Many things can be considered art, but for gamers, nothing quite resonates like games that not only offer great story and gameplay, but one that can convey a sense of awe or wonder or fear through its art style.With the
Indie Arena Booth Online underway during Gamescom, we wanted to highlight a variety of games that we are showing off during the event. This includes a hand-picked selection of artistic titles that gamers are sure to fall in love with.
If you are looking for something new to play, and appreciate unique art styles, make sure to keep an eye out on these 6 artistic indie games for virtual escapists!
Spinch
If you like some intense platforming with your artsy game,
look no further than Spinch. It uses a cartoon-like aesthetic and mixes it with plenty of trippy backdrops and monsters. Calling it psychedelic is honestly probably an understatement.
In this platformer, you play as an organism that is bent on finding its offspring. You’ll have to dash, dodge, climb, swim, jump, and more as you make your way through a variety of challenging levels to complete your journey.
The game’s unique art style and music can be chalked up to award-winning Canadian cartoonist, Jesse Jacobs, and artist, James Kirkpatrick.
Unbound: Worlds Apart
If you prefer your artistic games to be less bright and whimsical and more doom and dread,
Unbound: Worlds Apart is going to be right up your alley.
In this 2D platformer, you play as Soli, a conjurer that can summon magic portals between different realities. Using your powers, you’ll gain unique abilities depending on the reality you’re in and you’ll need everything at your disposal if you are to find out what happened to your ravaged world.
The game features a beautiful hand-drawn environment, challenging puzzles, and a nonlinear story that you’ll love getting lost in.
Foregone
Here’s another 2D platformer, but this one adds unique 3D-style pixel art and animations to the formula. In Forgone, you play as a super soldier that must help save your city from further devastation.
The game’s unique art style lends itself well to this action-packed sidescroller. It will not take you long to get lost in some of the stunning and hand-drawn pixel environments.
Add to that some intimidating enemies and some high-octane shooting, slashing, and looting and
you have the total package with Forgone.
Pumpkin Jack
Let’s pivot away from 2D titles for a minute and dive into the 3D platformer,
Pumpkin Jack. This is another gloomy title, but don’t let that fool you, there’s a lot of beauty in this game.
You play as Jack, the Mythical Pumpkin Lord. Put on your bad guy hat, because in this title you’ll be helping Evil overtake Good. Combining whimsical characters, interesting characters, and a dark, spooky world, the game’s environment, story, and gameplay will keep you pushing forward, just to see what happens next.
The game provides some shooting elements and blends them with solid platforming and puzzle-solving, so if any of those things pique your interest, watch out for Pumpkin Jack when it releases later this year.
Minute of Islands
Ok, let’s get away from the doom and gloom for a minute. Well, the doom is still there, because in
Minute of Islands you play a mechanic, Mo, as she works on fixing the world.
Using your skills, you’ll need to solve puzzles in order to keep machines up and running. If you fail, an ancient evil threatens the destruction of everything you know and love. And well, just everything, in general, really. Of course, as you make your way through the world, you learn that not everything is what it seems.
What puts this game on a list of artistic titles is its use of 2D scenes and a minimal art style that still manages to capture the imagination of players playing the game. The hand-drawn artwork and poetic story are sure to draw you in when this game releases later in 2020.
A Juggler's Tale
A Juggler’s Tale is the final game on our list of artsy titles worth checking out, and somehow, it manages to combine a little bit of everything from the games above.
You have a somewhat gloomy world that still manages a bit of whimsy (think Tim Burton), a poetic story, and a 2D side scroller set against a 3D world. Whether it's heavy rain against your whimpering torch or sunbeams bringing a new day to a gloomy marsh, there is beauty around every corner.
Players play as Abby, a puppet that has escaped the circus. Because you are a puppet, gameplay in
A Juggler’s Tale has some unique twists and you’ll soon find that the world isn’t necessarily built for puppets.
There you have it! Six titles that are all unique but share one common feature, they are simply stunning to look at. If you like your games to feel like self-contained artwork, all of these titles we are showing off at the
Indie Arena Booth Online are sure to be of interest to you!
What do you think? What are some of your favorite artsy games? Let us know down in the comments! 