No indie game roundup today. Was caught off guard by all the Itch adult games stuff (and also just schoolwork tbh) and will probably talk about that later if I have anything interesting to say about it about than it sucks and makes me sad. Blaugust is coming up, the month long challenge where folks try to do a blog post every day (even short ones are fine), and I had been thinking quite a while about how I was going to have posts about FMV games every day. Even scheduled a few. Then all the adult games stuff happened with itch and I think the rest of the month will be me finally uploading all the games I’ve made to here and talking about them a little bit, and highlighting some adult games for visibility. That seems fine!
Author: mpklamerus
Glypha: Vintage
Developer: John Calhoun
Publisher: Soft Dorothy Software
Year: 2023
Genre: Arcade
Glypha: Vintage is a remake of the 80’s Macintosh arcade game of the same name. It’s a variant of Joust, which happens to be my favorite arcade game, where you fly around on a giant bird and use your lance to destroy enemies by bumping into them while you are at a higher height than them. As far as Joust variants go, I think it’s one of the better ones, but to be fair there’s not really that many Joust clones I can think of. It’s mostly the same game, but with everything modified to have more of an Egyptian theme. The thing that stands out to me is how fast it moves compared to Joust. Everyone moves faster and less floatier, so you have to hit the flap button quite a bit more to stair in the air and enemies can turn around much faster. The egg items hatch a lot faster too. This all makes the game a lot more difficult than the original but to compensate, Glypha is much more generous with the extra lives you get from accumulating points. It took a few minutes to get used to but once I did, I thought it had felt very good.
The original Macintosh era was all a bit before my time. By the time I was in elementary school, our classrooms all had Macs that had color, so I don’t have any nostalgia for this era of computers. That doesn’t mean I don’t love the art in black and white Mac games though. It’s essentially the same art as the original Glypha game but obviously at a much higher resolution and a lot smoother. I’m guessing there’s some additional animations as well but I’m not familiar enough with the original game to know. I think it looks great.
I never played the earlier Glypha games but my understanding is that they eventually got color and probably other changes as well. I think they were all developed by John Calhoun, who is also know for his paper airplane arcade game Glider, also for the Macintosh. He eventually worked for Apple for a long time before retiring and I think this most recent version of Glypha was developed either right before retirement or right after. If you want to see what else he’s up to, I highly recommend adding his blog to your RSS feed reader.
Anyway, this is probably one of the best versions of Joust that you can actually buy for the PC. As far as I know, the original arcade version of Joust isn’t for sale anywhere and yes, obviously you can always just emulate the game, but it’s nice having this version as well with its ideas on how Joust should play and I’m not usually an achievements person but they’re fun in an arcade game like this.
Glypha: Vintage is available on Steam.
Happy 40th Birthday to the Amiga
Apparently the Amiga computer turns 40 today! It was first computer I used and what we had in our household when I was born so I have a lot of fond memories of it and playing games on there with my dad. It’s nice to see that it still has a very active game dev scene for it and you can find lots of great games for the platform on Itch.io. Amiga emulation is a little bit of a headache which understandably keeps a few people from checking it out, but I think it’s worth pushing through it and giving the games a lot. There’s a lot of weird stuff on there like everything by Bill Williams, the Psygnosis stuff looks really nice, and it’s got some nice versions of old adventure games like the early Sierra games and Infocom’s The Lurking Horror.
PBS Passport
After the defunding of public media happened here, I subscribed to my local Detroit PBS station’s Passport streaming service that people have been recommending on social and this thing is alright! It’s just $5 a month for a bunch of things that are probably exciting to only me. I didn’t realize that it had so many local Detroit shows for streaming, including talks at the Michigan Theater going back to 2015. I recently watched the Pet Shop Boys: Dreamworld concert, which I thought was great. I also started watching British mystery shows, since I guess that’s something you have to do if you have access to PBS.
Anyway, good service. I also supported my Detroit NPR. I sure wish we could just tax rich people to pay for this stuff.
Devil’s Hideout
Developer: Cosmic Void
Publisher: Cosmic Void
Year: 2024
Genre: Adventure
Devil’s Hideout is a short horror point-and-click adventure by Cosmic Void about a woman searching for her missing sister, after discovering that cultists faked her death. While it’s in the horror genre, I feel like it’s going for more of a schlocky 80’s horror film that you would find on VHS at your local video store. That probably sounds like a criticism of the game but I absolutely loved that it had that feel. It never scared me but the vibes are very good and fun. I think the excellent pixel art and the colors used in the art help contribute to this mood and if you’ve played Cosmic Void’s games before, you won’t be surprised that the art in this is good.
If anything, I wish it had pulled away even more from trying to be scary. There’s a few points where it tries to do jump scares but these didn’t work for me and the atmosphere in the game was already very good.
The plot in this is pretty straightforward but I didn’t have an issue with that at all. I wouldn’t have minded if it was longer and had more time to develop characters, but it’s a smaller budget game and I was perfectly fine with the length, which took me about three hours to complete. It has multiple endings too, which I don’t know if I’ve seen in a Cosmic Void game before, so it took some time to go through both of those as well.
