This week is almost going to be more of a blog roundup slush pile because I’m behind on my rss feed reader and wanted to get something out there so it doesn’t become a gigantic post when I finally get caught up. So enjoy some blog posts that maybe be older than a week. I think that’s fine.
All the cool kids are doing roundups of things they like these days! Here are some by Yaffle, tallywinkle, and Aura. Join them!
I said in the last blog roundup that I get really excited about game devs posting recipes, so here’s one by Julia Minamata for her mom’s thumbprint cookies. There’s also lots of updates about her great point-and-click adventure The Crimson Diamond.
Not a blog post but my kids loved this WebGL fluid simulation. It works great on mobile too!
It’s an older post from a year ago, but I really like this one about how web3 propaganda wants you to think the internet was only a place where people read websites those first 10 years.
Not a blog post but Kritiqal continues to have great interviews with indie game devs on their podcast. This time it’s two members of the indie game studio, Mortally Moonstruck Games, developers of Mushroom Musume.
Atari Archive goes into the 1979 Atari game Miniature Golf. I don’t think I’ve actually mentioned this site on here before but I’m a big fan of Atari Archive’s videos and Kevin’s book of the same name.
Harris Powell-Smith announces their next interactive fiction game The Earth Has Teeth.
Not Blog Posts
It’s a bit older but I really liked Alice Bell’s article Can a Steam profile be a real memorial for a lost life? Getting older means you have more digital artifacts in your life from people that are no longer with us and I have a lot of feelings about that.
I continue to post about indie games on here because it’s either that or spiraling about the state of the world and I don’t know if anyone needs that. That said, there’s a couple of cool bundles this week where you can get a lot of great games and help folks out, so that’s alright.
The first bundle is the Grève bundle GG25 (Itch.io). All money goes to the strike fund for the Video Game Workers Union (STJV) to help compensate for loss of income linked to the 2025’s video game general strike. For $10 or more you can get a ton of great games and some come with Steam keys. I’m a big fan of PUNKCAKE Délicieux, who has a few games in this bundle and it also contains PicoMix, which is a collection of games I just covered very recently.
The second bundle is the HRT Harm Reduction Toolkit Bundle (Itch.io). For just $25 or more you can get a ton of great tabletop rpgs and help trans folks. I want to get a special shoutout to the game Dinocar that’s in this bundle. It’s the first ttrpg that I played with my kids and we had a great time. People that make tabletop rpgs you can play with your kids are my heroes.
And finally, this bundle on Itch.io for Palestinian aid is looking for submissions.
Knotdoku (Itch.io) is a cool twist on the classic sudoku game. In addition to all the rules you must follow when solving your typical sudoku puzzle, all the numbers are tied together with string and must never cross each other when you place the numbers on the board. This free browser game was created by LCB Game Studio, the developer of horror visual novels like Mothmen 1966. This isn’t a horror game though, just a very chill puzzle game with some music that slaps.
Worldwide Wizard Racket Rumble (Itch.io) is a cute, free ping pong game between wizards, where players can cast spells to help win points. I was really impressed by the level of polish and I’m looking forward to playing this one with my kids.
Renkon has done a journal entry in Bitsy (dev site). I think that’s a fun use for Bitsy and you can find other journal entries here.
Adam Saltzman has been on a roll with all the PICO-8 games he’s been making lately and this is another solid one. In Skeleton Gelatin (Itch.io), you explore a cave as a blob and solve puzzles. I think Adam described it as something along the lines of a Metroidvania without the jump button. Instead the game has you stacking bubbles to climb up and bases the puzzles around that.
We also got a ZX Spectrum game this week called Plyuk (Itch.io) that uses a very similar stacking mechanic for solving puzzles. Maybe 2025 is the year of stacking. This one is available for Pay-What-You-Want.
oceans::ephemera (Itch.io) is a walking simulator (they use the tag! It’s ok!) by the collective INFINITE TEARS and the designer Farfama where you explore a surreal space for 7 minutes and 43 seconds. I have always loved games where you just explore a space for a while and this was a beautiful space to meditate in for the duration of the game. From looking at social media posts, it sounds like there is a hidden part of the game that no one has seen yet, and while I really wish I could know what it is, even what I experienced is fantastic. It’s available as Pay-What-You-Want and if you enjoyed this, I also highly recommend city::ephemera.
