Author: mpklamerus

What I’m Up To (2024-09-11)

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One of my favorite things about following personal blogs is just the regular check ins people do where they write about what has been happening. When Craig Maloney was with us, I enjoyed reading his regular check in posts and thought it would be fun to start writing them since this is my personal site and not a games blog, but it might also keep me accountable on projects I’m working on. But I’ll write about other things I’ve been watching/reading/playing and whatever else I’m up to. These might be on a weekly basis.

  • Speaking of projects, this is going to sound silly since I just said this is where I’ll blog about them, but I actually just put them all on hold for the moment. I might be getting some contract work soon and don’t want to get too invested in anything before I have to switch gears. I don’t really mind since I should be taking more time for myself to relax anyway. I’m pretty busy anyway since my kids just started school again and it takes a minute to get to the rhythm of that. There’s also just been a lot of other stress lately with things like the basement flooding and recovering from all of that, so it’s fine for me to just chill.
  • There’s also been the sadness of Cohost shutting down soon. I’m not really surprised about it but it’s still sad. I should probably do a larger post about that sometime since I feel like it deserves it. In the meantime, I started putting together a massive sheet of personal sites that users there have, as one of the possibly life rafts I guess? I’m going to try to make a blogroll or post with as many links as possible to other cohost folks with blogs/sites before the site shuts down posting. I’ve got some but if you’re reading this, were a user at Cohost, and want your site added, let me know! It’s definitely still a work in progress, I need to go through all the blog related tags and people I’m following, but if you want to see the current state, here you go: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BCJ7PFpUEjaysOA4C77z9Ckdo0YbutPihTh7oimm2AA/edit?usp=sharing
  • It’s definitely not a replacement for Cohost or the future of the internet, but it is nice having more people to follow on the RSS feed reader and I think all the talk about having sites on Cohost has inspired more people to blog or start something.
  • Last night’s debate went better than expected, hooray!
  • I’ve been playing some random adventure games with the kids and they’re really into them. I always worried I’m trying to push anything on them, but they’ve been very excited to play Sam & Max and Frog Detective 2.
  • I also finally started playing Gubble 2 and it’s not as good as the first. I should probably do some full posts about Gubble at some point, since I don’t think my streams of that have been mentioned here.

Indie Game Roundup (Sept. 9, 2024)

~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

I think I’ve developed a pretty good method of doing these weekly now. Still have a massive backlog of games I want to talk about because people keep making cool stuff but it’s much more fun for me to do these little batches. Once in a while someone will be confused about the formatting of these posts (very understandable!), I generally bold the title of the game and then put a link to the game in ( ), usually to Itch.io and/or Steam.

If you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email, message me on social media (see About page), or just reply to this post with a link to your thing to let me know it’s out.

Banky’s Newborn Baby (Itch.io link) is a very good interactive poem thing made in Twine.

A few years ago I made a goofy little indie ttrpg name generator (Itch.io link) just as a fun little project to poke at for a couple of days. A whole dang game jam just wrapped up (Itch.io) where people made games using it. I had nothing to do with it but it makes me so happy that people actually made cool stuff using my thing.

A new Indiepocalypse (Itch.io) is out! As usually, there’s a lot of cool games in this monthly anthology zine.

view from a space ship cockpit and lasers are firing at a ship
Liberation

Liberation (Steam/Itch.io) is definitely not new and came out a year ago, but it’s new to me! I just picked it up as part of the Steam space exploration fest or whatever it’s called. I often get frustrated with finding the space sim that’s right for me, since I usually don’t want a pure level based arcade sim but also don’t want anything complex like the X series either, but I love this. There’s nothing wrong with arcade games or incredibly complex space sims, but they’re usually not for me. This feels to strike a nice balance and has a lot of character. I’m not sure how I found out about this one but it’s the most British game I’ve ever played, so I assume a British person in their 40s-50s posted about it since it’s strongly inspired by Elite and shows like Blake’s 7, The Tripods, Space:1999, Star Cops, Judge Dredd and Doctor Who. I’ve never seen Blake’s before and should probably watch it.

screenshot of green,brown, and grey hex tiles showing hills and mountains, and a map of all the titles in the lower right corner
Nikhil Murthy’s Syphilisation

Nikhil Murthy’s Syphilisation (Steam) is a postcolonial 4X game where you play a student doing a group report on Gandhi, Churchill and the Raj. I ran into some bugs when I streamed the game but I still love it. It’s doing so much that I haven’t seen in other 4X games and really think more people should check it out. This article on Unwinnable about the game is also very good.