The gameplay is what you would expect from a first-person point-and-click adventure. You go from room to room, grabbing items and using them elsewhere, etc. There’s some pixel hunting that I found frustrating until I realized the game has a hotspot finder, which I always appreciate seeing in adventure games. I don’t think finding the right pixel to hunt is challenging in an interesting way at all and I’d rather not have to go through that. The mouse cursor will also change to a different color when there’s nothing else to say or do with an object is very nice and helps eliminate some of the busy work too. There’s some little mini games in here too like a Blackjack game and variation on the Lights Out puzzle game and while it can be a little silly that have that stuff pop up in an adventure game, they’re easy and add some variety too. I think they were fun.
If I did have any real criticisms of the game, it would be that there’s a few moments where the game is really fussy about how you must interact with things in a certain order before some objects will give you the info you need. Like looking at a painting before clicking on a tv to get essential information from a report. It’s not a puzzle or anything you would really know to do and the only way around it is to just click on everything repeatedly. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves in adventure games so it was a little frustrating to see here.
That gripe aside, I liked the game quite a bit and would recommend it if you’re looking for something with an 80s horror vibe. Cosmic Void’s games have always been very enjoyable to me and this one is no exception.
Tex Murphy: Mouselook Edition
Someone has patched in mouselook controls to Under a Killing Moon! If you’ve ever played the original game, you know that it has kind of a goofy control scheme. I love the game but it takes some time to get used to and can sometimes make it tricky to recommend to people. The post below includes a video of what the patch does and it looks great, but also incredibly weird if you’ve played the original game. But again, probably also a big improvement on what it had before. Nice job!
Blog Roundup (July 20, 2025)
Outdoor Concert Summer continued last night with me seeing Yo La Tengo on the front lawn of the Detroit Institute of Arts last night. It was great! I only kinda sorta know their stuff but they played all my favorite stuff by them and I loved it, aside from the rain during the last few songs. Even aside from the whole pandemic thing, I don’t know if I can really do indoor concerts anymore. They’re just kind of a pain and I just prefer being able to move around more freely and I can hear better too. I think I’m just getting old. Here’s some things I liked reading. Use a RSS feed reader and tell your friends.
Video Games
Last week Steam started banning porn games due to pressure from Mastercard and Visa and this was stupid. No Escape has a post about it. It turns out there was also a post about it on Waypoint as well by Ana Valens. I have gigantic issues with the new Waypoint and haven’t been reading it, but it turns out it didn’t matter because Ana has said on bluesky that Vice just deleted the writing about it anyway. If you want to read the archive about it, you can do so here.
I’m glad Uppercut is back and posting articles again. Here’s one about Slay the Princess
Wraithkal keeps doing nice #ScreenshotSaturday roundups of posts on Mastodon.
Indie Hell Zone has good things to say on Puzzmo. I don’t do the NYT crossword puzzle but I keep hearing this proposed as a nice alternative to that.
Harris Powell-Smith has an advice column for writing interactive fiction.
Tech
I don’t even use Notion but I think Dante has sold me on using Obsidian. I just kinda have a jumble of Google Docs, which seems like a bad idea. I’ve already been pulling away from using Gmail and have a Fastmail account, which I really like.
Dev Logs
Andrew Plotkin wrote about Hadean Lands (great IF game) being in a Boston indies bundle on Steam and I think more people should just get involved with their local dev community and do stuff like this.
I really like Julia’s Crimson Gazette, her newsletter about the games she’s been working on and I think it’s worth subscribing to. It mentions Chance’s Lucky Escape, which I blogged about here and think it’s worth picking up if you have a Playdate.
Cyningstan has posted an update about releasing a new roguelike for DOS. I got to playtest it and while I’m bad at these types of games, I think it’s really good. It’s not a fault of the game, which I found very easy to pickup and start playing, plus it’s free.
Indie Game Roundup (July 18, 2025)
This week it would mean a lot to me if you could support the GoFundMe for Roberta Vaughan. She is going through a horrific medical crisis right now and any support, no matter the size, would help her family. She’s done so much for many other folks in the adventure game community and it’s time for all of us to do what we can to help.
Well, there’s no way to really make a transition from that to games talk, but here we go. Here’s some recent games I was excited about I guess!
Video Games
This year continues to be packed with so many adventure games. Ghost Town (Steam) is a VR game (by the developers of The Room?) where you are a ghost hunter with supernatural abilities looking for her brother in London during the 80’s.
The Drifter (Steam) is a point-and-click adventure game that I’ve been waiting for quite a while. You play as a drifter (of course) that’s been murdered and then brought back to life. I really enjoyed Powerhoof’s games, including their games on Itch.io that use the PowerQuest plugin for Unity, a plugin for making point-and-click adventure games that is meant to work in a similar way to Adventure Game Studio.
