It’s the last one of these of the year! If you enjoyed reading these and have a blog, consider occasionally posting about games or other things you’ve enjoyed in the new year! Search engines and social media are falling apart and the only way people will know about the weird things you like is if you tell them.
The big one for me, and to get some self-promo out of the way, is that a small games anthology I organized for the local Ann Arbor District Library, featuring a point-and-click adventure by me is now out on their website. This was the game I mentioned working on in my dev logs and I’m so proud of this. I’m already seeing things I would maybe fix if I were to do it again, but I’m still happy with how it turned out and I think it’s a fun little adventure game. The anthology also features a cool puzzle game by Flyover Games and a new Game Boy game by Lilycore Games. Anthologies are neat because you get to work with people who are far more talented than you. I’m also just so proud that I got to be part of a series that so many great artists have participated in. Please check out the rest of the Ann Arbor 200 series if you can. I’ll do a larger post on this later with entries I was into and more thoughts on the anthology.
Ok, self-promo time is over. Let’s move onto great games released by other folks:
Dex Vex (Itch.io) is a free browser puzzle game made in Decker. If you’re not familiar with Decker, it is a free tool for making Hypercard-like applications for the browser. So not only is it a fun game, it’s also just impressive seeing people using a tool like this for a puzzle game.
Speaking of Decker, Count Kagura (Itch.io) is a free visual novel made in browsers by swanchime.
And here’s yet another Decker game. Wasteland Mall (Itch.io) is a surreal point-and-click adventure set in a mall. Just seeing all these games with a Macintosh aesthetic makes me want to do an adventure game that feels like it was made with Hypercard. Decker is great.
Alien Intruder (Developer’s site) is a new game for DOS where you save people from aliens and get to the exit. It’s free, really easy to pick up, and it’s always fun for me to fire up DOSBox to play a new game.
Broken Links (Itch.io) is a free puzzle game inspired by the Zelda and Adventures of Lolo series. I thought the pixel art was cute and liked the variety in puzzles too.
Cuppa Quest (Itch.io) is an interactive fiction browser game made in Twine where you’re just trying to get a cup of tea.
pastel sandfish (Itch.io) is a free game where you explore dunes on your hoverbike. I loved the psx-style graphics in this and being rewarded with interesting encounters through exploration.
Lovely Composer (Steam/Itch.io) is a music game inspired by the tool in Mario Paint. I don’t know if it has weird, fucked up baby noises like Mario Paint but it still looks very nice. The Itch page has a trial version if you want to try it out first.
How Am I Still Waiting for the Bus (Itch.io) is a browser game where you are a ghost waiting for the bus and can listen to other people’s thoughts and must also keep your ghost from floating up too high.
in Death we Love (Itch.io) is a 2D cinematic sidescrolling adventure by colorfiction available as Pay-What-You-Want. An earlier version of this appeared in the Cartomancy Anthology, which I also strongly recommend.
If you’re a Ren’Py developer, you might like this script for doing shiny cards on Itch.io.
Girls’ Day (Itch.io) is a short interactive fiction browser game by Nice Gear Games about a memory.
Funeral for an AI God (Itch.io) is a free LARP for four people about attending a funeral for an AI deity.
Assassinvisible (Steam) is a puzzle stealth game set in a student’s notebook. I really like how everything in the game looks like it was sketched on paper.
Escape From PETSCII Castle (Itch.io) is a new free FPS for the Commodore PET inspired by Wolfenstein 3D.
Warhawk (Steam) is a remake of a Commodore 64 game and looks like a pretty snazzy shmup.
In the free browser game Car Artist (Itch.io) you drive around inside a box and try to survive as long as you can by avoiding cars. By the time you’re done, you’ll have a nice little picture made by skidmarks.
John Calhoun, creator of Macintosh classics like Glider and Glypha, made a fun little first-person browser moon lander game called Mooncraft 2000 (website).
Garden of Fools (Itch.io) is a free game made for the Devzone Secret Santa Jam 2024. It’s a 2D roguelike but the combat is like the Mega Man Battle Network series.
Burntime Remastered (Steam) is a free remake of the strategy game of the same name from 1993. I’m not familiar with it but I think it’s really cool that the designers of the original gave the ok for a fan to remake it and put it online for free.
While Christmas may be over, maybe you’re still in the mood for a seasonal game or something to play next year. Verhex the Halls: Merry Crisis! (Itch.io) is a GM-lite tabletop rpg where everyone works together to make this year’s Christmas a successful one.
Ink Inside (Steam) is a co-op beat em up rpg. Those are usually pretty fun!
Divorce Chatroom (Itch.io) is a free visual novel where you must divorce your husband.
