Two Colourful Indie Games Announced For Xbox Game Pass In 2025

I love trying these indie releases... but I pray for the day that a SCHMUP is released. I currently play Crimson Clover on Switch. Antstream Arcade has some great SCHMUPS too on there.

Cynical comment: I miss when game pass was mostly indies, and when they were really creative and interesting indies. Now it’s mostly failed AAA games, and “cozy” games. Which is totally fine just not very into cozy games.

Give me really interesting indies like animal well and chained echoes. There are a ton out there.

@RetroMan71 yeah! What’s with the lack of vertical and horizontal scrolling 2d shooters? There are a ton! How about that visual novel shooter hybrid where girls turn into planes? Come on Microsoft. Buy us cheap indies like you used to.

@jesse_dylan well, "cosy" is just another way of saying that there is little penalty for failure, which is what a lot of of causal gamers like and these type of games have a broad audience and are easily made. None of them do anything new, they just mix and match things here and there. Start off small, punch trees or ore nodes to get resources, make x of y item for z person, rinse and repeat as you unlock item y1 and y2 and engage in simple tasks until there are no more tasks left. Helps it there are multiple currencies or resources to juggle as it adds a false layer of complexity.

There's nothing wrong with these games and people love them but they're not going to set my world aflame and are easily forgotten. The only reason Stardew Valley and Minecraft are still around is because they were the first to use this gameplay loop.

@Evilinsane Stardew is literally based on the gameplay loop from Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons from the 90s, so it goes back a heck of a lot longer than that.

Little Rocket lab seems to be cozy Factorio, so that's at least a reasonable shakeup from the usual 'here's a farm, here's your watering can, produce goes in the box' formula.

@Vordus I didn't realise that. Maybe I was more invested in Harvest Moon.

Yeah, I love Factorio something shocking so Little Rocket Lad sounds like something I'd like but I have a feeling it's far more simplistic and might feel like a step back for me. But it's on Game Pass so why the hell shouldn't I give it a shot?

@Evilinsane Sure--well, to be fair, Stardew Valley was riffing heavily on Japanese games like Harvest Moon. And there are some "cozy" games with combat, like Rune Factory (Harvest Moon cousin/sibling). Heck, I even think something like Baldur's Gate 3 can be considered a bit of a cozy game, but that's a little more loose. Cozy has been associated with farming and crafting, but I don't know if that's the limit. But that's the trouble with genres anyway.