Another collection of blog posts I liked reading this week. If you like these, consider subscribing to the blogs on your RSS feed reader and doing your own roundup posts if you’ve got a site. Google Search is becoming useless now and this is a way people will find new stuff.
Dante talks about Memoriapolis, a city builder I never heard of but sounds really cool and possibly addresses some of the issues I have with the genre?
Speaking of city builders, badger trebuchet diagram no. 17 posted about Sim City 3000 vaporwave.
I just like when people talk about what they’ve been into lately and Meredith Gran, creator of Perfect Tides, wrote one of those.
The Fungus Zone explains how it’s the year of the games anthology. I’m possibly biased because mine is listed there and I’m working on another right now, but I agree.
Chuck Jordan (Curse of Monkey Island, Telltale’s Sam and Max) has a nice post reflecting on being out for 20 years on National Coming Out Day.
Amiga Boing Blog is a nice blog covering Amiga games. Although personally, I think if your game is called Moose Drive then it should be more interesting than a generic racing game.
Not Blog Posts but here’s some other things
I liked this piece on RogerEbert.com about Megalopolish, the Joker sequel, and how more directors should be allowed to make potential misfires.
Aftermath wrote about how forums are alive and well, and lists a ton of active ones. Personally I’m kind of “hmmmm” about their hesitance on listing forums related to sexuality but gun forums are ok I guess? But I appreciate the enthusiasm and do think forums are nice. If you like talking about DOS games, then I recommend DOS Game Club and IntFiction.org isn’t bad for Interactive Fiction discussion. Data preservation issues aside, I personally find forums to be a lot less overwhelming than something like Discord and wish we could see more people using them.
I have fun posting any and all Gobliins 6 related news on here so here’s another update. Gobliins 6 has just launched a Kickstarter to fund development and finish the game. I enjoyed Gobliiins 5, which I had backed on Kickstarter, and this lists quite a few improvements on that. The rewards are pretty interesting too if you’re really into the artist’s work. I don’t recall any roadbumps or big delays with the campaign for 5 so it seems like a pretty safe one to back if you were thinking about it.
Every year I do a handful of indie adventure game recommendations for Halloween, like here, here, and here, and thought it would be time to do a couple more.
I’ve mentioned it a few times but Incubus – A Ghost Hunter’s Tale (Steam) is a fun adventure game if you enjoy ghost hunting and FMV. I’ve always enjoyed the developer’s other games like the Dark Fall series and this is another ghost hunting adventure by them. While I’m not into ghost hunting in real life personally, this feels authentic to what folks in that area do….I think.
Homestar Runner has a long tradition of referencing point-and-click adventure games and one of their recent commercial games (well, 2023), Homestar Runner: Halloween Hide n’ Seek (Steam), continues that tradition. The game features characters dressed as references to a variety of classic adventure games, both recognizable and obscure, and can be played in one sitting. I think this is maybe a rerelease of something they made before but with added voice acting and extra material but I’m not sure. It’s fun!
I am a big fan of Cosmic Void’s adventure games and Devil’s Hideout (Steam) is another solid game by the studio. Like all of their previous games, Devil’s Hideout features great pixel art and music to tell the story of a woman looking for her missing sister.
Excuse Me Sir (Itch.io) is a weird one because it’s just a demo for a game that has since been canceled, but I love how weird it is and I think the demo is self-contained enough that I would still recommend checking it out.
It’s another one of these. Games, they’re pretty neat. I’ve decided I’ll do a separate extra post where I can put all my backlog stuff in there because that list was getting out of control and I can just focus on games from the last week or two here. Plus it’s ok for games that are a couple months old to still be talked about.
Tabletop RPGs
Corpslayers (Itch.io) is a cyberpunkish heist/runner/gig economy simulator game tabletop rpg by Binary Star Games based on the ttrpg Slayers. It is available as PWYW.
Blood Borg (Itch.io) is a gutter punk vampire game by World Champ Game Co. based on the Mork Borg ttrpg. A hardcover version is also available.
Video Games
Lunar Lancer (Itch.io) is a free shmup for the Game Boy to celebrate its 35th anniversary. I assume from the art that it’s inspired by the classic Solar Striker.
Pusherfish (Itch.io) is a nice little browser game where you push blocks to cross gaps but can also change your character size to cross larger gaps or fit in small areas
We have a new batch of Domino Club games! Domino Club is a collective that anonymously develops games together in game jams and released in large batches, each containing an assortment of experimental games. This time it’s the Tongues Jam (Itch.io).
