Month: January 2025

Games I’m Looking Forward To 2025

~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

Every year I’ve been doing a post on the games I’m looking forward to. It’s a little bit late this year and some of the stuff I was planning to mention, like The Roottrees are Dead, are already out. Oh well, it’s my blog, I can post stuff late if I want. I think all the links on this post are going to Steam page if you want to wishlist. Like every year, it’s usually something I don’t know of that catches me off guard and becomes my favorite thing but maybe you’ll discover something new anyway.

Ron Gilbert put his rpg project on hold but said he has a much smaller game we should be getting soon. I have no idea what that is but it’s….something?

Tony Warriner is working on a game for that modern ZX Spectrum thing. I kinda don’t understand what makes a modern computer a ZX Spectrum but the game itself looks like a fun top down shooter thing.

New Inkle game this year. No idea what it will play like but it’s an Inkle game so I’ll probably like it.

Spirit Swap is a Match 3 game that comes out in a few days. I backed it on kickstarter a while ago so it’s already paid for and I can just enjoy this neat little queer game.

Trails and Traces: The Tomb of Thomas Tew is a point-and-click detective adventure. I liked the dev’s previous game from a few years ago so I’m happy to see them making another.

people sitting in a bar in the future

Old Skies! It’s a new Wadjet Eye game! I’m technically a beta tester on it, but haven’t really found that many bugs so I’m a pretty lousy one, but I am allowed to say that what I’ve played has been fantastic and at the level of quality you would expect from one of their games.

Citizen Sleeper 2 comes out in a couple hours but I published it before it came out so I can still say I’m looking forward to it!

A Chamber of Stars looks like a trippy visual novel or adventure game. I just really like the art and it has a demo.

The Ape Painting is an upcoming interactive fiction by an author I’m a fan of.

Peripeteia is an immersive sim coming out next month. I’ll always take more of those. It has a demo I haven’t played yet.

people fighting in a saloon

Rosewater! This one has been on a list or two before. It’s a western point-and-click adventure that has been in developer for quite a while and looks great. I love the rotoscoped art. We’re definitely getting this one this year since it was just announced that it’s coming out in March.

We’re getting a new Heroes of Might and Magic this year. There’s actually a couple of HOMM-likes floating around or entering early access so this might not even be necessary, but I’m still cautiously interested in it since it’s set in an older M&M world, Erathia, instead of the universe that Ubisoft has been putting their games in since they took control. Ubisoft’s setting has been boring as shit so I’m happy to see them return to this.

Quantum Witch looks like a fun and queer platforming adventure game. This one has a demo too.

Operation Zero just looks like a fun retro-looking arcade top-down shooter.

The Drifter has been on a previous list and I’m hoping we get it this year. I just really like Powerhoof’s shorter adventure games and think a long one would be good too.

We have a new game by the creator of Midnight Scenes. I will keep buying their short horror adventure games as long as they keep making them.

Nivalis is some sort of bar simulation set in a cyberpunk world. It’s by the developer of Cloudpunk, which I thought was very good.

first person view of a gun fight by a staircase

Agent 64 is a FPS inspired by Goldeneye. Really liked the demo of it and hope we get the full game this year.

Super Cucumber is a cute platformer by the creators of Down the Drain. I thought that game was a fun roguelike and this is a dev local to me so I’m looking forward to this game.

pinball set in a dreamy vaporwave setting next to a statue

Vaporwave Pinball is a pinball game with a vaporwave theme. Pretty straightforward! I like the demo so I’ll probably like more of that.

Legends of Castile is a historical point-and-click adventure set in Spain. I just think the art is very nice and reminds me a tiny bit of Curse of Monkey Island. It has a demo too.

Nekomancer of Nowhere looks like a really cute isometric puzzle game.

Soup Rooms is an upcoming anthology game where you explore various rooms. It’s inspired by an old game I’m not familiar with but the opportunity to walk around a variety of weird spaces sounds like a good time to me.

Having a little bookstore is a fun little dream I have so a game about that, Tiny Bookshop, where I can do that without all the actual stress of running a bookstore sounds nice.

Generation Exile is a game about humanity’s only generation ship. I’m sure it will be an emotional experience that will make me feel like crap. Can’t wait.

I don’t know much about Usual June but I like the art and I’m a Finji Fan.

Promise Mascot Agency just looks like a wild adventure game and I’m very excited to see Alpha Chrome Yayo doing the soundtrack.

