Axel's Blog: axelmagn.com is under construction at the time of this episode release, but you can read his initial post here on Medium.
Recommendations from Axel:
Ludum Dare - original game jam
itch.io - to explore indie games
Axel's List (indie games that influenced him or that he keeps coming back to):
- Celeste: an artful, heartful platformer with wicked difficulty that is justified by a story that made me cry when it ended.
- Outer Wilds: a national-parks-themed time loop puzzle game about being an astronautical archaeologist and solving the mysteries of the universe
- Chants of Senaar: a linguistic puzzle game about deciphering languages in the tower of babel.
- Kerbal Space Program: A space simulator where you build and pilot realistic-ish rocket ships for little green aliens.
- Stardew Valley: A cozy pixel-art farming game modeled after harvest moon, so successful now that it has arguably eclipsed it.
- Spelunky: A classic roguelike platformer where you need to learn about the world to survive.
- Satisfactory: an automation game about building massive factories on an alien planet. Factorio is the OG, but I've gotten way more enjoyment out of satisfactory.
- The Case of the Golden Idol: a detective game where you must solve a series of whodunnits in a frozen moment of time by rifling through the pockets of the suspects.
- Opus Magnum: My favorite Zachtronics puzzling game, where you build a series of alchemical mechanisms in a steampunk world.
- Balatro: Last year's indie darling, with good reason. A gambling person's solitaire.
- House of the Dying Sun: A modernized space combat game in the spirit of old classics like Tie Fighter or Wing Commander.