Sequence (Itch.io) is a new puzzle game available for the Game Boy for only $1. It’s published by Thalamus, who I feel has a very good record of publish retro and retro-feeling games.
We also got a walking simulator (the dev’s words, not mine) for the Game Boy. Curse of the Mantle (itch.io) is a retelling of the radio play of the same name and available in the browser or as pay-what-you-want.
Well that’s it for this week. If you enjoyed this, subscribe with your RSS feed reader of choice and do a roundup on your blog.
For whatever reason, it has become a tradition over the last 10 years to replay the three Holiday Hare episodes released for Jazz Jackrabbit. They were three Christmas themed episodes released for free in 1994 and 1995 for Jazz Jackrabbit 1, and 1998 for Jazz Jackrabbit 2. Jazz Jackrabbit isn’t a game that I think is especially great. The game is built around your character being able to move fast, inspired by Sonic the Hedgehog, but punishes you for doing so because the game is too zoomed in on your character for you to be able to react in time when an enemy appears onscreen. This is fixed in the sequel but that’s not the one that most people seem to have a fondness for.
Last week was my time to revisit this tradition, first time on Twitch, and it reinforced my belief that I think the Holiday Hare levels are some of the better designed ones for Jazz Jackrabbit, especially Holiday Hare 1994. It moves quick, features a lot of variety in enemies and level environments, and features great music, like you would expect from the series, but with a holiday theme.
I think Holiday Hare 1995 maybe dips in a quality a little bit due to its difficulty spike and some enemies that I consider annoying, but is also worth checking out if you’re a fan of the series. One thing that I think is interesting about it is the background artwork of a rabbit that would later become the…hmmm…unfortunately named second playable character in Jazz Jackrabbit 2. Holiday Hare 95 came out three years before Jazz Jackrabbit 2, so either they were working on that sequel for a very long time or just liked that character design.
Screenshot of Holiday Hare 95 taken from MobyGames
Like I said earlier, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 fixes the design quirks and is a much better designed game in my opinion, even if I don’t enjoy the art as much. The version of Holiday Hare 98 on GOG is actually Jazz Jackrabbit 2: The Christmas Chronicles, which is apparently a third release of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 that has a slightly updated engine and has the third playable character, Lori, who was added in the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 expansion that was only released in Europe. These levels are perfectly fine but there’s not a whole lot to say about them. They’re fine! I wish it leaned more on the holiday theme and the final boss fight isn’t well designed, but it’s fun to revisit them.
So would I recommend these even though I just said Jazz Jackrabbit isn’t really a well-designed game? Yeah sure. It’s quick, I think the design of the first Holiday Hare pushes back a lot on the design flaws it’s stuck with, the music in all three is fun, and I think Jazz 2 holds up aside from the one character’s name. They’re all free too and the first game runs fine in DosBox, so give it a shot if you like platformers.
I know I just put one out a few days ago but I’m doing another because a few people have released Christmas games since then and I don’t think people are going to be too interested in Christmas games a few days after the holiday, so I’m doing a tiny one now. If I’ve missed any or you have any favorites from previous years, please post them in the comments!
The game developer Moonana is going bankrupt after 7 years of making games and are putting out one final game. Ginger’s Letter to Santa (Steam) is a RPG about trying to deliver letters to Santa’s workshop. You can read more about the developer’s goodbye in the thread here.
The latest game in the Christmas Horse saga is now available. Christmas Horse 5 (Itch.io) is a game where you take care of your own Christmas horse. The Itch page also features Christmas Horse 1-4, each a different game genre, and all of them are available for Pay-What-You-Want.
THE ICON64 CHRISTMAS DEMO 2 (Itch.io) is a Christmas themed demo to run on your Commodore 64 or emulator and available for free.
I posted it a few days ago but I think it’s worth a repost anyway. Santatron 2024 (Itch.io) is a new game for the Amiga inspired by the classic Robotron. Clear rooms of enemies and saves elves to go to the next level. It’s a really solid arcade game and fun excuse to fire up my Amiga emulator (WinUAE). Available as Pay-What-You-Want.
Also posted this one a few weeks ago but I’m doing it again. Plane Lazy (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want arcade game for the ZX Spectrum where you fly through levels as public domain Mickey Mouse and features a few festive screens.
The Blade of Cutiepants: A Very Cutie Christmas (Itch.io) is a holiday game for people who dread the holidays. I haven’t played it yet but this pay-what-you-want rpg looks very cute.
Enjoy this collection of blog posts I liked reading this week! This one actually probably has more things that aren’t technically blogs but I liked reading them and want others to see.
Video Games
Rob at Punching Robots is one of my favorite game devs/writers/Dizzy fan art creators so I enjoyed reading his post about another game dev and their weird, rambling post about how Wholesome Games = Fascism I guess?? It also kicked off discourse on Bluesky because that’s what that site is built for. But Rob’s post is great, go read that one.