Sleight of Hand is a stealth game with a really fun looking mechanic where you have cards you draw from and each one has an effect to help you stay hidden and dispose of enemies.

Angeline Era is a new game by the Anodyne devs featuring bump combat!

person on a platform shoot rockets at monsters

Acronia is a platformer inspired by old DOS games. It has a demo on the Itch page that runs in DOS.

I think Roman Sands comes out this year? I was a fan of their previous game Paratopic and really like the Y2K aesthetic this has.

We’re getting a new Halloween Harry this year! By the same dev as the original game.

Perfect Tides: Station to Station is the sequel to one of the best recent adventures, by the creator of the comic Octopus Pie.

Streets of Fortuna looks like a really interesting sandbox rpg.

Heir of the Dog is a new adventure by the creator of Lucy Dreaming. That was a fantastic point-and-click adventure and I’m sure this will be a good one too.

Dream Settler is the sequel to Hypnospace Outlaw, one of my favorite games!

Zid Journey is a sequel to Zniw Adventure and looks like another point-and-click adventure that the whole family can play.

a marble on a platform floating in the sky

I really like the vaporwave aesthetic that the puzzle game Axyz has.

Tiny Garden is a game I backed that looks like a chill gardening game set in tiny Polly Pocket-like containers.

Indie Game Roundup (Jan. 24, 2025)

~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

Wow, what a year huh? Glad it’s almost over right? Anyway, as usual, looking at little things on Itch.io and elsewhere is keeping me from losing my marbles so I will keep doing that. If you posted that people need to make weirder stuff, and you aren’t a game dev, idk, consider supporting some of the games here. Also considering buying more from Itch.io than Steam in the new year. They take a smaller cut from devs and don’t make everyone use forums that only an incredibly toxic community uses. Please let me know in the comments what you’ve been playing lately.

top down view of tiles and some have monsters in them with numbers next to the monsters

Dragonsweeper (Itch.io) is a free browser game that adds dungeon crawling and rpg elements to Minesweeper and it works wonderfully.

Vampire Versus Pope Army (Itch.io) is another great browser puzzle game, this one being made in PICO-8. In this game you’re a vampire and must drink blood from all the popes.

people skiing down a rocky mountain with big pits on the side

Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders (Steam) is a downhill skiing game that’s just some goofy fun. It just felt really good for me to control and was really easy to get going. I played the demo and it’s good! Not a whole lot to say about this one, just a straightforward downhill racing game that is well made.

Pillbug’s Domain (Itch.io) is a fun setting made for the Tiny World TTRPG jam. The page suggests using it for a science fiction or cyberpunk campaign. It’s probably just me but the art reminds me of an early 90s shareware game, so that’s always a plus. Available as Pay-What-You-Want.

a shot of two astronauts and one is thinking "That's it, but the signals are still indecipherable."

Asterism (Steam) is an interactive concept album by Claire Morwood, filled with lovely music, but the highlight for me is this stop-motion art. Everyone probably knows by now that if a game has stop-motion art I’m required to put it in here. Look at it! Incredible. It also has a demo.

first person view of a gun pointing at spirits in the air

I thought Red Pandamonium (Itch.io) was a neat little free roguelike FPS made in 72 hours. You’re a red panda and move from room to room, clearing all the enemies, and buy upgrades. Plus it has some good retro FPS-inspired graphics.

I’m so fucking excited for Realis (Itch.io). It’s a tabletop rpg by Austin Walker of Giant Bomb/Waypoint/Friends at the Table fame. It’s a diceless ttrpg where characters deploy powerful Sentences, which are rewritten over the course of their saga. It’s currently in development but buying it now gets you the Ashcan edition. Usually that means it’s a shortened version of the game that can still be played, but the version you get is still a pretty beefy book. I think $15 is a pretty fantastic deal for the book. Even if this was all we were getting, it would still be worth buying. You can also listen to it being played on the current season of Friends at the Table.

chains of words over a space background

Horizons: The End Of Words (Itch.io/Steam) is the newest game by the PUNKCAKE Delicieux collective. In this one you explore space by making chains of words using the letters you’re given. I’m a big fan of this collective and folks, I think they made another banger.

I never played Dungeon Ruins but people seemed to enjoy it. The sequel just came out (Steam) and the Steam reviews are positive for that one too.

