New Indie Notable: Descenders

[Blackfire]

 

The PC tends to get associated with the kind of games you sit down at for hours. Until your eyes are red and part of you begins to regret your life choices. But it doesn’t have to be that way. 

You can play Descenders in quick blasts. If you can drag yourself away from its moreish-ness, anyway. You’re a downhill free rider who has to get down procedurally generated courses with as much style as possible, prefably using a gamepad. It might remind you of the Tony Hawk games, when they were good, or snowboard console classic SSX. 

The use of generated “tracks” means you can’t master courses, but it’s the mastery of the bike’s physics you’re aiming for anyway. A career mode pits you against a series of courses in the same style of environment, each with objectives. Finish the “boss course” and you unlock a new terrain. But you have limited lives for the whole run. A mix of mobile game style and unforgiving old-school progression mechanics gives Descenders a fresh feel. 

          

 

Not every game has to be about destroying aliens or shooting off the faces of unnamed soldiers. American Truck Simulator is like mindfulness meditation compared to those titles. 

You drive a big 18 wheeler-style truck over the long highways of the US, delivering cargo from A to B. Breaking the traffic codes doesn’t end in a GTA-style police chase, just a fine. This is the sort of game you can put on like a cosy slipper after a long day at work. 

There’s a business side to it too, though. At the start you’re a lowly contractor, but earn enough money and you can build your own shipping empire.