Misty wrote a tool to convert BIN/CUE disc images to CloneCD. It’s all a little bit over my head but it seems very useful for the people who need it and I still liked reading the post and nodding along like I got it all.
This history about the creation of Kid Pix by the program’s creator is fantastic. I used Kid Pix all the time on my school’s Mac and then Kid Pix Studio on my home computer, so it was very important to me.
Inverse has an article ranking 10 of this year’s hidden indie gems. Always nice to see a list where you don’t know a bunch of the games. Got this from Yaffle’s blog.
Folks are playing Ultima Underworld for the next 3 months in DOS Game Club and this playthrough report is reminding me I need to start playing it too. Come join us!
Everyone is talking about Ireland’s game dev community! Shacknews has an article on industry’s growth and startmenu does as well, although it’s maybe more focused on highlighting individual developers.
200-Proof Games posts The 1E Manifesto. I won’t say that more game devs should write manifestos, because that seems like a monkey’s paw situation, but this one is good.
The Morning Music blog continues to post bangers on a near daily basis. It’s very rare when it’s something I’ve actually listened to before like Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygène 7-13.
Tech
Adam wrote an incredible bookmarklet for randomly choosing between buttons on those 88×31 button walls like the one on my links page. Just use the bookmark on one of these pages and it will randomly select one. It truly replicates the experience of “surfing the web”
Leaded Soldier talks about FujiNet, which adds internet support for old computers through wi-fi.
This post is just a compilation of the games I mentioned in my recommendation thread on Bluesky. A lot of folks were doing Steam recommendation threads and thought Itch deserved a mention too. Like the title says, it’s rushed and half-assed since the posts were written right before my baby was waking up. But there’s good stuff in here and I think it’s worth checking out. If you read the indie game roundups then you’ve already seen a few of these but dang it, you should buy these anyway.
I bounce off a lot of space sims because I’m incredibly fussy and like open world stuff but a lot of them are too difficult for me to pick up. Liberation is inspired by 70s British sci-fi and has lots of personality and is easy for me to play
Every month a new issue of the Indiepocalypse games anthology arrives, collecting 10 games, often experimental. It’s an incredible source of games curation and I’ve discovered so many of my favorite game designers through it
Roguecraft screenshot
One of my favorite publishers that’s putting out new games for old platforms is Thalamus. Just earlier this year they published a new roguelike for the Amiga. But there’s plenty of great arcade games for modern platforms like Death Ray Manta and Rainbow Laser Disco Dungeon.
Did you know you can buy the classic adventure game Day of the Tentacle on Itch? Plenty of smarter people have explained why it’s one of the best adventure games. I just think it’s neat that it’s on here.
cybeRRRevolution has a better pitch than I can do so I’ll just copy it. It’s described as “an action-adventure game about talking with monsters, piloting godly mechas, and taking down bandits to secure a prosperous future for a nation in a post-war reality.” Also consider checking out the dev’s interactive fiction game Don’t Wake the Night.
It’s the year of the anthology! Anthology of the Killer is another one that’s worth your time! It’s not on sale but you should still buy it.
No indie dev is doing stealth action inspired by Metal Gear Solid better than Merlino Games. Can’t go wrong with any of these.
Videoverse is a visual novel where you explore friendship and love through a WiiU like interface. Itch purchase comes with a Steam key too.
Screenshot from Midnight Scenes 1
Midnight Scenes is one of my favorite modern adventure game series. Short horror games that can be played in one sitting and feature incredible pixel art. They can be played in any order so just get the one that you vibe with the most.
Looking for a game like Thief but in a cyberpunk setting? Check out NEON STRUCT. But I’m a big fan of everything by Minor Key Games.
If you’ve never played a solo tabletop rpg before, give it a shot! There’s plenty of free and pay-what-you-want ones, but Cezar Capacle has made a lot of great ones too like Against the Wind.
You should also consider playing a GM-less ttrpg. An Altogether Different River is a nice one! In a single session 2-4 players build a town and create the characters who live in it and explore their relationships with it.
There’s so many great point-and-click adventures and I’ll plug away at recommending them in this thread when I can, but one I’m a fan of is Cosmic Void. There’s a game for everything. Classic graphic parser adventures, horror, sci-fi, comedy, cyberpunk.
Kitsune Games made the excellent Super Mario Bros 3 spiritual sequel Kitsune Tails. The difficulty levels make it approachable for everyone too.
That’s it for the recommendations! I hope you find something cool to pick up from Itch.io!
Developer: Raven Software Publisher: Id Software Year: 1994 Genre: First Person Shooter
Raven Software is a game developer located in Middleton, Wisconsin that was founded in 1990. Their first game, Black Crypt (1992), was a dungeon crawler for the Amiga. While it wasn’t a massive commercial hit, the game was critically well received and got the attention of ID Software. John Romero approached Raven and proposed using ID Software’s technology to make games for the PC. Raven licensed a heavily modified version of the Wolfenstein 3D engine to make ShadowCaster, a fantasy action game that ditches some of the RPG elements of their previous game to focus more on action. The game was a success and Raven Software completed their transition to action games by licensing ID Software’s new Doom engine and creating the FPS Heretic, released in 1994.
Screenshot taken from Steam page
Heretic is set in a world conquered by three brothers known as the Serpent Riders. While most of the beings in the land fall under their control, the Sidhe elves resist and become known as heretics. You play as one of these elves, who is revealed to be named Corvus in Heretic 2, and fight the Serpent Rider known as D’Sparil. The format of the game is very much like Doom’s. You have three episodes (five in the retail version) and make your way through levels, grabbing keys to unlock doors, and shooting all enemies you come across.
While it may have a lot in common with Doom, to the extent that some people will say that it’s basically a medieval reskin, it’s not without its innovations and improvements. Doom has a few enemies that rely on hitscan detection, where they fire a gun and then the game does a check to see if you are hit or not. I’m not going to go into if this is bad game design in this style of FPS or not. Generally, I’m not a fan but that’s just my personal preference and there’s plenty of people who have no issue with it. I find it interesting that this doesn’t exist at all in Heretic and the player is able to dodge all projectile shots. I suppose it makes sense, there’s no reason why someone would have a gun in this world, but the player still has two hitscan weapons that carried over from the conversion from Doom, the pistol-like Elven Wand and chaingun-like Dragon Claw. I think it’s fun that some of the weapons are wonderfully illustrated and some clearly are a developer’s hands holding something and have been digitized.
The addition of items adds some depth to the gameplay and a small rpg element to the game. Throughout the levels are pickups like potions that restore health and other bits that will give you powers like temporary flight and invisibility. The most interesting of these is the Tome of Power. This item will temporarily change all your weapons to a different effect, essentially creating a second set of weapons for you to use. Some are more useful than others, but it’s fascinating how much work Raven put into one powerup.
The game also features some innovation in its level design. The variety of environmental hazards and elements like wind and current in the water are a very nice touch and it feels like the developers are building upon what they saw in the level design for Doom and trying to do more complex designs. I would maybe argue that I prefer the simpler level design of Doom, but I think at the time it was probably impressive how much the level designers were trying to build levels that look like real places that people could live in.
The original three episodes in the shareware release of the game are all solid. I feel like in shareware games the first free episode is often the best one. The theory is that they front load the game with some of the best material so you’ll go out and buy it. I don’t think that’s the case here. Both episodes 2 and 3 have better level design and boss fights. There were one or two levels with poor switch placement in Episode 1 that absolutely ruined the pacing for me.
My only major complaint about Episode 2 is that they fill levels with an enemy called the Sabreclaw. It’s incredibly dull and brown and it doesn’t help that it is frequently used in levels with brown walls. All it does is slowly walk up to you and try to do a melee attack and only serves to be a bullet sponge. It is funny that I came across a mod that makes it a more golden color, looks much better, and helps it not blend in with all the brown walls. By the end of the episode they pull back a bit on this enemy as others are introduced, and 3 overall feels more balanced.
The bonus episodes that came with the rerelease of the game, episodes 4 and 5, are competent enough but aren’t interesting. They don’t add anything new and episode 4 has a slow start. Episodes 4 and even 3 to some extent, have you heavily managing your ammo in their first two levels while avoiding batches of enemies since you will not have enough ammo to kill them all. It is a fun novelty for one level but becomes a slog after that when you are repeatedly reloading your game to minimize the amount of ammo you use and damage you take so you can get through the encounters after that. It eventually lets up though and after getting enough weapons over two levels, the game goes back to being fun.
Episode 5 on the other hand feels like it has convoluted level design just for the sake of padding the runtime. It felt like every level had you hitting a switch, searching the rest of the level to see what it opened, and repeating the process. It is incredibly tedious to play and the entire episode does it. It doesn’t help that the game also decides that sometimes you’ll now need to shoot doors to open them. It doesn’t happen very often, just enough that you’ll forget that’s now a mechanic in the game and waste a lot of time trying to figure out if there’s a switch that will open them. Neither of these episodes adds anything new, so you’re just seeing repeats of enemies you already fought many times in Episodes 1-3.
Weirdly enough, there’s also a partially complete Episode 6 hidden in the game. It’s just a few levels, with the last one being unfinished, so it’s not terribly interesting. I just find it fascinating that it was left in. It’s not something I can complain about, you must enter codes to access the levels, but it’s interesting that it exists.
