Developer: Studio Fizbin Publisher: Thunderful Publishing Year: 2021 Genre: Arcade
Say No! More is an arcade game where you are a new intern at a company where everyone says “yes” and must use your ability to say “no!” to change the world. I just played through this one with my oldest and had a good time. It’s a pretty straightforward game. You walk on a linear path, push a button to say “no!” whenever someone interrupts your path to ask you to do a mundane task, and continue moving. Sometimes you must charge your “no!” to clear your path but that’s mostly it in terms of “gameplay.” But I think where the game really shines is everything outside of that. The game features a gorgeous aesthetic influenced by PS1 graphics. I’m also always happy to see anti-capitalist and pro-union messages in games.
I’m also kinda doing the game a disservice by saying “you just push no and then keep walking.” In a very reductive way that’s true, but there’s so many custom options, including what language you say no in. It’s also just a lot of fun to watch the lengthy cutscenes as well. The game only took me about 100 minutes to play through but I think it would be exhausting if it was longer than that. I had a good time with it and it’s fun finding weird, short stuff like this in my backlog that I can play with my daughter
Feeling a little under the weather so this may be a weird post. Anyway, here’s some blogs. Don’t have your own? Consider starting one. Maybe on Bear Blog? Don’t go to Substack
Did you know John Darnielle from The Mountain Goats has one? Well, now you do.
Lists of freeware game recommendations are always nice to see and I think this one by Startmenu is a good one. It lists some interactive fiction games too.
Renga In Blue continues to play all the adventure games and do nice posts on them. This one summarizes everything that’s been played so far. Maybe you’ll discover some old adventure games that you’ve never heard of before?
Depending on when you read this, it may be too late, but Yaffle organizes a film festival in the KRITICAL discord and I think it’s worth a look. At the very least you can read the list of films and check them out on your own.
just watched the latest episode and man, this season has been so good. Probably the best the show has been in a long time and I wish it kicked off with this quality level last year, even if I liked that season too. I won’t spoil anything but the latest episode was just such a nice surprise for fans of the old series and I’m looking forward to what happens next. Just so much I would never expect to see and last week’s episode was even better in terms of the writing level. Good stuff!
Two of these in one week? Sure, why not. I thought these would be impossible to do while doing school but it turns out playing and writing about indie games is actually a nice break from work and school and a reminder that I need to post on here more. I’m currently playing through Old Skies and having a very nice time with that.
Gone Fission (Itch.io) is a PICO-8 competitive puzzle game where you setup chain reactions to take over a board. It’s an homage to Chain Reaction on the Atari ST, which I’ve never played before, but I had a blast lot of fun playing this one and the state of the board changing so much that I wasn’t able to tell if I was going to win or not.
Here, have a Twine version of Little Red Riding Hood (Itch.io) that combines a lot of public domain versions into one IF game.
Neon Hearts City (Steam/Itch.io) is the newest adventure game from Cosmic Void. It is truly a wonderful time to be a fan of point-and-click adventures (see: previous Indie Game Roundups). I’m a fan of Cosmic Void’s previous games and I’m looking forward to digging into this one too.
The End of Gameplay (Steam) is a new anthology by droqen. Don’t know what it is but it’s probably interesting. The Steam reviews can give a better insight into what it is.
34th Birthday (Itch.io) is a new browser shmup by Sylvie. Happy birthday Sylvie!
Zexion (Steam) came out a few months ago but it’s new to me and looks like a really nice Metroid-like. Almost like if we got a Metroid sequel towards the end of the NES’ life.
PUNKCAKE Délicieux makes good stuff and this is their next monthly game. If Letters Had Pants (Itch.io) is a roguelite word game.
MIRO (Steam) looks a lot like if No Man’s Sky was a much more chill game focused entirely on exploration. And no space travel. So not really that much like No Man’s Sky. Look, you explore procedurally generated planets. Maybe not quite as chill as Proteus since there’s still shooting, but the art reminds me quite a bit of that too. It’s got a demo.
Internet Roadtrip is a browser game where you and everyone else playing votes on what path Google Streetview should take and you can vote on changing the radio station too.
Formless Star (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want game where you travel to the Formless Star and gather data on the creatures that live there.
That’s it for this week. As usual, I appreciate hearing about recently released games and what you’re playing in the comments.
Hey it’s another one of these things! It’s probably shorter than these usually are since I haven’t really been too aware of what’s going on other than looking at blogs, Discord, and what folks are up to on Itch. It’s still more than enough to keep me busy but I’d love to hear about what you’re excited about lately in the comments. Self-promo is more than welcome!
We’ve got a new Indiepocalypse! This one looks to have quite a few interactive fiction-related games too, which is always a treat for me.
Matt Stark has made a lot of really nice building toys and islandoodle 2 is another relaxing one. This one has you building castles on islands.
Image taken from the Itch page comments of the game running on a cd-i
Haven’t you always wanted to play a port of the DOS classic SkyRoads on the Philips CD-i? Yes, of course you have and now there is one in development.
