We’ve made it through another week! Hope you’re all doing well. I’m still recovering from learning that the Detroit Historical Museum will be having an exhibit on the ttrpg Rifts. If you enjoy these weekly indie game roundups, consider donating to this GoFundMe for an Ann Arbor family facing deportation hardship.
The Gaming Like It’s 1930 jam wrapped up, featuring dozens of games, both tabletop and video games, made from materials that just entered the public domain.
The latest issue of the indie game compilation magazine, Indiepocalypse, is out today with issue 73. This features a combination of ttrpgs and video games. This month’s commissioned game looks very interesting and I’m happy to see a game by ttrpg designer Maria Mison in here too.
Anonymous game collective LITHOBREAKERS released a batch of new games with a focus on outer space. The really wild one that I haven’t had time to play yet but need to is a MUD? I think it’s fantastic to see a new one of those being made.
Dungeon crawling roguelike Roguecraft DX is available for the Amiga/Mega65/Game Boy Color. I’ve only played the original version of Roguecraft on the Amiga but I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a nice and approachable turn-based roguelike with multiple difficulty levels to choose from if you’re a fan of the genre but bad at them like I am. I don’t really know what the Mega65 (EDIT: I guess it’s a modern day version of this) is but if you can figure out the headaches of emulating Amiga games, I think it’s a very worthwhile platform to dig into. I think more people should make games for the Amiga because I like how the beeps and bloops sound.
JUNJI ITO PINBALL is a roleplaying experience in the forums for a product page on Itch where folks are roleplaying and posting about their experiences with a Junji Ito pinball table. It’s the best. Just read the PDF before participating and start reading some of the threads.
Welcome 2 The Machine is a brand new platformer game for the ZX Spectrum. Longtime readers will know that even though I’m an American born after this era, I have a weird fascination with this platform anyway and I think this one looks really neat. Those colors!
I keep forgetting to highlight new releases on the Playdate Catalog despite being an owner of the handheld and fan of it. I even made a little game with my kids for it. But I think the recent thread from Playdate on Mastodon does a better job highlighting how active the platform is.
DEMON DUST is a new survival horror dungeon crawler. I don’t know much about it really but I think there were some positive early impressions floating around. I just really like how grimy it looks and the UI is interesting.
Between the Scanlines is a fanzine launched in October 2023 and inspired by 90s anime and video game fanzines. This issue has features on Jerry Lawson, 2000AD games on microcomputer, and the early days of ID software.
Syl is a much better writer than I am and she just published a free zine recommending five indie games.
Satan, the Alien Vampire is a first-person game where you have five minutes to escape Satan, who happens to be an alien vampire, as it says in the title. Loved the art in this. I personally didn’t have an issue with the browser version but the Itch page says the downloadable version works better.
Global Game Jam wrapped up which means there’s now a billion games you can play from that. Some that I think are worth a look are The Masked Charade, Alpacas in Balaclavas, and mutual aid builder It’s Going to Be Ok.
The Dark Rites of Arkham is a new lovecraftian point-and-click adventure by Postmodern Games on Steam and Itch.io. I think I’ve seen nothing but critical acclaim for all the adventures by Postmodern Games and I get excited for new adventure games made in Adventure Game Studio since it’s what I use.
I don’t know anything about Hermit & Pig, sorry. I just like the art. The rpg seems to have a lot of very positive reviews judging from the Steam page, like one from the AV Club.
It’s also zine month for the indie ttrpg community so you’ll start seeing crowdfunding campaigns pop up in these roundups such as Aqua Tofana, a solo ttrpg about poisoning your husband.
That’s it for this week! If you found this useful, add it to your RSS feed reader and/or do your own roundup of things you like on your website or blog.
I’ve been neck deep in work because of a freelance thing working on PR that I’d rather not go into details here. I did snag a couple of games / tried a few demos this past few weeks
My obsession with surf / bouncing games continues with Hoverflow https://store.steampowered.com/app/1280060/Hoverflow/
You know what’s cooler than mechs? Dancing mechs, and that’s what is steel century groove is all about https://store.steampowered.com/app/1858950/Steel_Century_Groove/
From last year, clawpunk is extremely underrated https://store.steampowered.com/app/2990370/CLAWPUNK/ Best way I can describe is a mix of downell, super meat boy (?) and Nuclear Throne. It’s fast, its chaotic, it’s a crime that it went unnoticed.
In “games no one will play except me” I am playing through “War in Spain 1936-39”. https://www6.slitherine.com/game/war-in-spain-1936-39 It’s one of those massive wargames that take at least a year to finish and it comes with a 200 page manual.
Not sure if I posted here, but I worked in IT for a few years, and Tower Networking Inc is just the kind of sicko game I like to play https://store.steampowered.com/app/2939600/Tower_Networking_Inc/ Set up servers, solve DNS issues. Manage a LOT of cables.
I did saw that Roguecraft DX was out and as a fan of the original, I will pick it up as soon as possible.
PS: Some of these games are available on Itch but, due to currency conversion, I end up finding them on steam instead.
Hope you have a good weekend!
These are great. Thank you! Even though it has always felt like a genre that is too complex for me to get into, I think it’s neat that the war game genre still keeps going on.
Junji Ito Pinball is so cool and reminds me a bit of the Polybius arcade game. I love the idea of shared experiences like this.
I was a big fan of An English Haunting by Postmodern Games, so I definitely need to check out The Dark Rites of Arkham soon.
Picked up Between the Scanlines too! I’m always looking for new things to read and this looks rad.
Thanks for linking my zine btw! I’m going to try to release a new issue monthly, hopefully featuring about 8-10 games in future issues. 🙂