If there’s a hot take in this review, I think that it’s that Raven Software was just not that good at level design compared to some of their peers. A lot of people give Hexen 1 and 2 grief for clunky design (the case for why both of these games are good is coming at a later date) but I wasn’t impressed by a lot of the design in the later episodes of Heretic and Jedi Knight 2 is also a game that’s infamous for having a dull single player campaign up until you get the lightsaber before that game improves.
It’s hard to be too critical of these episodes because I see them as bonus levels anyway and the game’s story has already concluded by the time you get to these. If you want more Heretic, here you go, but if not then it’s fine to just stop after the first 3 episodes. If you would like to read more about the game’s level design process, I found this interview with the level designer to be interesting.
Overall, I’d highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys faster paced FPS. I have my gripes about the pacing in some parts of the game, but I think it holds up very well. As a long time Raven Software fan, it’s fun seeing their evolution from being a roleplaying game developer with Black Crypt on the Amiga, to transitioning to the FPS/RPG hybrid Shadowcaster, and then to FPS that contain some RPG elements like Heretic and Hexen. It’s a little less fun seeing them being absorbed into the Call of Duty machine and only working on entries in that series now.
I keep banging on about this, but it’s ridiculous to have a GOTY awards show of any kind (they really shouldn’t, they’re all bad) when people are still squeaking in bangers right before the year ends, incredible! If you like these, share them with a friend and then go pick up a weird game during the Itch.io and Steam sales. If I forgot something, please let a comment or send me a message through social media or email. I love hearing about everything.
Video Games
The 2024 Showreel for Godot is highlighting a lot of interesting things made in that engine on YouTube.
Die for the Economy (Steam) is a new game inspired by the classic arcade game Berzerk, featuring psychedelic pixel art and all the robot voices you would hope for from one of these types of games. I played it a bit this morning and it’s probably the best Berzerk-inspired game I’ve ever played. I love the humor about how much capitalism sucks and the difficulty levels make this approachable for any arcade game fan.
Escape from Castle Claymount (Steam) is a free escape room-style adventure game where everything is made from clay and other physical materials and photographed. This was previously released elsewhere but it’s new to Steam and me, plus I lose my mind over claymation in video games, so I think it’s still worth a mention. The art is really cute and there’s a generous hint system if you need help when playing adventure games, like I usually do.
PUNKCAKE Délicieux somehow released TWO games this week! Tummy Bonbons: The Sweet Monster (Steam/Itch.io) is an excellent free arcade game where you are a monster chasing children for candy while dodging crows. Features many color palettes but default is the ALWAYS GOOD cga colors.
The other is Hot Wax (Steam/Itch.io), a Tetris clone that introduces the mechanic of you placing candle blocks and then lighting them so they will melt and set off chain reactions. Currently it’s only on Itch.io but will be released on Steam eventually.
DraculaFlowSimulator (Itch.io) is a browser game made in GB Studio where Dracula drops bars.
WOLFCLAW (Itch.io) is a free game created by Heather Flowers and Noé Charron for the 7Day FPS 2024 jam. You are a werewolf ghost and must claw and eat enemies and possess enemies when the health in your current body is too low. Keep playing until you die and try to get a high score
Santatron 2024 (Itch.io) is a new game for the Amiga inspired by the classic Robotron. Clear rooms of enemies and saves elves to go to the next level. It’s a really solid arcade game and fun excuse to fire up my Amiga emulator (WinUAE). Available as Pay-What-You-Want.
BROK the InvestiGator – Natal Tail, A New Christmas (Steam/Itch.io) is a visual novel set in the BROK the Investigator universe. I didn’t play this yet because I thought I had to play the original adventure game first, but the page description says this is a prequel and it’s not required to play that one at all. The game is free but the devs are accepting donations since it took quite a bit of work to make.
Mini Mini Golf Golf (Steam) is described as “an indie storytelling experience that goes beyond the lanes of the here and now into distant memories of a future planetary collapse. Destabilize the present and plunge into a neon psychohistory of a bizarre entity in distress. This is not a game about minigolf.” I haven’t played it yet but that sounds very cool, I love how it looks, and it has positive reviews so I thought I would share it here.
Creeper World IXE (Steam) is the newest entry in the Creeper World series. It’s sorta like a RTS where you push back against a growing blob using turrets and guns. The last one I played was 3 but I am a fan of the series and didn’t realize it has changed so much over multiple entries.
HURTINGZONE (Itch.io) is a new commercial ZX Spectrum game where you are a nurse delivering to the mutated and it looks like it has a neat horror theme.