The tabletop rpg Monster Truckers is now seeking crowdfunding. It’s described as “an easy to learn and low prep tabletop role playing game featuring semi truck driving monsters in a post-apocalyptic world.”
Dust Bunny is a cute puzzle game playable in the browser and made in PICO-8 about clearing all the dust in various screens.
It feels like we’re being spoiled with all the point-and-click adventures that have been coming out lately. Midnight Special is a new horror game that has just entered Early Access with a presentation that reminds me of the first Clock Tower game.
Speaking of adventure games, thank you Lucas Moura for telling me about Sub-Verge. It’s a game where you control a group of deep-sea divers and looks incredibly stressful, haha. I think it looks really good though.
Man, we didn’t even get Pope Pizzaballa after everything?
Last time I lamented that Giant Bomb looked like it was going to do. I’m happy to say I was wrong! Anyway, here’s some things I’ve been reading lately.
That’s it for now. It’s been a little quieter here than I was hoping since I’ve been busy with school, but I think that will calm down after a few more weeks. I’ve been focused more on getting ahead of schoolwork so I can relax a bit more later.
Yesterday was the last day of Bookstock, a local week-long used book sale that’s held at a nearby mall to raise additional money for Detroit schools. It was rainy and crummy outside so I went that and ended up picking up a lot of cds from the 90s and 00s from artists like Enya, Tori Amos, Zero 7, Midnight Oil, Mazzy Star, and Sarah McLachlan. On top of the cds already being cheap, everything was also half off so they could get rid of as much as possible. Of course I ripped all the cds to my plex server while reading the booklets, something I really enjoy from the cd era. What no one told me though, and I guess why would they, is that Sarah McLachlan’s album Surfacing is a fucking multimedia cd-rom??
It will probably surprise no one that I absolutely lost my shit when I realized this and it made me so happy with absolutely no irony. You can choose between two applications. There’s the catalogue where you can look up various items to order, like cds, prints, vhs tapes, and jewelry. There’s also an electronic press kit about all of her albums.
I realize that I’m the only person getting excited about this in 2025 but man, those colors and fonts! I wish most cds had done this. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that I’ve leaned much more into cd collecting this last year but making a Plex server really pushed me into it. I still get to have a nice little physical piece of art to accompany the music but it’s so much cheaper than having a vinyl record, which is the opposite of how things were when I had started collecting records. I don’t know if I buy that Gen Z is going to bring back the cd format but I have been having fun picking up cds at an incredibly low cost and have even bought a few through Bandcamp as well. Anyway, if you’re a musician reading this, have you considered paying a developer to put together a little program listing all of your works, biography, maybe song clips, video, and all that with your album? Because I will be the first in line to buy your album if you do.
By contrast, this is what I get when I put in the Zero 7 album. Boooooooo
As promised, I will be doing more checking in posts and this site will be more of a personal blog as a result of me deleting social media off my phone. Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day so I take my kids to one of our local comic store to pick up some free comics and some books. I no longer buy single issues of comics like I used to, so maybe I’m part of the problem, but I do like reading collected works. I had actually read a thread last week on Bluesky that free comic book day doesn’t actually do much to bring in new reader, where indie book store day was a massive success for his store, and had suggestions. But I’m not on social media for the moment so I guess just take my word for it? I still think it’s a fun excuse to go to the local comic store though.
The one I got for myself was the first Adventuregame Comic- Leviathan by Jason Shiga. I had actually know about this series for a while because I saw that Andrew Plotkin had made games based on them.
On Bandcamp Friday I also took my Myst love to the next logical level and bought an album by the son of the actor that played Gehn in Riven. Well actually it’s more because I have friends in the Minneapolis electronic music scene and a friend just played a live streaming show with him, but I’m going to pretend it’s because of the Myst connection.
Speaking of Myst, it looks like the game Zed, by a former Cyan person and previously published by Cyan, is getting delisted soon. So maybe consider getting that for $1.
We did it folks. We kinda sorta survived another week. Bandcamp Friday is today. Consider picking up an album or two when the site isn’t taking a cut from sales.
Six One Indie put together a nice collection of sites for folks to consider supporting now that Polygon and Giant Bomb are gone and the world of games journalism continues to shrink. This Neocities page lists some of the ways you can follow Polygon folks. It’s a less impressive list but I also listed a few places in a post here and there’s always the Cool Site Zone at the top of the page. It’s just unbelievably rough for everyone in games right now and I guess just do what you can to help each other out.
Well alright, here are some of the games I was excited about this week. Since I am not using social media, I am counting on you (points out at the screen at you) to spread the word about these roundups, if you feel like it.
EDIT: I have confirmed that this successfully autoposts to bluesky and mastodon, lol, hooray! This was never an issue with masto but the plugin I was previously using was fussy.
There’s two charity bundles that I think are worth a look. This TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Ohio charity bundle wraps up very soon. For $5 or more you can get hundreds of great ttrpgs. I have a ttrpg in this Crips for eSims for Gaza Bundle. For $16 or more you can gets tons of video games and ttrpgs and help Palestinians.