This came out a year ago and I’ve posted about it before but Incubus – A Ghost Hunter’s Tale (Steam) is a fun adventure game I’ve been revisiting since it’s getting closer to Halloween. I’ve always enjoyed the developer’s other games like the Dark Fall series and this one is also a neat ghost hunting adventure.

Kickstarters/Crowdfunding:

Netcrawl is now crowdfunding. It already hit it’s goal but I think it looks like a neat cyberpunk ttrpg.

Self Promo Zone

Thank you for reading these! Consider supporting my work on Ko-fi so I can buy more games/maintain site costs, checking out my games on Itch.io, following me on Twitch where I will do streams of random indie games, checking out previous indie game roundups, or just by sharing these posts. An anthology I helped organize also came out this summer on Steam and Itch.io

I’ve also started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. If you do not have an IRC client or don’t feel like messing around with that stuff, you can easily join through the browser here. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

Indie Game Roundup (Sept. 2, 2024)

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Todaybor Day is Labor Day! It looks like I managed to do these two weeks in a row. I’m still getting caught up on my backlog of games to talk about but if you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email, message me on social media (see About page), or just reply to this post with a link to your thing to let me know it’s out.

drawing of a shoe and watering pail pouring water on it
Five Years Old Memories

Five Years Old Memories (Steam): A short game collecting interactive animations and featuring interviews with the developer’s friends of their memories of when they were five years old. I saw a review discussing how the game was influenced by 90s multimedia cd-roms and yes, absolutely, it rules and I love seeing people being inspired by this era of software. It’s about 30 minutes long for a playthrough and only $3.

gif of a first person view of a canoe going down a lake
Wherever You Hike

Wherever You Hike (Itch.io): A short walking game made in 10 weeks by a team of two where you just walk and canoe in a relaxing area until you feel satisfied. It’s just a nice, relaxing space to spend a few minutes and is Pay-What-You-Want.

view from inside a cockpit with a lot of controls to interact with
Armored Shell Nightjar

ARMORED SHELL NIGHTJAR (Itch.io): Created for MechJam V by Warkus and Modus Interactive (two folks from the HauntedPS1 community), it’s a Getting Over It-like where you navigate intentionally awkward controls inside a mech to climb up a tower. I’m awful at these types of games but it’s very good.

first person view of a grainy view of two doors in a dungeon
Chalicebound

Chalicebound (Itch.io): Another game by Warkus, this is a short demo inspired by the classic adventure game Shadowgate. I always get excited when new games are inspired by the classic MacVenture series (Shadowgate, Uninvited, Deja Vu 1 and 2) and this one is great and creepy. It’s just a demo but I hope we get a longer, commercial game someday.

Nightmare SuperHighway

Nightmare SuperHighway (Itch.io): It’s another “Walking Sim” (I’m fine with the term!) where you explore a series of creepy spaces. I just walking around well-crafted spaces and this is one of those!

isometric view of a dungeon with an adventurer and chicken
Roguecraft

Roguecraft (Itch.io): Roguecraft is a brand-new roguelike for the Amiga inspired by Lovecraft. I haven’t played this one yet but hell yes, new Amiga games. I’m also a big fan of the publisher, Thalamus, and there’s a boxed copy of the game as well if you want to get a new physical copy of an Amiga game in the year 2024.

an adventurer standing in a village next to a large castle
Erenshor

Erenshor (Steam): Erenshor is a single player rpg strongly inspired by late 90s/early 00s MMORPGs and emulates how those games played. It only has a demo out right now and I haven’t played it yet, but I’ve been watching BogusMeatFactory play this on Twitch and it seems like a lovely rpg that I’ll have to play someday.

Other People Talking About Indies

A new Indie Tsushin (website) came out today! It’s great, like they always are!

