I hope that whatever you celebrate this month, it has been a pleasant time. Here are some indie games from this last week that I enjoyed looking at. If you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email or message me on social media (see About page) to let me know it’s out.
Winter sales!
Winter sales have started on Itch, Steam, and probably a bunch of other places too. Go pick up some neat games if you want.
Quiller’s Code
This was a really fun puzzle game created for the Thinky Game Jam where you decode messages by dragging letters onto the symbols to figure out what the message is saying. The puzzles can be tricky but the game isn’t timed and lets you experiment with the letters without being punished.
SCRAP BOOK I – The Terrors of Ice and Darkness
SCRAP BOOK I is a very short (3 minute) game by the great Quinn K about mountain climbing and the pandemic. Really looking forward to future games in this series too. Read the content warnings before playing.
The Meaties 2023
This is a free zine where the author talks about their favorite games this year. It’s a great one to check out if you’re looking for some new tabletop rpgs to play and I also just really like someone putting their GOTY choices in a zine.
Coding History
Not an indie game itself but it is by an indie game dev. The second episode of Coding History is out and it’s about making a 3D engine and how it may not be as complex as it would seem.
Benevolence
Benevolence is a little sim where you use your powers as a god to wipe out people for their souls. The look and concept kinda reminded me of something Molyneux would make but in the 90s when he was making good stuff.
Welcome to Lunary Greens
This is a system-neutral supplement for your tabletop rpg of choice of a magical neighborhood. It’s part 11 of 12 in a series and if you subscribe to their newsletter you get to claim it for free on Itch. It’s ok, it’s not a Substack.
A Musical Sheepy Xmas
It’s an album of nice retro-sounding Christmas music by a game developer I’m a fan of. The Itch page also has a Bandcamp-like player in the browser so you can listen to the music without downloading anything, although the album can be downloaded for free.
Christmas Horse 4
This is part 4 in a free compilation of Christmas-themed games. In this one you play as a horse in a classic Zelda-like setup and fight elves.
There’s also three games this week that I haven’t played yet but I think look really neat.
Mobile Suit Baba
Mobile Suit Baba is a tactical puzzle game inspired by Into the Breach by the developer of Baba is You. It’s available for free until this Wednesday.
Terminal
Terminal is a surreal cyberpunk tabletop rpg for 3-7 players inspired by The Matrix. The art and layout look pretty great and the preview of it in Dicebreaker back in July was very positive.
Path of the Abyss
Path of the Abyss is a single-player, grid-based dungeon exploration RPG with real time combat that was just released in early access. The art in this looks pretty nice and the Steam reviews are positive so far. The reviews do give a heads up that the translation from Japanese to English was done with a machine and not a human translator. They said it’s not noticeable but still probably something worth noting.