That’s it for this week. If you enjoy these, subscribe to the blog through the RSS feed, tell a friend, and check out these games. If you’ve got your own blog, think about talking about stuff you like! More obscure art could always use more people praising it. I also have an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

Blog Roundup (2025-1-20)

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Yeah idk, I’d rather write this than watch the news today. This one will be long since it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these but it should be more reasonable in the future. As usual, my hope for these is that you find new stuff to add to your RSS feed reader (I use Inoreader) and that you consider doing your own blog roundups if you have a site and encourage other to use RSS, since social media and Google Search are disasters now.

Video Games

Bobbins’ Olde Tomb of Videogames is back! Please subscribe to this one. Rob regularly highlights great indie games that I’ve never heard of.

A lot of folks were doing GOTY stuff, including Gamers with Glasses, The Indie TTRPG Newsletter, Ars Technica, Indie Game Reading Club, Ephemeral Enigmas, Chris Schilling (it mentions Domino Club!), and this thread by Wurm Fud.

Andrew Plotkin made a version of Zork that displays the game’s code and annotations as you play.

Here’s a post on how to play the weird official Half-Life arcade game Half-Life 2 Survivor on your Steam Deck.

Into the Spine had a post where each writer, all 102, recommended a game. It features a recommendation by Emily Price for one of the games in the anthology I helped with!

I can’t remember if I mentioned Press Play Gaming nominating my anthology for best anthology, but I’m bringing it up again baby!

Swanchime writes about their issues with the indie dev scene.

Farfama writes about making games for an audience of 1.

Tabletop RPGs

Kieron Gillen and Jim Rossignol have launched a site for their ttrpg blog posts called Old Men Running the World.

Seedling Games talks about What Is a Zine?

Have a D10 table of Dead Adventurers

Playful Void publishes The Zungeon Manifesto

Florence Smith Nicholls talks about LARPs and prompt engineering for people, not AI.

Dev Logs

Dave Snider, of Giant Bomb fame, has announced a new tabletop rpg project that you can follow on his site and newsletter

Exodrifter talks about finances as an indie game developer.

Em Reed talks about their future plans and favorite things in 2024.

Eric’s Edge talks about making a game in Hypercard

Technology

Greg Pak talks about why you should make a personal website and how to get started.

Benj Edwards talks about his hopes for computers going forward such as users moving away from DRM and subscriptions and a push to make computers more personal again.

Wyx talks about how to put your music on Neocities

Joe Siegler talks about what matters the most, the weird Doctor Who blu-rays in the United States.

Other

Molly White recommends volunteering at your library and recommends some sci-fi books.

Not Blog Posts But:

Someone actually talks about how adventure games have been doing well for quite a while now.

PC Gamer continues to highlight 5 lesser known games every week.

Indie Game Roundup (Jan. 19, 2025)

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Well the world is a dumpster fire right now so I’m distracting myself with video games. Bon appétit!

Tunnels of Vextro (Itch.io) is a free chain anthology of games made using different engines and in conversation with each other.

Finalists for this year’s Independent Games Festival have been announced. This has always been a great way to discover smaller games and I’ve always been excited to ready these ever since they started posting these when I was a kid and discovered that you could make stuff like Bad Milk and Pencil Whipped.

Rob’s Spooky Tomb Of Videogames is back! They’re kinda like these roundups except they were first and are much better. I’ve discovered so many great games through Rob and I highly recommend subscribing.

There’s a new HauntedPS1 disc! I already covered it in a separate post but you should go check it out!

Radiant Lens (Itch.io) is a fun little tarot thing made in PICO-8.

black and white art of someone saying "I don't know, either. but I can hope....senpai"

Remora (Itch.io) is a demo of an upcoming visual novel by Swanchime.

Submissions are being taken for a charity bundle on Itch.io. You can read more about it on Wraithkal’s blog.

person with tentacles for a head sitting in a chair in a dark room and saying "Deeper and deeper you go, sinking into the lightless abyss"

The Shadow Over Cyberspace (Steam) is a free visual novel about the Old Ones and Y2K approaching.

image of a cork board and there being a to-do list to help the player complete the family tree of the roottree sisters

The Roottrees are Dead (Steam) is an expanded version of the original version created for Global Game Jam 2023. I never played the original but have heard wonderful things about this new version and I’m looking forward to playing it.

gif of a car speeding by obstacles on a grid

Cyber Cetacean (Itch.io) is a fun browser arcade game with vector graphics.