Phoenix Springs (Steam) is a point-and-click adventure that was in development for a while and I’m happy to see it out there! It’s a neo-noir game where you investigate where your missing brother is. I haven’t played it yet but reviews seem to be positive and the art is beautiful.
Pompeii, Bubbleland (Itch.io) is a short surreal poem created for Ludum Dare and inspired by museum tours. I loved it but just a heads up but it has some (intentional) flickering and weird effects that might be hard on the eyes for some folks. Go check out the other games by Sand Gardeners too!
Traveller’s Hymm (Steam) is a free rpg that was just released on Steam. I haven’t played it yet but it sounded pretty cool from Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s post about it.
MonoScale (Itch.io) is a browser game featuring great 1-bit art that reminds me of the Macintosh, and a grappling hook. I’m awful at it but I think it’s a fun game. Everyone likes grappling hooks.
I should have just called these devlogs because that’s what they are. Ah well. It’s been a fairly productive week for me. I’m feeling a little under the weather, although not nearly as bad as I thought this morning when I just drank some coffee and realized my migraine was coming from cutting down on caffeine too quickly. Oops.
If you’ve sent me info about the Cohost spreadsheet or buttons to add to my page, apologies for the delay. Between that and just being really busy, I haven’t had time getting around to it. But that’s something I’m hoping to fix later this week
Work on the adventure game continues. I don’t think I can’t really show anything yet since it’s a contract project, apologies, but I’m happy with how quickly I’m making progress. I think all the backgrounds are 90% done, with some tweaking in the art still to be done, so once I plug them all into Adventure Game Studio and having everything mapped out, I should be able to navigate through the entire game. I know “I just need to build the whole game and it’s done” sounds ridiculous but importing art into AGS isn’t too bad so I’m excited. I was getting kind of tired of doing art, and the room art is the biggest chunk of art required for the game, so I’m excited to get this stuff implemented so it will feel more like a real game.
I believe I have most of the character art done too, so I just need to do the one or two people left, inventory, and GUI and I should be all set there? That’s kinda nice. Obviously there’s still a lot of iterative work to be done, but I have the basic game design and puzzles done too, so I can kinda just have fun writing jokes for the next two months.
Another good thing about this project is that it will help me get a lot better at Adventure Game Studio so I will be able to do more complex things in the future. WilcoWeb has been working on a framework for AGS that will help in creation of doing games inspired by Sierra’s Manhunter franchise, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, so maybe that will be my next project. Then again, I was working on clay games and should work on those more too. Or combine the two. I’m so bad at focusing on one thing at a time.
Listened to a lot of records this week AND went to the Ypsi Freak Fest. I was only able to attend the first day but it was great. Most of the bands I wanted to see were outdoors and it was free. Got to see a few musicians and bands I’ve wanted to see for a while like Dr. Pete Larson and Tyvek, and discovered new bands like Pet Me, Golden Feelings, and Tanager. If you want to discover a ton of bands mostly local to Ann Arbor, you can check out the list here. Apparently there was some discourse on Saturday when a band pulled out at the last second, citing that the word Freak is problematic, protesting an art grant from the city to pay bands and how it’s not DIY, and privately messaging other bands to pull out, and IMO they should touch grass.
That aside, great festival! It was an incredible experience seeing a band like Tyvek play on a mostly empty street at night to like 20-30 people at most. I don’t go to concerts very often these days because I have 3 kids and don’t want covid, so when I feel safe enough to go it’s an absolute delight and I treasure every minute of live music.
My journey to listen to every record in my collection continues:
The Chameleons: What Does Anything Mean? Basically (1985, YouTube) Great album. I guess they were doing the punctuation in the middle of album titles thing before 00s era bands. Recommended if you like 80s alternative bands like early New Order. Not that they sound exactly like them but I think that’s the closest comparison point I can think of. I feel like Strange Times or Script of the Bridge are considered to be better but this is my favorite one by them. I think I originally picked it up about 10-12 years ago online, probably from Discogs.
