Autumn gems, little guys and some very slotty news // October Future Friends Newsletter
These games won't commit daylight robbery...
Hey besties,
It’s the season of games! The days are getting shorter, colder and bed is looking more and more appealing every day. Now we don’t know about you but when we’re not taking quick visits to the Louvre for no real reason at all, we at FFG like to spend October curled-up on the sofa… So we thought it’s about time we treat you to some absolute gems that you can be playing this autumn while curled up in a blanket with a nice hot drink! 🍂
🗡️🪙🎰 We’re in our Slot Era !!! 🎰🪙🗡️
Indie icon Friedemann launched his second solo game last week, a retro mini-roguelike called Slots & Daggers!! In true slot era fashion, the game sold 50,000 copies in just over two days and had major streamers like Northernlion & LIRIK playing. What’s it all about? Well PCGamesN described it best by saying:
“Slots and Daggers is the D&D and Balatro crossover I’ve always dreamed of.”
If you love weird fantasy worlds, weird little guys, old school crunchy hip-hop drum machines, addictive arcade games that go “PLING PLING PLING” as they spit out little coins, and classic roguelike mechanics, then you’ll love this!
Future Friends Roundup!
⛰️ Mountainside city-builder Laysara: Summit Kingdom is coming to consoles! Console gamers, hang in there! You will be able to build and expand your very own settlements in high mountains on Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch very soon!
Thanks to our friends at Nejcraft, you can also pre-order very sexy looking physical copies and collectors editions! Who doesn’t love stickers? Yay physical media!!!
For our PC fans, Laysara will also be launching out of Early Access alongside the console launch so SOON! There’s much to get excited about, and you can read a little sneak peek about it in this latest Steam News Post 🤩
🏚️ Viral horror game, The Cabin Factory, launched on consoles this month! As a newly hired Cabin Inspector, it’s your job to inspect the cabins and determine if they are haunted or not. See any movement? Get out… fast 🙂
Clock in on this totally chill and not at all dangerous job on the Nintendo Switch, PS4 & PS5, Xbox Series X/S as well as Xbox One. Is this FFG’s console era? 👀
Side note: we reached a huge milestone of 250k PC copies sold for The Cabin Factory recently! Yippee!
🎮 Next Fest recap! We had some lovely demos in this months Steam’s Next Fest so lets take a closer look 👀
🍅 On-Together: Virtual Co-Working is the perfect wfh buddy! Stay connected with your friends while you work, then use breaktimes to chat, chill, chew bubblegum and more!
🏎️ Exo Rally Championship is the galaxy’s most dangerous off-road racing event! Master a brutally realistic racing simulation and fight for every second gained on your quest to become a champion.
Team Lore
🌍 Thomas took many trips! He met Bing Bong in Sweden, shared a hotel with alpacas in Slovakia (don’t ask), and most importantly he visited Copenhagen and found his new favourite little guy. He obviously had to have a photoshoot with him!
🐕 You may remember that Adam recently welcomed Sweetie the hamster to his family, and if that wasn’t already enough cuteness for one household, they decided there was room for one more… Everyone say hello to Conker 🥹
🔥 Abi went viral on TikTok for being perhaps the biggest Daft Punk fan? Unrelated to her new found Fortnite and electronic musical duo fame, Abi also side quested so hard and ended up interviewing the voice of Monoco from Clair Osbur: Expedition 33 at MCM! Keep an eye out for that vid over on her socials: TikTok, and Instagram!
🤯 A revelation for the ages occurred this month… Cait learned what a “menty b” is. We are all very young, very cool, and very hip okay? It’s just tough out there keeping up with all the youths and their slang.
🌸 Friends of Future Friends 🌸
NEW GAMES AVAILABLE NOW!
💀 Critically acclaimed horde survival game Halls of Torment launched their first DLC! Indie team Chasing Carrots launched The Boglands alongside a HUGE free update, and is now on Xbox, Game Pass and Playstation as well as Steam! Wow!
⚔️ Sandbox crafting adventure Necesse launched into 1.0 on Steam! With 1.5 million copies sold in Early Access and nearly 15k reviews, the 1.0 launch brought a new huge update, and with it a host of massive major features for both new and returning players. Perfect to time jump in if you haven’t already!
