Author: mpklamerus

Jetpac Remake by Langford Productions

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an astronaut on a planet shooting lasers
Screenshot taken from Itch.io

Ever since I came across the ZX Spectrum game Jetpac as an unlockable in Donkey Kong 64, I’ve been a big fan of it. Maybe it’s a little bit because DK64 itself is not an amazing game but I always loved that there were arcade games you could unlock and play in it like the original Donkey Kong and the ZX Spectrum classic. Since I grew up in the US and was born in the late 80’s, I didn’t really know about the Spectrum until quite a bit later but it’s been fun coming across games from that era that were considered highlights of the platform. Since Jetpac is my favorite, this means I end up playing any remake I come across on Itch.io and I think the new one by Langford Productions is the best I’ve seen yet.

If you haven’t played Jetpac, it’s a very simple arcade game where you’re an astronaut with a jet pack on a planet and must rebuild your rocket by flying around, grabbing parts, and dropping them off at the base of your ship. Once you do that you refuel your ship by grabbing cans of fuel and dropping them off at the ship too. All of this is done while dodging or shooting enemies that bounce around the screen. It’s all very simple but I think the game really holds up. The remake has a lot of additional options you can toggle on and off, which include:

  • Three graphic styles switchable in-game: the original ZX Spectrum, ZX Spectrum limitless colour, and new HD graphics. The new HD graphics are fine, they’re what you kinda expect with any HD remake of an old game. I don’t use them but they’re fine. I don’t really understand the limitless colour thing but it does make Jetpac look like an early 90s VGA DOS game, which I think is neat. Swapping the styles also changes the audio to match the fidelity of what you’re looking at, which I think is a nice touch too.
  • The platforms can randomly re-arrange with each new level
  • Fuel pods can explode when shot.
  • Lunar Jetman missile launcher. I’m less familiar with this one since I never played Lunar Jetman, the second game in the series, and only played the other sequel, Solar Jetman for the NES. But basically you have a missile launcher that stays on the ground and shoots homing missiles at you.
  • Swapping the enemies from the developer’s other ZX Spectrum games Cookie and Pssst. Again, I never played these but it basically gives you more variety by swapping out the original game’s enemies with new ones.

It’s a very nice remake and I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a fun arcade game to play, whether you’ve played the original or not, and then you can check out the other ZX Spectrum remakes by Langford Productions.

The Jetpac remake by Langford Productions is available for Windows on Itch.io.

DAWN CHORUS [DEMO]

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pop up windows describing hums and a conversation between people texting
Screenshot taken from Itch.io page

DAWN CHORUS is an upcoming interactive fiction game that recently had a demo put online after being shown at ALT: GAMES 2026. The 30 minute demo tells a story about two friends and a band named Dawn Chorus while the world is falling apart. I loved how it uses links that pop up new windows to expand on the world the game is set in, and the art and music do a fantastic job of contributing to the melancholy feeling of trying to live your life while the world is ending. I think the influences section is worth reading too. The sad feeling the game has reminded me a lot of Kentucky Route Zero so it was fun to see that listed after I had played through the demo. It also lists a few DOMINO CLUB games if you want to see the Jupiter Engine and make a game yourself that uses the popup window functionality this game has.

game screenshot saying how a hum can be heard in some parts of the world including Windsor, Ontario

Something that caught me by surprise was the brief mention of the Windsor Hum. I always get excited about things local to me appearing in video games so that was a fun reference. It was a humming noise that people in Windsor, Ontario could hear from 2011 to 2020 and probably came from a factory on an inland between Canada and the USA but was never completely confirmed. You can read more about it on Wikipedia. There’s also a song by Detroit post-punk band Protomartyr that references it.

There’s not much else I can say about the demo without spoiling it but I think it was very well written and I’m looking forward to the full game.

DAWN CHORUS [DEMO] can be played in the browser on Itch.io.