286 Miles (Itch.io) is a short browser game about everyone’s favorite Luigi. It uses music by John Maus, who I kinda think can go fuck himself, but good lord the animation in this is incredible. The dev’s itch also has a game I’ve previously played called Cathedrals that I think is worth checking out if you want to build sculptures with Tetris blocks.
Breaker Box (Itch.io) is a free browser shmup where you must also shake to charge your flashlight and see your enemies.
Juan made an arcade game with his 7 year old (dev site) and it’s good. It makes me want to do more game dev with my kids too, so maybe I’ll mod this one since it’s open source. My 7 year old beta tested my last game and found some stuff and it made her incredibly happy that she’s listed in the credits for the game. We’re also poking at some adventure game stuff and using clay. If you’re a game dev and have kids, you should make something with them too. It’s the best. Am I doing the thing all parents do and just bragging about how cool my kids are? Yeah maybe.
If you’re like me and have mixed feelings about the new Dragonsweeper redesign (although you can still download the old version), maybe you’ll be interested in this version by Brianna Townsend (dev’s site) that looks like a DOS game and has some really nice new features.
If you’re a developer that has a ton of projects, cécile (post explaining it on Bluesky) has created a project that turns your Itch page into more of a grid layout and making it easier to read. You can download it on Itch.io.
It’s not new but I don’t think I’ve ever given a shoutout to Fireflower Games before. If you’re looking for DRM-free adventure games, consider picking up a game from their store. Itch.io doesn’t get every indie game and this site has done a pretty good job building up a catalog of games from various adventure game folks. Plus a chunk of their proceeds gets donated to environmental groups (see their FAQ).
Whale Flesh (Steam) is a horror game where you dig through the flesh of a giant whale to find out what happened to your team. Yep, sound great, sign me up.
Fill the world with your rainbow 2 (Itch.io) is a free browser puzzle game and rerelease of a Puzzlescript game from 10 years ago. I never played that one so I was happy to see this rerelease and it has a message that I think a lot of people could use right now.
Stewpot (Itch.io/Print) is here! Stewpot is a tabletop rpg by one of my favorite designers, Takuma Okada, where you tell the story of a tavern run by former adventurers through a series of mini games. The games absolutely works as a standalone thing but would also work very well at the end of a ttrpg campaign, once your adventurers retire and you want a more cozy way to continue their adventures.
I am a big fan of games inspired by the frustrating parts of Sierra adventure games, like Stair Quest and KIDNAME:ICEBOY, so I was thrilled to see Drive Quest 3 (Itch.io). DQ3 is a browser game based on the incredibly frustrating driving parts of Police Quest 3.
Shadowgate 2 (Steam) comes out today. You’re probably thinking “oh wow, it took them this long to make a sequel to Shadowgate for the Mac and NES?” NOPE! Buckle up, here are all the Shadowgate games we’ve got so far, not counting ports:
Shadowgate (1987)
Beyond Shadowgate (1993) for the TurboGrafx CD
Shadowgate 64 (1999) for the N64. I believe this one has mixed reviews but I remember actually really liking it
Shadowgate (2014), a remake of the original game.
Beyond Shadowgate (2024), a completely different game than the previously named Shadowgate. Why does it have the same name as the first sequel? Don’t know!
There was also a VR game and a board game too. Anyway, we now have a Shadowgate 2, which I guess is based on some concepts from a canceled N64 game called Shadowgate Rising. “Michael, aren’t you generally just optimistic about video games in this?” Yeah usually. The game is probably fine! I heard that Beyond Shadowgate game from last year was good and I think that remake from 2014 is solid too. So I’m actually generally a fan of this series, just a weirdo grump about how they name things.
Terry’s Other Games (Steam/Itch.io) is a collection of various small games by Terry Cavanagh, of VVVVVV and Super Hexagon fame. Notably, it features the first commercial release of a game made in Downpour, the game dev tool that you can use on smartphones (and I highly recommend). The developer of that wrote about it on their blog.
Zine month is happening right now in the ttrpg world and while I haven’t followed it too closely because I simply cannot afford to back everything I’ll get excited about, I did back Underneath (Kickstarter) by Seb Pines. I’m a fan of Seb’s games and solo ttrpgs in general and this one has you exploring unknown cave systems.