Signs of Life (Steam) looks like a creepy and surreal mystery game available for free.
The newest and final season of Neurocracy has started! It’s a free (although they take donations) interactive fiction game where you explore a wiki set in the future and uncover mysteries, all while interacting with the rest of the community on a forum and roleplaying in character.
Super 10 Pin (Itch.io) is a new bowling game from Modus Interactive. I played the demo and was incredibly impressed with how it captures the feel of a Nintendo 64 game. It’s not on Steam yet but buying it on Itch.io will give you a key.
Speaking of which, Steam has started removing adult games from their store because of bullying from Mastercard and Visa. Other people are already doing better writing elsewhere on why Steam should stand up to this but you know who isn’t removing them? Itch.io. EnbyKaiju put together an Itch list of some of their favorite queer adult games. Some of my favorite games, adult or not, are on there and I think it’s worth a look.
Cyclopean: The Great Abyss (Steam/Itch.io) is a CRPG inspired by games like Ultima and Questron where you switch between two views, a top-down view for navigating an overworld and a first-person view anytime you enter a dungeon. I think the retro aesthetic looks very nice too.
Kaizen: A Factory Story (Steam) is a new puzzle automation game by the original Zachtronics team. I’m not smart enough for these games but I sure do respect them.
The Necromancer’s Tale (Steam) is an isometric rpg with tactical combat where you play as a Necromancer (of course) seeking revenge. I also appreciate that when they bring up how much they wrote for the game, they point out that they did not use generative AI at all. I suppose we’ll be seeing that a lot from now on.
Sunfluffs (Steam/Itch.io) is a relaxing game in Early Access focused on exploration and platforming, with no fail states and has Gamecube controller support.
Occlude (Steam) is a solitaire-like in the form of a cosmic horror narrative puzzle game.
Tabletop RPGs
This free Skyrim TTRPG on Itch.io is meant to emulate the gameplay of the video game while trying to eliminate as much of the grind as possible.
MAC Attack: Mobile Armour Colossus is a mecha miniature tabletop wargame from Bastionland Press that is currently seeking crowdfunding. It’s already complete so this would just be to fund a print run of the rules.
Glitter and Grit (Itch.io) is a Laser & Feelings and Honey Heist hack in which you are trainees in a Kpop survival show, trying to debut in a Kpop group. It is available as Pay-What-You-Want.
Alone on a Journey thoughts
Developer: Takuma Okada
Year: 2021
Genre: Solo TTRPG
Alone on a Journey is a collection of three solo tabletop rpgs with a focus on exploration. The collection is divided into three games. Alone Among the Stars is a solo game where you explore outer space and check out various planets. Alone in the Ancient City has you exploring the districts of an old city. Both of these were previously released games along with a new game, Alone Among the Shifting Trees, which has you exploring a mysterious forest and documenting the strange objects you find there. Each game is played with a journal, a standard deck of 52 cards, and a six-sided die. The three games have slight mechanical differences but the core part of each game is having you draw cards from the deck for prompts to describe the object you just found.
The collection also contains tips for making your own hack, or mod, of these games. The tabletop rpg community is very friendly towards people making their own versions of games and being allowed to distribute them, and the author of this game even put together a list on Itch of games based on Alone Among the Stars, featuring a couple of mine.
The book itself has a very clean and easily readable layout, with cute illustrations between each game to help provide some separation and know where they start and end.
I’m assuming that much better writing about the games exist elsewhere but I just played Along Among the Shifting Trees and wanted to use this post as an excuse to praise all three games. The three games are similar but even outside of the different themes I think there are enough differences mechanically to make it worth playing all three. They’re very relaxing games that I think are excellent examples of tabletop rpgs being more than just dungeon crawlers where you kill monsters, as well as examples of ttrpgs that aren’t using the traditional game master and 3-5 players structure.
Alone Among the Stars may also be one of the most important games I’ve ever played. While I had made games before playing it, it did lead me down the rabbit hole of making solo ttrpgs and then other games because making hacks of it is so approachable and encouraged. You can check out the released of Alone Among the Stars along with a 2-player version and Game Boy and Twine ports on Itch.io. I think all three games are lovely though and would encourage you to check them out if you want to have a relaxing experience creating your own worlds.
Alone on a Journey is available on Itch.io.
Game Showcases at Libraries
I’ve already brought it up a few times before on social media but I’m going to do it again because it’s always been a good time for me. I think game devs should do more with their local libraries. They’re always up for having people use their spaces. Specifically I mean organizing a games showcase/expo of local games. It’s a great way to get eyes on it from people who will never see it on social media and don’t pay to go to games conventions, which is most people. They’re also free!
The Ann Arbor District Library has done a couple conventions and they’ve always been a great time for both video game devs and tabletop rpg designers. I don’t know if it’s an environment where adventure games or interactive fiction would do better but maybe? It can’t be worse than trying to demo your game at a loud convention. I also just think that people should collaborate with libraries more because they rock and always deserve more love.