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.