I haven’t played Reality Break (Steam) yet but it looks like a fun action rpg set in space and already has a few hundred reviews even though it just came out a few days ago. I heard about this from Aura’s blog, who seems to love the game.
The Creation of Wonder (Itch.io) is a tabletop rpg that can either be played as a solo game or for groups of 2-4 people and uses a tarot deck. It’s described as a narrative worldbuilding game about the labour that goes into the creation of art, and about the art that lives on when its makers are forgotten. It’s available for Pay-What-You-Want.
Steam Next Fest is coming up (or is already happening? I don’t know.) so a bunch of demos are being uploaded. Old Skies has a demo and I’ve mentioned before that I’ve beta tested it and think it’s probably their best game, so go play that one or just take my word for it and wishlist it. Axyz also looks like a fun vaporwave puzzle game.
Finally, it’s not a game but a musician I’m a fan of, Alpha Chrome Yayo, has released an album called Dream Chaser (Bandcamp) that is packed with tunes inspired by PSX-era racing games. It also comes with a Stepmania chart.
As much fun as these posts are, it came take a while to write them so if you enjoy these, add the site to your RSS feed reader, tell a friend, and do your own roundup! Social media and search engines suck and we need to build up a better web that doesn’t rely on the same 3 websites.
I’ve done another playthrough of the classic Doom as my comfort game for dealing with everything going on lately and what can I say, the game still slaps. There’s nothing really unique I can say about this game that hasn’t been said before. It’s all been said before a billion times because it’s the most heavily discussed FPS on the planet and people are still making levels and mods for it.
I played the Ultimate version through Bethesda’s rerelease so I guess my only real criticisms are as follows:
That 4th episode that was added in Ultimate Doom? Meh, it’s an episode I guess. I don’t find it particularly interesting and my preference in Doom levels has always been shorter ones, which this starts to pull away from. It doesn’t add anything new so it’s just there. More Doom levels are fine, it’s just not that interesting beyond that.
The more time I spend with the recent Bethesda rerelease, the less I like it. I keep running into bugs where it crashes and that mod browser has so many issues since anyone can upload a mod, screw up the crediting, and it may not even work! Who knows how much moderation is even happening. It just feels like a way for Bethesda/Microsoft to try to build walls around a community when Doom just should be free since it’s 30+ years old anyway and no one who worked on the game is still at ID Software.
There, those are my Doom hot takes. Still a great game though and holds up very well.
Doom is available on Steam, GOG, and basically everywhere else.
I’ve been dropping the ball a little bit on doing these on a weekly basis but I’m back to blow your minds. People still make games in the year 2025. Consider doing your own game roundup. The more people talking about weird, experimental games the better.
As required by law, I must post about the new Indiepocalypse (Itch.io) that came out today. This one has a FMV game, which is very exciting to me, and a brand new tabletop game by the great game designer tallywinkle.
Solo But Not Alone 5 (Itch.io) is a bundle of solo ttrpgs for charity. You can get 100+ games for just $10 or more.
Benign Land (Steam) is a short adventure game where you walk through dreamlike settings set in different times in Ireland. I haven’t played it yet but it sounds very interesting and the Steam reviews are positive.
TheBecoming (Itch.io) is a short, free horror visual novel about an archaeologist revisiting a cave. It’s by Oma Keeling and playable in the browser. Be sure to read the content warnings first before playing.
Stretchy Buoys Jam 2025 (Itch.io) is a collection of 5 interconnected games made during a game jam in Milwaukee, WI. I’m not familiar with the devs except for Tipsheda, who is great, but the games look fun and it’s all free.
Never Let Them See You Fart (Itch.io) is a free browser game where…..well, it basically says in the title.
Oracle (Itch.io) is a new template by Grim Baccaris for Twine for creating inspiration generators. I’ve made a few using Unity so this is really exciting to me since Twine makes a lot more sense for this kind of thing.
Growl (Itch.io) is one of the settings made for the Tiny World TTRPG Jam and folks, this is the ttrpg setting Gabriel Knight 2 fans have always been dreaming about.
Bubble Dreams 3D (Itch.io) is a free Monkey Ball-like game with a vaporwave aesthetic, available for download or playable in the browser. The Itch page and a few other folks said it’s like Marble Blast but I never played that one. But you do roll a ball around and grab stuff and it’s done very well.
