Indies to catch in November 2026!
November is upon us. It’s almost scary how the time flies. In my mind 2026 just began and here we are, nearing its conclusion. It sure was a year! One of the years of all times, for sure. Might be too early to try to summarize a year, but one thing for sure - this is a big month for gaming. GOTY’s are around the corner. GTA6 - which I have zero interest in - lands soon, and even if I am not the target audience, I do recognize the titanic impact it will have on gaming as a whole… One way or another. But let’s put those AAA bits aside and let me shows you another 5 games I am hyped up to play this month!
Wow, a deckbuilder!? Who would expect that I would be recommending one of those, am I right? Seriously though, SLUMBER REALM won me over with the cleverness of its mechanics and the depths of player agency behind it all. The premise of being a young lad struggling with little nightmares baked on his day-to-day struggles is… cute, I guess, fitting the style. And the enemies within the dreams are properly silly pun-driven creatures that a little lad with too active of an imagination surely can conceive, so I am not against it. But it is in the mechanics when the game shines.
It’s card and dice affair, but with a lovely dynamic where you don’t need to worry too much about the dice. You roll it once, and it will just trigger any of your cards that have the number in their range. And so, a single roll can potentially trigger all of our cards - which is, ultimately, the goal. Your cards play in order you control, and that order is where you craft your combos. Where you can, potentially, build a self-feeding loop. Or find a finisher that will be based on what you managed to scrounge up before it is being played. This is the fun bit, the great interconnectivity of the systems.
Cards come in variety of day-time, night-time and all-time cards. Each combat round triggers between night and day, so you want a healthy mix of cards. Cards, when activated, generate resources which you should use liberally to activate powerful abilities. Modify your cards, get powerful dream relics, formulate a powerful combo that will easily overtake any nonsense enemies can toss your way. Yeah. It’s great, works like a charm. Very happy to play the full thing.
Weird. I like weird. Weird is what I always want to be. It is a concern of mine, a personal disposition. That is also why I need a shirt proclaiming one of my deeper concerns - am I silly enough? Anyway, the game is… Simple. Devilishly so. You’re a caretaker of a hungry maw that needs to devour all the things, in due order. You start small, very small, but as you feed your ugly creature, they grow ever grander and ever hungrier. I am not going to pretend like this is anything new. It’s one of the most ancient formulas for gaming, utilized endlessly in indies and flash games of yore. You feed the evolving monster, the lens zooms out bit by bit, revealing more of the world around it, giving you need items to pick up and feed the fattening lump with a mouth.
What makes IN FULL BLOOM fun is the style and its vibe. It’s… Strange, in the best way. Almost Burtonesque, if stripped of whimsy and with added sprinkles of a bit of a gross factor. The realm is grey, cast in moonlit shadows, with rough hatching of traditional drawings acting as the deeper shades. The sounds are slickly disturbing, bugs and worms skitter here and there, everything I just feed, in the end. I know this is just a short game to play once, but I am excited enough to play it to include it here.
Sometimes I am still flabbergasted by the sheer genius idea just being picked up by a developer and shown to us in some sort of display of cosmic graciousness. NEAR MINT got me curious on its uniquely grimdark art style, but what kept me in was the whole notion of tearing cards to pieces and assembling them once again to your heart content. See, it’s a combat deck builder, but cards come in three pieces. Cost, type and number or effect. The fun is that you can sort of assemble those bits as you wish, making your own cards from components you have in your pocket.
It’s such a simple idea, and yet, so beautifully executed. And I do not recall seeing something like that before, and least, not so dedicated to the whole bit. It’s a beautiful game with brainy deck building aspect that feels fresh and unique. I had my own mind opened to the possibilities, finding out great combos, crafting strong cards… But it also has a splendid internal balance, because if you use all your best pieces just on a few cards, the rest of your deck will be rather pathetic, and can make you struggle when looking for your strongest hits to be drawn. Speaking of topdecking…
A deckbuilder auto battler! And what a great game this is. Loved the demo to bits, played it countless times to test build variety, and it was always such fun. Fabian Fischero of Ludokultur does it again! I talked about his previous game, RACK AND SLAY - a roguelike billiard game with great ideas and fun challenges, and we are getting a brand-new game to play in very different vibe. TOPDECK AUTOMAT title describes the game well. You craft a deck and then auto battling mechanics just keep drawing cards from the top and playing them. That’s it, that’s the whole game.
But like in any good auto battler and deckbuilder it all comes to your decisions about cards. There are a lot of fun limitations that make the act of picking next upgrade or card a fun bit that shapes the run. You have a card limit to your deck as well as weight limit. Going over the weight limit is possible, but doing so slows down your card playing speed. Might be worth to squeeze in a powerful card, but overdoing it will spell your doom. Cards can be upgraded multiple times with modifications that can turn them into a mighty universal tool. Relics help you define a build, triggering variety of effects on certain cards being played. And triggers are set up waiting for a proper tag to be played to, well, trigger and do their thing. This might all sound very basic, but it is very well thought out and you can lean in many directions to make a strong build.
I will be happy to admit that my addition of this game to this month recommendation is very personal. Because I do not believe this game will change your life. I don’t think it will occupy your mind for more than a couple evenings. Oh, I might be wrong but… it is, literally, those Mobile Game Ads made manifest. You know the one, when a horde of enemies goes down a guy with a gun who must enter proper gates to get stronger, and yet, inevitably, the “player” controlling them in the advert make the most stupid decisions to guarantee failure.
Anyway, why I love KORRIDOR is the style. The gumption! It is a game where you murderize hordes of funky dancing demons with a giant gun and the bulk of your humongous abs.
There are runes, upgrades, moment-to-moment decisions. Awesome bosses, old school heavy metal and fantastic moments of the most grin-inducing fun imaginable. Those bits when the music goes crazy, perspective shifts, hell tosses literal thousands of demons your way as your supercharged chain gun mows them down? Chef kiss, yes please, feed me more. It’s pure hype, an mighty battery filled with potent energies and I believe it will be the greatest “I need to vent after work” game made in the past decade. Give the demo a try, I bet you’ll love it too.
Comments