The Dissident by Wavey Games

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a woman at a table with a lit cigarette
Screenshot taken from Itch.io

As a longtime (3 years) fan of Wavey Games, I was very excited to see that they just released a new game. The Dissident is a short pay-what-you-want first-person point-and-click adventure game where you must assist someone escaping the authorities by helping her get into her own dreams by fixing and using an altered tape recorder. It’s a very surreal plot and the whole game follows this vibe but not at the expense of the puzzles, which all felt very fair. They were the right level of challenge for this type of game, where I did have to pause and think for a minute but nothing too tough, which I think is good in a game like this where the draw for me is exploring the world. The game’s puzzles also provide a few points where it makes the most sense to map something or write some notes, which I enjoy doing in adventure games.

One thing I really enjoy in the works of Wavey Games is the use of retro aesthetics that people generally don’t think about. Their previous games Melon Head and Celestial Coffee Quest (highly recommend both) both used an EGA-palette and this one has a CGA-palette. Even though I considered the CGA colors to be incredibly ugly at the time when DOS shareware games were coming out, it’s fun seeing it intentionally selected for the look of a game and I think it’s used very well here. Most of the game has a nice jazzy soundtrack too, which all fits in very well with the weird but relaxed mystery vibe the game is going for. It’s just a nice little adventure game that you can play in a sitting so go check it out and then play some of the other adventures by Wavey Games if you like this one.

The Dissident is available on Itch.io for Windows and Mac.

Lady at the Costco Gave Me Her Extra Hot Dog Soda Combo

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a hot dog with ketchup, mustard, relish, and onion

Lady at the Costco Gave Me Her Extra Hot Dog Soda Combo is a short browser game about exactly what it says in the title. You fill up your soda and put toppings on your hotdog and enjoy a wonderful song at the end. I don’t believe I’ve played any games by hubol before but I loved this one. The animation is a delight and vaguely reminds me of the squigglevision we used to see in Dr. Katz. Even if you’ve never been to a Costco, I recommend it. Maybe one day we’ll get a sequel about the Costco Chicken Bake.

Lady at the Costco Gave Me Her Extra Hot Dog Soda Combo can be played for free on Itch.io

DOMINO CLUB’s Questions and Answers Jam

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walrus judge saying "This is a murder trial. Tell me, what's the victim's name?" with some choices
Pippin Please: Adequate Attorney

Anonymous game collective DOMINO CLUB has published a new set of games for their Questions and Answers jam (or if you’re in the UK, go here). At the moment there are 8 submissions for the theme Questions and Answers in a variety of forms such as visual novels, adventure games, interactive fiction, writing in PDFs, and more. If you follow the blog or me on social media then you’ll know I get excited about the jams because there’s always a few things I fall in love with and I love the experimentation that happens in these jams since they are semi-anonymous. When the games are published, the developer names are not listed however they can reveal themselves at a later date (two weeks later? I forgot).

creepy green guy with giant glasses and red shirt
My guy made with the character creation tool The Killer

These jams happen a few times a year so if you haven’t played any of their games before, consider poking around their Itch.io page, clicking on a jam theme that sounds interesting, and playing a few of the entries. Some of the games are more approachable than others so I recommend trying a few if you haven’t looked before, but I think DOMINO CLUB is doing some of the most interesting work in indie games at the moment and at the very least I think folks interested in experimental games and interactive fiction should give them a look.

End of the Indie Game Roundups….Sorta

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Anyway, if you haven’t noticed already, I had stopped posting roundups a while ago and I think I’m deciding to wind those down. I just suddenly lost interest in doing them since they were getting so time consuming and kept putting off doing another one because I didn’t have the enthusiasm to do another big post, which probably means it’s time to slow down on them. What I’m probably going to do instead is just doing individual posts on whatever indie games I’ve been enjoying. It means less games will get mentioned but the ones that do will not get buried in a giant post and will have more to say about them other than “well, this looks neat” so I don’t really think it’s a loss. Anyway, just wanted to give a heads up in case you’re read them and wondered why there’s suddenly more posts about individual games. I think it will work better anyway and it will be more fun for me, which is the whole reason I have a website in the first place.

Happy National Library Week!

~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

Go check out your local library! Yes they have lots of great books, but they may offer some of the following: music, movies, video games, board games, graphic novels, digital services for streaming, tools, spaces for your local hobbyist group, a place to chill, and more!