👻The Spooky Express pulls up to the station in time for Halloween! All the passengers are simply dying to ride the Spooky Express, can you help them reach their destination? This clever but approachable puzzle adventure is the latest game by the thinky puzzle maestro Draknek & Friends, creators of critically acclaimed A Monster’s Expedition,
⛷️Hit the Scottish slopes in the new update for Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders! Don’t let the name fool you, with over one million players these mountains aren’t so lonely! To celebrate, players can enjoy a nice Multiplayer Update as well as the first DLC on Xbox and PC, Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders - Highlands! This Steam and Xbox Game Pass hit will also be coming to PlayStation soon.
COOL DEMOS TO TRY!
🦇 Rise to power in Night Swarm, a vampire-themed roguelite RPG bullet heaven! Gather loyal allies, unleash devastating abilities, and fight back against the relentless werewolf hordes that threaten to consume the night. No biggie!
💊 Outlast in the new medical roulette Side Effects! You may know Indie hit studio Free Lives from such hits like Terra Nil, Broforce, Gorn and Stick it to the Stickman. Well, they released a demo for their “Buckshot Roulette”-like medical horror game every dose could be your last. How eerie!
🔷 Embark on a Treacherous Pilgrimage in TetherGeist! Indie team O. and Co. Games updated their already very good demo for their heartfelt precision-platformer inspired by Celeste and Hyper Light Drifter. Very cool!
HOT OFF THE PRESS RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCEMENTS
🌳Tiny, zen worlds await you in Dream Garden! This cosy diorama building game from indie duo Campfire Studio (You may know them from My Dream Setup) is coming to Steam on November 3rd! Told you we’d provide autumnal gems!
🦆 It’s time to quack the case in Duck Detective on mobile! Indie studio Happy Broccoli Games are bringing the second installment of their hit series Duck Detective to mobile. Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping will waddle onto Android and iOS on November 27th.
⚙️ Survive a gritty dice-driven RPG in Duskpunk! Inspired by Citizen Sleeper and tabletop RPGs, Duskpunk is a tale of hope, grit and survival where you play a runaway soldier struggling to survive in a city consumed by war. Developed by Clockwork Bird, the team behind the ‘94% positive’ critically acclaimed Silicon Dreams, Duskpunk is coming to Steam on November 19th.
😡 Maybe become a Pinball Wizard in A Pinball Game That Makes You Mad? The title says it all really. This rage-inducing pinball adventure is often described as “Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy but pinball” and will be releasing on Steam on November 18th!
🐸 Hang out with friends and sled in the aptly named Sledding Game! Go sledding, play games, drink hot choccy and get up to mischief. Soon you’ll be able to join up to 20 people in this charming multiplayer snowsports game with proximity chat and ragdoll physics. That’s not all, The Sledding Corporation have announced that Sledding Game will be coming to Xbox and Gamepass too!
🐍 Guide a space eel through psychedelic realms in THRASHER! Puddle (Brian Gibson, composer and artist for THUMPER and Mike Mandel, Rock Band VR) announced that the Steam version of their award winning game THRASHER, will launch on November 7th!
PREPARE YOUR HEADSETS FOR THESE VR ANNOUNCEMENTS
♾️ Traverse mysterious corridors and solve mind-bending puzzles in Hotel Infinity! Developed by Studio Chyr, the team behind Manifold Garden, Hotel Infinity is designed for VR from the ground up to use roomscale technology. No two rooms are the same and not everything is as it seems... This surreal VR experience launches on PSVR2 and Meta Quest in November!
🔴 Turn your living room into a laser obstacle course in Laser Dance! Did you ever watch those spy films with the laser heists and think, how hard could that be? Time to find out! Thomas Van Bouwel (Cubism) and indie publisher Creature (THRASHER, Maestro, Prison Boss Prohibition) announced that Laser Dance is launching into Early Access on Meta Quest on November 6th.
🤖 Fight your way up a dystopian megatower in Sweet Surrender! Indie VR studio Salmi Games just launched their frenetic roguelike shooter Sweet Surrender on PSVR2 on October 30th (today!). Four years in the making, the PSVR2 version includes the content of 14 updates plus a slew of exclusive content – adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, 90fps and more!
Unfortunately this newsletter is coming out right before Halloween so you’ll have to wait for a bit to see all our well crafted and pop-culturally relevant costumes. A real shame.
Can you believe November is right around the corner? But also, breaking news! Future Friends Games will be meeting up in PERSON for their annual Christmas silliness next month! We cannot possibly imagine the shenanigans that might make it into the next newsletter…
I think it’s safe to say that we all learnt a lot this month, like how easy it is to rob the Louvre in broad daylight and how if you even think about f*cking Lily Allen over, the world’s gonna know about it. 🐈🏰
Until next time! 👋
Future Friends Games