Indie-spensible news.

Hello and welcome back to yet another of our Indie News Roundups. It’s your weekly one-stop shop for all the news that tried to creep past you over the last week, well, not all the news but enough to fill you with the warm fuzzy feeling that only knowledge can bring. Right, let’s get to it.

Former Rare devs reunite for 3D platformer Tamarin

Tamarin is the latest 3D platformer that’s sparked a “one more time,” reunion of former Rare devs. The upcoming Tamarin, aiming for a release this summer, is being developed by Chameleon Games, and plops you down in some pretty lush looking Nordic scenery before you go around shooting alien insects to save your monkey family, ah, those were the days.

The gameplay mixes shooting sections with exploration, as you swing around the world looking for things to murder and – most likely – collecting gems or golden bananas. Yep, it sounds pretty cute, right? But Chameleon Games’ owner, Omar Sawl, reckons that Tamarin is about more than just a renegade monkey with nothing to lose, saying that a “lot of species are going extinct and their natural habitat is being lost and I’ve always wished to make a game series inspired by the most wonderful species and scenery on Earth.”

Tamarin doesn’t have a specific release date yet but is aiming for a summer release on PC and PS4.

Backbone seems like a less violent Wolf Among Us and you can play the demo now

Who doesn’t enjoy playing as an anthropomorphised fox who plays detective in a gritty, animal-inhabited city? The answer is no-one and, thankfully, it’s exactly what we get with Backbone’s free prologue demo ahead of a full release sometime next year.

The game isn’t so much a classic point-and-click title as it is a series of conversations that lead to you doing a bit of investigating. It means that you won’t be stuck going on a wild pixel hunt as the game’s protagonist, Howard the fox, is pretty selective about what he’ll look at, with items of interest smacking you in the face with an interaction prompt.

It’s a pretty decent look into how the larger game might unfold when it launches next year but you can give the demo a go right here.

Planet Zoo is the latest project from Planet Coaster’s developers

They managed to deliver quite the… ride with Planet Coaster (sorry) and now Frontier Developments has set its sights on bringing us all the fun of the zoo with its upcoming Planet Zoo… they didn’t waste too much time with the name then, eh?

As you’d expect, the upcoming Planet Zoo looks as if it’ll stick to that tried and trusted formula od tasking you with building and expanding a zoo, filling it with new anipals and tricking customers into seeing them for precious coins.

Planet Zoo is being planned to arrive this autumn for PC.