Month: April 2024

Indie Game Roundup (April 20, 2024)

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A lot of neat stuff has come out in the last two weeks and it’s the funny number day, so here’s another one of these indie game roundup things of things that I enjoyed. If you released a thing and I missed it, feel free to reply in the comments.

Craig Maloney
Craig Maloney passed away on April 2nd after battling cancer for three years. I never met him in person but enjoyed talking with him online and reading his posts on his blog. If you would like to see his writing or the games he made, there’s links to everything on his page.

https://decafbad.net

black and white photo of an arena with text describing what they're seeing

New Domino Club games!
A new batch of Domino Club games has been released. Domino Club is a collective that releases games anonymously. Each batch of Domino Club games features incredibly interesting experimental stuff. They’re the best!

Palestinian Relief Bundle
A charity bundle just came out today with all proceeds going to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. For $8 or more you can get hundreds of games. I’m happy to have my game MindExplorer in there.

New Husky Game Development Games
Husky Game Development is a game dev group at Michigan Tech University since 2004. They’ve uploaded some new games to Itch so go check them out!

Tiny Circumstance
Tiny Circumstance is a really cute and technically impressive Bitsy game.

Broken Roads
If you’re in the mood for some more Fallout after watching the new tv show (I enjoyed it!), consider checking out Broken Roads, a post apocalyptic rpg in the Australian Outback. Reviews for it are currently mixed but maybe you’ll be into it?

Crowdfunding

Here are some crowdfunding campaigns that I found interesting:

  • Devil’s Hideout is a new point-and-click adventure from the developer of games like Twilight Oracle and Blood Nova.
  • Free Stars is a new Star Control game by the original designers in everything but name. The game even includes all the aliens from those original games.

Other People Talking About Indie Games

Indie Tsushin continues doing fantastic work with their developer spotlights.

I liked this post from Lotus that’s critical of the Triple-I Initiative.

Self Promo Zone

Not much from me this time. I continue to play lesser known games on my YouTube and Twitch channels and a previous post discusses a game I’m working on. I also have a list on Itch that I update every day with games I really like

Microsoft, Pay Me to Remake King’s Quest

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Had a crisis, started remaking King’s Quest with clay

animated gif of king graham from King's Quest made out of clay and walking around in front of a castle

I absolutely half assed this clay model and the photos and it still took hours to digitize. All for a 15 second shitpost gif. It was really more of a proof of concept for myself and even with the very ugly clay model (or because of it?), I think it’s an interesting look. I also just wanted to see what the process of doing something like this would even be like and now I know. Had a lot of fun learning this stuff. All it really was was photographing that King Graham model and then using Aseprite to clean it up and digitize it. I also used Retrospecs to make it look a little more like the VGA era. Even though I rushed the model and photographs, it still took forever to import into Adventure Game Studio because I didn’t photograph it against a green screen.

I do like working with clay though and kinda want to make a game using it, just maybe a tiny bit more effort put into the models. Picked up more clay yesterday so we’ll see what I come up with after more practice.

That said, huge “could a depressed person make this?!” energy* coming from this gif, haha.

*I’m doing fine

I’m still working out what to even make with this knowledge so if any friends want to make a weird clay game (I can probably do better art than this) let me know.

Detroit Zine Fest 2024

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Went to the Detroit Zine Fest yesterday and had a great time. I haven’t been to one since the last Detroit zine fest, since I wasn’t able to go to the Grand Rapids zine fest last August and I should probably go to whatever ones are in Toronto since that really isn’t that much farther than Grand Rapids for me. It’s always a good time and it’s a chance to catch up with people I haven’t seen in a while. One nice thing is that while they don’t require masking (which they used to do), they do have a sign saying masking is encouraged and people do it anyway. I wish game conventions would do this. Narrascope does but everyone else has given up on it.

I got a lot of cool stuff too. I’ll try to link to all the artists, although there’s one or two that I wasn’t able to figure out. All the stickers and pins are for my kids. I wasn’t sure if I could bring my oldest to the zine fest or if there would even be anything for her there but it turns out there was and other kids were there as well, so I will have to bring her.

  • The Snoopy and Ditto stickers and Snoopy fashion zine are by Brenda.
  • The Sonic stickers are by Lauren.
  • The orange zine and vintage cats zine are by Hale. Also check out their Itch.io page that is in that link!
  • The sketchbook at the bottom and zines and painting by the right are by swanchime, also a game designer.
  • Stereotypical Diaspora Poetry is by The Reza Minute
  • The brown bag is a subscription to the Floral Observer quarterly about nature and gardening
  • The Sonic stickers are by DROSE ATTACK.

