The Joy of Revisiting co-open with My Kids

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Developer: lowpolis
Year: 2021
Genre: Adventure
System: Mac

Screenshot taken from Itch.io

One thing I love doing is showing games I played years ago to my kids that I think they will enjoy. Recently one of these was the first-person adventure game/walking sim co-open. co-open is a game about a kid’s first time buying groceries on their own. While it wasn’t designed for kids in mind, my 6 and 9 year olds absolutely loved it. My oldest would be the one controlling the game and walking around while the 6 year old offered suggestions on what they should look at or explore next. I think in general they are just huge fans of games where you can explore a space without fear of losing, which is why they like Proteus as well, and co-open offers so much to look at but it’s all optional. If you want to do a simple trip to the grocery store, pick out a few items and leave, you certainly can and the game won’t look down on you for it. However, you can also talk to folks and help them with their shopping trip, find things like phone numbers to call, and explore and stumble across so much interesting stuff. The game just gives you so much to look at even with it being smaller in size, so I was really happy that my kids were into that and also enjoyed its chill vibes.

I think something else that kids are very good at embracing and I’ve lost is roleplaying in video games. They are happy to just explore a space and make up stories about the characters as they play. Another example is that my 6 year old loves playing Unpacking, with the puzzle elements turned off such as everything needing to be in the proper place, and just making up her own stories about all the objects. While I love roleplaying in tabletop rpgs, somehow I’ve lost this in video games and there’s a lot my kids are showing me in how someone can play a video game. Maybe I should have made up an elaborate backstory for the moose in Moose Life. It made me happy that co-open was a game they enjoyed and that my 6 year old still asks occasionally about playing “the grocery shopping game.”

co-open is available for PC/Mac/Linux on Itch.io and in physical format on the Videogame Tape Market.

Knytt Classic

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Developer: Nifflas and Bit Kid
Publisher: Bit Kid
Year: 2026
Genre: Platformer
System: Windows

Knytt screenshot of people hanging out by the water, someone laying down, someone fishing, a house and trees
This game has so many little guys

I have fond memories of playing Knytt so I was very happy to see that it got an official rerelease recently to celebrate the game’s 20th anniversary. If you haven’t played it before, it’s a freeware game where you have crashed on a planet and need to explore the planet by platforming around and finding parts to repair your ship. There’s no combat and only a handful of enemies that can hurt you. If you touch one of them or a hazardous element of the planet like lava or water, you teleport to your most recent save point. The save points are scattered frequently around the world so it is not an issue if you touch something you shouldn’t. The world itself is fairly big and maze-like, but you can also hold down a button to have the game point you in the direction of the nearest ship part, so it never feels overwhelming. It’s an incredibly chill game and exactly what I needed to replay at this moment.

It was just really nice to revisit the game since it had a big impact on me in college, when it originally came out (lol I’m old). That, and Seiklus (EDIT: I originally got it mixed up with Within a Deep Forest, another freeware game I recommend), a similar game with a relaxing vibe, both seemed like they came out sorta around the same era when there was maybe an explosion in freeware games. I wasn’t a part of any scene so I was just stumbling across this stuff on sites like Game Hippo and Retro Remakes. Laura Michet’s blog has far more interesting thoughts about this game than I do. It’s just a game that means a lot to me because I didn’t really have the money to spend on games and really appreciate that there were folks making some really interesting stuff for free. I suppose you could argue that stuff like Steam wasn’t really taking over yet, but you still had folks selling games digitally so they maybe could have figured out a way to make money off it. I don’t know. It bummed me out that some of the discourse from the Manifesto Jam was about how folks releasing games for free devalues them and hurts people making paid games. Not only is it not true, just look at the last 50 years of computer games, but teenagers like video games too. Ah well.

I still haven’t played the new extra difficult modes that were added for this rerelease. I might poke at them a little bit, they’re probably not for me, but I think it’s fun that they’re there.

Anyway, give it a look if you never played it before. It only took me about an hour to beat on my first run and I think it’s a nice, free game.

Knytt Classic is free on Steam and GOG for Windows/Mac/Linux.

Check out the new DOS game Europa Panic

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Developer: hoolis
Year: 2026
Genre: Arcade
System: DOS

top down view of a person shooting lasers at green tentacle monsters and there's a purple tentacle monster

Just a few days ago the full version of a DOS game called Europa Panic came out. A demo version was previously released for a jam last year and I enjoyed that so I was happy to see this full version come out. It’s a top down arcade game where you enter rooms of a planetary station to recover parts of a generator. After you collect all the parts in a level, you go to the generator and turn it back on. While you navigate the station you need to avoid or shoot enemies with your very slow laser gun thing that causes the enemy to slowly disintegrate. To make things even more difficult, if you take too long to complete a level you will see a purple tentacle monster appear and quickly hunt you down if you don’t exit the room very soon. The game is immensely challenging but also very forgiving in that touching an enemy will instantly kill you, but you do not need to restart the entire level, just the section you are doing, and none of the sections are too long. You also have infinite lives, unless you turn on the option to have a specific amount.

(EDIT: This bit is actually no longer relevant because it’s since been patched and the game has some extras added now too. I’m leaving it here just to document my feelings but at the moment but it’s been fixed.) The only real frustration I had was that the hit box is larger than it appears to be, meaning there were a few times where an enemy was not actually touching me but I died anyway. This only became an issue with a section in the 2nd level (there’s 3 levels total) that requires navigating some tight spaces with lots of enemies bouncing around, and once I completed that part everything went back to feeling very tough but fair.

I loved the game. While it’s incredibly tough and not the type of thing I typically play these days, I loved the huge amount of level and enemy variety in a relatively short (took me about an hour) game, and I have a soft spot for 16 color EGA DOS games. Plus it’s pay-what-you-want, so you can play it for free first (including in the browser if you have no interest in DOSBox) and pay some money after. Give it a look if you like challenging arcade games.

Europa Panic! is available for DOS on Itch.io

Game Devs, Stop Using AI Shit Even for Coding

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I’ve said it before on here but fucking knock it off. Yes, even for coding. I’m crabby about it because a dev did a long winded post about how they know it’s bad but they want to keep using it so they’re gonna. I dunno, I think that if AI is stealing my shit and polluting communities, that’s kinda the end of that debate. No need to find the nuance there. Stop fucking using it. Don’t @ me with how everything causes pollution these days, LLMs use an extreme amount of energy for a thing no one fucking needs.

New Bundle To Support Game Workers Launches

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As everyone at this point knows, the games industry is in an incredibly rough spot right now and thousands have lost their jobs and are looking for work. A new bundle has launched on Itch.io to try to help some of those folks out. The Game industry hardship fund is a bundle that you can buy for $10 or more and 100+ games. I won’t go through the bundle and highlight my favorites but there’s a lot of great works in here and I highly recommend picking the bundle up.

Thimbleweed Park 2 Announced, Blog Launched

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Ron Gilbert has just announced Thimbleweed Park 2, which you can already wishlist on Steam. I’m excited! I was a fan of the original game and I’m always happy to see Ron working on a new adventure game with the folks that made the first game.

As part of the announcement, you can also follow the development blog here. The post has a lot more details about what platforms the game will be on, if there will be a Kickstarter (no), and why (it’s already funded). I recommend checking the post out if you’re interested and adding the blog to your RSS feed reader. I think the thing I’m most looking forward to about the game is that both Thimbleweed Park 1 and Return to Monkey Island brought nice quality of life improvements to point-and-click adventures that the rest of the folks in the community adopted. Many got brought over to the engine I use, Adventure Game Studio, too. I also just like all the folks that worked on TWP 1 and that last Monkey Island so it’s always nice to see them continuing to work on games.

Adventure Games Are Doing Just Fine: July 2026 Edition

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I’m still not back to doing indie game roundups just yet but I did want to give a shout out to all the adventure games coming out lately since there’s been so many lately but you wouldn’t know it from being in the adventure game community, which seems more content to complain about how it’s not the 90s anymore and ignores all the new stuff and experimentation happening in the space. Just this last month we’ve had:

The Incident at Galley House, a remake of last year’s Type Help, where you are investigating a mysterious death. I’ve only played a little so far but it’s been fantastic.

Endacopia, a horror point-and-click adventure made in Adventure Game Studio that’s only been out for a few days but already looks like it’s been a massive success. Again, wouldn’t know it existed since there’s been no real coverage of it from any adventure game outlets but it’s getting great reviews on Steam and looks like it’s doing some really interesting stuff with the engine. It sounds like the developer had a YouTube channel for a while so I’m guessing that’s where this massive audience came from. I do really like the 90s edutainment horror aesthetic although part of me is nostalgia poisoned enough that I think I would get more excited if it just looked like 90s edutainment but wasn’t horror.

Desktop Explorer is another 90s-inspired horror adventure game, but obviously through a desktop computer.

The Mermaid Mask is the third game in the Detective Grimoire series. I really should play these. They all have some great artwork.

I think a nice thing about all these releases is that they all seem to be massively successful too. Obviously commercial success isn’t an indicator of quality or what deserves attention but it’s still nice that there’s folks that can make a living doing this considering all the talk about it being a dead genre.

I also want to mention some other recent games. What Awaits, Aleksey? looks like a very challenging investigation game set in a Communist state and I’m curious how that is executed. Go North looks like a very interesting maze puzzle game that I first saw at a Game Devs of Color related event. I also need to finish playing A Lost Man and doing a writeup on it since I was given a key for it, but I do like that one a bit too. I previously wrote about really liking the demo, which is still available for you to try.

I still haven’t played Broken Reality but the sequel Broken Reality 2000 looks great. I really want to walk around in that space.

