It’s getting warmer here again, after it was warm last week and then got cold and snowed again. This will probably happen a few more times before the warm weather finally holds, but I’m looking forward to it.

If you like these roundups, maybe you’ll want some Girl Scout cookies? My oldest is selling Girl Scout cookies if folks in the US are interested. If you live in the metro Detroit or Ann Arbor area, I can deliver them too if you want.

Video Games

Steam Next Fest is this week and I absolutely do not have the time for this. Lots of folks have been writing about demos though including Indie Hell Zone, Thinky Games, and Jank. Probably a billion websites are covering the demos, those are just some that I saw in my feed.

The Midnight Cafe (Itch.io) is a cute arcade game for the browser where you are bunny at a cafe in the woods and retrieve food for animals placing their orders. I loved the collage art look for this game.

Imagine IF is a browser game made in Twine where you play through various scenarios as a librarian and learn about the history of intellectual freedom. I really appreciate that this game exists. Conservative attacks on libraries and book bans have never been at a higher rate and librarians are under more pressure than ever.

Cat President: 3rd-Rate Candidate is a visual novel where you are human campaign manager helping a cat running for president. You can choose between 6 cats to help in their campaign. I playtested this one! I thought it was very funny and you do not need to have played previous games in the series to understand this one. I’m just a fan of Oh, a Rock! Studios in general and all the silly games they make.

Pico8 Cookie is a remake of a game for the ZX Spectrum developed by Ultimate Play the Game (who later became Rare) and released in 1983. I never played the original but this is just a good arcade game! Because I’m an American, my brain shorts out when I read that developer name. Is there a pause? Is it read like Ultimate….Play the Game? UltimatePlayTheGame? Are you just supposed to say Ultimate?

The Queer Vampire Game Jam 2026 just wrapped up and you can check out visual novels, interactive fiction, and lots of other good stuff here.

Lithobreakers is continuing to put out games from their latest jam. TALK FAST, TYPE FASTER! is a screwball comedy typing browser game set in space. I really liked the collage art look they do in this one and it’s a really unique combination of inspirations. Also released by Lithobreakers is This Place is a Message, an interactive fiction prequel to the movie Event Horizon. I do not care for that movie but this game is good.

I don’t know anything about the game Cococommander but it reminds me a ton of the late 90s/early 00s Mac game Bugdom. It just has a similar energy as platformers for computers from that era, which is different than early 3D console game platformers in a subtle way I can’t explain.

Cookie Cutter RM2k3 Jam is, to my understanding, a game jam where people bought RPGMaker 2003 while it was on sale, downloaded a template, and started making stuff. I didn’t make time to play the games yet but a lot of folks I’m a fan of have made games for it and I’m excited to play them.

Not a new game but I just thought this was a good free Picross game for browsers.

I legally have to cover all moose related games so here is Simply Moose. It’s a Boulder Dash-like puzzle game from Poland that was originally made in 2002 I guess.

Playdate continues to put new games on their Catalog store all the time and here’s a roundup from them of their 5 latest games.

Swappy is a demo of a puzzle game made in PICO-8 where you get all the characters to their matching exits. It’s very easy to pickup and only took me about 20 minutes to play through the demo. I’m looking forward to more levels being created for it.

Tabletop RPGs

Roll +Bond Bundle is a bundle of mostly ttrpgs, with some video games too, raising money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. EDIT: Also just informed that (see comments for this) the“Roll +Bundle” Bundle is part of the Roll +Bond Livestream that is also happening over the weekend, raising money for the same charity:

https://www.twitch.tv/rollplusbond

Hungry Out of Habit is a worldbuilding game by Adam Bell for 2-6 players with no GM where rulers of neighboring kingdoms taking turns describing and inventing the world they’re trying to control.

Dungeon Pulp is a single player dice rolling dungeon crawler by Alfred Valley where you are an adventurer moving through a horrid acid-corrupted dungeon.

Street Wolves Case Files 001: The Ultimate Red Rumble Adventure is a new module for the synth wave inspired ttrpg Street Wolves, with half the proceeds going to humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

That’s it for today. Have a nice weekend!