Skin Deep (Steam) is here! It’s an immersive sim by Blendo Games that I’ve been waiting for quite a while and I’ve seen nothing but praise for it. It looks like Die Hard on a space ship but with the goofy situations that pop up in games like the Hitman series.
One Million Chessboards (dev site) is a site with a million chessboards. Moving a piece moves it for everyone, instantly. There’s no turns and you can move between boards.
Dragonfeed (Itch.io) is a free browser game meant for mobile devices and a fascinating thing for me to play as I try to pull back a bit from social media.
I don’t know a whole lot about Many Nights a Whisper (Steam) but it looks like a beautiful adventure game, has quite a few positive reviews, and it’s described as “A short interactive essay on dreams, pressure, and expectations. Take part in an ancient ritual where one shot determines the fate of a generation.” and that sounds interesting to me.
Waiting for the Death Wind (Itch.io) is a free, short interactive story created for the Dialogue Jam about conversation between a dying warrior and his goddess. I loved it. I was really impressed with the art, music, and voice acting all created for this jam game.
The Velox Formido 2 game jam (Itch.io) is a visual novel jam featuring games by some of my favorite IF writers like SWANCHIME and Norbez Jones.
Navicula Meatus (Steam) is a dark first person dungeon crawler set in a decaying town. It may be too much meat for me but there’s a demo for you to check out to decide for yourself how much meat is enough.
World of Goo 2 (dev site, basically every platform) is here and looks like what you would expect from a sequel to the original game. More goo puzzles!
The DiscMaster Jam (Itch.io) was a week-long game jam using vintage computer files from The Internet Archive. I highly recommend Anglesoft’s C2 Prototype but I’m sure I will be looking at the games from this jam for a long time and doing the sickos meme.
You Are Generative AI (Itch.io) is a browser game where you are a generative ai, answering prompts in growing in power usage. I also recommend the author’s game You Are Jeff Bezos if you haven’t played that one either.
10S FOREVER (Itch.io) looks like a really cute tennis-like arcade game. It’s also coming to Steam in a little bit but it’s on a launch sale now and the designer seems to prefer sales from here anyway.
Taxi Quest 67 (Itch.io) is a browser game about two friends heading down a river in a boat. It was created for the road trip jam and yes, it being a boat game is addressed in the game. The character animation reminds me of the squigglevision in Home Movies and Dr. Katz. It’s very good. I am pro squigglevision.
TWENTY-SOMETHING YEAR OLD FAGGOT (Itch.io) is a solo ttrpg by Sandy Pug Games about being a young queer person, fresh out of the closet and eager to join a dark, mysterious, dangerous queer underground in their city. I believe it’s a hack of Thousand Year Old Vampire.
Mythical Concept STARNAUT (Steam) is a Survivors-like by the El Shaddai devs.
Wizordum (Steam) has left Early Access! This is Catacomb 3D-inspired FPS where you are a wizard doing wizard stuff and shooting everything. The developer worked on some very good remasters for the new version of Apogee. I believe you are only on one height level and never go up and down steps, which makes it a Catacomb 3D-like for me. Anyway, it has a demo for you to try out.
despelote (Steam) is a game that I’ve heard a ton of praise for in the lead up to its release. I think it looks fantastic.
That’s it for this week. I hope you have a swell weekend!
My break from social media for the month of May has begun, which means you’ll probably get a lot longer intros to posts as a way to vent/talk about anything that I would normally post about on blue sky/mastodon. I’ve even influenced one other person! Will I have absolutely no clue what is happening in the world as part of my break? Idk, possibly! I’m still using Discord though so I am probably still going to hear about the big stuff. If you saw this autoposted to social media, I won’t see any replies on bsky/masto but welcome comments here or emails and discord messages.
I did see the news about Polygon basically being shut down, which is infuriating. Giant Bomb seems like it’s near the end of its life too and I’m sad to see the folks working in games media going through so much right now. I don’t think there’s even many big outlets left. RPS, Eurogamer, IGN, Gamespot, and PC Gamer are still there. Most of those are doing fine although I don’t know about Gamespot’s future if Fandom owns them and some very good folks were let go from RPS last year. Ugh.
Well, here’s some blogs I guess. I guess some shitty corporation can’t shut those down….yet.
I’m a big fan of The Collection Chamber, an abandonware site that repackages old games to work on modern versions of Windows. They upload a new batch on the first of every month and this month it’s fmv adventure The Crystal Skull by Maxis, stop motion game Free D.C., Next Life, Private Eye, and Rumpelstiltskin’s Labyrinth of the Lost.
Roundups are great and probably how I’ll hear about a lot of stuff if I’m not on social media. Have some from Emily, The Works of Egan, Dante, and Yaffle.
If you live in Michigan, maybe you’ll be interested in this online group for the Linux and open source community.
That’s it for now. I don’t know if I’ll try to do these on a weekly basis or what. Maybe just when I feel like I have a nice group of links to share and need to dump thoughts at the top of a post.
