Summary of the Latest Developments in the World of Independent Games

Welcome to the latest summary of the most prominent developments in the world of independent games. This week saw a strong return for Acclaim, hosting a highly entertaining show that featured many exciting games. On Friday, Nintendo stole the spotlight with a full-hour Direct presentation, which not only included first-party titles like Mario Tennis Fever, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and the Donkey Kong Bananza expansion, but also highlighted a wide range of promising indie games.

Hades 2 undoubtedly tops the list of the most anticipated independent games, with its full release imminent on Switch, Switch 2, Steam, and Epic Games Store on September 25. Games like Stardew Valley, Human Fall Flat, Overcooked 2, and PowerWash Simulator 2 will also see dedicated releases for the Switch 2 platform, offering enhanced gaming experiences for these beloved titles.

No Nintendo Direct presentation is complete without a surprise announcement, and indeed, Lynked: Banner of the Spark was released on Switch and Switch 2 on Friday, with mouse control support and GameShare on the newer system. This action RPG hybrid, developed by FuzzyBot and published by Dreamhaven, appears to combine elements of Hades and Hi-Fi Rush. I’ve owned Lynked: Banner of the Spark on my PC for months, and I’m excited to try it, though it has unfortunately fallen down my backlog. I still hope to find enough time to properly experience it before the end of the year.

Popucom, which debuted on Steam earlier this year, is also intriguing. This game, developed by Hypergryph and published by Gryph Frontier, is a multiplayer-only platformer and adventure game where you eliminate enemies using match-three style shooting. The twist here is that each player only has two colors, requiring cooperation to fire the correct orbs at villains and obstacles. Popucom will be released on Switch this holiday season.

New Games

Little Problems: A Cozy Detective Game is a new title from the Indonesian, woman-led studio Posh Cat Studios and publisher Amplified Games. As the name suggests, it’s a slice-of-life detective game about solving minor misunderstandings and annoyances. You play as the new student Mari, and one of the first mysteries you need to solve is finding your study group's meeting place after you forget where to go on your first day. The game features 10 cases in total, each presenting a set of puzzles to solve, with simple mechanics evolving into humorous twists and surprising solutions. Little Problems looks utterly charming, and it’s exactly the kind of relaxing puzzle game I might love. It’s available now on Steam and usually costs $10, but there’s a 10 percent discount until September 23.

Disc golf looks like a lot of fun, and while there are a few courses near me, they’re not easily accessible without a car. So, I might have to settle for playing Disc Golf City, which left early access on Steam for PC, Mac, and Linux this week. Set in a colorful city, you can throw your disc at objects in the environment to pull off trick shots and try to get it into the basket. Developed by Agapo Games, Disc Golf City costs $13, and a demo is also available to try.

Another game that left early access on Steam and GOG this week is Beyond Sunset. This is a cyberpunk-style first-person shooter with RPG elements from Metacorp / Vaporware and publisher Movie Games. I love when a 'vaporwave' color palette is used well, and the low-tech visuals here feel perfectly fitting. The fast-paced action looks intriguing too, with clear inspiration from the Doom series. Beyond Sunset costs $10.

It seems I can’t browse the internet for five minutes without discovering a new 2D Metroidvania. However, Katanaut is one I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while. You’ll face horrors that have overrun a space station using a combination of weapons, skills, and perks. This is a roguelite from Voidmaw, where new paths are explored each run, with permanent progression as you collect memory shards during your journey through the station's blood-soaked corridors. It was also revealed this week that Acclaim is the publisher of Katanaut, available on Steam.

Upcoming Games

Pacific Drive was one of the games that looked most interesting last year and I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. It’s a driving survival horror game set in a supernatural version of the Pacific Northwest, where you scavenge the landscape for parts to upgrade your car, and hopefully stay alive. Ironwood Studios and publisher Kepler Interactive announced this week the Whispers in the Woods expansion for Pacific Drive. Set to arrive later this year, the DLC adds roughly eight to 12 hours of gameplay with new characters, hazards, puzzles, and strange phenomena to encounter. Other updates include route modifiers and garage cosmetics to find.

The rest of this week’s upcoming games are all from Acclaim, as I found almost everything in this showcase interesting. The first game the publisher showed off was GridBeat from Ridiculous Games. GridBeat blends puzzles, tactics, and dungeon exploration, and will see you hacking into a company’s computer network and trying to escape with valuable data while security programs and malware try to stop you. You’ll find more abilities and power-ups along the way. Crucially, you need to move in time with the music, as it’s also a rhythm game. There’s a lot going on here! GridBeat will be released on Steam, but no specific release date has been set yet.

One thing I was really hoping to see during Acclaim’s showcase was the return of NBA Jam. We didn’t quite get that, but I’ll certainly take Basketball Classics instead. Acclaim has taken on publishing duties for this classic NES-style arcade basketball game from Namo Gamo. It features 2D 5-on-5 action with simplified controls, hundreds of teams, over 1,000 players, and multiple modes (including local multiplayer). I hadn’t heard of Basketball Classics until now, but it’s been available on Steam for several years. Acclaim is helping bring it to consoles soon.

I love PowerWash Simulator and am looking forward to the sequel. Pixel Washer looks like a different flavor of that format. As a cute little pig with a pressure washer, you’ll clean almost everything in sight. The trailer hints that things might get weird, and it even looks like there are boss fights. Valadria is the developer behind Pixel Washer, which will be released on Steam in the future.