New In Town (Itch.io) is a solo TTRPG about being in a new place and reminding yourself of the possibilities. It was created for a game jam where the prompt was to be inspired by a random Nintendo DS game, with this one being based on Animal Crossing: Wild World.

person with a spear jumping next to giant mushrooms

World Pole Stone Dusk: Diadem of the Pole (Itch.io) is a new action platformer by Jazz Mickle featuring very nice art and looks to be very challenging.

Don't know how to describe this one. It's an alien in a space station looking at another alien through a glass door, I think.

Fragrance Point (Steam) looks like an incredibly trippy platformer adventure game.

Airborn Empire (Steam) is a new city builder where you create a city floating in the sky. I will always get excited about city builders that try something new and so far this one has very positive reviews, which is nice when people can be very fussy about early access games.

Cyclopean: The Great Abyss (Steam/Itch.io) is a new dungeon crawler that has just entered early access. I really like the dev’s previous games and this one seems to be influenced by very early pc rpgs where you have an overworld and then it switches to a first person view when you get to a dungeon.

Sound Bath (Itch.io) is a free and relaxing tool for creating ambient music.

Hengähtänet (Itch.io) is a bilingual poetry game featuring nice artwork.

Someone made a neat little remake of the DOS classic Pharoah’s Tomb on their website

House Call (Itch.io) is a free point-and-click adventure that’s playable in the browser.

Buried Treasure highlighted a dungeon crawler that looks pretty nifty called Tower of Mask.

Indie Games+ has a new review of a horror game that is very retro looking and aesthetically pleasing to me. Pretend it’s not there is available as Pay-What-You-Want.

EEK3 2025

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Usually I put all my indie game stuff in the roundups but there was enough here that it deserved its own post.

EEK3, a virtual showcase of horror games inspired by the PSX era, just wrapped up and you can watch it all on YouTube. Overall it was good, I discovered a lot of new upcoming games from it, and we got a new HauntedPS1 demo disc that you can now download on Itch. I thought I would highlight and link to some of the ones I’m most interested just to get some extra eyes on them, but you should just watch the showcase and download the demo disc. This might be a weird list anyway because I like creepy stuff, but not games that are actually scary or have jump scares.

angeline era screenshot of a person with a sword attacking a large person

Angeline Era is a new bump combat game by the developer of games such as Sephonie and Anodyne 1 and 2. Bump combat is back!

Ticky’s Tower of Time just looks like a nice 3D platformer from the PSX era. Sure, I’ll play another one of those. The music in the trailer is pleasant too.

I’m not quite sure what Of Love and Eternity is, maybe an adventure game? But it looked interesting and it has a demo so I should probably go play that.

first person view of a bedroom and hands. one hand is holding a key

Eclipsium looks like a horror adventure game and man, I get so excited about digitized sprites.

Axyz looks like a fun puzzle game with a vaporwave theme.

The art in Juice is so fun and Colorfiction has made plenty of cool games before.

I didn’t know until now that No Players Online was getting a commercial release but I was a fan of the original free game.

Spyrit Walker looks like a fun retro FPS and has a demo too.

Children of Saturn is really exciting to me. I will always be into stories about teens trying to get by while it feels like the world is ending. It’s an interactive fiction game that doesn’t seem to be horror, and it has a demo.

Prison of Husks looks like a combination of the slower, difficult combat in Dark Souls with an aesthetic inspired by ICO.

Scissors in Hell is a first person turn-based dungeon crawler so yes, I will be playing that.

Death in Abyss looks like a Star Fox-type game but horror themed and set under the water.

Morn is another horror retro shooter and it’s got a demo so you can see if being a priest and shooting demons is for you.

Athanasia. Hell yes, a new horror immersive sim.

Shrimp Game is a roguelike where you are a shrimp under the water. Wonderful.

It’s kind of funny seeing something with the Wholesome tag make it into the showcase but VORON does seem like a nice adventure game where you are a raven exploring the world.

MOTORSLICE is a non-horror platformer that actually reminds me of the PS2 era of games and the movement in it seems really well done.

Please Insert Disc is a horror adventure where it seems like you explore a haunted PS2-era disc? It’s by the devs of Home Safety Hotline, which I never played but people seemed to love.

Tamarindos Freaking Dinner looks like a very trippy and silly adventure game and was a nice way to mix things up with all the very serious games in the showcase.

RADIANT ELUSION seems to be a 3D platformer with a vaporwave theme.

And then finally, Soup Rooms sounds fascinating to me. I guess it is inspired by a 2007 game from Japan. It’s 100 rooms that I think you just explore and will be free. That sounds pretty great to me.

