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