Punch Nazis Story Generator (Itch.io) is a free story generator for punching Nazis. What more can you ask for.
the Devil rais’d the storm (Itch.io) is a visual novel/adventure game about locating a radar signal deep in the canyons near your remote outpost. Available for just $2.
Project Wheelie (Itch.io) is just a prototype but it’s already a fun driving puzzle game and I hope we get more of it.
We Live in a Bubble (Itch.io) is an abstract arcade game.
The Gaming Like It’s 1929 (Itch.io) game jam has ended and now there’s a lot of cool games based on things that entered the public domain this year.
Wor Games (Itch.io) is a very good Wizard of Wor clone for browsers.
Time Remover (Itch.io) is an essay that you read by playing through an arcade game, but the full text is available on the dev’s site too.
PicoMix by NuSan (Steam) is a collection of the dev’s PICO-8 games made over 8 years. PICO-8 is just very cool and I’m happy to see people make an effort to compile their games.
Broken Alliance (Steam) is a Heroes of Might and Magic-like that has entered Early Access and is already looking pretty great.
Sometimes you just want some nice icons for the ttrpg you’re working on. This is a good pack (Itch.io) for folks working on sci-fi games.
I talk a lot about the anonymous game dev collective Domino Club, but there’s also a new one called LITHOBREAKERS who are making some really interesting experimental games too. They just put out a new collection of games that you can play for free on Itch.io
Detective Bobert and the Hunt for Zweck The Ripper (Itch.io) is a free adventure game where you play as a bubble detective.
I think Eternal Strands (Steam) is an indie game? It’s certainly bigger budget than the ones I usually talk about here but is a nice rpg available for $40 and it’s just nice to see games in the AA space. It has a pretty lengthy demo too and the full game can use your save game from that if you decide to pick it up.
After being in development for quite a while, Spirit Swap (Steam) is out and it’s great! I think I saw a subtweet somewhere kinda dismissing it as just a Match 3 with some nice art but I really think there’s a lot more to it than that. I can be a grump about the Wholesome Games thing (just because of some marketing, I really like the games) but it really is a good game that I want to do a longer review on at some point because it does some really interesting stuff mechanically with the genre, the art looks fantastic in motion, and I think the writing and visual novel elements add some depth to the game as well so it’s not Just Another Match 3. I can be cynical about a lot of stuff but it really is a great game.
FlyKnight (Steam) is another one I’ve enjoyed playing this week and looks like a huge surprise for a lot of people too, based on the number of reviews it has. I know people love it when you compare games to Dark Souls so I’ll just say it’s Indie Dark Souls without elaborating and leave it at that.
I’m just kidding. That’s going to be the thing people compare it to, but it’s because the game does have a slower and more methodical combat system where you can get wrecked if you aren’t carefully planning your moves, and the game has you resting at campfires. Because I’m a parent with three kids, I haven’t really played much of those games except for some Demons Souls on the PS3, back before they were born, so I don’t know what this game has that is inspired by those, but I think that the game only being a few hours long makes it a great game to play over a week. I did some co-op, since it supports up to 4 players, and had a blast. It’s only $6 too!
Citizen Sleeper 2 (Steam) is out. I think everyone reading this already knows that but I’m including it anyway since it’s a new release. Absolutely loved the original and just haven’t gotten around to this one yet. I will someday, hopefully soon, and I’m sure I’ll love it.
The Stone of Madness (Steam) is a real-time tactical stealth game set in an 18th-century Spanish Monastery. I don’t know a whole lot about this game and just copied the description from the Steam store, but I saw a few people raving about it and what a rare setting for a video game. That art looks incredible too! If you’re interested, there’s a demo on the Steam page.
I’ve also seen a lot of folks praise Keep Driving (Steam), which is a rpg about doing a roadtrip in the early 00s.
That’s it for this week. Feel free to comment with what you’ve been enjoying lately!
I actually thought about doing one final roundup but then someone said they liked these so I’m being pulled back in. I might do them on a regular basis but have smaller posts so it feels less like a job and more like I’m just posting again, which is why I like having a blog.
As usual, if you enjoy these then add the site to your RSS feed reader. Social media networks come and go but RSS will never die! I use Inoreader and that is easy and free to use, and syncs across all your devices. If it ever gets bought by a billionaire I can just export all my feeds to something else. If you have a blog, do your own roundups. Search engines suck now from all the AI slop and people do look at these roundups if you want to help people discover interesting writing.