Someone told me I should table with the Locally Sourced zine I made two years ago and still have a lot of copies of, so maybe I’ll do that, get another issue made along with some small $1 ones about FMV games or whatever, and then do one of these? That could be fun.

Indie Game Roundup (April 5, 2024)

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After taking a few weeks off because I now have a baby to take care off, I am doing another post about indie games stuff that was exciting to me over the last month. These probably won’t be weekly again for a while but I’m excited to post on here more often.

New Releases

The Gender Constellation Bundle
The Gender Constellation Bundle is the second bundle run by GAME DEV GALAXY, a Discord server for game developers who are gender-/sex-marginalized. There’s a ton of fantastic work in here and it’s available for only $10 or more.

Indiepocalypse #50 and 51
There is a new issue of the indie game compilation zine Indiepocalypse so of course I will include that on here. And of course, as I was typing this, Indiepocalypse #51 was just released.

Barney Bear Joins a Harold Team

bear pointing at a chalkboard that says "yes and"

This is a game created in Adventure Game Studio that is a parody of the Barney Bear educational game series but this time you learn about improv. Possibly the most important game to come out this year?

Make a Zine!
I really enjoyed this free zine about how to make a zine. You should make one!

Sylvie RPG
Sylvie RPG is a fantastic short rpg with a bump combat mechanic like in Hydlide and YS. It’s available for free but if you pay $7 or more, you get a lot of really cool bonus stuff.

miniBOSSGAME

a monster and two smiling faces in the corners

miniBOSSGAME is a fan port of BOSSGAME: The Final Boss Is My Heart’s mechanics to the Pico-8 fantasy console. BOSSGAME was one of my favorite games from last year and it’s fun to see a demake of it with the original designer’s blessing.

BIG HEAD

zx spectrum screenshot of two people and a platform

BIG HEAD is a neat little platformer created for the ZX Spectrum by a 10 year old.

The Legend of Skye

woman in a cloak in a village

The Legend of Skye is a new fantasy point-and-click adventure with a verb system like Lucasarts adventure games.

Brain Hotel: Remodeled

guy saying to another guy "Aren't you that guy? From that movie?"

Brain Hotel: Remodeled is a remake of a Flash game from 2004 by Telltale Games alumni Mark Darin. I haven’t played this one yet but I’m a fan of his Nick Bounty games.

Picotron

desktop for the picotron showing a terminal window open

Picotron is a new Fantasy Workstation by the creator of PICO-8 for making pixelart games, animations, music, demos and other curiosities.

Downpour
Downpour is a new app for making little games on your phone. I think it’s pretty fantastic and even made my own little game.

Passage: A Job Interview Simulator

person saying "Should I go over weird questions next? Or should I review basic questions again?"

Passage is a new visual novel from Emcat Games about navigating the corporate world. It’s from a local dev too so that’s always exciting for me. The publisher is Mangotronics, who also published the great Mangotronic Employment Collection.

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story

screen showing that 21st March 1982 was the origin of the name Llamasoft

I am a massive fan of the rerelease work by Digital Eclipse so of course I would be thrilled when they announced a collection of games by Jeff Minter. It’s everything I hoped it would be and will probably be my Game of the Year.

Midnight Scenes: A Safe Place

guy in his room saying "what the hell is this?"

Midnight Scenes is an anthology of short horror point and click adventures and the newest entry, A Safe Place, was just released. Each game ranges from 15-90 minutes long and only costs a few dollars. Haven’t played this one yet but I really enjoyed everything else by the designer. A Safe Place is available on Itch.io and Steam.

The New York Times Simulator
The New York Times Simulator is a short browser game about how much the NYT shows their ass. Great game about an awful place.

Other Folks Talking About Indie Games

After a hiatus, Bobbins’ Olde Tomb of Videogames is back! It’s like these posts but better, and with more of a focus on arcade games.

I really liked this post from Autumn Rain on cohost about games she liked in 2023

I just found out about a nice fan zine for the Playdate called Uncrank’d.

Kickstarters/Crowdfunding

After ignoring Kickstarter for a long time, 3 crowdfunding campaigns popped up in two days that I had to back.

  • Devil’s Hideout is a point-and-click adventure by Cosmic Void, who I’ve always been a fan of. There’s a demo available that I enjoyed too.
  • That Rug is a supernatural ttrpg zine that uses children’s playmats that every parent has.
  • Street Wolves is a synthwave ttrpg using the Savage Worlds rule system.

Self Promo Zone

If you enjoy these posts, here’s some ways you can support me: