Two-Game Tuesday: Saturday Edition – Indie Magic

In my panic to make sure that Walmart doesn’t cancel my Switch 2 pre-order, I totally forgot about Two-Game Tuesday. Which is fine, really, since I’ve been working on names for each day in case I do forget. So, for your weekly indie game fix, welcome to Some Games Saturday (I guess — I’m still working on it). Let’s keep it simple. It’s Two-Game Tuesday: Saturday Edition.

‘Near-mage’: a point-and-click indie magic adventure

Until the last few weeks, I never realized just how much of a comeback the point-and-click game was making. Stuck In Attic, a Transylvania-based team making games that are authentic to their culture, has just dropped Near-Mage. It’s an adventure game with incredible animation and voice acting. And given my love for The Holy Gosh Darn and Lil Guardsman, writing-wise, Near-Mage seems to be exactly the type of game I would love. The Stuck In Attic team gives a far better description of the game than I ever could:

Describe your game like a bad marketing intern:Ok, so it's like Harry Potter but without the transphobia; you travel to Transylvania and you study, like, spells 'n stuff, and you can make, uhmm, other characters' lives better. Or significantly worse. Now, about that raise…

— Near-Mage OUT NOW on PC! (@stuckinattic.bsky.social) 2025-05-30T15:02:32.126Z

Near-Mage just released on May 27th on Steam, and not only will I be picking this up, but I’ll also be grabbing their game Gibbous – A Cthulhu Adventure, which seems to be of the same comedic style.

‘Gnaughty Gnomes’: ‘Castle Crashers’ meets ‘SMASH BROS’

It’s been a while since I highlighted a multiplayer game. After all, I’m mostly a single-player guy. Even when dealing with indie games. But I saw the trailer for Gnaughty Gnomes, and I need the whole crew in on this. You can throw just about anything on the map at your opponents to eliminate them. And yet the game seems to have a level of complexity in using cards to create a build for your gnomes.

– Customization
Choose from +5000 combinations to unleash your inner gnome.

– Upgrades
Enhance all your abilities and change the game rules by choosing between +100 cards with different tiers and synergies.

– Maps
Play on +20 randomly selected maps with different themes, each featuring their own weapons

– Weapons
Anything can be a weapon if you have imagination and very few scruples. Use everything you see, including the heads of your rivals. You can even drive some of them!

This is a game that looks to be pretty deep, which given the art style and the party-based nature of it, I wouldn’t have expected. But I’m in on this. There’s no release date, but the demo is up on Steam now.