Aura wrote a guide to submitting your games to MobyGames. Consider doing this if you aren’t already. I’ll admit to being vain enough that I like seeing my name pop up under more titles. But I think it’s also good for games preservation to have all these little indie games documented. I think there’s a bigger post in me about why I think you should do this over IGDB, which is used for Twitch and Backloggd, but it mostly comes down to: If you’re concerned that people are going to review bomb your experimental, queer indie game, no one uses the rating functionality anymore on MobyGames. Everyone that still looks at MobyGames is old now, which includes myself, and no longer has the energy to care. Still seems to be a thing on Backloggd though, which is a site that can fall into the ocean.
Misty De Méo wrote an article for Indie Tsushin way back in December that I don’t think I ever mentioned. This one is about 1994 Mac stray dog survival game Rodem the Wild.
Dungeonsweeper has been one of my favorite games lately and Josh Grams has a fun post breaking down the thought process that goes into playing a round of the game.
Issue 2 of the Spooky Tomb Of Videogames is here. Highly recommended if you like my indie game roundups, because I basically copied the original form of those and did a worse job. If you want to know how much talking about small indie games matters, I originally found out about the game 3D Don’t Die Mr. Robot from Rob. Fell in love with the game and started talking about how great it was, which then led to my friend Ben picking up the game, getting really into it, and talking about it on his adventure games podcast Quest Quest (where else would you talk about an arcade game?). It’s like a little chain reaction, much like the ones you set off in 3D Don’t Die Mr. Robot.
After Yochai was basically harassed off Bluesky for pointless ttrpg discourse, he made a post about how it’s time to bring back forums. I think everyone who knows me is not surprised at all that I endorse this post. But like I said earlier, social media networks come and go and can get bought by shitty billionaires, and I think forums are a tiny bit safer. Or at least, having a lot of little sites is probably better for a healthy internet than 3 big websites, and I don’t trust Bluesky at all, sorry.
Amiga Boing Boing is ending its blog by the end of the year and is looking for a new person to run it. Are you an Amiga nerd with lots of time? Maybe you should consider taking over.
Chuck Jordan posted a recipe for vegetarian chili that looks very nice. I like when game developers post recipes because then I can say I’m a fan of their work on Curse of Monkey Island, Sam & Max season 3, and vegetarian chili recipe. I don’t think I have any recipes on me that I made up but if you do, consider sharing it.
Well, that does it for this week. I suppose that wasn’t so bad. I guess don’t have to do a big organized thing every week like Critical Distance does. Unless people started giving me as much money as their patreon pulls in. Man, that would be nice.
Every year I’ve been doing a post on the games I’m looking forward to. It’s a little bit late this year and some of the stuff I was planning to mention, like The Roottrees are Dead, are already out. Oh well, it’s my blog, I can post stuff late if I want. I think all the links on this post are going to Steam page if you want to wishlist. Like every year, it’s usually something I don’t know of that catches me off guard and becomes my favorite thing but maybe you’ll discover something new anyway.
Ron Gilbert put his rpg project on hold but said he has a much smaller game we should be getting soon. I have no idea what that is but it’s….something?
Tony Warriner is working on a game for that modern ZX Spectrum thing. I kinda don’t understand what makes a modern computer a ZX Spectrum but the game itself looks like a fun top down shooter thing.
New Inkle game this year. No idea what it will play like but it’s an Inkle game so I’ll probably like it.
Spirit Swap is a Match 3 game that comes out in a few days. I backed it on kickstarter a while ago so it’s already paid for and I can just enjoy this neat little queer game.
Trails and Traces: The Tomb of Thomas Tew is a point-and-click detective adventure. I liked the dev’s previous game from a few years ago so I’m happy to see them making another.
Old Skies! It’s a new Wadjet Eye game! I’m technically a beta tester on it, but haven’t really found that many bugs so I’m a pretty lousy one, but I am allowed to say that what I’ve played has been fantastic and at the level of quality you would expect from one of their games.
Citizen Sleeper 2 comes out in a couple hours but I published it before it came out so I can still say I’m looking forward to it!
A Chamber of Stars looks like a trippy visual novel or adventure game. I just really like the art and it has a demo.
