Video Gamers Podcast
Mice, Blades, And Knights – The Indie TWIG Roundup - Gaming Podcast
06 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What are the highlights of this week's indie gaming news?
Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. We have got an awesome week of indie news just for you. MousePI is gonna release, Shovel Knight's dropping the beat, and a quick look at five upcoming titles spanning cyberpunk, sci-fi, and Chinese peaks. I am your host, Ace. And joining me, he's taking up his shovel and bopping baddies to the beat. It's Josh.
I just came up with that riff all by myself on the spot, guys.
I hope you trademark it. We always talk about how good music is in indie games. We can confirm Josh is not in an indie game.
Also, I beatboxed that, everybody.
That was right off the riff, man. And not even a cyberpunk dystopia will stop him from becoming a cowboy. It's Ryan.
hey that's copyrighted ryan what the heck man ryan bro you owe me five cents five cents wow that's my royal whatever you need partner i guess the penny doesn't exist anymore so it has to be five cents i feel like ryan's brain wanted to go to like a yeehaw or like cowboy kind of thing and then he was like no i'm just gonna disappoint me i was expecting a good old a good old yeehaw or something
couldn't even give me that fellas we have looked at november november is barren so i have to look even further off to see what we have coming because even the indies aside from constance uh indies are very far and few between right now there's good ones at least sorry sorry other indie developers that might be dropping a game in november
So I wanted to start with some indie news on a game we've talked about before. Mouse P.I. Do you guys remember Mouse P.I.?
Yes, absolutely.
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Chapter 2: What can we expect from the upcoming game Mouse P.I.?
It is the 1930s rubber hose, hand-drawn FPS boomer shooter starring a mouse or, you know, we'll just call him a rat because that's the whole thing on this show is I love games with rats.
No way, Ace. Do you differentiate between mice and rats?
Depending.
We know you love rats, but is a mouse inferior to a rat in your mind?
It's not a deal breaker in every sense of the meaning, but not the rats are just a lot less than a little bit.
Right.
Yeah. It's just like a little less like Mina is Mina is a mouse, but you know, Reggie from tales of iron is a rat. Okay. I love them both equally. I think anyway,
hate doesn't uh hate doesn't equally right he's trying to be all correct i love rats okay mice are fine but i love rats okay a rat could a rat could beat up a mouse well that's just i mean that's the superior creature right so it's okay dude yeah yeah because rats are like two times the size of have you ever seen a new york rat bro oh have you seen all right just a quick aside have you guys seen the like video of the rats
This is like before recording. He's like, guys, we're short on time. We can't get off track. It was so easy.
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Chapter 3: How is the collaboration between Shovel Knight and other indie games significant?
It was night vision, but there was a bird flying by and it's sitting there and then it just reaches out and grabs it. Yeah.
Dude, insane. Rats are crazy. Anyway, back on topic. Okay. Mouse PI, which was initially slated to come out this year, has been pushed back, but does have an official release date. It is now coming out March 19th, 2026. What are you guys' thoughts on Mouse PI overall?
So, Ace, you and I were talking earlier. Here's my thoughts on this. I said I think the art style and the visuals in this game are incredible. The way that they have presented this game is top-notch. My concern is, is it all about the visuals or do we actually have an in-depth shooter here? Because if this is a shooter that is just push-left-click, And sometimes your bullets look different.
Sometimes your bullets go boom, but that's it. I don't think this game is going to succeed or at least be for me. So if they can have an actually good in-depth shooter with mechanics and things like that that help to carry the game, I think that the art style will only accentuate that.
But if they are relying on the art style to sell this game and the actual shooter mechanics are just really dumb...
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Chapter 4: What makes Dinoblade an exciting new indie game?
I don't know at that point, man. That to me is going to be the difference in this game.
They've been working on this for so long. They have to have a good game underneath that art style. Like they have to. I hope so. What have you been working on? I hope so. What have you been working on?
If not, that's what we say a lot of times is like, how long has it been in development? You know, and then you get what you get. Do we have a, is there a price for this yet?
I'm looking at no price, but I can confirm it is coming to all consoles. Plus,
I mean, yeah, like Josh said, I love the look of this, but is there a game underneath it? Do we have something that we can really play and enjoy? If so, I mean, I'm all for it. This looks cool. I love the kind of Steamboat Willie look to it, that crazy, obnoxious, you know...
horns and sirens and all that stuff like i i just love it so to me to me it looks fantastic i just hope that there's a game underneath and um man yeah it's it's if if so i think they have something here yeah i i hope there's a game underneath i really do otherwise i've been touting a uh a pretty art project i'm gonna believe there is i'm gonna believe there is
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Chapter 5: What unique features does Dark Light Survivor offer?
And one other little piece of indie news before we get into these new upcoming games. Shovel Knight, who we are all very familiar with, had yet another big collab with indie game Crypt of the NecroDancer and Rift of the NecroDancer. Are you familiar with either of those franchises?
