This will be a very short post but the games collection Cartomancy Anthology is now free on Steam and Itch.io. It’s a games anthology where you pick the game you want to play by drawing from a tarot deck. I originally got it from backing a Kickstarter a while ago but I’m really happy it’s free so more folks will play it. So many game developers I’m a fan of worked on it and I highly recommend checking it out!
My Favorite Halloween Game is Online Again!
The Annual Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival is a cute online game by the designer of another game I love, A Short Hike. You explore a small town, carve pumpkins, and do other Halloween stuff! It’s only an online game for the month of October but you can play offline all year. Every year they add more stuff and even from playing for just 15 minutes I already found something new. I suppose it’s possible that it’s a thing from last year that I just never saw but it just shows how much there is to do in the game. I love playing it with my kids, who are also big fans of this and A Short Hike, and something that’s been really nice as the game has been adding additional adventure gamey segments you can engage with (or not, it’s all optional!) is the ability to enable/disable the horror elements. If you want, you can even switch between night and day time if you have a preference.
I don’t think it quite counts as a MMO, it’s probably too small and there’s probably a different and more specific term for an online game with a smaller player count, but it’s a lot of fun seeing other ghosts floating around and interacting with the world. There’s no text chat either and I suppose it could be possible to grief by making obscene pumpkins but I haven’t seen it.
I don’t want to talk too much about what’s in the game since a huge chunk of the fun to me is the exploration and thinking “Wow, they even put _____ in here?” but it’s got a nice mix of exploration, more Video Game stuff, and other activities that are just more creative and chill. There is a very brief moment I’d like to give a shoutout to because it made my kids laugh so much last year. There’s an adventure game section where you do puzzles, and if you play on the cutest mode, there is a door you can click on that will slowly creak open, positioning itself to be a jump scare, but then a cute pumpkin pops up and does a baby laugh before the door slams shut. This extremely brief moment alone made my kids so happy every time we played and that’s the magic of video game baby!
It’s an impressive amount of work for a project that you can play for free, but you can pay $2 to unlock the ability to wear hats and I think it’s worth doing so this game can be supported.
The Annual Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival is available on Itch.io for Windows/Mac/Linux.
It’s World Postcard Day!
Today, October 1, is World Postcard Day! I am going to copy Renkon’s post and say that if we interact with each other a bit on The Internet, most likely mutuals on some social media platform, and you would like a postcard, let me know! You should know where to contact me through email, social media, or Discord, and I will send you a postcard from my collection. I can’t guarantee it will be a great one, it might be some silly touristy thing, but you will receive one.
Stop Sending Me AI Slop
I think it should be clear to actual readers of this site that I do not want any games sent to me that use generative AI, including code, but since it keeps happening: Please stop sending this crap to me. I think it’s morally wrong to use these products, it’s an obscene waste of energy, they’re built by stealing the work of others, and all of these companies have rancid ethics. I don’t care if you just used it for code. It fucking sucks and I hope your next game will be better.
Thank you.
Game Devs of Color Expo Starts This Week!
GDoC is a yearly virtual conference I love to watch and I highly recommend buying a ticket to watch the talks happening and support the conference. I’ll let the website describe GDoC since it does a better job than I could
“Game Devs of Color (GDoC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to amplifying and empowering developers of color in the gaming industry. Since our founding, we’ve focused on elevating talented creators and their innovative work, providing platforms and opportunities that help developers of color bring their unique games to life and connect with the broader gaming community.”
Even if you aren’t a game developer, I think there’s a lot to enjoy with the various interviews and panels, and you’ll be supporting a really cool group!
lol, never mind on that Zium Railway recommendation a few days ago
Turns out the main programmer heavily used AI in the hub world area and didn’t tell artists and collaborators until it was too late. But they did make a pathetic post saying that Valve and Hideo Kojima should hire them and says positive things about company towns?? Explains the bugs in the main hub though. I’ll rewrite the original blog post to explain this further.
It’s incredibly frustrating that the artists involved have to put up with this. Those external exhibits are great! Anyone not letting collaborators know up front that they will be using AI on a project are just assholes.