The Ape Painting is an upcoming interactive fiction by an author I’m a fan of.
Peripeteia is an immersive sim coming out next month. I’ll always take more of those. It has a demo I haven’t played yet.
Rosewater! This one has been on a list or two before. It’s a western point-and-click adventure that has been in developer for quite a while and looks great. I love the rotoscoped art. We’re definitely getting this one this year since it was just announced that it’s coming out in March.
We’re getting a new Heroes of Might and Magic this year. There’s actually a couple of HOMM-likes floating around or entering early access so this might not even be necessary, but I’m still cautiously interested in it since it’s set in an older M&M world, Erathia, instead of the universe that Ubisoft has been putting their games in since they took control. Ubisoft’s setting has been boring as shit so I’m happy to see them return to this.
Quantum Witch looks like a fun and queer platforming adventure game. This one has a demo too.
Operation Zero just looks like a fun retro-looking arcade top-down shooter.
The Drifter has been on a previous list and I’m hoping we get it this year. I just really like Powerhoof’s shorter adventure games and think a long one would be good too.
We have a new game by the creator of Midnight Scenes. I will keep buying their short horror adventure games as long as they keep making them.
Nivalis is some sort of bar simulation set in a cyberpunk world. It’s by the developer of Cloudpunk, which I thought was very good.
Agent 64 is a FPS inspired by Goldeneye. Really liked the demo of it and hope we get the full game this year.
Super Cucumber is a cute platformer by the creators of Down the Drain. I thought that game was a fun roguelike and this is a dev local to me so I’m looking forward to this game.
Vaporwave Pinball is a pinball game with a vaporwave theme. Pretty straightforward! I like the demo so I’ll probably like more of that.
Legends of Castile is a historical point-and-click adventure set in Spain. I just think the art is very nice and reminds me a tiny bit of Curse of Monkey Island. It has a demo too.
Soup Rooms is an upcoming anthology game where you explore various rooms. It’s inspired by an old game I’m not familiar with but the opportunity to walk around a variety of weird spaces sounds like a good time to me.
Having a little bookstore is a fun little dream I have so a game about that, Tiny Bookshop, where I can do that without all the actual stress of running a bookstore sounds nice.
Generation Exile is a game about humanity’s only generation ship. I’m sure it will be an emotional experience that will make me feel like crap. Can’t wait.
I don’t know much about Usual June but I like the art and I’m a Finji Fan.
Promise Mascot Agency just looks like a wild adventure game and I’m very excited to see Alpha Chrome Yayo doing the soundtrack.
Sleight of Hand is a stealth game with a really fun looking mechanic where you have cards you draw from and each one has an effect to help you stay hidden and dispose of enemies.
Angeline Era is a new game by the Anodyne devs featuring bump combat!
Acronia is a platformer inspired by old DOS games. It has a demo on the Itch page that runs in DOS.
I think Roman Sands comes out this year? I was a fan of their previous game Paratopic and really like the Y2K aesthetic this has.
We’re getting a new Halloween Harry this year! By the same dev as the original game.
Heir of the Dog is a new adventure by the creator of Lucy Dreaming. That was a fantastic point-and-click adventure and I’m sure this will be a good one too.
Dream Settler is the sequel to Hypnospace Outlaw, one of my favorite games!
Zid Journey is a sequel to Zniw Adventure and looks like another point-and-click adventure that the whole family can play.
I really like the vaporwave aesthetic that the puzzle game Axyz has.
Tiny Garden is a game I backed that looks like a chill gardening game set in tiny Polly Pocket-like containers.
Wow, what a year huh? Glad it’s almost over right? Anyway, as usual, looking at little things on Itch.io and elsewhere is keeping me from losing my marbles so I will keep doing that. If you posted that people need to make weirder stuff, and you aren’t a game dev, idk, consider supporting some of the games here. Also considering buying more from Itch.io than Steam in the new year. They take a smaller cut from devs and don’t make everyone use forums that only an incredibly toxic community uses. Please let me know in the comments what you’ve been playing lately.
Dragonsweeper (Itch.io) is a free browser game that adds dungeon crawling and rpg elements to Minesweeper and it works wonderfully.
Vampire Versus Pope Army (Itch.io) is another great browser puzzle game, this one being made in PICO-8. In this game you’re a vampire and must drink blood from all the popes.
Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders (Steam) is a downhill skiing game that’s just some goofy fun. It just felt really good for me to control and was really easy to get going. I played the demo and it’s good! Not a whole lot to say about this one, just a straightforward downhill racing game that is well made.
Pillbug’s Domain (Itch.io) is a fun setting made for the Tiny World TTRPG jam. The page suggests using it for a science fiction or cyberpunk campaign. It’s probably just me but the art reminds me of an early 90s shareware game, so that’s always a plus. Available as Pay-What-You-Want.
Asterism (Steam) is an interactive concept album by Claire Morwood, filled with lovely music, but the highlight for me is this stop-motion art. Everyone probably knows by now that if a game has stop-motion art I’m required to put it in here. Look at it! Incredible. It also has a demo.
I thought Red Pandamonium (Itch.io) was a neat little free roguelike FPS made in 72 hours. You’re a red panda and move from room to room, clearing all the enemies, and buy upgrades. Plus it has some good retro FPS-inspired graphics.
I’m so fucking excited for Realis (Itch.io). It’s a tabletop rpg by Austin Walker of Giant Bomb/Waypoint/Friends at the Table fame. It’s a diceless ttrpg where characters deploy powerful Sentences, which are rewritten over the course of their saga. It’s currently in development but buying it now gets you the Ashcan edition. Usually that means it’s a shortened version of the game that can still be played, but the version you get is still a pretty beefy book. I think $15 is a pretty fantastic deal for the book. Even if this was all we were getting, it would still be worth buying. You can also listen to it being played on the current season of Friends at the Table.
Horizons: The End Of Words (Itch.io/Steam) is the newest game by the PUNKCAKE Delicieux collective. In this one you explore space by making chains of words using the letters you’re given. I’m a big fan of this collective and folks, I think they made another banger.
I never played Dungeon Ruins but people seemed to enjoy it. The sequel just came out (Steam) and the Steam reviews are positive for that one too.
That’s it for this week. If you enjoy these, subscribe to the blog through the RSS feed, tell a friend, and check out these games. If you’ve got your own blog, think about talking about stuff you like! More obscure art could always use more people praising it. I also have an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!
Yeah idk, I’d rather write this than watch the news today. This one will be long since it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these but it should be more reasonable in the future. As usual, my hope for these is that you find new stuff to add to your RSS feed reader (I use Inoreader) and that you consider doing your own blog roundups if you have a site and encourage other to use RSS, since social media and Google Search are disasters now.
Video Games
Bobbins’ Olde Tomb of Videogames is back! Please subscribe to this one. Rob regularly highlights great indie games that I’ve never heard of.
Into the Spine had a post where each writer, all 102, recommended a game. It features a recommendation by Emily Price for one of the games in the anthology I helped with!
Benj Edwards talks about his hopes for computers going forward such as users moving away from DRM and subscriptions and a push to make computers more personal again.
Wyx talks about how to put your music on Neocities
Well the world is a dumpster fire right now so I’m distracting myself with video games. Bon appétit!
Tunnels of Vextro (Itch.io) is a free chain anthology of games made using different engines and in conversation with each other.
Finalists for this year’s Independent Games Festival have been announced. This has always been a great way to discover smaller games and I’ve always been excited to ready these ever since they started posting these when I was a kid and discovered that you could make stuff like Bad Milk and Pencil Whipped.
Rob’s Spooky Tomb Of Videogames is back! They’re kinda like these roundups except they were first and are much better. I’ve discovered so many great games through Rob and I highly recommend subscribing.
There’s a new HauntedPS1 disc! I already covered it in a separate post but you should go check it out!
Radiant Lens (Itch.io) is a fun little tarot thing made in PICO-8.
Remora (Itch.io) is a demo of an upcoming visual novel by Swanchime.
Submissions are being taken for a charity bundle on Itch.io. You can read more about it on Wraithkal’s blog.
The Shadow Over Cyberspace (Steam) is a free visual novel about the Old Ones and Y2K approaching.
The Roottrees are Dead (Steam) is an expanded version of the original version created for Global Game Jam 2023. I never played the original but have heard wonderful things about this new version and I’m looking forward to playing it.
CyberCetacean (Itch.io) is a fun browser arcade game with vector graphics.