Indie Game Roundup (Jan. 9, 2025)

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After a little bit of a break I’m writing about games again! If you enjoy these, post about a new indie game that was exciting to you on a blog or website.

Video Games

The Forgotten Holiday (Itch.io) was made for a secret santa, where you move a camera around a snowy landscape and watch tanks sponsored by various brands fight each other.

Bluejeweled (Itch.io) is a version of the classic puzzle game Bejeweled that you cannot lose.

screenshot for abi-dos showing a large grid of boxes connecting together to show a process

ABI-DOS (Steam) is one of those programming puzzle games that I struggle with because I have 5 brain cells. However, this one seems to be very good from looking at the Steam reviews. It was apparently released commercially a few months ago but after sales weren’t as big as expected, the developer went ahead and just made the game available for free, which is very nice.

picture of a snake wearing a bow, a floating star, and text saying "Video.....games"

SNAKE Lucky Laugh (Itch.io) is a little tool with a Macintosh aesthetic where you dress up a snake.

A new Indiepocalypse (Itch.io) is out! My recommended game for this one is the retro fps BITCH HELL.

If you have an interest in interactive fiction, consider checking out the Interactive Fiction Showcase 2024 on Itch.io, where folks submitted the IF games they made last year.

Keep Warm and Go (Itch.io) is a cute tiny browser game about getting dressed to go outside in celebration of the new year. I never heard of Flickgame but it seems like a neat tool for making really small games.

Quiet Journaling (Itch.io) is a relaxing walking simulator for browsers where the game generates a new landscape to walk around each day.

a smaller box in front of a grainy image with text saying "I forgot my name. Who was I? What did I mean?"

A Butterfly (Itch.io) is a pay-what-you-want experimental and interactive poem. Like with their previous game Blue Suburbia, I was really impressed by how it tells a story with multiple games-inside-a-game.

Stimulation Clicker (standalone site) is a browser game that probably represents the modern web better than anything else today. I personally had a hard time playing it because it became too overwhelming for my senses at a certain point but that’s kinda the point and it’s brilliantly made.

a gyrocopter flying through the air and there are floating platforms

Helihopter64 (Itch.io) is a demo where you fly around dropping packages on targets in a N64 inspired world. It took me a minute to get the hang of the controls but once I did I was really into it. I hope this gets expanded into a larger game at some point.

a tiny blue cell swimming by big green cells

Unicellular 3 (Itch.io) is a pay-what-you-want arcade game where you eat little things to grow bigger. Those are always fun and this one has you getting upgrades when you complete levels and the music is catchy too.

Cryptid Detective Club (Itch.io) is a cute storybook for browsers where you use a lantern to uncover secrets on each page.

Tabletop RPGS

.DUNGEON has launched a Kickstarter for the newest edition of their game about being in a dying MMO. The original version won plenty of awards and acclaim so check it out if it sounds interesting to you.

Esther and the Queens (Itch.io) is a Purim-themed Jewish ttrpg featuring Queen Esther, carnival games, and lots of drama. The gameplay is inspired by the Firebrands frameworks and uses a collection of mini games to advance the story.

Sauna of the Stone Moles & Puritanical Dwarven Temple (Itch.io) are two 12-page dungeons by Aaron King about:

  • weird underground creatures who decided to make a sauna out of a storage space for hazardous dwarven materials
  • an angry hobbit messing with ancient dwarven cleaning techniques

The dungeons are available as Pay-What-You-Want.

Everspark (Itch.io) is a new fantasy tabletop rpg by Cezar Capacle that is meant to be easy for folks new to ttrpgs to pick up, but let them go on fun fantasy adventures that you would see in the artwork for these books. I haven’t played it yet but I am a big fan of the author and I’m looking forward to seeing how this is all implemented.

Books

Light Leaks (Itch.io) is a browser zine of photos accidentally exposed to light.

Learning from the Best of Text (Itch.io) is a 300 page book on the history of interactive fiction available for free.

Looking Back on 2024 and What’s Next

~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

Everyone is doing their recap posts and so I guess I should do one of my own. It’s a little late but I refuse to do any kind of 2024 summary until the year is over dangit.

Overall it was a very weird year. The first half of the year was incredible, with the birth of my son and being able to take 12 weeks off work to spend all my time with him and the rest of my family. The second half of the year was less great, with the election, day job vibes changing for the worse, a small flood in the basement, and my furnace going out and now having to replace it, which is incredibly expensive. It has been a very stressful few months here but things will be ok.