I am familiar with them. I have never played either. I know that people really like them. I think they're rhythm-based games, right? Isn't there some kind of rhythm? That's all I know about them. I know people like them, but I honestly don't know much else other than that. All I know is Celia, our friend Celia at Yacht Club Games, doing work once again. She is doing work.
I know, right? This is right here. This is her again. Putting Shovel Knight in yet another game. Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, I'm the same as Josh. I'm familiar with it, but I've never played any of these. But, man, it's cool to see some sort of IP that's just kind of branching out and it's being part of... I'm not big on collabs, but it's neat to see people just working together and seeing these...
Chapter 6: What is the gameplay like in Far Far West?
entities like be part of each other and kind of trying to lift each other up to make more you know kind of like i understand not being big on collabs but when you see like indie developers kind of supporting one another in this way like you know like we're going to use our ip to lift up your ip and vice versa it's it's always very heartwarming and nice to see that they're not super competitive with one another
I like this type of collab, personally. I'm with Ryan normally. I don't like the Fortnite skin collabs and all that stuff. And now Overwatch is doing nothing but collabs and blah, blah, blah. But when you see indie studios doing these, this actually does kind of warm my heart. Because it's like, hey, you're working really hard. This is your passion. This is our passion.
Let's work together kind of thing. We saw this with Tito and Peak with one of the skins. And Tito is a Peak skin. This is the kind of collab I'm here for. And I love seeing these smaller indie studios working together on this stuff.
Yeah, I agree. I love seeing indie devs see each other as friends, basically, and not, you know, enemies in the market, which is wonderful. All right. That's it for recent news. We're getting into the far future because none of these games have released in this place.
It's No Game November, man.
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Chapter 7: How does 13Z: The Zodiac Trials incorporate Chinese mythology?
What did we say?
Yeah, no kidding. No Game November is real and it is here. But these are all PC exclusive to my knowledge. None of these have console.
Ryan just wants to play Ark Raiders. He's like, I just want to go play Ark Raiders.
Ryan really wants me to shut up.
I'm not even supposed to be here today.
Oh, come on. I mean, come on, Ryan. You got to want to talk about Dino Blade. Okay. Actually, I do want to talk about Dino Blade. Okay, well, go ahead. Tell me what did you see from Dino Blade? Do it.
I saw dinosaurs carrying swords like bro how like okay when I see like dino blade I'm like oh yeah some crazy name for whatever and there's gonna be like some guy running around and he's like dino centric and stuff no it was dinosaurs running around with swords in their mouths like slashing them at each other and it was the craziest most ridiculous thing but I'm all for it man this thing this thing looked wild but uh it looked pretty cool
this game started as like a tech demo like art project for a student okay there was so much interest in the way this person animated dinosaurs fighting with swords that they ended up getting money from people to make it into a video game and now we're getting dino blade which is an action rpg souls like where you play as a spinosaurus with a colossal great swords
Ace, you show us some really weird games sometimes, man.
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Chapter 8: What are the final thoughts on the discussed indie games?
I'm not going to lie. Sometimes I watch these trailers and I see these games and it's like, bro, with a name like Dino Blade, I watched this trailer. I went into this going like, this is going to be terrible, dude. And it is not. I'm with Ryan on this one, dude.
Like, there is something about watching a Spinosaurus with this colossal greatsword just doing these, like, over-the-top moves, hacking away at some other dinosaur. And it's like, you know, I hate the term. It's like a Dark Souls-type game, you know, like a Souls-like.
They say that for everything, yeah.
This is like you are facing off mono or dino a dino with like, and the other dino looks mean and it's got a giant sword. And then you're just like, one of us is going down, you know? I think this game looks great. Again, I'll say this. If this has actually decent fighting mechanics and moves. Oh my goodness. Like why has nobody done this before?
Dude, I don't know, because this is genius. I couldn't look away from dinosaurs swinging swords around.
What do you mean, why has nobody done this? Why has nobody put swords in dinosaurs' mouths and made them fight each other? Dude, it looks like shit, man. That's just a common thought.
it does look legit no the fighting actually looks good like the sword play and the combat and like them pairing each other like it does it looks it looks pretty dang good man there's a stegosaurus doing a massive tail like whip on it that you dodge okay we also have to talk about the fact that the soundtrack for this game is a freaking banger dude I don't know if this is like heavy metal just where I'm watching these dinosaurs go at it and I'm like yeah like get him
get him you know but it's like kill him spinosaurus kill him like between the moves and the ground shakes and oh man it almost gives you that like twisted metal feel like that it does very exactly very twisted metal yep yep yep love it in fact i will say wish listing this right now so i don't forget yeah
I was going to say, be sure to wishlist if any of these games peak your fancy. And there is a demo. There is a demo. This is true. Yeah, there's a demo. There's a demo, and the demo is being received very well, I will say. People are liking Dino Blade so far. But, yep, wishlist.
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