Self Promo Zone

Thank you for reading these! Consider supporting my work on Ko-fi so I can buy more games/maintain site costs, checking out my games on Itch.io, following me on Twitch where I will do more streams of these short indies, checking out previous indie game roundups, or just by sharing these posts. An anthology I helped organize also came out this summer on Steam and Itch.io

Indie Game Roundup (August 26, 2024)

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It has been way too long since I’ve done one of these so I’ll probably start doing a series of shorter ones on a weekly basis until I get caught up with everything that I thought was really cool. I’ve just been too busy to do bigger posts like I was doing before but still want a place to log everything I like.

a purple woman named Cyan saying "we woke up somewhere new again..."

The big one has been the Locally Sourced Anthology I: A Space Atlas, a collection of 8 short games by various developers in Michigan with an outer space theme. I’m very proud to have helped with this anthology and I’m hoping to do more of them in the future. Do I get to put something I worked on in my “cool indie games” blog posts? Sure, why not.

Kitsune Tails has been a really nice platformer in the spirit of Super Mario Bros. 3. It’s challenging but the game has some nice options for people like me who aren’t as good at platformers.

A yellow smiley face in a maze of 3D red bricks

This new interactive liminal-space horror essay about technocapitalism and individuality sounds very cool, and of course, I get very excited about anything referencing Windows 95 screensavers.

top down view of soldiers in a hallway in a very blue screen. Text saying you must rescue hostages.
Screenshot from Star Combat

Star Combat: Cadre Class is a new turn-based strategy game for DOS. I got to play an earlier version of the game and it’s great.

Speaking of DOS games, the most recent DOS Games Jam wrapped up and there’s a lot of new DOS games there as well.

two women in a cabin and a text parser saying "Talk to Kimi"

Also inspired by DOS games, The Crimson Diamond is a brand new adventure game that is strongly inspired by Sierra’s The Colonel’s Bequest. It’s been in development for a while and I’m so happy to see it come out and doing well.

person walking in the woods next to a pond and a text parser saying "Pick berry"

There’s also another adventure game inspired by Sierra’s 80s adventure games. The Tachyon Dreams Anthology is a collection of 3 sci-fi adventure games that use a parser but are a bit more player friendly than those classic adventures were.

Other people talking about indie games:

Tony Warriner, of Broken Sword/Beneath a Steel Sky adventure game fame, has started doing a regular indie games blog and it’s really cool

Self-Promo Zone

Already did self promo at the beginning but I have an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. If you do not have an IRC client or don’t feel like messing around with that stuff, you can easily join through the browser here. I’ll never be able to get people to drop Discord for IRC, but I personally prefer it. I don’t feel like I have to follow along with every single conversation and I’m not getting pinged all the time by notifications or the “Everyone” tag. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

Also consider following me on Twitch!

Books Read in July 2024

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I guess I should post on here more. I’ve been pretty busy pretty busy this summer but here’s what I read this last month. You can always follow me on Storygraph

Ariol – A Beautiful Cow: This was a collection of comics that one of my kids picked from the library. It was fine! I never heard of it before

Dragonflight: My first Anne McCaffrey book! I thought it was ok but suffered from some very boring stretches but it has some neat concepts and I liked the ending. I will read more by her at some point in the future.

Exhibit by R.O. Kwon: Big fan of this writer. Didn’t enjoy it as much as The Incendiaries but still thought it was very good. The marketing for the book was very odd to me because it felt like it was hyping it up as an erotic and fun novel and that’s really not what the focus was. Not a criticism of the book at all, just weird that the marketing chose to go with that.

Kindred: My first Octavia E. Butler book! Nothing really insightful to say about this one. Yep, it’s a great book and I’ll need to read more by her. By knowing what the book was about in advance, I sorta expected it to be kind of a slog but nope. It felt like a quick read to me.

The Long Game: My first Ann Leckie story. This is another one of the short sci-fi stories that is available as part of Amazon Prime so I read it. I don’t really remember anything about it and my storygraph says I gave it 3 stars so I guess I thought it was just fine. I’ll read more by Ann because I know this isn’t really representative of her writing and to be honest, I’ve kinda felt “it’s fine” has been the case with all of the stories in this Kindle series.

