lol, never mind on that Zium Railway recommendation a few days ago

~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

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

Well, Mega Man 2 is Still Very Good

~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

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.

mega man jumping in gross brown yellow water over a fish

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.

Mega Man running through a cave while red drops fall from the ceiling

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)

~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Developer: DOMINO CLUB
Year: 2024
Genre: Visual Novel
System: Browser

text saying "in the eternal city only one sport remains, the execution of prisoners who fail in sexual contest in...the pleasuredrome
Screenshot of the first screen because this is a site for children and I can’t post anything later on

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

~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Developer: PUNKCAKE Délicieux
Year: 2026
Genre: Arcade
System: Browser

top down view of a snake pushing numbers around on a board

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.

The Zium Railway, the Latest Virtual Gallery from The Zium Society, contains great art tanked by bad programming

~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Developer: The Zium Society
Year: 2026
Genre: Multimedia Program
System: Windows

overview of a big world with a train rail going around it

The Zium Railway is the latest in the series of virtual galleries published by The Zium Society. I had been a fan of the series for a while and it has been fascinating to watch these grow from more straightforward galleries (but still impossible to create in a physical space) where you walk around a virtual world and look at pieces of art, to this latest one where you ride a train around a world and enter virtual worlds created by artists for you to explore. I liked it, which makes it incredibly frustrating that I don’t know if I can recommend it. It turns out that the main hub world had relied on heavy AI usage, which was not disclosed but does come up on the dev’s blog where they made an obnoxious post about how Valve and Hideo Kojima should hire them and has a romantic view of company times. It’s just completely rancid and unfortunate since the artists on the project had all done a great job. It doesn’t appear that the artists were told about it until it was too late, judging from how frustrated some of them seem to be. I hope the artists release their things separately like this Aqualung Caverns one, which I loved. I loved the external exhibits and even the main world design was nice. I had run into bugs but overlooked it since I could work around them with the in-game options to teleport around. I suppose I know why there were so many. I guess I can’t really say I regret donating money for it since the money is being split among the artists but it’s a bummer.

Sometimes on social media I’ll lament the death of multimedia cd-roms and other programs that combine art and music in interesting ways without there being a series of win conditions you’re supposed to meet, but I think there’s space for it by doing virtual exhibits. I do hope that it’s something other folks will consider doing things like the Zium series, folks who won’t crash out on the slightest bit of pushback on AI usage and again, praise company towns on their blog.

inside a cavern and looking at a waterfall. There's a sign that says Aqualung Caverns

After this had come out, I went back and loaded up The Zium Garden to play with my 6 year old since it was one of the few that runs on Mac and she had a great time. Kids sometimes just like to have interesting spaces to explore without things running around trying to kill them. Which just sad that I can’t bother with these in the future due to the wildly unethical way that AI companies are run, steal so much content from others, and poison marginalized communities with data centers. Something brilliant was started due to the efforts of so many talented collaborators and then thrown in the bin.

The Zium Railway is available for Pay-What-You-Want for Windows on Itch.io but, well, you saw the post.

Here, Have a Moose Emerging from the Water

~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment
the cover of Ranger Rick magazine, showing a moose emerging from water

My mom gifted a magazine subscription to my kids a little bit ago so I was happy to see this arrive in the mail. People can say print is dead all they want but how else are you supposed to have a moose picture delivered to your home.

Anyway, here is a moose emerging from the water. When evil doers are causing trouble, beware, a moose may come from anywhere to save the day.

Necking is a Cute Game Where You Make Giraffes Kiss

~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Developer: Not Jam
Year: 2026
Genre: Arcade
System: Browser

two giraffes separated by bushes

Sometimes you are just in the mood to play a short arcade puzzle game with very cute art where you make giraffe necks stretch so they can kiss another giraffe on the screen while avoiding obstacles and someone happens to share their game on social media that meets those needs. It’s really nice. The game itself is about 5 minutes long and while it’s an arcade game with upbeat music, I found it to be very relaxing since the levels are very short and messing up quickly restarts you to the beginning so messing up isn’t stressful. There’s also a surprising amount of variety in the levels given that the game itself is only a few minutes long too. You go from controlling just one giraffe, then levels where you avoid obstacles, to controlling multiple giraffes and levels with inverted controls. It’s great and I hope you love it too.