Anyway, I read this post about creative coding and felt better about not using AI to code, even at my day job
Ectocomp 2026, the Halloween Interactive Fiction Jam, is Coming Up Soon
ECTOCOMP is a yearly interactive fiction game jam celebrating the month of Halloween. It looks like a chill jam and has a very good AI policy (it’s not allowed), so give it a look on Itch.io. There’s even a category for folks who want to speed write a game in four hours or less if you’re someone like me who cannot devote lots of time to a game jam.
Well, Mega Man 2 is Still Very Good
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Year: 1988
Genre: Platformer
System: NES
Inspired by Jeff Gerstmann’s NES games ranking, I played through all of Mega Man 2 for the first time in about 10 years or so. I was a little surprised it had been that long since it’s my favorite NES game (and still is) but that’s the date for the achievement on the Mega Man Legacy Collection and I don’t think I’ve completed it since then. There’s no hot takes in this one, I still love it and agree with all the opinions on it. All the robots are solid designs and they had a lot more to choose from than later entries, the soundtrack is fantastic, that one boss level where you can softlock yourself is a bit poop, none of these are hot takes. I also like how purple and blue so many of the game’s levels are. It’s the bisexual pride flag of Mega Man games.
I don’t necessarily agree with the takes that later games get bad. I like some of the later mainline Mega Man games quite a bit and I’m looking forward to the new one next year, but I do think they get less weird over time after the formula is figured out. I wouldn’t say the X series is weird, just kind of a 90’s edgy that I don’t really care for and way too much lore. There’s stuff in Mega Man 2 like the alien boss at the end and the really quiet and moody leadup to it that I adore, and some of the Wily levels before it are very grungy in a way I like.
Look at how gross that is! I love it. Also there’s only two of those fish in the entire game. They just kinda jump up and try to eat you. I just like that they made a whole enemy and barely use it. It’s neat.
Like I said earlier, I love that the final level is just this cave with no music and only these drops you can easily avoid, but they make a neat little drop sound when they hit the floor. I don’t recall any later Mega Man games that are more focused on establishing a mood and aren’t interested in provided a challenge before the boss. I think it’s cool.
Anyway, I know it’s cliched to talk up Mega Man 2 because it’s been done to death and every video game music band has covered that Wily Castle music theme to death but it’s my site and if I replayed one of my favorite games, then so be it. I should probably go back and play the Mega Man Legends series, I think I would still enjoy those quite a bit.
Mega Man 2 is available in the Mega Man Legacy Collection, which is available on many platforms including Steam.
pleasuredrome is an Erotic Game for the Sickos (complimentary)
Developer: DOMINO CLUB
Year: 2024
Genre: Visual Novel
System: Browser
Sometimes I go back to previous game jams run by DOMINO CLUB, the anonymous game dev collective, and look for games I haven’t played before. The latest one of those is pleasuredrome, a game made for the Bodies in Motion jam they did in 2024. This one is a short browser game that tells a story about a dystopian future where prisoners have sex to survive. It’s hot! You do not have to do any sex mini games or anything clunky like that, the story is told by you walking around a world. I love how grungy the art is and the recommended listening of Metal Fingers In My Body by Add N To (X) adds to that feeling. I think it’s the only game they made that’s set in this world but I’d like to see more of it. Anyway, felt compelled to highlight this one because Bluesky is whining about mainstream games again and people would just be happier if they looked at Itch.io more often so here’s a recommendation.
pleasuredrome is available for the browser on Itch.io
Snake Digits is a PICO-8 Game That Innovates on the Snake Formula
Developer: PUNKCAKE Délicieux
Year: 2026
Genre: Arcade
System: Browser
I’ve been a fan of PUNCAKE for a while now, a collective that regularly releases smaller games in all types of genres, so it was exciting to see that their latest game was for the PICO-1K Jam 2026 because I also love PICO-8 and that game jam specifically. This is a take on the classic Snake game that I haven’t seen before. As you can see from the gif, you move around pushing numbers of the same amount together in groups and once it’s big enough, it’s added to your score. So for example, pushing together four 4’s will make that group disappear and add it to your score. Something that I think is a nice little touch is that the game is a little more forgiving about touching walls than your average Snake game since you have a lot more going on in this one. It’s a neat twist on the Snake formula and I think you should check it out in your browser along with other games in the jam. If you’ve been curious about learning PICO-8, you can also view the code and learn from it!
Snake Digits is available for free for the Browser and download on Itch.io and PICO-8 website.