‘Beastieball’ is ‘Pokémon’ Meets ‘Haikyu’ and a Prime Example of Why I Love Indie Games

I was browsing my BlueSky timeline when I saw my friend, Josh Boykin over at Intelligame (go check him out) had reposted a series of Steam reviews from an account for Beastieball.

Curious, I went to the account and saw that Beastieball was in fact a turn-based volleyball RPG where you coach monsters and that it was in Early Access. At which point, I dropped everything I was doing, spent $25, and immediately found myself in a surprisingly robust character creator that let me select my pronouns which I loved and is more than I will ever expect from a Pokémon game, but that’s neither here nor there. What is on the table is the fact that neither in my wildest dreams would have I wished for what is essentially Pokémon x Haikyu. Now that I have it in my hands, anything feels possible and nothing will ever be too niche to find a surprisingly large audience.

You start Beastieball in the Rustile Nature Preserve where Beasties are out roaming and playing volleyball with ball mushrooms and meet your friend Riley. You find your starters and learn the basics of the game’s combat. Then, there’s a time skip that takes you to the main story where your nature preserve is about to get demolished to make way for a new stadium. At its core, the game knows that it is in fact a sports anime (even going so far to ask you if you have ever seen a sports anime during this tutorial) before giving you some jerseys to recruit some Beasties and set out to become the number 1 ranked coach in the wor…