Necking is available to play in the Browser on Itch.io.

Metroid thoughts

~ mpklamerus ~ 5 Comments

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Year: 1986
Genre: Action-Adventure
System: NES

Look, obviously I am not going to have any unique takes on Metroid, one of the most discussed games ever, but I just completed it and I’m pretty proud of that so into the Game Log it goes. I think everyone reading this knows what Metroid is as well so I can skip that bit too. I still love the game even though it’s got some fiddly and frustrating bits from it being so early in this style of game. The only major pain point really being that if you die, it takes ages to refill your health and missiles from grinding enemies.

I’m mostly excited about completing it because it’s a game that I have owned literally my whole life. It came out in 1986, a year before I was before, and I always played it on and off over the decades and yet never completed even though I’m a big fan of the series and have completed many of the later games. What’s odd is that it didn’t even really take me that long really to complete this time. Maybe about six hours or so. I still thought it was a challenging game but it’s not really that long so I’m a little surprised I never completed it before when I had entire days free to play video games and write down passwords. It’s a very weird, and highly recommended, experience to complete a game that has existed your entire life that you’ve poked at a few times so if you got a few of those hanging around, consider knocking one out.

One of the things I really love about the original Metroid is just how weird and mysterious it is compared to later games in the series. It’s not an entirely fair comparison, of course the first game in a series is going to feel a lot more new than later games and some of the later games do have weird bits, but at the same I think it would be nice to see more unexplained stuff and weird worlds instead of revisiting some of the same characters and places so often. I don’t think this is the same as doing a “back in my day games were hard and blah blah blah” because this isn’t what made the original Metroid difficult. I’m just saying the vibes are very good and it’s less focused on telling a linear narrative, which is why I don’t care for Metroid Fusion as much as other folks even though it’s got some weird stuff in there (that I think it over explains). It’s a similar arc as the game’s inspiration Alien, lots of weird unexplained stuff and then it kinda becomes more normal and overexplained. A more modern example of what I mean is the game Axiom Verge, it’s got lots of weird stuff that you never fully get. I would love recommendations if there’s any other indie Metroid-likes that I’m missing out on with great weird vibes.

This probably sounds like I’m basically saying the Metroid gets worse over time and I’m not. I love most of those later games too. Some of the sequels have even weirder things like all the various designs of the Metroid creatures in Metroid 2 and how much it feels like horror at certain points. I just want more of it.

Anyway, no hot takes here. I still think the first Metroid is very good and I’m looking forward to the new one that was just announced. If you’ve got a game that you like but haven’t completed even though you’ve owned it for a few decades, go complete it. You’ll probably find it’s not as impossible as you remember.

Metroid is available on the NES Virtual Console for the Nintendo Switch but you can probably find ways to play it elsewhere.

Season 3 of Playdate Has Been Announced!

~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Playdate just announced the 3rd season of their Playdate games and I’m very excited for it. The two previous seasons were great and there’s already a few games announced in this season that I’m looking forward to. I know my kids will love Sound Mind, a two-player hide and seek game by Chuck Jordan (Curse of Monkey Island, Sasquatchers). They also loved Root Bear so they will be happy to see another game by that team called Soggy Froggy. I was a huge fan of Chance’s Lucky Escape by Goloso Games (Inspector Waffles) & Julia Minamata (The Crimson Diamond) so I’m happy to see that’s getting a sequel. We’re also getting a new MacVenture-style (Shadowgate/Deja Vu/Univited) adventure game called houm. It’s not all adventure games in season 3 but that’s my favorite genre so it’s nice to see so many announced already.

Even better, the page says “All games in Season Three were created without the use of generative AI.” Season 2 had run into an issue where it turned out a developer did use gen ai to help code on a game without disclosing it to anyone so I’m glad Panic is making sure they don’t run into that again. I’ve complained recently about how much gen ai usage is on the Catalog store and so have other folks so at least the Playdate community is free from it here.