Downpour is a new-ish app for making little games on your phone using photos and text. I have made a literal walking simulator in Downpour where you go on a lunch time walk on a trail with me
https://downpour.games/~Michael3000/a-relaxing-walk
Go check out Downpour for making games. It’s good stuff. Making little things in it has been really fun and is helping me finally break whatever game making rut I’ve been in
Not sure where I originally got these photos. I’m going to be reposting some computer store photos from my computer store visuals account since the one I have on Cohost probably isn’t going to last much longer and I should have all this stuff on somewhere more permanent anyway.
Squeezing in one more roundup of things I saw on non-twitter places since I’m now self hosting and can actually embed Mastodon links now. I just got excited and wanted to try it for myself. It should make doing these a lot easier too.
Every week there’s a new gif from this game on Masto and Cohost and it still looks great
This looks like a nice little puzzle game that just came out
Waterpark tycoon game! Hell yes, sign me up
Part 1 of a retro looking EGA adventure game was just released for free
Here’s a clip from another EGA looking adventure game.
Good 1-bit racoon from this screenshot on Blue Sky
Hello! This is going to be the last one of these for the next month or two as I will be busy taking care of a newborn starting next week. Thank you so much for reading these and feel free to check out the posts I’ve made from previous weeks for more indie games. I’ve also tried highlighting other folks that talk about indie games a lot, so please follow them.
ChoiceBeat 10
One of those folks is ChoiceBeat (Itch link), zine focused on visual novels, interactive fiction, and adventure games. Every issue is free.
Indie Tsushin
If you would like to learn about indie games from Japan, consider checking these folks out. The newest issue just came out (Itch link) and is available as Pay-What-You-Want.
Indiepocalypse 50
The newest Indiepocalypse just came out today. I will keep posting about these whenever they come out because I have discovered so many games from here.
The Curse of Unatxi Kamala
The Curse of Unatxi Kamala is an IF game created for the Queer Vampire Jam and also the Smoochie Jam. The game was created in binksi, which is a fork of bipsi that allows people to use Ink.
Angelblood
I would also like to recommend Angelblood (Itch link), a visual novel also created for the Queer Vampire Jam that features some fantastic artwork.
LSDJAM 2023
LSDJAM is a game jam where people make games inspired by LSD: Dream Emulator. The jam ran for a few months and it looks like a lot of very interesting games were created for it.
Dead Names
Dead Names is a free short sci-fi visual novel for the Game Boy, but you can also play it in the browser. Please read the content warning before playing it.
Alakajam
Alakajam is a game jam similar to Ludum Dare and the 19th one just wrapped up. Check out the games here and consider participating in a future jam if you want to do something like Ludum Dare but in a much smaller community.
PowerJam #1
The first game jam for the PowerQuest plugin for Unity has just ended. PowerQuest allows folks to make point-and-click adventure games in a way similar to Adventure Game Studio but with all the pros and cons of Unity. Some really neat stuff was made for this jam.
Yip Quest
Not a new game but I finally played the point-and-click adventure Yip Quest, where you control 3 kobolds trying to steal treasure. It’s a short game made for a game jam and you can play it in the browser.
Self Promotion Time
Before I take off for quite a while (I’ll probably keep posting on here but not doing these roundups, add this to your RSS feed reader!), here’s some of the stuff that I worked on this last week:
If you enjoyed reading these roundups, consider buying one of my games or checking out my Ko-fi, and please be very vocal about the indie games you love. People don’t hear about this stuff unless there’s folks screaming about them from the rooftops. Doesn’t have to be a blog. It can be on your Twitch stream or on social media.
Next month will be ridiculously busy for me so I made a quick little zine about modern games using FMV for the Zine Month alternative jam using Electric Zine Maker. FMV Will Never Die is a free zine on Itch.io covering recent games with FMV. I created it for the Zine Month alternative jam, which I think was ending tomorrow but I guess not, oops. But that’s fine, I doubt I would have finished it if I sat on it for any longer.
I basically have a 40 page version of this sitting on my computer but I keep slacking off on doing a nice cover and formatting so this goofy version is what people will have for now. I had fun finally making something with the Electric Zine Maker though and doing all those bad doodles and I suppose an expanded version of this is something I can look forward to getting out there in another month or two. That will also feature reviews of older games as well as reviews for more modern games and expanded reviews for some of the games in this.
Electric Zine Maker is just a blast to use though. Sometimes it’s nice just to make a thing very quickly and get it on Itch before you get tired of the idea. Highly recommend checking that out.
Well, if you’re reading this then it means my site has successfully moved hosts and I’m finally self hosted. I still have to style the site and stuff but everything seems to have copied over and I will be able to do more.
I was already thinking about moving away from wordpress.com to self hosted because of the limitations of this and the CEO being weird and shitty to trans people, but I guess I have to move a lot faster now that the company wants to sell shit on here to AI companies. Technically there’s an option to opt out and I’ve done that, but I don’t really trust the company. Definitely not deleting the site but there might be some weirdness transferring everything once I figure out how to do that.
