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.

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

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.

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

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

After taking a few weeks off because I now have a baby to take care off, I am doing another post about indie games stuff that was exciting to me over the last month. These probably won’t be weekly again for a while but I’m excited to post on here more often.

New Releases

The Gender Constellation Bundle
The Gender Constellation Bundle is the second bundle run by GAME DEV GALAXY, a Discord server for game developers who are gender-/sex-marginalized. There’s a ton of fantastic work in here and it’s available for only $10 or more.

Indiepocalypse #50 and 51
There is a new issue of the indie game compilation zine Indiepocalypse so of course I will include that on here. And of course, as I was typing this, Indiepocalypse #51 was just released.

Barney Bear Joins a Harold Team

This is a game created in Adventure Game Studio that is a parody of the Barney Bear educational game series but this time you learn about improv. Possibly the most important game to come out this year?

Make a Zine!
I really enjoyed this free zine about how to make a zine. You should make one!

Sylvie RPG
Sylvie RPG is a fantastic short rpg with a bump combat mechanic like in Hydlide and YS. It’s available for free but if you pay $7 or more, you get a lot of really cool bonus stuff.

miniBOSSGAME

miniBOSSGAME is a fan port of BOSSGAME: The Final Boss Is My Heart’s mechanics to the Pico-8 fantasy console. BOSSGAME was one of my favorite games from last year and it’s fun to see a demake of it with the original designer’s blessing.

BIG HEAD

BIG HEAD is a neat little platformer created for the ZX Spectrum by a 10 year old.

The Legend of Skye

The Legend of Skye is a new fantasy point-and-click adventure with a verb system like Lucasarts adventure games.

Brain Hotel: Remodeled

Brain Hotel: Remodeled is a remake of a Flash game from 2004 by Telltale Games alumni Mark Darin. I haven’t played this one yet but I’m a fan of his Nick Bounty games.

Picotron

Picotron is a new Fantasy Workstation by the creator of PICO-8 for making pixelart games, animations, music, demos and other curiosities.

Downpour
Downpour is a new app for making little games on your phone. I think it’s pretty fantastic and even made my own little game.

Passage: A Job Interview Simulator

Passage is a new visual novel from Emcat Games about navigating the corporate world. It’s from a local dev too so that’s always exciting for me. The publisher is Mangotronics, who also published the great Mangotronic Employment Collection.

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story

I am a massive fan of the rerelease work by Digital Eclipse so of course I would be thrilled when they announced a collection of games by Jeff Minter. It’s everything I hoped it would be and will probably be my Game of the Year.

Midnight Scenes: A Safe Place

Midnight Scenes is an anthology of short horror point and click adventures and the newest entry, A Safe Place, was just released. Each game ranges from 15-90 minutes long and only costs a few dollars. Haven’t played this one yet but I really enjoyed everything else by the designer. A Safe Place is available on Itch.io and Steam.

The New York Times Simulator
The New York Times Simulator is a short browser game about how much the NYT shows their ass. Great game about an awful place.

Other Folks Talking About Indie Games

After a hiatus, Bobbins’ Olde Tomb of Videogames is back! It’s like these posts but better, and with more of a focus on arcade games.

I really liked this post from Autumn Rain on cohost about games she liked in 2023

I just found out about a nice fan zine for the Playdate called Uncrank’d.

Kickstarters/Crowdfunding

After ignoring Kickstarter for a long time, 3 crowdfunding campaigns popped up in two days that I had to back.

• Devil’s Hideout is a point-and-click adventure by Cosmic Void, who I’ve always been a fan of. There’s a demo available that I enjoyed too.
• That Rug is a supernatural ttrpg zine that uses children’s playmats that every parent has.
• Street Wolves is a synthwave ttrpg using the Savage Worlds rule system.

