I don’t mean to shock you, but Twitter is doing a cool thing as indie devs share their non-game inspirations

To borrow a tired Xitterism: The Venn diagram between ‘games that have reference points outside of other games’ and ‘games I’m likely to get excited about’ is a circle. For the benefit of people who’ve discovered the one weird trick that therapists hate and improved their mental health tenfold by deleting the bad place, here’s an incredibly cool thread I stumbled upon this morning where indie developers share non-game influences on their projects.

Using variations on the line ‘The indie game we’re making and three of the non-game inspirations behind it”, devs are sharing their projects alongside the films, books, shows, and real-world happenings that have influenced the direction of their WIPs or released projects. Kicking things off with the place I first discovered the trend, here’s Dan Martin of this month’s RPS Game Club pick, RPG Deathbulge: Battle Of The Bands.

The keen-eyed among you will also spot Crow Country’s creative lead Adam Viet as the quote-Xeet, although I am not smart enough to recognise any of the references. Why couldn’t you have been like Dan and just cite Peep Show and Big Mouth Billy Bass?

Here’s Sega Rally homage Over Jump Rally, which Graham has been eyeing up lovingly, with theirs, including Manga series Initial D.

There’s also the lovely two-for-one bonus of this kind of trend, where you get to not only learn more about the games you have heard of, but hopefully discover a few hidden gems along the way. Paleophage was not on my radar. And now it is. Because it’s a Dino Crisis homage.

Gloomy Juncture is a neo-noir adventure inspired by Suspiria, Hitchcock, and Requiem For A Dream.

There’s plenty of responses already, so do go have a nostril and let me know if you dig up anything spectacular. I’d say it all left me feeling both inspired and a bit like a cultureless ogre, but that is every day.