Have you ever felt like killing zombies in a cartoonish manner? What about exploring a subarctic base where mysterious things are going on? Well, at PAX East 2025, Indie.io had two games just like that to show off alongside four other titles.

At their booth, Voidsayer, Shrine’s Legacy, Tales of Old Dominus, Nedra, Don’t Die, Collect Loot, and The Zombie Slayers were available for guests to play. After getting to check out The Zombie Slayers and a little bit of Nedra, we had the chance to talk with Ben Smith about the games that they were showcasing on the show floor.

Matt from Niche Gamer: Hi, can you introduce yourself for those who do not know you, or what Indie.io represents?

Ben from Indie.io: Hey, I’m Ben from Indie.io. We’re an indie publishing platform. We act as a publisher for indie games that need a little help.  A lot of our indie developers are super passionate and great at making games, but they don’t necessarily wanna do all the other stuff that there is to do with putting out a game and making it successful.

So today, this weekend at PAX, we have six games we’re showing. Tales of Old Dominus, it’s an RPG, medieval style, with a little bit of survival crafting mixed in. We got Voidsayer, it’s coming out on June 2nd. It’s, it’s a creature collector where you collect creatures and fight them against other creatures. Think Pokémon meets Darkest Dungeon, and I will continue to use that tagline until Nintendo sues me. 

Matt: Until they pull a Palworld on you?

Ben: Yes, until they pull a Palworld. Honestly, this game has some momentum, but the Palworld situation would be the best thing that could happen to us.

We got NEDRA, which is a very Lovecraftian horror-type deal. It’s set in Soviet Russia with, well, you don’t wanna look behind you, and you gotta keep your core temperature at a certain level to not get spotted. Then we got Shrine’s Legacy, very much like a love letter to old school RPGs. Think the Mana series or old school Legend of Zelda. This is gonna be able to be played solo, but also can be played as co-op.

Next up is Don’t Die, Collect Loot. There are two main objectives: To not die and to collect loot. It’s made by a guy named Dan, and his studio’s name is Dan Makes Video Games, so a little bit straightforward there. But it’s an auto-scrolling action roguelike, where it’s kinda like a bullet hell to an extent as well. So you’re going around killing enemies, collect the loot, et cetera. 

Then we got The Zombie Slayers. It’s a top-down, co-op, zombie-killing game. You gotta complete objectives and get through the world without dying to the zombies. And that’s the six we have.

Matt: Now, as you were saying, you kind of help push the indie games for those who basically don’t have the skills or the team to market them, push them, but, l how do you specifically find them? Is it through these events where they’re like, they get a little booth, they’re like, “Show it”? Or the networking events? Or did you just stumble across them randomly?

Ben: Yeah, we have a lot of different ways. Well, one, you mentioned, we do go to events, and a lot of times, indie developers will set up their booth, and we’ll catch them there. We’re able to play the demo. We also have people contact us. They just hear of us through referrals or whatever, and they’ll contact us.

But then we’re also always scouting, so we’re, you know, out there looking at Itch and Steam and looking for people who may need a publisher, who have a little bit of promise to them and are willing to work with us, and cool people basically. So we will have a conversation with just about anybody. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’ll sign anybody, but we’re happy to explore all different kinds of indies.

Matt: Now, on the production side, you have to push them towards objectives and goals and be like, “Okay, you have X amount of time to do the thing.” Has there really been any, whether these six or any of the others, where you’ve kinda had to give them that extra nudge?

Ben: Yeah. I mean, every dev needs a little nudge sometimes. All of us need that nudge in certain directions.  Usually, what we do we try to work pretty well on their timeline when we first sign them.  They give us their expected timeline, and then that’s what we set as the timeline.

As things progress, we sometimes have milestones that they need to hit, and different goals and expectations we’re expecting of them. But generally, we try to work with people to the best of our ability. If they need a little extra time to get something, we understand. That’s just how development goes.  So yeah. I would say we have a, we have a stick, but we always try to put a carrot at the end of it.

Matt: Still on the production side, how much creative input do you feel like on the production side has kind of pushed the game in a certain direction where they haven’t felt like they fully know how to end it? They have a concept versus, they need you to clarify their vision.]

