enough time to see the game’s time-looping mechanic go to work in a story that seems drenched with tension.

Along with the mechanics and the story, 12 Minutes’ minimalist environment was another aspect that’s garnered a fair bit of attention. Apparently, developer Luis Antonio has been asked about his decision on the minute play area quite a bit since that conference and it’s a question he’s answered already – five years ago to be precise (we’re all about that breaking news at GGS Gamer).

Antonio explained that during the early development of 12 Minutes, the original concept was to have the gameplay out across a small US countryside with each loop lasting 24 hours. He said that the original concept “was just too filled with space that is not needed for gameplay,” and so the downsizing began.

The countryside became a house, with three bedrooms and a basement, Antonio didn’t say whether the game’s time cycle was cut along with the environment. Even this extreme makeover for the game was too big for Antonio, and so he decided that the game only needed two cramped bedrooms, a sad looking bathroom, kitchen, and living room.

Essentially, Antonio said that the cramped space all works to “have a richer environment and add to the claustrophobic feeling.” The downsizing of in-game time from 24 hours to 12 minutes, we’re assuming, was also done to cut down any degree of waste in the game. By the sounds of things, 12 Minutes is going to be a fairly concise affair, and it’s always interesting to get a look at how much a game has changed since its original concept.

12 Minutes didn’t get a release window during its E3 reveal but it’ll release on PC and Xbox One.