The Stars Too Fondly: Really fun sci-fi, gay romance novel by Emily Hamilton. I don’t really know if I had seen people discussing it on Bluesky (where I now follow a ton of writers) before grabbing it from my library, but I’m glad I did.

Servant Mage: Meh. Fantasy novella that still felt kinda boring in the middle and I didn’t really find the characters to be too interesting.

Yours Cruelly, Elvira: My Wild Life as the Mistress of the Dark: This is the autobiography by Cassandra Peterson, the actress who plays Elvira. I would have a hard time recommending it to people who don’t know who she is, but I really liked it. Went with the audiobook for this one, which I think was the right choice. I think it’s neat my library had it.

In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns: My first Elizabeth Bear book. To be honest, I have already sorta forgotten what it was about and had given it 3/5 on Storygraph, which usually means I thought it was fine but not memorable. I had checked it out just because it was something I could listen to for free as part of my Audible trial. I’ll read more by her though. I thought it was neat that the main character wasn’t white, it was a perfectly fine detective story, and I was kind of in a weird mood when I listened to it anyway.

The Y in Life: This was a self-published novel by a local author that I checked out from the library because I enjoyed the author’s blog posts about local bookstores and soccer team. It’s a weird one that’s kind of a mess and way too long but I still enjoyed it? Maybe I like when an author knows they are probably just writing one book and just put everything in there. Maybe I should read more self-published books even if they’re messy?

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain: I really liked the previous book in this world, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, but didn’t click as much with this. But it’s short, everyone else seemed to like it more than me, and I still didn’t even think it was bad, just not great like the first book. Still might read more in the series though since they’re standalone novellas set in the same world.

Streaming

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I started streaming on Twitch recently after years of considering it and was surprised to find out that I really enjoy it. It looks like I made a post about it a few months ago announcing that I had one but didn’t really get into it until this last month. It started when I decided to stream the mid 90s puzzle game Gubble, partially as a bit but I genuinely wanted to revisit a game I had played when it was released. I had a blast and other people seemed to enjoy finding out about the game too.

I think it’s been good for me to do since it makes me commit to actually playing a game for two hours instead of fighting with my awful attention span and playing the game for 20 minutes, checking my phone, playing the game for another 10 minutes, looking at various websites, and then stopping to do something else. Plus I actually stick with games more instead of starting games and never finishing them.

Since it seemed to help a lot with completing games, I decided to do a game dev stream last night and got a ton done. Again, it helped having people to talk to while I work on my game for a few hours. This was just an art stream where I was making clay art for a short point-and-click adventure. I felt motivated to work on it again after someone at a recent game dev meetup told me that I shouldn’t make an adventure game with clay since it “has been done a million times before” (1. rude and 2. what the hell are you talking about?). I would never do any coding streams because it’s my day job and I don’t wanted to be judged for any bad code, but I’m ok with people seeing me learn how to do clay art and stop motion animation. So I’ll keep doing more of these since it seems to make me more productive and it’s fun.

I highly doubt it will never get too elaborate or have a dedicated schedule. I have no interest in this being a side gig or a thing that makes money but it’s been nice as a thing to keep me focused and make solitary activities a little more social.

Books Read in June 2024

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I read a lot in June! It helps that my local library launched their summer reading challenge, which I’m having a lot of fun participating in. I also document all of this on my Storygraph

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older: Just a fun Sherlock-inspired murder mystery in space with woman and gay. Not groundbreaking but it was a fun, quick read for me. My first book I read by Malka and I would read later books in this series at some point too.

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark: Novella set in an alternate history after the American Civil War in New Orleans, this story is so much more interesting than most of those which just seem to be “What if the Confederates won?” I don’t know if there’s more stories set in this world but I need to read more by this author.

Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey: The first book I read by Mercedes! Just a really well written fantasy books and I want to read more in this world.

Calamity by Constance Fay: Decent romance story set in space.

Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food by Michelle T. King: I really need to make more of an effort to read history books about food. This is about Fu Pei-Mei and her history of cooking shows and I found it to be really interesting!

