April is kind of an annoying month, as it plays host to some of the most obnoxious occasions of the year. April Fool’s Day, Arbor Day, Tax Day, it’s all just stuff I’d rather not put up with. Though, April is also home to Easter and Passover, so I guess it’s not all bad. As far as major releases go, April’s looking a little light for 2022, but if you’ve got a gaming hole that needs filling, there are always plenty of indies to look forward to. Here are some select indie games releasing on Steam in April 2022.
Indie Games Releasing on Steam in April 2022
It’s always a bit difficult to sort through the sheer number of games that hit Steam on any given day, to say nothing of an entire month, but here are a few indie titles coming to Steam in April that you might want to keep in your thoughts:
- Sokobos
- Gloomgrave
- Epiphany City
- Cat Cafe Manager
- Glover
- Sir, You Are Being Hunted Reinvented Edition
- Kaiju Wars
Sokobos: April 1st, 2022
There’s a sub-genre of puzzle games known as “Sokoban” games. Basically, a Sokobon game is any game wherein you solve puzzles by pushing crates around in a small, enclosed room. These kinds of games were huge in the 80s and 90s, and you’ve probably played a few browser-based ones over the year. Sokobos is a new take on the Sokoban formula set against a backdrop of Greek mythology.
Using your prodigious strength, you’ll need to shove all manner of objects into a variety of orders and requirements, including assembling statuesand painting rooms in a correct sequence. It’s a simple formula, but you’re encouraged to solve the puzzle in as few moves as possible to prove yourself as a puzzle master.
Gloomgrave: April 11th, 2022 (Early Access)
Does anyone else occasionally find heavily pixelated aesthetics a bit unsettling? Like staring at a monochrome Game Boy in the dead of night? Well, maybe it’s just me, but I get a similar kind of jiblies from Gloomgrave. Gloomgrave is an old-school roguelike dungeon-crawler with a monochromatic pixel art style, though unlike other games that use that kind of design, it’s first-person, so those monochrome pixels are right in your face.
Explore the dungeon to find new and improved gear and weapons, take a gamble on the occasional potion, and engaged in turn-based combat with the local monster population, all in pursuit of the ultimate relic. Interestingly, if you don’t care for the deep blue look, you can actually unlock different color palettes you can switch to on the fly.
Epiphany City: April 12th, 2022
You know what I really miss? My childhood point-and-click adventure games. Stuff like Pajama Sam or Freddi Fish. Those games could encourage you to get creative, while also telling cute and engaging stories. I get a similar kind of childhood-affirming energy from Epiphany City, a humorous tale of young girl Lily, who accidentally steals the powers and destiny from a local superhero and needs to save the world in his place.
Lily’s not a very hopeful sort, but she does have an impressive ability: her magical picture frame can capture items from static images and the real world and move or rearrange them, affecting the world around them. Grab the face off a nearby clock and flip it over, and suddenly day turns to night. Grab an image of a stop sign from one painting and move it to another painting to properly complete it. It’s a cute and very accessible way to get those neurons firing, and a great game to bond with your kids over.
Cat Cafe Manager: April 14th, 2022
Statistically speaking, most people love cats (as they should). However, whether it be due to space, time, or money, not everyone can own a cat, which is where the appeal of cat cafes lay. All the cuddly fun of cats, none of the responsibility or costs. Of course, that only applies if you’re not the one running the place. Cat Cafe Manager has you rebuilding your grandfather’s dilapidated cafe into a proper kitty paradise, made easier thanks to the local town’s massive feline population.
Clean up and redecorate the cafe, hire a team of kindhearted and responsible staff, and most importantly, ensure that all of the cats under your care are properly fed, groomed, and cared for. If you like management games and cats, and that’s probably a pretty wide subset of people, you’ll absolutely love this game.
Glover: April 20th, 2022
Wow, okay, where do I even begin with this one… Glover was a 3D platformer originally released on the Nintendo 64 and PC in 1998. There was also a PlayStation version, but we don’t talk about that one. Glover was one of those games that, despite being a pretty average-to-decent game, has managed to permanently root itself in the collective gaming consciousness.
If you’re old enough to remember walking around a Blockbuster Video, you almost definitely saw Glover on the shelf, and probably rented it. After its original publishers went defunct, the license to Glover was picked up by small-time company Piko Interactive, which technically makes it an indie. As for what it actually is, it’s kind of a physics platformer; you need to safely transport a rubber ball from the beginning of the level to the end, smacking and bouncing it over obstacles, and occasionally using it as a tool. It’s a very odd little game because once you try it once, whether you like it or not, you just can’t seem to forget about it.
Sir, You Are Being Hunted: Reinvented Edition: TBD April 2022
You know what they say: when it comes to hunting, the most dangerous game of them all is man himself. Unfortunately, in Sir, You Are Being Hunted, you get to be that game as you’re relentlessly pursued by a gaggle of aggressively British robots. This is a remastered version of the original Sir, You Are Being Hunted that was released back in 2013.
That game was a tone-setter for a lot of survival-focused experiences, pioneering concepts like active hunger and thirst and AI-controlled enemies actively pursuing and cornering you. This new release provides the same general gameplay as the original, but with a fresh coat of paint, including updated graphics and sounds, revamped controller layouts, some quality-of-life tweaks, and even a few new systems.
Kaiju Wars: TBD April 2022
When it comes to games involving giant monsters, you’re usually either controlling the monsters themselves or some kind of super-advanced monster-fighting military. Unfortunately for you, in Kaiju Wars, you aren’t controlling either of those; all you have is a normal military, trying desperately to hold back this titanic threat with whatever conventional weaponry works best.
Establish bases and deploy troops for strategic, turn-based combat in a doomed effort to delay the monsters while you research new weaponry and potential anti-monster scientific achievements. Be prepared to abandon your weapons and emplacements at a moment’s notice as the monsters mutate and encroach. You can either play through the story campaign to solve the mystery of the kaiju, or play against a friend in couch multiplayer.
That’s our list of 7 indie games releasing on Steam in April 2022. Hopefully, you can find something that looks interesting. For more lists like this, check out our collection of indie games that released on Steam last month.