Blog Roundup (March 22, 2026)

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Doing a quick one of these because every other month there’s a post on Bluesky that goes viral about how the old internet was better and doesn’t exist anymore. This isn’t true! You can still post on forums, use RSS, and start blogs. In fact, I would argue that all of these stuff is easier to do than ever. Anyway, here’s some websites.

Comics

Rachel is doing Brain Comics again after a long hiatus.

Looking for more comics? Why not Power Cat

Music

Did you know the Ann Arbor District Library has a blog that regularly covers local music and has a RSS feed? I didn’t know about the feed until recently. Here’s their latest roundup of local music.

Still a big fan of the Morning Music blog, which regularly posts about songs I never heard before.

Technology

Computer Chronicles Revisited writes about a very, very early episode, thought to be lost, where they talk about the Logo language, which I was unaware of until now.

I agree with schledorn, CGA is great.

Video Games

After being down for a few months, The Video Game Soda Machine Project is back up. Come look at thousands of pictures of soda machines in video games going all the way back to the early 80’s.

The Video Game History Foundation freed Cookie’s Bustle! If you ever want to hear about how no one could ever stream or upload videos of the game Cookie’s Bustle and what the VGHF did to fix that, I recommend reading that.

WilcoWeb has been doing an outstanding job documenting every Space Quest fan game, including some incredibly obscure ones like Roger Wilco vs Buzz Buzzer Bizz.

I always love to see a new blog or website starting. The Bo-Zone will be reviewing games that streamer BogusMeatFactory plays and recapping his thoughts, starting with Inca.

Syl has another indie game roundup. Read these! They’re a billion times better than mine.

Renkon recaps their own post better than I ever could so I’ll just copy that. “Why does everyone in HawaiĘ»i speak Japanese? For the same reason everyone only ever talks about the latest AAA video games, which is to say: to experience reality, you need to leave your bubble and talk to other people.“

Writing

Grayson goes into the history of the forgotten horny conventioneers joke on I Might as Well Explain the Joke.

I also highly recommend following or subscribing to The Bathysphere. It’s a weekly blog of roundups and essay writing. It’s usually focused more on games but they talk about plenty of things. Their latest is Expedition 49.

That’s it for today. I hope you found a new website to add to your RSS feed reader and are having a nice weekend.

Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island thoughts

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Developer: Grace Bruxner, Thomas Bowker
Publisher: worm club, SUPERHOT PRESENTS
Year: 2018
Genre: Adventure
System: Mac

a frog saying "do you know anything about that cave?"

Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island is a short first-person adventure game where you are a detective who is also a frog and need to investigate reports of a ghost haunting the island. My oldest has been playing the series on her own and her younger sister wanted to see them so we just played through the first one together. I’m glad I got to revisit it because I liked it more than I remembered and my daughter loved it. I had always liked the game but I had some small gripes about the game that were much more minor than I remembered.

The gameplay is very simple. You walk around and talk to various characters on the island, asking them about the ghost, other folks, and if they need help with anything. You continue doing this and helping them with their needs and it eventually leads you to the end of the mystery and game. The puzzles are very simple and there’s no fail states, which may frustrate some experienced adventure gamers, but the focus of the game is on the humor and art and I think that makes it a great intro to adventure games for folks. It’s also fun exploring the space that Grace created, which is filled with a lot of fun little details to look at if you aren’t trying to rush through the game.

The gripes that I had with the game before still remain but are much more minor than I remember. The puzzle solving is a bit repetitive since it’s mostly dialog puzzles you solve by going from person to person but again, I think it’s mostly fine since it’s not meant to be a challenging game anyway. The other issue I have is that the humor does start to feel repetitive towards the end as well, but the game is very short (45-60 minutes) that once I had started to feel that way, the game was getting to wrap up anyway. It was also much easier to overlook since I played it with my 6 year old and she was having a great time walking around and talking to everyone. I think playing the game with someone who doesn’t have Gamer Brain really helped me appreciate that it’s a game filled with lovely artwork and that I should just take my time exploring this space instead of viewing it as a series of conversation puzzles to solve.

I have to imagine that anyone who is reading this already knows about the series and has either played it or never will, but maybe this recommendation will slightly nudge you towards checking it out or replaying the game.

Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island is available for Windows and Mac on Steam and Itch.io, Nintendo Switch, PS4 + PS5, and Xbox.