It was a pretty good year for game dev stuff I suppose. I made a tiny game in Downpour (Itch.io) and while I haven’t been too inspired to make more with it, it’s a great little tool. We also shipped the first Locally Sourced Anthology (Steam/Itch.io), which I’m very proud of. I wish I could have made a game for it (and thus made some money too) but it’s still something I’m very proud of and we’re already starting work on the second one, which I have a game planned for. The biggest thing for me this year was organizing three games and creating one of those, a point-and-click adventure, for the Ann Arbor 200 project. I will do a larger post on that soon, summarizing my feelings on it (very positive!) and my process, but it was a great honor to make something for the Ann Arbor District Library and I finally got to learn Adventure Game Studio, make a point-and-click adventure, and got paid for it! I also got to make my oldest a beta tester on that and that made her incredibly happy, so it was worth it for that alone.

I also had a lot of doing my weekly indie game roundups on the blog. Not to pat myself on the back too much, but I think I did a good job. At the very least I mention games that aren’t on Steam, unlike a lot of other websites and Video Game Influencers who talk about how much they love indies. Good job me.

So what’s next for 2025?

I’m going to just stick with the reasonable goals and not stuff like the end of all billionaires and changing the US into a socialist utopia. But in 2025 I’m hoping to:

  • Do more point-and-click adventures. I’ve got a half finished one made in clay that I should get back to, but I’ve got a few design quirks to hammer out there. It turns out that making everything in clay is tough. Not as expensive as I thought it would be, but still time consuming and hard work. It should be out sometime this year though. I’ve also started work on another Maniac Mansion/Zak McKracken inspired one and that’s the only I’m more excited about at the moment since I think I have a good flow down for making these and can build on what I learned with my last game. I’m also pairing up with someone to make a point-and-click adventure for the next Locally Sourced anthology, which means there could be 2-3 little adventure games from me this year.
  • My kids also now want to make an adventure game with me and use clay. I suspect this may be a really tiny thing that I put on Glorious Trainwrecks, or on itch and turn off the comments and ratings, but it should be fun.
  • Keep doing the indie game roundups. They’re fun and it enables me to discover more great art.
  • Continuing to be annoying about how people should start their own site and blogs.
  • Go to grad school. We’ll see about this one. I’ve wanted to work towards a MLIS for a while and keep putting it off, and I think I’ll really regret it if I don’t at least try. I don’t think it will be a fast process, just one class a semester, but I have to do it.
  • Volunteer more with local environmental restoration groups. I did a little bit last year with Friends of the Rouge and aside from it just being a good thing to help make the planet cleaner by building rain gardens and doing other work, it’s also just a good workout and I learn a lot from it too.

I’m not exactly expecting this year to be stress free, with fascism continuing to expand across the world, but I’m still hoping to find joy where I can.

Playing Asheron’s Call 1 in 2025

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I’ve decided it now, 2025 is the year of Asheron’s Call. It’s a game I’ve always wanted to play since Asheron’s Call 2 was the first MMO I ever played and I’m taking the time now to revisit it. That might seem a little odd since it was a MMO that started in 1999 and shut down for good in 2017, but fans have managed to keep it alive!

If you would like to play it, the instruction on this website are actually very straightforward and were easy for me to follow. The page has a warning for it at the bottom, but a few folks including myself have run into an issue where the game crashes when you sign in and it’s easily fixed by just playing in Windowed Mode.

Once you have this all setup, you just need to pick a server to play on. A couple of us in the Discord for Twitch streamer BogusMeatFactory (Twitch link) are going to be playing a retail release Asheron’s Call fan server called Levistras that also enforces a strict, no-bot policy. This means we will experiencing the retail game experience around the era of 2004-ish. If you are interested in playing with us, you can download the launcher through the link here.

This is an easy executable that is your hub portal to all of the different servers available now and is incredibly easy to use! The server we will be playing on is the Levistras server, whose information can be found at the link here.

I also highly recommend checking out the manual. The game actually has a solid in-game tutorial but the manual provides all the lore and additional info for playing the game. It’s readable in the browser on the Internet Archive.

You’re more than welcome to join me! I will be on Fridays around 9pm EST, but playing other times as well, with a character named TofuPirate. I’ve only played a tiny bit of the game so far but I’m having a good time and very excited to play more of it.