HyperYuki: Snowboard Syndicate looks like the offspring of SSX and Jet Set Radio, and that’s enough to convince me of the game. An easy addition to my wishlist. Wabisabi Design is making this snowboarding game that pits you against NPCs and/or human players in races. In the main game mode, you’ll need to complete a certain number of challenges on each level before you can progress, which perfectly aligns with the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater format. There's also an endless mode for chilling out, where you can just spend time and explore or whatever. HyperYuki: Snowboard Syndicate supports split-screen and online multiplayer for up to eight people. Again, no confirmed release date or window yet, this game will be released on Steam.

Acclaim indicates that it is "actively exploring console releases" for its games. The publisher added: "Our goal is to deliver these experiences to as many players as possible, and we will have more updates to share as development progresses."

What is a Knowledge Graph?

A knowledge graph is a structured representation of real-world entities, such as people, places, events, or concepts, and the relationships between them. This information is typically stored in a graph database and displayed as a graphical structure. A knowledge graph consists of three main components: nodes (entities), edges (relationships connecting nodes), and properties (additional information about each entity and relationship). This linking and semantic metadata allow data to be put into context, providing a framework for data integration, standardization, analysis, and sharing.

“2020-02_Smithsonian_sample_image_-_Knowledge_Graph_-_2021_Q1.png” — Source: Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 4.0.

The term 'knowledge graph' is sometimes used interchangeably with 'knowledge base' or 'semantic network', and its use became widely popularized after the launch of Google Knowledge Graph in 2012. Ontologies are a fundamental component in some knowledge graphs, providing a formal representation of entities and relationships within the graph, which allows for inferring implicit knowledge in addition to querying explicit knowledge. Source: IBM, Source: Wikipedia

Use Cases of Knowledge Graphs

Knowledge graphs are a powerful tool for storing and organizing data, providing a deeper understanding of it and can be used in a wide range of applications and industries, including:

• Generative AI: Knowledge graphs organize domain-specific or company-specific information and are used as a foundation for AI applications that leverage private data (RAG applications). These graphs increase response accuracy and improve explainability through the context provided by data relationships. Source: Neo4j
• Fraud Detection and Analytics in Financial Services: Knowledge graphs represent a network of transactions, participants, and related information, helping companies identify suspicious activities and investigate suspected fraud. Algorithms like path and community detection are used to uncover complex fraud networks. Source: Quantexa
• Master Data Management: Knowledge graphs provide a structured and comprehensive database of a company’s customers and their interactions, making it easier to gain an accurate customer view, especially for companies with multiple departments or applications. Source: Neo4j
• Supply Chain Management: Knowledge graphs represent a network of suppliers, raw materials, products, and logistics, giving managers a comprehensive view of the supply chain. They can identify weaknesses, predict disruptions, and optimize the supply chain in real-time using algorithms like shortest path. Source: Neo4j
• Investigative Journalism: Knowledge graphs are used to identify key entities (companies, people, bank accounts) and activities under investigation. Organizing these entities in relation to each other allows for finding hidden patterns, such as distant relationships between entities that shouldn’t exist. Source: Neo4j
• Drug Discovery in Health Research: Knowledge graphs store information about research topics in medicine and other fields, such as protein and genome sequences alongside environmental and chemical data, revealing complex patterns and expanding our knowledge of proteins. Source: Neo4j
• Retail: Knowledge graphs are used in cross-selling and up-selling strategies, recommending products based on individual purchasing behavior and popular buying trends across demographics. Source: IBM
• Entertainment: Knowledge graphs are used in AI-powered recommendation engines for content platforms like Netflix, SEO, and social media, recommending new content to users based on click-through behavior and online engagement patterns. Source: IBM

via Pixabay

Challenges in Building Knowledge Graphs

Despite the many benefits of knowledge graphs, building and maintaining them faces complex challenges:

• Data Integration and Standardization: Knowledge graphs are often built from diverse datasets with varying structures. This requires data standardization and processing to ensure consistency and accuracy. Entity Resolution, which is the process of identifying records that refer to the same real-world entities, is a crucial step to ensure data integration. Source: Quantexa
• Ontology Definition and Maintenance: Ontologies, which define concepts and their relationships within a specific domain, can be complex and require significant effort to define and maintain. A balance must be struck between the need for a detailed ontology and the effort required to create and maintain it. Source: Neo4j
• Diversity of Definitions and Models: There is no single globally agreed-upon definition of a knowledge graph, and the structural models used vary. This diversity can make the process of building and integrating knowledge graphs from different sources challenging. Source: Wikipedia
• Entity Alignment: When new knowledge graphs are created in different domains and contexts, it is inevitable that the same entity will be represented in multiple graphs. Given the lack of a single standard for building or representing knowledge graphs, identifying entities that correspond to the same real-world subject from disparate graphs is a non-trivial task and an active area of research. Source: Wikipedia
• Choosing the Right Database: Creating a knowledge graph involves drawing a conceptual graph data model and then implementing it in a database. Choosing the right database can simplify the design process, accelerate development and implementation, and facilitate adaptation to future changes and improvements. Traditional graph databases, such as Neo4j, are a logical choice due to their ability to natively store relationships between entities. Source: Neo4j

via Pixabay