Indie Royale: Evolved underway – Unmechanical, The Path, Krater, Sugar Cube: Bittersweet Factory and OIO featured for cheap

For those of you who love cool indie games as well as very, very cheap prices, good news! The latest Indie Royale is under way. As always, the typical gaming bundle rules are in effect – you get all five games so long as you offer the minimum amount, which as of this writing is $5.40 USD. The theme of this pack is ‘Evolved’, and your guess is as good as mine regarding how that theme binds these games together. Keep in mind that all five of these games can be activated on Steam, which I know only sweetens the deal for many. After the cut I’ll give a quick rundown of the five titles being featured in this pack.

Unmechanical bills itself as a puzzle adventure “set in a world of flesh, rock and steel”, which I assume is earth because we’ve got all those things as it stands. Gorgeous cavern graphics on this one, and at least in terms of atmosphere I’m getting a vague Abe’s Odyssey vibe off this one.

The Path veers off in the horror direction, and is apparently “inspired by older tales of Little Red Riding Hood”. The video is a bit too “artistic” for my tastes, and when a game claims to offer “introspection and discovery” I usually roll my eyes a little, but hey – I’m a cynic, and your mileage may vary.

Krater, on the other hand, is a game I picked up already on Steam and found to be pretty promising. Real-time squad-based dungeon crawler, and it’s set in a post-apocalyptic Sweden of all places. It has a co-op expansion going for it as well, and of all the games in the pack this one seems like the deal-maker to me.

Sugar Cube: Bittersweet Factory is a 2D platformer about a sugar cube trying to avoid being made into a cookie, but really – isn’t that a step up from being a sugar cube? 90 levels and 2 endings, and apparently this was an award-winning indie game in China, so it comes highly recommended. A bit creepy to me – whenever I see designs that adorable, I always expect there to be some kind of horrific gore and blood twist showing up somewhere in the game. Again, this could be just me.

Finally, OIO is another scrolling platformer where you play as a “a little guy made of wood” whose friends are all frozen in time. Collect all the orbs and fragments on each level to unlock the mystery, so sayeth the summary. Looks solid enough, and again it has a vibe similar to Unmechanical. Something about the lifeless, cavernous underground setting with somewhat cutesy characters.

And that’s some fast impressions of these five titles. Video and more information can be found on the Indie Royale website itself, so if five games for almost a buck a piece sounds good to you, be sure to check these out.