Interactive fiction game Ord. is now free on Steam for its 5th anniversary.
TheCabinFactory (Steam) is a first-person horror game where you inspect cabins and decide if they are haunted or not. Available for $2.99 but on sale for its launch.
TTRPG
There truly is a tabletop for everything and the two I’m highlighting this week both come from the Shitpost TTRPG Jam, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad or low effort games. Jersey Devils Don’t Pump Gas (Itch.io) is about the Jersey Devil and how folks in New Jersey don’t pump their own gas.
SO YOU HAVE A BAROMETRIC PRESSURE MIGRAINE (Itch.io) accurately depicts what it’s like to have a migraine.
It’s another roundup of posts I liked! This week is pretty short since I didn’t have that much time to read posts but I’m still going to highlight what I liked. If you like any of these posts, add their sites to your RSS feed reader and do your own roundups!
TTRPGs
Some folks in the TTRPG community are doing 12 Days of Itchmas, where they rate games, add community copies of their own, and do other stuff on Itch.io. A few folks have blogged about it too. Lady Tabletop does a much better job explaining it than I do.
I keep forgetting to mention the Indie RPG Newsletter despite being subscribed to it for a long time. It’s a huge oversight on my part because it does an incredible job highlighting parts of the indie ttrpg community every week. Way better than this thing.
Video Games
Inner Spiral talks about embracing the jank in games and how even “bad” games usually have something to offer.
ToulouTouMou writes about the history of Urban Rivals, the web trading card game of gangsters, cowboys and wizards.
Nat Clayton talks about her favorite games of the year.
DOS Game Club is playing Ultima Underworld for the next three months. Come join us, everyone is doing it. Luk has started a narrated playthrough of the series.
Press Play Gaming has been doing posts every day on GOTYs of various categories and I’m very pleased to see the Locally Sourced Anthology make it as a nominee for Best Anthology. I’m going to pretend it was a actually very close contest between it and UFO 50.
Dev Logs
I love reading about projects folks are working on.
Ben Chandler gives an update on the Adventure Game Studio game he’s been working on.
Harris Powell-Smith posts the outline of how they got started on their latest game. I thought it was really interesting since I never see design docs or really anything on how people make interactive fiction.
Stuffed Wombat gives an update on the development of their Arrow Engine, a gridbased narrative framework.
Other Writing
They aren’t blogs, but here’s some other writing I enjoyed.
Alexandra explains why she loves Webfishing and online hangouts on startmenu.
startmenu also published an article on the games industry’s response (or lack of) to Gaza.
Inner Worlds Issue #5 is out! It’s a quarterly digital zine of speculative stories, with the stories in this issue being more focused on transformation and freedom.
Ryan has published his yearly guide to non-profits to consider supporting in Southeast Michigan.
Don’t have anything snarky to say about anything this week. Not even about The Game Awards! I’m all snarked out! This is going to be another larger post so I’ll try to organize it into more manageable bits, with non-genre specific stuff first and then everything after that divided into categories. I’ll have a game to promote in this next week, which will be nice. If you enjoy playing a game in one of these, tell folks about it online so they can play it too. As usual, if I forgot your game or you have something coming up next week, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email or message on social media.
There were a bunch of games showcases this week as part of The Game Awards. I have a hard time watching that many videos but it feels like the Steam pages have done a decent job rounding up everything, so here’s some of those.
The Yuri Game Jam 2024 (Itch.io) has wrapped up with 110 entries! I’ve only played a couple but would recommend slime feet and Purple, where all the art was made in one of the oldest commercially available art programs: PC Paintbrush 2.x (DOS).
Games for Blind Gamers 4 (Itch.io) starts in a month and has links to previous jams and resources if you are looking to make a game for blind gamers.
Indiepocalypse #59 (Itch.io) is out. I mention these every time an issue comes out and will continue to do so because I’m a giant fan. It’s a monthly anthology containing experimental games and a zine.
Indie Tsushin: 2024 Autumn Issue (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want zine collecting articles from the Indie Tsushin blog, a site that covers indie games from Japan and also features interviews with developers.
The student showcase for Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan is here. I am required to post this because it’s my local community, but luckily the games are good too. Nice work!
Advent Calendars
I don’t know if Advent Calendar is really a genre and they also don’t hit the same when it’s the middle of the month, but here are a few that you can go through and check out.
In this section I would first like to highlight two games seeking crowdfunding, both using methods that aren’t Kickstarter.
Dreams on a Pillow is currently seeking crowdfunding. It’s a stealth adventure game inspired by a historical Palestinian folk tale set during the ethnic cleansing that was the 1948 Nakba. It’s halfway funded with about 30 days to go. The art in this looks incredible.