There was a lot of stuff on Cohost/Mastodon/Blue Sky that looked very nice to me with the Screenshot Saturday tag. Let’s take a look!
I’m interested in this solarpunk city builder that I just found out about last Saturday on Mastodon
Even the menus for Kitsune Tails are looking very charming on Blue Sky, Cohost, and Mastodon
I also just learned about Settlemoon on Cohost. I really like the colors it’s using and apparently the game is already out!
I like this game’s aesthetic. You can follow it on Cohost and Mastodon
Axyz looks like a puzzle game I’ll enjoy with its vaporwave aesthetic. I saw this on Blue Sky.
Hello! This is going to be a shortish one since I’m preparing for the arrival of a baby in two weeks and haven’t had that much time to play games. Maybe I’ll do one of these next week but then I’m taking a break from these for at least a month, probably two. Still some stuff I really enjoyed though!
Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story
If this is the last one, I need everyone to know that Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story comes out very soon and I need everyone to buy it. It’s absolutely wonderful that Digital Eclipse is doing these interactive history things/game compilations and I don’t know if there’s one I could get more excited about than this.
Provenance
Provenance is a ridiculously beautiful Bitsy. I did not know that Bitsy games could look or sound like this.
Smashtronaut
It’s a month old so maybe not brand new but it’s a very fun little browser game on Itch.io where you smash into stuff with your ship and get points.
Zine in a Cassette
Not exactly a game but if you wanted to know how to distribute a game or zine in a cassette case, this guide on Itch.io is incredibly useful.
Word Sprint
Word Sprint is a free browser game on Itch.io where you make as many words as possible in 2 minutes. I’m awful at these types of things but it’s very well made and I had fun playing it.
20 Small Mazes
20 Small Mazes is a free game on Steam where you do a bunch of clever mazes. Great stuff and I like how the game looks too.
NIDUS
Haven’t played NIDUS (Steam link) yet but look at that! It looks fantastic and early Steam reviews are positive too.
Sokobond Express
Haven’t played this one yet either (Steam link) but I’ve really enjoyed other puzzle games these folks have made so I’m sure I’ll like this too.
Other People Talking About Indie Games
Fortunately there’s lots of other people that are better at talking about indie games than I am that you can follow while I’m on break.
Wraithkal does regular Screenshot Saturday blog posts about people participating in it on Mastodon.
The Pixel Prophet has a very nice newsletter from Buttondown about indie games and other things
Rascal just launched. It’s always nice seeing more people talk about tabletop rpgs that aren’t Dungeons & Dragons.
Other Things
I guess I should have been putting new album recommendations in here this whole time as well. Tim Midyett, most famous for the bands Silkworm and Bottomless Pit, just released a new album (Bandcamp) from his band Mint Mile and I think it’s pretty good stuff.
Mary Timony (Helium, Ex Hex) also released a new solo album today (Bandcamp). I haven’t heard it yet but she’s just a fantastic guitarist.
I liked this article about 80s Lucasfilm Games MMO Habitat and 30 years since the closing of Club Caribe
Other videos I’ve put up this week on YouTube include Let’s Plays of The Last Exterminator, Meatverse, and Sea Peebles. I also put up gameplay videos with no commentary of 80s Lucasfilm Games MMO Habitat, the 1998 Collier’s Encyclopedia that Sierra developed, and shorts for indie games Toro, Handvaska, and Kobold Generator.
Well, that’s it for this week. I’ll probably do one next week before the 1-2 month break but if not, thanks for reading!
I got grumpy about it feeling like outlets covering #ScreenshotSaturday are only doing it for X, which is just a dying social media platform for the far right at this point, so here’s some of things that I thought looked pretty neat elsewhere. Some of the posts have multiple images, so click on the links to see more. I only got Blue Sky, Mastodon, and Cohost this week but can check out other places like Tumblr, Instagram, and Threads in future weeks.
Shadow jumping game SCHiM is looking pretty nice over on Cohost
This fan project is looking pretty lovely on Mastodon, with a lengthy post on Cohost explaining development of the game as well.
Oidanoid is looking like a lovely twin stick shooter (Mastodon)
I continue looking forward to The Crimson Diamond, a point-and-click adventure inspired by games like The Colonel’s Bequest. (Mastodon, Blue Sky, Steam)
Frenzy is pitched as a demake of Far Cry from an ecofeminist lens (Mastodon)
I’m a huge fan of Cosmic Void’s games and will be the first in line to buy Devil’s Hideout as well. (Mastodon, Blue Sky, Steam)
Inspector Waffles Early Days is turning out to be a lovely Game Boy inspired adventure game. (more images on Mastodon, Blue Sky, Steam)
I enjoy Taconite’s game jam work so I’m excited to see that they’re making another FPS (Blue Sky)
Tearcell Games has a nice looking Godot tech demo for a rpg (looks much better on Mastodon)
Mushroom Musume is already fantastic and it’s continuing to get updates (look better on Mastodon, Itch.io)
Retrowave ’84 has some nice colors in their FPS (Blue Sky, Steam)