The Forever War by Joe Halderman: I’ve been making more of an effort to read The Classics, even though I believe that Having to Read Them is overrated, but I’m glad I read it. It has some huge issues with how it has aged because of sexuality, even if the author is well meaning, but plenty of interesting ideas too and the book was more anti-war than I expected, which is nice.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo: Good, short fantasy novella about a royal family. Don’t have much to say about it but I liked it and will read more in the series.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein: Another classic I read this much but didn’t enjoy. I completely understand why it’s important and loved, but so much of it has aged horribly and a lot is also tainted by knowing how Heinlein would eventually lean politically and thinking “hmmm….I don’t think it’s just the character saying an awful thing.”

How It Unfolds by James S.A. Corey: Amazon has a ton of short stories they’ve funded so I started reading these too. This is my first by James S.A. Corey as well. I liked it! It’s very short so it’s not a deep story but it’s a fun read.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov: Another classic! Also my first by Asaac Asimov! I watched the first season of the tv show, which I’m aware has almost nothing to do with the book, which pushed me into finally reading the book. It’s good! It feels like it’s not a finished story, probably because it’s a collection of shorts and there’s some books after this, but I enjoyed it.

Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa: Very cool novella about people living in a very tall building in the future when the Earth has flooded. I want to read more by this author.

Zork: The Forces of Krill by Steve Meretzky: This was a choose your own adventure-style book that was released in the early 80s by one of Infocom’s designers. I was told before reading that it’s not great and I suppose it isn’t, but it’s also harmless and short. The most interesting thing about the book is that the game Zork Nemesis later references it. I bought it for $1.50 at a used book store and it sells for much more than that online, and I think I would have been annoyed it I paid any significant amount for it.

The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown: Fun, short horror story in space. Felt very inspired by Alien.

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin: A classic and my first read by Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s amazing! I guess I’ll need to read everything by her.

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein: Cyberpunk book. It’s fine. I wish I liked it more because it’s very queer and that part is great, but it also spent too much time over explaining everything to the reader, oh well.

Void by Veronica Roth: Another one of the short stories from Amazon. Fun little sci-fi mystery. Nothing super memorable but if you’ve got Amazon Prime then you can already read it for free and it’s a nice and short read.

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: My first John Carter story and also my first story I’ve read by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Probably the last too? Kinda hated this one. I can see how it’s very influential but it’s all very racist and sexist and I suspect it was even for its time. I looked at the description for the next book in the series and it seems to double down on this and reading the author’s wikipedia page confirms he wasn’t a great dude so I’m moving on.

Myst: The Book of Atrus by Robyn Miller, Rand Miller, David Wingrove: I read the rerelease from last year for the book’s anniversary. I enjoyed this much more than I expected! As a long time fan of Myst Online, a lot of this book felt like setup for that game. It’s not high art but I thought it was a fun read.

Indie Game Roundup (July 7, 2024)

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Hi, here’s a list of indie games that I think are pretty cool. Also the Itch.io sale is happening now, go buy some games from there. I’m hoping to continue doing these on a more regular basis than once a month. Also consider subscribing to the RSS feed for future blog posts! If you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email, message me on social media (see About page), or just reply to this post with a link to your thing to let me know it’s out.

gif of someone clicking around a living room.

A new Indiepocalypse is out! I’m excited that it has a new game by Hexcavator.

art of an orange space ship called the star unicorn

Flickship allows you to easily create cool space ships.

gif of a gree creature saying "he should be able to trade you a fish for a crunch veggie!"

Sprout Yeartide is a new, short game by Princess Internet Cafe. I’m a big fan of their games and love seeing all the branches that have come from Bitsy. This was made in binksi hd, which is based on Binksi, a fork of bipsi that lets you create games using Inkle Studios‘ Ink, and bipsi is inspired by Bitsy.

A new issue of Indie Tsushin is out! I’m going to be lazy and copy the Itchio text here: “This is the 2024 May-June zine issue compiling articles from the インディー通信 Indie Tsushin blog, a handmade site celebrating and introducing indie and doujin games from Japan!” Despite my laziness, it’s a fantastic zine and website!