Self Promo Zone

If you enjoy these posts, here’s some ways you can support me:

• As mentioned earlier, I made a free game in Downpour that I’m pretty proud of.
• I have YouTube and Twitch channels where I regularly play retro and indie games that I would love for you to follow.
• Check out my games and zines on Itch.io
• Let me know if you discovered something cool from these posts
• Or buy me a coffee

Hope you’re all doing well! I’m still getting over a cold that has actually been pretty mild but I’m a big baby so I’m acting like it’s the worst thing ever. For some of you it’s probably a 3 day weekend as well, so that’s a nice thing to look forward to. Despite my mild cold completely ruining my life, I still found a way to play some video games. If there’s something I missed, especially if it’s something you worked on, please reply with it in the comments or contact me (see About page) with a link to your thing.

Vaporwave Pinball

Vaporwave Pinball is an upcoming pinball game being developed by Mixtape Games UK. I played the demo as part of Steam’s Next Fest. I thought it was really neat. It’s got some quirks that should be fixed as development continues and I didn’t get to the more abstract tables that pop up in the screenshots. I feel like if a pinball table in a video game is not a 1:1 recreation of a real table, then it needs to get really weird, which is what this seems to do in later tables and something that I feel like Pinball FX needs to do more of with their fictional tables. I’m also learning how to do Let’s Plays and did one here.

Lost in Space

Lost in Space is an upcoming point-and-click adventure game based on the classic science fiction tv show. I played the demo and idk, it’s fine! They picked a weird spot for the demo. From watching the trailer at the end, it sounds like they use audio from the show for some of the other characters but not the player, which is the thing I was actually most interested in and how that’s pulled off. It’s a completely average adventure game, meaning I’m kinda just fine with it but would lose my shit if they made game at this quality level of a different IP, like a Farscape adventure game. So if you like Lost in Space then I would recommend it! (YouTube Let’s Play)

Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge 2

Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge 2 is a point-and-click adventure for the Game Boy based on a joke at the end of an episode of The Simpsons back in season 7. It’s not too long or challenging, took me about 30 minutes to beat, but the jokes really worked for me and there’s a lot of hidden jokes I didn’t see but know I missed because of the achievement system. The game is also playable in the browser. (YouTube Let’s Play)

8BUTTERF.EXE

8BUTTERF.EXE is a bullet hell game made for the TIC-80 fantasy computer where time only passes when you move. I really enjoyed this game and highly recommend checking it out. Elements of it almost make it feel like a puzzle game in that you have to manage your resources and plan your movements ahead. It’s playable in the browser here.

Kobold Quest
Just a very pleasant and short Bitsy where you’re a Kobold. (Itch.io)

Gelatinous
A solo tabletop rpg where you play as a gelatinous cube and eat things. Don’t know how I can sell it better than that. (Itch.io)

Advanced Fantasy Dungeons
A tabletop rpg available as pay-what-you-want that is strongly inspired by Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition and compatible with supplements as well. Despite that era being kind of clunky, it’s what I grew up with so I have a ton of nostalgia for it. I’m interested in seeing how that type of game is redesigned to be a bit more approachable. (Itch.io)

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is a spiritual sequel to the infamous Zelda platforming games on the Philips CD-i. Weirdly enough, I do sorta have some nostalgia for those games, despite being pretty awful, since I actually played them at a CompUSA when they came out and was confused why there were non-traditional Zelda games out there and on a non-Nintendo console. I always get excited when people do a spiritual sequel to something that wasn’t good and my hope with this is that the approach was “what if we did one of these but it was good?” Because why not? We have plenty of remakes and sequels to good games. Let’s revisit things that maybe had some good idea but the execution wasn’t 100% perfect.

Ultros

I know nothing about this game other than it’s a metroidvania but look at this art! I think it’s lovely. (Steam)

News Tower

I haven’t played this one but the concept is really interesting to me and I heard good things about the demo. It’s a game where you run your own newspaper and looks pretty great. The game is available in Early Access on Steam.