And finally, I also really want to make the time for the semi-autobiographical walking simulator Plum Road Tea Dream.

I just always find it fascinating to see what the adventure game sites and youtubers cover. It often feels like it’s just about how the genre isn’t what it used to be, casually ignoring the innovations that are happening so they keep complaining. Also plenty of complaints about how the games are too easy now and not playing any of the ones with more challenging puzzles. You’d think that Cyan showing off a whole prototype that couldn’t get funded would be worthy of a mention in adventure games news but I guess not! Anyway, the adventure game genre is doing fine.

Cyan Gives a Peek at Canceled Myst Prototype and Other Myst News

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Cyan’s Mysterium convention is happening right now, which means all the Myst-related announcements are happening. The biggest one was a look at a prototype in the Myst universe that they were shopping around but never got funded. Project Anglerfish was going to be a first-person adventure game set in the universe but not a direct sequel and it’s absolutely killing me it didn’t get funded. A more horror leaning first person puzzle game right after Blue Prince won so many accolades seems like a slam dunk but no one was interested in funding it. I’m assuming it’s not something a Kickstarter would fund but I would happily throw money at it if they had one. Take a look

Alright, well with that painful news out of the way there was some good news too. It sounds like they’re still working on a game set in that universe, just not that one. The Myst books are getting reprints too. You can read about all of that and more on their website.

Moose Life thoughts

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Developer: Llamasoft
Year: 2020
Genre: Arcade
System: PC

Given that this site is called The Virtual Moose, I’m surprised I never wrote a post about Moose Life, the 2020 arcade game by Llamasoft. It’s a game where you play as a voxel moose, flying through 3D tunnel-like levels, shooting at weird little bits and making them explode into trippy visuals. The gameplay gimmick in this one being that as you glide through the levels, you can either shoot at objects on the floor or flip upside down and run along the ceiling to shoot. I don’t know if it’s my #1 Llamasoft game, that’s probably Polybius, but it sure is up there.

a moose in a tunnel hanging upside down

It’s got everything you would want in a Llamasoft game. Sheep, trippy 80s arcade game-inspired visuals, the same audio samples you’ve heard in a dozen or so other Llamasoft games. It’s not doing anything radically experimental but that’s fine with me. It’s just great playing an arcade game by someone that has been making them for decades and is at the top of their game. It’s a bit more challenging than their previous game Polybius, where I loved being able to basically enter a trance-like state while playing, but I suppose that’s what the Free Ride mode is for, where you can play without worrying about lives. Even though it’s an arcade game, the game saves the best state each time you enter a level, meaning you can pick up at the most recent level if you lose all your lives. You’re certainly welcome to start at the beginning if you want, but I appreciate that there’s a way for players to experience all the levels in the game.

Something I really love about Moose Life is how much it seems like it’s doing its own thing. Other Llamasoft games are often a riff on another arcade game but in Minter’s own style and innovations, but I don’t see the specific influences with Moose Life. I maybe see a tiny bit of Defender and other people bring up Juno First in their reviews, but I don’t know what the direct inspirations are and I think that’s really neat. I certainly don’t mind when Llamasoft remakes an existing game, I’m a huge fan of their Tempest games and their most recent game, I Robot, is a delight too, but it’s fun playing a Llamasoft game and not knowing where it came from too.

moose in a tunnel and text saying "Purple moose mode!"

There’s really no unique insights or surprises in this post. I just love Llamasoft’s games and wanted to talk about one that I think gets less attention since it’s not a remake. If you’re looking for an arcade game, consider giving it a look. I also want to give a shout out to the Llamasoft documentary Heart of Neon, which I need to do a longer post about at some point, but I really enjoyed it and how it not only looks at Jeff Minter’s career but the indie devs in his circle as well.

Moose Life is available on Steam and PlayStation 4.

Physical Media for PC Games Still Exists

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As people love to do on the Internet, I saw someone saying that no one is doing physical media for computer games anymore and we need to go back to it. Well good news, they do!

Indiepocalypse has their videogame tape market where you can get neat little indie games in cassette tape cases. It’s all DRM-free and you get the game on a USB stick. Take a look!

Photo of an Indiepocalypse collection and HITM3 in cassette tape cases

Well I think it’s pretty neat anyway. There’s are a few options for selling the tapes, including the online store or doing it yourself, if you are interested. Consider it if you are an indie dev because I will probably want to buy your game. If you do want to pursue this but do it on your own, Andrew (the Indiepocalypse guy) also lists his email if you just want to know the process and steps he takes to sell these. He doesn’t want to gatekeep the information and just wants to see more stuff like this out there.

There’s other folks selling physical copies of pc games too, your Kickstarters and what not. Plenty of folks selling new games for old computers in boxed copies too. I just wanted to highlight this because I think it’s cool and follows the usual rule of video games where if someone is posting “this doesn’t exist anymore!” it probably does and they’re not curious enough to seek it out and support it.