Hey it’s another one of these things that I do every week. This one is a bit shorter. I doubt that there were less games this week, I think I was just too busy to notice them all, but feel free to let me know if I missed something that you or a friend worked on so I can include it next week. Even with it being a little shorter, it’s still plenty to keep you busy for a while.
Fireside Feelings (Steam) is an online game where you sit around a fire with other people to tell stories and share your feelings. The idea reminds me a lot of Kind Words and it looks like they did some cross promotion with each other.
Robo Attack (iOS app store) is a top down shooter game for iPad, iPhone, and iWatch. I thought this one was interesting since it’s by the developer of classic computer games like Halloween Harry and Flight of the Amazon Queen.
Circlet (Itch.io) is a free arcade game where you have balls bouncing around and you try to avoid them with the line or circles you are controlling. It makes more sense in motion. Very fun little arcade game and the music kinda has a goth chiptune vibe to it.
A new Indiepocalypse is out, filled with experimental indie games.
I think it’s nice we still get games made with ZZT. BombPT (Itch.io) is a puzzle game made for a recent jam and is playable in the browser.
Seasonala Cemetery (Steam/Itch.io) is a free game where you explore a cemetery as it changes with the seasons.
Thank you to Josh for recommending Tametsi on Steam. It’s a Minesweeper game from 2017 that uses odd level shapes and is just $3. I love Minesweeper-likes so this was a nice one to hear about. Always feel free to recommend games to me, even if they aren’t brand new.
That’s it for this week!
Good grief Tametsi absolutely absorbed my life a few winters ago. Awesome game, great pull.
I’m excited to play it!
It’s sort of a quiet weekend for myself. I am, again, at the deep end of sim racers due to Le Mans happening this week. One of the very few races I do watch.
Well, “watch”. It’s a 24h endurance race so not a lot happens but it is just a good event. Also, the only thing I subscribe to (I get the Le Mans and Interlagos Endurance Races pack).
Highlights of this week for me are Train Valley Origins, a pivot to the more puzzle-like game structure of 1 and 2 after Train Valley World didn’t set the world on fire whilst trying to cater to a more logistics focused. I do understand though, the space is much more crowded with more “in-depth” logistic games such as Mashinky, and Sweet Transit.
Also, did you know that both Mashinky and Sweet Transit are pretty much a “solo” dev? I know the term came under fire a lot during SGF but both games are very interesting…experiments I would say?
Mashinky is the product of Jan Zelený (Self-published). It started out as a train management game, but Zelený decided to increase it scope by tenfold. Nowadays we have Modern airplanes, trucks, busses, everything. It still has a very “boardgamey” feel due to a lot of unlocks being tied to tokens instead of pure money.
Seet Transit is a beast of a game that I still cant wrap my head around. It also started as a train management game but now it’s a uhhh mix of city building as well?! And now it has bullet trains?! I have no idea what is going on anymore.
Also last week I spoke here about the power of community and Patreon stuff. Rolling Line, a game about building model railroads, got a free DLC. The funding happened via the developers Patreon. Hooray for all the people who helped!
It’s beautiful, and runs great in VR (if you have one of those fancy things)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psPrJpev9ZE
ANYWAYS back into this week releases and highlights.
Last Saturday “Squeakross: Home Squeak Home” (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2871440/Squeakross_Home_Squeak_Home/ ) was a good surprise. I haven’t put much time into it other than solving a couple of puzzles. I like picross and I really miss playing it on my switch. So I have that for me now.
The Alters is also on my radar although I’m not sure if I am in the proper mental headspace to tackle “multiple versions of myself”.
Bioysque (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2384020/Bioysque/ ) was recommended to me since I enjoyed the devs previous games. Also, they added a “games like this” to the game’s manual and ALSO a showcase of their previous games. More indie developers should do this! Between multiple platforms ands storefronts, and, well, the current landscape, it’s hard to keep track of every release and even a developer’s body of work.
Oh yeah, the Explorator (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2015440/The_Explorator/) is also worth a look. I have no idea what to make of it because I haven’t played it yet but it looks good, and it has some stalker-ish vibes?!
On the Itchio side of things I must be honest and haven’t been paying attention. MKSchmidt, the developer of the CRPG Cyclopean shared earlier today (Saturday) this lovely racing game that runs on a browser: Autopeli. https://ottoojala.itch.io/autopeli
It looks like a Pico 8 project, has gamepad support AND local 2 player. Lovely vibes.
Also, in a very unrelated comment. I saw some people praising Mario Kart soundtrack, which I’m sure is good.
But you know which also soundtrack has bangers? You wouldn’t believe if I said “PGA 2K25”.
“A golf game?” YUP. The game has 8 menu themes. 2 and 4 are my favorite. From jazzy to something that wouldn’t be out of place in a PS1 era game like Ridge Racer 4
Give it a listen when you can
https://youtu.be/u8mV3GYVShk?si=nD7uLPwloUQFQ-16 (theme 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdSd9-bdfjE (theme 4)
I know things are rough in the US right now, so, take care, and have a lovely weekend.
Thank you so much for all of that and all the kind words! There is so much for me to dig into here and I love it!
“Also, they added a “games like this” to the game’s manual and ALSO a showcase of their previous games. More indie developers should do this! ”
I also agree with this! That would be great
Also I started listening to this soundtrack and it’s fantastic. Now I’m thinking about golf video games