New In Town (Itch.io) is a solo TTRPG about being in a new place and reminding yourself of the possibilities. It was created for a game jam where the prompt was to be inspired by a random Nintendo DS game, with this one being based on Animal Crossing: Wild World.
World Pole Stone Dusk: Diadem of the Pole (Itch.io) is a new action platformer by Jazz Mickle featuring very nice art and looks to be very challenging.
Fragrance Point (Steam) looks like an incredibly trippy platformer adventure game.
AirbornEmpire (Steam) is a new city builder where you create a city floating in the sky. I will always get excited about city builders that try something new and so far this one has very positive reviews, which is nice when people can be very fussy about early access games.
Cyclopean: The Great Abyss (Steam/Itch.io) is a new dungeon crawler that has just entered early access. I really like the dev’s previous games and this one seems to be influenced by very early pc rpgs where you have an overworld and then it switches to a first person view when you get to a dungeon.
SoundBath (Itch.io) is a free and relaxing tool for creating ambient music.
Hengähtänet (Itch.io) is a bilingual poetry game featuring nice artwork.
Someone made a neat little remake of the DOS classic Pharoah’s Tomb on their website
HouseCall (Itch.io) is a free point-and-click adventure that’s playable in the browser.
Buried Treasure highlighted a dungeon crawler that looks pretty nifty called Tower of Mask.
Indie Games+ has a new review of a horror game that is very retro looking and aesthetically pleasing to me. Pretend it’s not there is available as Pay-What-You-Want.
Usually I put all my indie game stuff in the roundups but there was enough here that it deserved its own post.
EEK3, a virtual showcase of horror games inspired by the PSX era, just wrapped up and you can watch it all on YouTube. Overall it was good, I discovered a lot of new upcoming games from it, and we got a new HauntedPS1 demo disc that you can now download on Itch. I thought I would highlight and link to some of the ones I’m most interested just to get some extra eyes on them, but you should just watch the showcase and download the demo disc. This might be a weird list anyway because I like creepy stuff, but not games that are actually scary or have jump scares.
Angeline Era is a new bump combat game by the developer of games such as Sephonie and Anodyne 1 and 2. Bump combat is back!
Ticky’s Tower of Time just looks like a nice 3D platformer from the PSX era. Sure, I’ll play another one of those. The music in the trailer is pleasant too.
I’m not quite sure what Of Love and Eternity is, maybe an adventure game? But it looked interesting and it has a demo so I should probably go play that.
Eclipsium looks like a horror adventure game and man, I get so excited about digitized sprites.
Axyz looks like a fun puzzle game with a vaporwave theme.
The art in Juice is so fun and Colorfiction has made plenty of cool games before.
I didn’t know until now that No Players Online was getting a commercial release but I was a fan of the original free game.
Spyrit Walker looks like a fun retro FPS and has a demo too.
Children of Saturn is really exciting to me. I will always be into stories about teens trying to get by while it feels like the world is ending. It’s an interactive fiction game that doesn’t seem to be horror, and it has a demo.
Prison of Husks looks like a combination of the slower, difficult combat in Dark Souls with an aesthetic inspired by ICO.
Scissors in Hell is a first person turn-based dungeon crawler so yes, I will be playing that.
Death in Abyss looks like a Star Fox-type game but horror themed and set under the water.
Morn is another horror retro shooter and it’s got a demo so you can see if being a priest and shooting demons is for you.
Shrimp Game is a roguelike where you are a shrimp under the water. Wonderful.
It’s kind of funny seeing something with the Wholesome tag make it into the showcase but VORON does seem like a nice adventure game where you are a raven exploring the world.
MOTORSLICE is a non-horror platformer that actually reminds me of the PS2 era of games and the movement in it seems really well done.
Please Insert Disc is a horror adventure where it seems like you explore a haunted PS2-era disc? It’s by the devs of Home Safety Hotline, which I never played but people seemed to love.
Tamarindos Freaking Dinner looks like a very trippy and silly adventure game and was a nice way to mix things up with all the very serious games in the showcase.
RADIANT ELUSION seems to be a 3D platformer with a vaporwave theme.
And then finally, Soup Rooms sounds fascinating to me. I guess it is inspired by a 2007 game from Japan. It’s 100 rooms that I think you just explore and will be free. That sounds pretty great to me.
