Author: mpklamerus

Perfect Tides: Station to Station thoughts

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Developer: Three Bees
Publisher: Three Bees
Year: 2026
Genre: Adventure
System: Windows

Perfect Tides: Station to Station is a point-and-click adventure where you play as Mara, an eighteen year old woman who has just started college. You experience all that college has to offer you while obtaining new ideas and applying them to papers and other forms of writing. This will be a slimmer and more rambling post because I feel like everything I have to say about the game has already been said by other outlets such as Unwinnable but I thought the game was brilliant and is now one of my favorite adventure games.

a woman saying "Hey, no need to be embarrassed. There was a whole summer I read nothing but computer game novelizations I found in a box behind a grocery store."

One of the many things I was pleasantly surprised by was how much of an improvement it was over the first Perfect Tides, a game that I also thought was very good and well crafted. I was just so surprised by how much more confident this game was in its design, willing to drop more conventional things people expect in adventure games like the multiple verbs and puzzles the first game had, in order to focus more on the choices Mara can make and ability to learn new things. I think having difficult puzzles in this game would have just killed the pacing and wouldn’t fit in with the grounded story this is telling.

Learning new topics was also a really interesting thing to see in an adventure game. It’s been done before of course, this game cites The Dagger of Amon Ra as an influence, but in a way that feels so natural and continuing to explore and talk to other people will improve your knowledge on a topic. It’s masterfully implemented.

Everyone that is of a certain age who plays this will probably relate so much to the references this game makes as well as just what it was like to be a college student and they’re right! For better or worse, I could relate to Mara and just the experience of being a bit of a walking disaster in my late teens. If you don’t relate to that, well, it must be nice to not have that experience.

Anyway, I loved the game and hope it is very successful since it has some of my favorite writing in an adventure game and hope it inspires others to tell personal stories as well.

Perfect Tides: Station to Station is available on Steam and Itch.io, and is coming soon to Nintendo Switch.

Text Adventures Still Rule in the Year 2026

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I think a lot of folks who follow this site already know this but people still make text adventure games like during the days of Infocom and they’re still very good! In fact, I think many of them are even better than the classics. That’s not to say the classics are bad, they’re very good, I just think many made post-golden age of text adventures are even better. You can download many free ones on IFDB.

Some that are friendly to beginners that I happen to enjoy are Lost Pig, Galatea, Bronze, and The Dreamhold, but there’s a nice list of more interactive fiction on IFDB’s top 100 list if you’re looking for more to play. Not all of these are text adventures but I also love interactive fiction in the form of Twine games and other forms so no complaints there. I think the commercial text adventure Thaumistry is a good intro to text adventures as well.

If you want to download these free games instead of playing them in a browser, you’ll probably need something to run the files. I think Gargoyle is neat but there’s plenty of options. Some games are also easier to play if you map out the rooms. Personally I love writing these down in a notebook but Trizbort is a nice app for mapping rooms on your computer. I use a desktop version for Windows but apparently there’s now a browser version available.

If you want to see what else folks are up to in the scene, I recommend exploring the rest of IFDB and checking on competitions like IF Comp and Spring Thing. IF Comp has been going on since the 90s. While I stopped following that one for a while because they allowed AI stuff, it seems like they’re starting to clamp down on it so that’s nice.

Anyway, if you’ve never played a text adventure before, give it a shot! Maybe you’ll discover a new genre of games you really enjoy.

Dot’s Home thoughts

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Developer: Weathered Sweater, Aerial_Knight, Titan ARX Interactive
Publisher: Rise-Home Stories Project
Year: 2021
Genre: Adventure
System: Windows

a woman looking at a couple in a home and saying "Wait a minute, grandma? grandpa?"
Screenshot taken from Steam

Dot’s Home is a free point-and-click adventure about a young Black woman in Detroit who travels through time in her family’s past and sees how various decisions she makes will impact the present. It will probably surprise no one that I loved this since it’s an adventure game set in Detroit about racial and housing justice, and at least one local person worked on it. While there have been other video games set in Detroit, this is the best one I’ve played that’s actually about the city and its history. They’re generally racing games, set in a dystopia like Robocop, or whatever you would call Detroit: Become Human. I know they’re out there but I don’t think I’ve seen any stories in any medium depicting real issues that the city deals with like gentrification, racism in the suburbs, and white flight that happened in the last century.

It’s definitely not a criticism but while I do call it a point-and-click adventure since that’s how it controls, I would say it plays more like a visual novel. You do not really solve any puzzles and most of the choices you make are done through dialog trees. I think this is fine but I don’t want to accidentally set the expectation that you’re reassembling a shredded newspaper to get a clue into a housing crisis. If I did have any criticisms of the game, it’s that I don’t think the game really does a great job explaining one choice may be better than the other at times. There’s a point early on where you can tell a couple to either buy a home or rent it for a while and then buy it, and it’s not really unless you do two playthroughs where you try each that you get an understanding that the couple gets exploited if they buy it without having more money saved up first. It’s a short game too so you can’t save during playthroughs and basically need to play the game twice to get the full picture. At the same time, it’s a short game so it’s not the end of the world having to play it twice either.

That frustration aside, I’m really happy this game exists. I never ever see anything like this documented in video games and very rarely in other forms of media, and by folks that actually care about the city and issues that marginalized people have to deal with. With it being a free game that takes about 30 minutes to complete, I do recommend trying it out if this is something that sounds interesting to you.

Dot’s Home is available for Windows and Mac on Steam

Jetpac Remake by Langford Productions

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Developer: Langford Productions
Year: 2026
Genre: Arcade
System: Windows

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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Developer: haraiva, isyourguy, unseconds
Year: 2026
Genre: Interactive Fiction
System: Browser

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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Developer: Wavey Games
Year: 2026
Genre: Adventure
System: Windows

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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Developer: Hubol
Year: 2026
Genre: Visual Novel
System: Browser

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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Developer: DOMINO CLUB
Year: 2026

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!

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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!