Not a game but Crisis Arcadia 0: The Angels of Bloodharvest is a short sci-fi story by a game developer and available for $2.

The Neo-Twiny Jam just wrapped up. The jam features submissions of Interactive Fiction games containing 500 words or less.

Iowa Jack and the Crystals of Chaos is a new text adventure for the Commodore 64 that is a parody of Indiana Jones and meant to have a lower difficulty level for newcomers to text adventures.

screenshot from Paper-Girl-Chain of someone saying "I shuffled around in my seat guiltily, fully waking myself up" and some dialog choices
Screenshot from Paper-Girl-Chain

The menhera vn jam also just wrapped up. The jam is described as “This is a jam for games about living and coming to terms (or not) with unseen burdens, whether they be mental, emotional, physical, psychological, or otherwise.”

Self-Promo Zone

I’ve started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. If you do not have an IRC client or don’t feel like messing around with that stuff, you can easily join through the browser here. I’ll never be able to get people to drop Discord for IRC, but I personally prefer it. I don’t feel like I have to follow along with every single conversation and I’m not getting pinged all the time by notifications or the “Everyone” tag. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

I also helped with a games anthology that’s coming out soon. Locally Sourced Anthology I: A Space Atlas is a collection of 8 experimental games from different indie game developers. Grow tea on the Moon! Fish on Saturn! Find love on Mars! And 5 other things! Wishlist it now on Steam! It’s also coming out on Itch.io

Indie Game Roundup (June 25, 2024)

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It’s been a while since I wrote one of these which is why I’m not waiting until Friday to publish this. 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. Also consider subscribing to the RSS feed for future blog posts! If you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email, message me on social media (see About page), or just reply to this post with a link to your thing to let me know it’s out. Or even if you didn’t make it and you just think it’s neat, let me know!

A new Indiepocalypse came out so I’m required to post about it.

top down view of a car driving through a city

Dryft City Kyngs looks like an interesting racing game with a neat aesthetic.

man and dog in a truck and text saying "Manastash, Washington, 1997"

Mel’s Bucket is a short, free point-and-click adventure that’s playable in the browser based on the 90’s Coast to Coast calls about the mysterious Mel’s Hole that I have a fascination with, so this is a GOTY for me.

Swan Neck is a short and great Twine game that’s playable in the browser on Itch. Be sure to read the CWs before playing.

Trouble in Paradisa is a system-agnostic murder mystery for tabletop rpgs inspired by 1990’s Lego sets.

Blister City is a rules-lite ttrpg where you seek revenge against the factions that have ruined life on Mars.

Ostrichmonkey Hack is an in-progress, modular ruleset in the N/OSR tradition.

False Idols is a 1 page ttrpg for 3-5 players where you are musical idols taking down corporations.

TTRPGs for Palestine is a charity bundle where you can get a ton of ttrpgs for $10 or more, with all proceeds going to medical aid for Palestinians.

man in front of a house and trees on a yellow background

LXD::Red Honey looks like a lovely, short, and free metroidvania that came to my attention through Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

bridge leading to a dome over the water

Most importantly, the Riven remake is here. This is all I’m going to talk about for months. Reviews have been good and I’m so curious what the new content being added to the game is.

Crowdfunding

Indiepocalypse and Iron Circus Comics are teaming up to create a games/comics anthology and have launched a crowdfunding campaign. It looks pretty great!

People Talking About Indie Games

Choicebeat is a fantastic, free zine about visual novels and interactive fiction.

This Steam Curator lists games that are available on Itch, where the dev gets a better cut and the games are DRM free.

Shout out to Party of One Podcast for no reason other than it continuing to highlight great indie tabletop rpgs.

The Imaginary Engine Review is a great new site covering obscure indie games.

The Access-Ability Summer Showcase 2024 features 20 games with a focus on accessibility.