Neon Hearts City is the latest from adventure game developer Cosmic Void. They are currently crowdfunding to get the budget for voice acting in the game. I’ve been a big fan of their previous games and I’m sure I’ll like this too. There’s a demo on Steam and Itch if you would like to try it first.
The Mansion (Itch.io) is a browser point-and-click adventure created for the Bara Jam where you rescue a friend in a mansion. It features multiple playable characters going into a mansion so does that make this a Maniac Mansion-like? Nice pixel art too!
NoseBound (Steam) is a horror noir point-and-click adventure. I don’t know much about it but Steam reviews so far seem positive and it kinda has a stop motion animation look.
Short Trip (Steam) is a relaxing game where you drive a trolley and transport folks around. I guess this is an enhanced edition of a game I had played a while ago. I really enjoyed that version so I imagine this new one that adds a new gameplay mode with points and stuff is nice too. Even if you’re like me and don’t have an interest in that version, it’s still worth supporting because the original mode is good too. The art looks incredible in motion.
MAVEION (Itch.io) is a free browser game featuring Macintosh inspired art and reminds me a lot of multimedia cd-roms and Hypercard stacks. I have no idea how to solve it but I had fun playing in the space.
Cold (Itch.io) is a survival horror adventure game playable in the browser and made with the classic ZZT!
Grizzly Man (Steam) is the newest from LCB Game Studio. I haven’t played this yet but all their previous games where good, campy horror with some very nice pixel art.
Escape Wizard (Itch.io) is a free browser game that combines survivors games, like Vampire survivors, and shmups. It’s also just an interesting experiment with the survivors format.
3D Don’t Die Mr Robot (Steam) is an arcade game where you avoid all the enemies flying through the level and pick up fruit to cause chains of explosions. I don’t know how I missed talking about this one last week. I was playing a lot of it and trying to get all the achievements for it too and just…..forgot? Anyway, it’s great. Please go play it. There’s a demo too that contains the game’s arcade mode.
Derbis (Itch.io) is a Missile Command-like arcade game made in PICO-8 by Adam Saltzman from Finji. I will always be terrible at Missile Command but it’s a good game.
Weights and Crates Deluxe (Itch.io) is an updated version of a previously release Commodore 64 game, but still available for free. It’s an arcade game where you run on a platform and jump over moving crates. Some temporarily knock you out and others kill you instantly. It’s just a fun and simple arcade game featuring great C64 music and there’s no fussing with an emulator required because it’s playable in the browser.
I will replay Jetpac anytime someone remakes it and someone has done just that in PICO-8 (Itch.io).
Frozen Islands (Itch.io) is an impressive 3D platformer created in PICO-8 for the Christmas season.
Plane Lazy (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want arcade game for the ZX Spectrum where you fly through levels as public domain Mickey Mouse.
Pig in Hell (Itch.io) is a browser game where you’re a pig and must survive for 20 seconds. I really like the paper craft-like artwork.
Reavers of New Rome (Steam/Itch.io) is the newest from Renegade Sector Games. I haven’t played this one yet but all their previous games have the same incredible look and sound that remind me of 80s arcade games but with 90s art I guess?
BALLIONAIRE (Steam) is a game that seems to combine roguelikes with pachinko and features energetic 2D animation. I’ll admit that from watching a stream it seems to be too energetic to me since I’m 90,000 years old, but everyone else seems to really like it so maybe give it a look.
FPS
The 2024 Cacowards have been announced. This is a series of awards for the year’s best Doom WADs. It’s incredible that Doom is over three decades old and the community for it is still making great stuff. Incoming Doom hot take: None of the original developers are at ID anymore and the game should be public domain since Bethesda is just putting dodgy mod browsers in the game that let anyone upload a mod and say they made it.
The Light at the End (Itch.io) is a free fanzine celebrating the now closed Arkane Austin studio and the games Dishonored (2012), Prey (2017), and Redfall (2023)
Interactive Fiction
Hand in the Crusher (Itch.io) is a short erotic sci-fi (horror?) visual novel playable in the browser by Oma Keeling. Fantastic stuff as usual but read the content warnings first if you don’t like gore.
Fledgling Manor (Steam/Itch.io) is visual novel where vampires compete to save their eternal unlives in a high-stakes reality show. Haven’t played it yet but it sounds fun.
Wraithkal writes about the upcoming ShuffleComp interactive fiction game jam. Consider joining!
Puzzle
LOK Digital (Steam) is a new puzzle game where you decipher a cryptic language. I haven’t played a demo yet but it looks nice and has a demo so you can try it yourself.
Dubio (Steam) is a puzzle platformer game where you control a ball moving through ramps and platformers simply by making it jump. It all works very well, is easy to pick up and start playing, and the animation and music was very pleasant to me. It has some very good “juice” as professors teaching game design like to say. The game even has a demo if you want to give it a shot.