Ben: Well, their vision is what we ultimately try to execute on, but it may be that we see different ways they could get there. And so we have multiple different teams. We, of course, have a QA team, but we also have a DevOps team that gives them input and feedback, and then we try to get them into as many demo events and everything too, so that they can do play testing and get a little bit better understanding.

A developer may think, “This is a really cool mechanic,” and it may be, but it may just be that they’re executing it in a different way. So we try to give that feedback early and often as we can. Ultimately, we try to empower the developers to do what they want to do, but we try to give them all the feedback and resources we can to make that be better to the public.

Matt: Now, with PAX East being such a big convention, I put it on par with West, so I don’t know if it’s about exactly the same, but what has been the takeaway/feedback you’ve gotten from these six games?

Ben: So all these games have had really good feedback so far. It’s interesting because Voidsayer is one that people have really gravitated to, and obviously, I expected that. That’s one of the reasons we brought it,  but it’s just, it’s not as flashy. We’ve got other flashier games, and Voidsayer is a very solid game, but also very understated. That’s been interesting.

By and large, we’ve gotten great feedback. You know, we tried to bring a mix of all different genres that different people can enjoy, and then also that would be good for a convention. So you could hop in, play it for a little bit, and then be done. So, it’s just been cool to see the different reactions. Nobody’s  turned around and thrown a controller at me and said, “I hate this.” So that’s always a nice, a nice thing. [laughs]. 

But by and large, I think it’s been good feedback. And I’ve, of course, you know, stood over people’s shoulders and watched them play a lot of games, so I can give feedback to the developers after the show.

Matt: Now I’m kinda curious about this, throwing a controller at you.

Ben: It’s never happened. It’s never happened.

Matt: I’ve only seen it happen once, and that was at E3. So it was a very traumatic experience for the developer, probably. For me, it’s just,  “What just happened and why?”

Matt: So I had booked Nedra and Zombie Slayers, specifically, but all the games looked interesting. It’s just, you only have so much time. Do you wanna give a crash course for The Zombie Slayers?

Ben: All right, so Zombie Slayers starts out. You can, of course, build your character, but from a bunch of different goofy setups. It will have controller support when it launches. The demo doesn’t. And it’s also gonna be a co-op game. So, you’ve got these little NPCs that go around with you. You can play it solo if you want, but it’ll be co-op. And then, different objectives.

On the left, it tells you here, we gotta activate this generator. It tells us where the generator is. There’s always something you gotta do when you’re in zombie mode.

Matt: I’m not gonna lie, it gives a little bit of a Roblox feel. Zombies meet a kind of cartoonish, playful charm. I don’t see blood squirting out everywhere.

Ben: Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. There is blood, but it’s minimal. I mean, honestly, in my opinion, if parents are okay with any kind of shooter. If they let their kids play Fortnite, this is probably gonna be totally fine ’cause it’s very, it’s cartoony. I use Fortnite just ’cause it’s the most popular thing that kids play, but you know.

This demo’s a little bit toned down for the show floor, but normally it’s pretty brutal when you’re trying to complete objectives, you’ve got a lotta, lotta zombies flying at ya.

Matt: It looks like the AI is actually more responsive than other zombie-surviving AI.

Ben: Yeah, they have a tendency not to turn when I want them to. But other than that, they’re on it. They’ll, they’ll swivel around and shoot the head off a zombie, no problem.

Matt: So what kind of pushed him towards taking this kind of approach? With the art style? Was it the original idea, or was it just that he had a concept?

Ben: I gotta be honest, I don’t know. This is actually not one of my games, so I’m not sure on that.

Matt: They’ve left you for dead.

Ben: There they are, in the back. I think I was running too fast for ’em.

Matt: Now, what kind of mini-games have you seen within the demo?

Ben: The Number Pad 1& 0 is the only one in the demo.

Matt: So when they were making Nedra, do you know what their key inspiration was?

Ben: Yes. The Thing.

Matt: Are we going to get a little glowing eyes moment in the game?

Ben: We might.

NEDRA is set to launch for Windows PC (via Steam) on June 23rd. A playable demo is available. The Zombie Slayers is in development for Windows PC (via Steam), and a playable demo is also available.