Self-Promo Zone

I’ve started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. If you do not have an IRC client or don’t feel like messing around with that stuff, you can easily join through the browser here. I’ll never be able to get people to drop Discord for IRC, but I personally prefer it. I don’t feel like I have to follow along with every single conversation and I’m not getting pinged all the time by notifications or the “Everyone” tag. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

I also helped with a games anthology that’s coming out soon. Locally Sourced Anthology I: A Space Atlas is a collection of 8 experimental games from different indie game developers. Grow tea on the Moon! Fish on Saturn! Find love on Mars! And 5 other things! Wishlist it now on Steam! It’s also coming out on Itch.io

Indie Game Roundup (June 7, 2024)

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Being on parental leave means I have a little bit of time to write these regularly, although maybe not enough time to play everything. A lot came out this week!

woman at a coffee table saying "Queer love is messy. You of all people know that"

Queer Quest
Queer Quest is a new point-and-click adventure game that is available for Pay-What-You-Want. “Play as long-haired-butch Lupe as you traverse the gayborhood fetching things for femmes and thems. There’s a naked bike ride blocking the road. Ryan’s selfies suck. Stevie Hix needs some tape for tucking. Oh, and your hot girlfriend is missing!” Haven’t played it yet but it looks pretty great and I love point-and-click adventure games.

What Waits Beyond
WHAT WAITS BEYOND is a solo journaling game from Dinoberry Press.  In Beyond, you find yourself in a starship at the edge of a black hole, all hope lost and the end of the road right in front of you. I haven’t played any solo rpg from Dinoberry Press before but I have played some of their other tabletop rpgs and they’re all great. It’s only $3 too!

The Electrum Archive Issue 2
The Electrum Archive is a series of zine issues describing the science-fiction/fantasy setting of Orn that uses a simple core rule system. If you enjoy weird fantasy settings in games like Morrowind and want something like that for tabletop rpgs, consider checking it out.

POV pixel art of a kayak going down a river and the game's title The Zen of Kayaking

The Zen of Kayaking
The Zen of Kayaking is a new text adventure for DOS from pixelturkey and gamedevjeff. Pixelturkey is a wonderful artist and streamer and gamedevjeff has created some really cool stuff like an English translation of the DOS game Father World. New commercial text adventures and DOS games aren’t very common so it’s fun seeing one come out. It’s available on Itch for $5.

Creating a Website
Creating a Website is a short, mostly-autobiographical story about the benefits of making your own website. I might be slightly biased as I’m posting this to my own site but yes, you should make one.

a low poly fairy with red hair saying "I don't want you to break your heart"

Wingless Fairies
Wingless Fairies is a free game by Lily Belmira about becoming someone new again. After you play this (it’s only 30 minutes), go check out all of Lily’s other games. They’re great!

The Twine Grimoire Templates
Grim Baccaris has put a ton of work into making great Twine tutorials and now they’ve started making Twine templates as well! Absolutely worth your time if you’re interested in Twine.

Selaco
Selaco is a new FPS in Early Access that uses the GZDoom engine. It’s exciting to me whenever I see people making cool stuff using older technology. It looks great.

Sketch of a man and a neighborhood and him saying "i'm sorry. I didn't mean to run into you"

Liminal
Liminal is a very short visual novel playable in the browser on Itch about two young adults that run into each other a few months after a break up. The game features voice acting and beautiful art.

Day of the Hamster
Day of the Hamster is a short and free point-and-click adventure inspired by Day of the Tentacle. It is playable in the browser on Itch and the dev’s previous game was how I learned that was something you could even do for games made in Adventure Game Studio

blurry image of a tree in water

[Echostasis]
Echostasis is a new first-person shooter horror game by ENIGMA STUDIO, developer of the games The Enigma Machine and Mothered, where you jump into the minds of test subjects and find out what happened to them.

Other Folks Talking About Indies

The Imaginary Engine Review is a new games outlet from Grace Benfell and Phoenix Simms focused on independent, obscure, and/or retro games. Add it to your RSS feed reader or follow them on Cohost or Bluesky.

Self-Promo Zone

I’ve started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. If you do not have an IRC client or don’t feel like messing around with that stuff, you can easily join through the browser here. I’ll never be able to get people to drop Discord for IRC, but I personally prefer it. I don’t feel like I have to follow along with every single conversation and I’m not getting pinged all the time by notifications or the “Everyone” tag. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!