Everything but the Girl: Fuse (2023, YouTube) After a 20+ hiatus, EBTG finally released a new album. I always thought it was funny that the band was considered broken up since it’s a married couple that has been living together this whole time. I think this may be their best album? EBTG is weird in that I think they generally get better with every album, which feels pretty rare and it’s incredibly rare for a band that has been around for this long. Tracey Thorn sounds amazing, I love the effects they do in some parts to make her voice sound messed up, the writing is up to the standards of previous albums, and the bloops and beats are better than ever.
The Mountain Goats: The Jordan Lake Sessions: Vol. 1 and 2 (2020, Bandcamp) 4 LPs! Not essential listening I suppose but as a long time fan it’s been very fun hearing live-ish (no audience) versions of the songs with a different lineup of the band than when most of them were first recorded. A lot of the new versions have a jazzier sound, which is a fun take on them.
The Faint: Dance Macabre (2001, YouTube) It’s fine I guess. I loved the album when I first listened to it around 2007 but it actually feels pretty dated to me now and hasn’t aged in a way that I find charming. It doesn’t help that the album feels very front loaded to me with the hits.
The Innocence Mission: See You Tomorrow (2020, Bandcamp) The Innocence Mission is a long running band from the 90s but I believe the core of the group are married couple Don and Karen Peris. They’re kind of indie/alternative folk music I guess? This album feels more stripped down compared to previous albums but I don’t think that’s a problem. Karen’s singing is still lovely and I think the writing is just as good as ever. I’ve bought two physical albums from the band on Bandcamp and both times I got a really nice note from Karen thanking me for buying the album.
Benoît Pioulard: Caverning (2018, Bandcamp) This was a nice little 7″ I got for free because he was giving them away at his show at the Ypsi Freak Fest. I assume he just wanted to be rid of them since he performs under a different name now but it’s really a nice duo of songs. Both are ambient but the b-side is quite a bit noiser. I recommend his current project Golden Feelings if you want more ambient from him.
Pet Me: Abomination (2022, Bandcamp) This was another single that I bought during the Ypsilanti Freak Fest. An interesting thing about this one was that it’s a square? Like the grooves are still a circle but it’s like they didn’t cut off the extra material. I wonder if it’s cheaper that way. The record must be cheaper to produce because getting my record player to play on the grooves was also pretty finnicky. That said, I think this is some very good punk rock. This is a band from Lansing that I wasn’t aware of until the festival but I’ll have to pick up some of their other stuff.
Various Artists: Hohokum soundtrack (2014, Bandcamp) This is the soundtrack to the video game Hohokum. It’s been a while since I played the game. I remember enjoying it quite a bit and think it’s probably something I could revisit with my kids. But even if you have no interest in ever playing the game, it’s a very good collection of songs if you enjoy more uplifting and generally relaxing electronic music. The album compiles various artists on the Ghostly label and serves as a very good snapshot of who was on the label at the time.
Mint Mile: Heartroller (2018, Bandcamp) I’ve reviewed Mint Mile albums a couple times here before. It’s the current project of Silkworm/Bottomless Pit’s Tim Midyett. Before they started releasing full length albums, they did a series of four EPs and this is my favorite one. It’s just a really solid set of 4 whistful rock songs and I think the steel pedal guitar in these songs sounds great.
Because Gobliins 6 search results have somehow become the thing leading most people from Google to here, I feel like I’m required to post the new trailer for the upcoming Gobliins 6.
I think it looks pretty good! I was pleasantly surprised by Gobliiins 5 and this is a return to the characters in Gobliins 2. Since this game only has two goblins, there are now only two I’s in the title. Since I do not speak French, I cannot tell if the appearance of the Prince Buffoon means this is chronologically set in the middle of the franchise. It’s weird to even think about the concept of Gobliiins lore. Anyway, glad he’s still making these. I really should give Gobliiins 4 another shot. I was so put off by the 3D graphics but I heard the puzzles get pretty good in the second half.
The dumping of images I originally posted on the CompStoreVisuals accounts on Twitter and Cohost continues. I’ve been looking through both accounts since the Cohost one is shutting down soon and it looks like even the Twitter account is starting to get screwy, probably from the site decaying. All of these are also on the Mastodon account but I would feel better having them somewhere else too.
I think I like doing these more on Sunday instead of Monday, so that will be the schedule for now. If you enjoyed these posts, please subscribe to the blogs you like on your RSS feed reader (or start using one if you don’t, I use Inoreader) and consider doing occasional link roundups on your site. Google search is abysmal now and this is kinda the only way people can discover new places.
