Last month, we announced the Indie Selects program, through which the ID@Xbox team highlights recent indie faves with our weekly “Featured Indies,” along with great older titles showcased via rotating themes.
The program culminates in our monthly “Indie Selects,” where we choose six games from the month’s featured indies to be the team’s picks for the month. We don’t like to say “best,” as there are undoubtedly going to be some amazing games that don’t end up getting chosen, but these are the ones that the whole team has voted on and that come out on top. With Indie Selects, we want to shine a spotlight on games you might not otherwise see – and you’ll get an incredible selection of new, revolutionary, or just downright strange games to play every month.
The criteria is relatively simple: we look at games we consider to be Indies that have recently launched on Xbox, and the whole team votes. The top six vote-winners are our Indie Selects for the month. (Note that we are not including Game Pass games in this program, as they get tons of exposure through the Game Pass channels).
With that explained, I’m incredibly excited to announce the Indie Selects for February, which include everything from a spirited lil gator, to an incredibly deep puzzle game, to a wizard whose chosen weapon is a firearm. These are all games that the team feels confident you’re going to love. Here they are, in our own words (and in no particular order):
Lil Guardsman
Timbre says: The delightfully quirky Lil Guardsman had me equal parts giggling like a maniac and critically thinking about my choices. Playing as a 12 year old who’s taken over her dad’s shift at the guard house, you need to use your deduction and puzzle solving skills to decide the fates of elves, goblins and other fantasy creatures – and your choices determine the outcome for the whole Kingdom. After getting killed by a singing princess and inadvertently inviting capitalism into the city, let’s just say I had a lot to consider. What I know for sure is I highly recommend this wonderful, funny and literal gatekeeping game.