Other People Talking About Games
There’s also lots of other people talking about indie games that you should follow:

• Dirigitive regularly uploads Let’s Plays of obscure indie games to YouTube
• Cohost user spacevalkyries has a big post on Steam Next Fest demos
• The Adventure Games Podcast has a 2nd video on adventure games released this month.
• Thinky Games has a post on free and experimental puzzle games released last month.
• Indie Tsushin has a Steam Curator page highlighting indie games they enjoy from Japan.
• Bobbins’ Olde Tomb of Videogames continues to highlight great arcade games and remakes of 80s computer games.

And then finally on my YouTube channel I’ve uploaded footage of games I’ve played like Super Space Club, Glypha: Vintage, and Dead Petals Bliss.

Happy Groundhog Day. The groundhog has risen and said there will be 6 more weeks of video games. Does the weird Groundhog Day VR adventure game sequel from a few years ago count as an indie game? Anyway, 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.

Full o’ Beans
Full o’ Beans is a short visual novel on Itch where you help two researchers explore the world of humor by telling jokes. I really enjoyed the writing and music in this game and I will always get excited about photos of people being used in video games.

Zine Month
It’s zine month in the world of tabletop rpgs, meaning tons of people are launching crowdfunding campaigns on a variety of platforms. I’ll probably do a post later listing some of the campaigns I’m interested in but take a look around and see what people are looking to fund, or see what ttrpg folks are talking about on social media.

Twilight Oracle
Twilight Oracle is a new point-and-click adventure by the creator of other fun adventure games like The Corruption Within and Blood Nova. I’ve only played the demo but it’s really good and I’m looking forward to playing through the whole game now that I got my key from backing the Kickstarter. The game is available on Itch.io and Steam.

Waterworld: a New Expansion for Barren Planet
Barren Planet was a new turn based strategy game for DOS that was released for free last year which I really enjoyed, so it’s nice to see that it’s receiving big updated as well. You can download the game for free on the developer’s site but it’s also on Itch.

Celeste 64
Celeste 64 is a free 3D platformer take on Celeste by (I think?) the developers of the original. It’s in the style of early 3D platformers and it’s great. I’m awful at it, as I always have been with 3D platformers, but it’s a very good version of one of these.

Teddy Typtoes Tickle Tower
Teddy Typtoes Tickle Tower is a new typing game playable in the browser where you type and tickle someone’s toes. I don’t know what else to say about this one other than it’s a GOTY contender.

Under a Star Long Cold
Under a Star Long Cold is a new stealth action game with perma death where you have 30 minutes to loot a place before the planet is destroyed. I haven’t played this one yet but I’ve enjoyed previous games by Merlino Games like The Chameleon and Luckily, My Arm is a Shotgun.

The Forever Labyrinth
The Forever Labyrinth is a new browser game created by Inkle in collaboration with Google. I actually know nothing about the game since I haven’t played it yet but it’s an Inkle game so I’ll probably enjoy playing it. The YouTube trailer (which also has a link to the game) was interesting. I don’t know how Inkle keeps secretly dropping games like this.

Other People Talking About Video Games

There’s also other people who are much cooler than I am who are talking about all the cool things coming out. You should follow these folks

Bobbins’ Olde Tomb of Videogames has a weekly post rounding up various games that have come out in the last week, with more of a focus on arcade games and remakes of retro games. The same person used to run a site called Retro Remakes 20 years ago and holy cow, I used to spend so much time on there playing remakes of old video games. It was the best. So it’s great that I’m still finding about remakes of old video games from him.

LotusLovesLotus has a very nice video on YouTube of 24 indie PC games that she’s looking forward to. I didn’t even know of most of the games in the video.

Indie Tsushin is still regularly streaming indie games from Japan on their YouTube channel. They also post about all the games they streamed, with links to the games, if you want to check them out yourself.

Nathalie Lawhead has a great post on their blog about liminal spaces and indie horror games.