It’s the first one of these in a post-Cohost world. What does that mean? Not much really. This is going to be a big one because I must clear out more the backlog in my list and people keep insisting on making games. Even that Geneforge guy who said there’s too many people making games keeps making them! What’s up with that? Always feel free to reply in the comments with either things you’ve made, or games you’ve been enjoying. I love comments. Anyway, here’s games.
Dodge 1000 Knives (Itch.io) is a free browser game where you must dodge 1000 knives. I’m bad at it but it’s good.
Raide
Raide (Itch.io) is a browser-based puzzle game where you put down train tracks for a train to move from a beginning to start point. I really enjoyed its short levels and artwork.
Backstreet Warriors (Itch.io) is a browser brawler game, like Double Dragon, made in PICO-8 where you must defeat 99 people to win.
The Queer Halloween Stories Bundle 2024 (Itch.io) is a collection of queer games, comics, stories, etc for $60, although there’s a bundle you can buy at a lower price too.
Pinball Spire (Steam) is a pinball game but with a Metroid-like structure. I watched a stream of it yesterday and it looked fun!
Cyclopean
Cyclopean now has a demo (Steam). It’s a first person dungeon crawler inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and I think the art style looks pretty neat!
Just so you can see how far behind I am, Strange Scaffold has released two games! CLICKOLDING (Itch.io/Steam) is a game where you clicked a counter while a masked man watches you and I Am Your Beast (Steam) is a fast-paced covert fps set in micro sandboxes. Both games seem like they have done very well, which is always nice to see for a studio like Strange Scaffold.
Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival
The Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival is open again (Itch.io). This is a Pay-What-You-Want online game where you carve some pumpkins and put them up for everyone to see.
Tiny Glade (Steam) just looks like a very lovely diorama builder where you create castles and cottages where no specified goals or win conditions. It also seems like it’s been a massive success from looking at the number of Steam reviews.
ODDADA
ODDADA (Steam) looks like an incredibly pleasant music toy that was recommended to me by Flyover Games. Just look at all the fiddly little bits you can play with and bright colors in those screenshots.
The Portal Tomb (physical book) is a tabletop rpg for 5 players and 1-2 sessions that uses Ogham runes instead of dice to generate a story set at a queen’s funeral.
As I was typing this, a new Indiepocalypse is now available (Itch.io). This one features future classics like SNAKEBYTE, a very good Metroid-like game where you explore a computer as an ASCII snake, EyeOS (I think I covered that one before?), and an arcade game called Be Not Afraid, But Run by Renegade Sector Games.
10BF.EXE (Itch.io) is a dual screen bullet hell but you can also capture spell cards and use them on your enemies.
Melon Head
Melon Head (Itch.io) is a new surreal point-and-click adventure featuring EGA art. I don’t even know how to describe it so you’ll have to check it out yourself. There’s a free demo if you’re interested.
Forever Space (Itch.io/Steam) is a remake of a previously made game by Pinhead Games. I haven’t played it but I’m a fan of their previous games like the Nick Bounty series and this seem the developer going in a horror direction.
Spaces are moments, not abstract or far away (Itch.io) is a free browser game described a poemware. I thought it was a beautiful space to explore and really liked the photography mechanic.
Hamayumishi: Night Parade of a Hundred Yokai (Itch.io) is an upcoming twin-stick shooting platformer by Nice Gear Games that I think looks really nice and it just got a demo.
Linker has a new game in developer that looks like a nice puzzle platformer (Itch.io). No title yet and it’s early in development but everything by them is great.
Here’s some things that aren’t games but I think you’ll enjoy:
If you are a fan of Hypercard then you’ll love Decker (Itch.io). It’s a free browser tool for making interactive documents and we just got a new version.
Wonderful game dev Big Hand In Sky has released 3 short stories that are Pay-What-You-Want on Itch.io: OVERLOAD, Name: [Here], and Looking at Clouds.
If you’re working in Zonelets, here’s a tool to make working with RSS a little easier.
And finally, here’s a couple of indie games that aren’t new but I finally got around to playing them and would recommend:
Here’s a remake of the classic arcade game Berzerk in PICO-8 (Itch.io). Everyone likes Berzerk!
Snoik! (Itch.io) is a twist on the classic Snake game for the Playdate. This time you’re switching between two planes to avoid hitting your tail.
