Since this article was published One Dreamer has been Greenlit on Steam and successfully funded on Kickstarter. Fran Bow was released on Steam and GOG on 27th August 2015 and received some excellent press.
The psychological horror game about a girl and her cat; Fran Bow and the surreal pixel art sidescroller; One Dreamer are some of the Best Indie Games out there. Just because we spend most of our waking hours crafting the indie game; The Flawless: Art’s Tale doesn’t mean we can’t spare a little time to check out other cool and inventive indie games. After all everyone needs inspiration and where better to look than the warm creative community of indie developers on the web. This is the first of our regular blog series, ‘Best Indie Games’, letting you know which indie projects have caught our eye.
Fran Bow
From just a few screenshots Fran Bow’s art style caught our eye. Like a mix of Tim Burton, Coraline, and illustrations from childrens’ books the game art is creepy and full of atmosphere. Even before we delved into the story and music we were captivated by these eerie scenes and wanted to see more. For those of you who haven’t heard of Fran Bow it is a point and click adventure with elements of horror made by Killmonday Games.
The game’s story centres around a girl called Fran who is witness to the brutal death of her parents and has been since incarcerated in an asylum. She embarks on a journey to discover the truth and find her beloved pet cat Mr Midnight. The story seems deep and gruesome with psychological twists and turns a plenty; just how we like it. We are really excited about Fran Bow and look forward to unravelling the mysteries of the dark story. It’s set for release on 27th August 2015, if this sounds like your kind of game why not follow Fran Bow on Twitter or Facebook.
What should I eat, hmmm?
The scary surreal world Franbow sees when see takes her meds.
One Dreamer
When we read that One Dreamer was a mix of Catherine and ‘The Last of Us’ in a 2D pixelart style we had to find out more. These are two of our favourite Playstation games from recent years but we never expected to see their elements in one game. After checking out the website and demo it seems they may just pull it off. You play an indie game developer called Frank searching for inspiration. He travels between two worlds, the ‘real world’ where he checks emails, responds to friends in his home reminiscent of Catherine and then there’s the dream world. This world is surreal and strange creatures lurk meaning stealth must be used for survival at times. In the demo we traveled between a mining tunnel and a forest complete with Ghibli-esque forest spirits. Led by a spoken narrative and presented in a detailed pixelart style not too dissimilar to ‘Swords and Sworcery’ the game is immersive and definitely one to watch. If you are interested in One Dreamer why not follow its progress on Kickstarter or Twitter. Read our interview with Gareth Ffoulkes from One Dreamer’s team about One Dreamer and his life as an indie developer here.
Frank comes round in a surreal dream world
Hope you enjoyed reading, until next time we’ll be up, burning the midnight oil working on The Flawless: Art’s Tale and The Last Pilot. To keep up to date with all things ‘Flawless’ & Last Pilot follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google+.
#Franbow #OneDreamer #FlawlessTheGame #BestIndieGames
Ste Wilson is a director, game developer, and programmer at Bare Knuckle Development Ltd. When not coding away on BKD games he can be found playing video games on console and PC. He also makes music under the music maker name of ‘Electric Fan Death’ and loves playing guitar, writing tunes, and producing music.