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.
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!
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 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.
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.
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
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.
Developer: The Zium Society
Year: 2026
Genre: Multimedia Program
System: Windows
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.
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.
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.
Developer: Not Jam
Year: 2026
Genre: Arcade
System: Browser
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.