RPG
Breath of Death VII: The Beginning: Reanimated (Steam) is a remake of the game for X-Box Live Indie Games thing for the 360, which they really should bring back. I don’t have an opinion on this game since I haven’t played it yet but I remember liking the original at the time? Other people probably have more interesting takes on this than I do, go look at those.
The Exile Princes (Steam) is described as “a story focused, procedural RPG designed for short playthroughs in which you as a knight gather companions and fighters to bring your house to victory throughout the unique fantasy setting of the Exile Realms”. It just came out an hour ago so I haven’t played it but I will since it’s free!
Tabletop RPGs
Minimalist TTRPG Jam 3 (Itch.io) has wrapped up with 94 entries. The jam is focused on making games with no pictures or much effort spent on layout so the developer can just make games with killer rulesets and to encourage new developers to make stuff.
Stroll & Hike (Itch.io) is a cozy tabletop game available as Pay-What-You-Want where 1+ players create a forest and hiking path. It’s about 40 minutes long.
Aaron King has released two ttrpgs for free. I think these may have been zines before but they have put them on Itch.io for anyone to download. Spice World (Itch.io) is a game based on the Dune book series, not the Spice Girls film of the same name, and is built on the original Traveler ttrpg and Apocalypse World. Since Dark Sun is not getting a revival anytime soon, they also uploaded a supplement for Troika called Troika! Dark! Sun! (Itch.io) that allows you to play in that space. Aaron makes lots of great games. Go check out the rest of the stuff on their Itch page.
I Hope This Email Finds You (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want corporate horror game for two players that’s played entirely through email.
Starfreighter (Itch.io) is a ttrpg in development that just released a free ashcan version. It’s a solo game inspired by Wing Commander: Privateer and Freelancer, so it’s a game made just for me.
Tools
Impart (Itch.io) is a free, open-source, offline gallery organization tool.
If you’re an adventure game developer, here’s an 8-frame walk template (Itch.io) in PNG and Aseprite format.
Toys
There’s probably a better way to categorize these, but here’s some little games that have no win conditions and you can just play around with them and chill.
There’s a house in the sky (Itch.io) is a cozy browser toy where you build a landscape featuring trees and houses, with no win condition.
No one has better character creators than Rose and FlickSkeleton (Itch.io) is her latest one. You just make cool skeletons in your browser. It’s the best.
Unwrapped (Itch.io) is a parody of Spotify Wrapped by Mike Cook.
Not New But Still Cool
Sometimes I play something that’s older and doesn’t fit into the above, or just want to reshare a game because it’s good and I want more eyes on it. It’s ok to talk about something even if it’s a couple months old.
Did you know that Tom Hall of Commander Keen, Doom, and Anachronox fame is very active in the PICO-8 community? Consider checking out his Christmas games like MYRRH’S EDGE, WHO STOLE THE COAL?, and WHO TOOK THE BOOKS?
A Very Bold Character (Itch.io) is a short and free browser platformer with an art style that kinda reminds me of a game that feels like it could be played on a terminal.
Laura Takes a Stroll (Itch.io) is also a free browser poetic game featuring some nice animation. Use all four arrow keys to navigate the space.
Developer: Jonny Hopkins Publisher: Johnny Hopkins Year: 2020 Genre: Puzzle
In the decades since Tetris was released, there have been hundreds of games inspired by it. Not just clones involving falling blocks but also games that use the famous Tetris block pieces for other types of gameplay. Chesstris 2000 is a recent favorite of mine that does just that. The game combines elements of Tetris and Chess to create something new. Players clear levels by navigating a chess piece attached to a Tetris block though a maze of blocks to an exit square on the board. The Tetris inspiration also comes through in the line clearing mechanic where having a row of 8 squares clears that line. Sometimes you’ll need to clear lines to create room on the board but must also be careful to not eliminate your chess piece. I felt that the levels were well designed and slowly ramp up in difficulty.
I also love how the game sounds and looks. The Itch page cites inspirations like Tetris for Philips CD-i, Tetrisphere, Myst, and educational software, which all contribute to the game’s combination of the vaporwave and utopian scholastic aesthetics that really works for me. If you haven’t seen Tetris for the Philips CD-i before, I highly recommend watching a video of it on YouTube. We’ve had so many rereleases of Tetris games but I’m still waiting for this one. The soundtrack is by Stevia Sphere, using vaporwave music under the Creative Commons license, and fits perfectly with the aesthetic the game is going for.
I really can’t recommend Chesstris 2000 enough if you’re looking for a puzzle game. It’s available as Pay-What-You-Want on Itch and available as both a browser game and download so anyone can play it.
