Oops, I guess it’s been a while since I’ve posted on here. Because of so much real life stuff I just haven’t really had the time but I thought I would do one today since I will be too busy to do one on Halloween and there’s some stuff in here that you may want to play before the Halloween season is over. If you enjoy these posts and can afford to, please consider donating money to your local food bank. Food donations are good too but they can get so much more with money than you’ll be able to. You can probably find one close to you here.

Anyway, here are The Games

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but The Annual Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival is up again! It’s a free (but consider donating money) MMO where you are a ghost that carves pumpkins, can do an escape room, hedge maze, watch public domain movies, go on a hay ride, and more. It came out a few years ago but gets new stuff added on every month. I’ve been playing it with my kids and cannot recommend it enough.

Trimjob (Steam) is a game that combines mini golf and lawn mowing. I’m against lawn mowing in real life for environmental reasons but this is a video game so it’s fine. It’s less harmful than shooting people or doing a capitalism I guess.

I just really like that CaptainD keeps using Adventure Game Studio to make things that aren’t adventure games. This time it’s The Last Bite (Itch.io), which is Snake but with power ups.

Darkenstein 3D (Steam) is a free FPS where you shoot Nazis. It’s clearly inspired by Wolfenstein 3D but plays a bit more like late 90s/early 00s FPS and lists Return to Castle Wolfenstein as an influence.

Leaftaker (Itch.io) is a free short mystery game about investigating a body in a grave and inspired by games by The Roottrees Are Dead. I think we’re using terms like Deduce-em-ups for that style of game now? I don’t know what’s going on anymore. Anyway, good game. Go check out Kaden’s tabletop rpgs too.

The Séance of Blake Manor (Steam) is another game with those influences and looks wonderful. It’s been getting some great reviews so far and I was a big fan of their Darkside Detective games.

Issue #4 of Funland (Itch.io) is here! It’s a video game zine that always has some great layout design and covers and this issue is focused on Halloween stuff.

Call of the Golden Valley (Itch.io) is a first-person adventure game where you search for your missing friend in the Australian outback. I don’t know a whole lot about it but it looks like it’s influenced by the Nancy Drew adventure games, Steam reviews have been positive so far, and there’s a demo so I think some people may find it interesting.

Lumo 2 (dev site) is an isometric Metroid-like inspired by 80s British computer games where you wander from room to room and solve puzzles. I was a huge fan of the first one and this one looks like it has lots of fun little surprises buried in it too from looking at the screenshots.

HYPERBEAT (Steam) just looks like a great Rez-inspired rhythm game with lots of accessibility options.

Dispatch (Steam) is a superhero management comedy game where you are a former superhero working as a dispatch at a superhero dispatch center. The game was developed by folks from Telltale and seems like a good time from watching the stream on DecafJedi‘s channel.

We got a new Sylvie game! This one is Discover the World (Itch.io), a free turn-based rpg platformer. Go check it out and the play everything else by Sylvie.

There’s also a few games being crowdfunded right now. Midnight Saturn is a new sci-fi point-and-click adventure by Cosmic Void, Shores of Night is a cosmic horror ttrpg with no Lovecraft or Sanity rules, and Stomp and the Sword of Miracles is a cute platformer by the developer of the wonderful Frogsong.

Apologies in advance for this being a big one. Even with how massive this list is, I am missing a ton of stuff. Everyone released a game these last two weeks so this one is probably focused mostly around who I follow on Itch.

Video Games

A new collection of DOMINO CLUB games is out! No one is doing experimental games better than this anonymous collective. You can check out all the games from the Boneyard Collection for free on Itch.io

Landlord Quest (Itch.io/Steam) is a new point-and-click adventure where you play as a landlord. This is not a pro-landlord game. If you buy it on Itch.io, then you can run the game on any platform you want using ScummVM.

I think most people reading this know about Unfair Flips (Steam) but in case you don’t, it’s a short incremental clicker game about flipping a coin and getting 10 heads in a row.

Indiepocalypse #69 is now available (Itch.io)! This nice issue features another collection of games including a new game commissioned for this issue.

Detective Daydream (Itch.io) is a free stealth puzzle game for browsers where you sneak through rooms without being seen

Messenger (website) is a relaxing browser game where you explore a city, doing tasks for folks living there, and you can see other folks running around the city as they play.

Radar Rally (Itch.io) is a fun take on the Rally-X style of arcade game for browsers. This dev has made quite a few remakes of old arcade games.

House of Necrosis (Steam) is a turn-based horror rpg where you explore a haunted mansion with art inspired by the original Resident Evil. I have never played Mystery Dungeon but that’s an inspiration, so if you’ve played it then maybe that’s very exciting to you.

Hoop Dungeon (Itch.io) is a basketball turn-based strategy game currently undergoing testing. Give it a shot and fill out the feedback form.

I’m a fan of Akril15’s adventure games and they made another one! Like the others, this one is free. I recommend checking out the rest here.

BRIEFS 2025 (Itch.io) is a collection of three games that were created for the Australian art collective gold extra, with this year’s theme being cheese.

SloanySoft makes plenty of cool games for the ZX Spectrum and they’re back with another one. BubbleBack: The Story of Forward to the Past 2 (Itch.io) is a pay-what-you-want sequel to a platformer. If you’ve never played a ZX Spectrum game before, consider downloading an emulator and trying a few out on Itch.

Blippo+ is out on Itch.io/Steam/Switch! I was a big fan of this one on the Playdate and it’s fun seeing it come to more platforms and in color. You basically uncover a storyline by flipping through channels on tv.

Videonauts (Steam/Itch.io) is a new game by resnijars where you must escape from a haunted mansion with your friends while solving puzzles. I’m a big fan of their previous games so I’m looking forward to this. The developer lists Illbleed as an influence, which is super interesting to me too.

Tabletop

Melisma (Itch.io) is a pay-what-you-want ttrpg created by Adam Bell that is part character generator and part music trivia game. It was created for the minimalist jam, and you can check out the rest of the entries for that here.

Monster Truckers (dev site) is a ttrpg by Table Cat Games where you play as truckers that just happen to be monsters. It’s also on Itch and DriveThruRpg.

VOID_SHIFT (Itch.io) is a deckbuilder where you are the captain of a corporate-owned salvage and repair ship and need to put together a deck to complete jobs.

Jazzmanji (Itch.io) is a pay-what-you-want card game for 1-4 players where you explore a jazz dungeon and fight The Jazzman.

Not Games

There were also a few things released on Itch that weren’t video games but I think are still worth a mention.

Star Sword Nemesis (Itch.io) is a new book by Christine Love, developer of games such as Digital: A Love Story and Get in the Car, Loser. Girls in mechs!

Cats in a Frame (Itch.io) lets you have pictures of cats sitting on your desktop.

Moosadee released a tutorial for learning how to program for the TIC-80 virtual machine with either Lua or Python (Itch.io). Since I’m learning Python right at this moment, this is very interesting to me.

Rose made a Lovely Lodgings character generator for browsers (Itch.io) based on the recent batch of Domino Club games.

The Works of Egan put together this nice template and tutorial for creating your own blog (Itch.io). I’ve said it a million times before but I can’t recommend having your own site enough, where you have more control over the platform and this tutorial will help you setup a RSS feed too so anyone following you can see your posts through their feed.

Wurm Fud made a nice pay-what-you-want asset pack of folk magic pixel art icons (Itch.io)

CGALIB 2 (Itch.io) is a free library for making CGA DOS games and includes a sample game.

That’s it for this week! Thank you for reading this and making it to the end. Always feel free to comment or email me if there’s stuff you’ve worked on.

It’s Friday! How are you? How was your week? There’s been a billion indie games that have come out in the last week so there’s going to be a lot that this post leaves out. Also if you’ve written me an email and I haven’t responded yet, sorry, I have just been super busy. I even saw Devo and the B-52s last night and had a good time. But please feel free to let me know about your indie game through my contact info on the About page. Or even just to say hi! That’s always nice too.

A few game jams wrapped up this week with many wonderful games created for each. If you like games like Tetris then I highly recommend the Falling Blocks Jam on Itch.io. There’s a lot to dig through there but it has lots of interesting takes on the falling blocks genre. If you like adventure games, you may enjoy the $109 Adventure Game Challenge. I’m a bit less enthusiastic about this one since it allows AI art, especially since it has a cash prize, but there’s some good games in there like Eulogy for Nonno or Intern’s First Day.

I think one of the biggest releases this week is Consume Me (Steam), an semi-autobiographical game about being in high school. It won the Seamus McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival!

3D Don’t Die Mr. Robot (Steam) was one of my favorite indie arcade games from last year so it’s fun seeing it get a demake for the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Well I guess technically it’s a demake of the first game but I only played the 3D one. Also on Itch.io if you prefer that

Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 got a standalone expansion? Prequel? Anyway, the Puzzle Quest-like Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 1 Re-Raptored is now available on Steam.

Arctic Awakening (Steam/PS5/XBox) is a first-person sci-fi thriller about surviving in the arctic after a plane crash.

Waste Your Wedding (Itch.io) is a free platformer about trying to eat a giant cake.

Mala Petaka (Steam) is one of those retro shooters but look at those colors! It’s made in the GZ Doom engine too. If you want to try it out, there’s a demo on Steam.

That’s it for this week! Like I said, feel free to let me know about your game in whatever way works best for you. Nothing with AI art please!

Every day I wake up and say “What a week.” But it’s Friday, which means it’s actually near the end of the week so that’s something I suppose. Being back in school while having a full time job means that lately it’s just been free and pay-what-you-want indies I’ve been playing. Nothing wrong with that of course, but if you’re wondering why a lot of the bigger commercial indies aren’t on here, that’s why. Six One Indie did a nice indie game showcase yesterday and that’s probably a better way to become more familiar with those. You could also always look at my list of indie game websites and plug them all into your RSS feed reader of choice.

The Play for Peace – Games for Palestine 2025 Charity Bundle (Itch.io) bundle sale ends in a few days. Foor $8 or more you can get tons of great games

There’s another anthlogy from the game dev collective I’m in! I didn’t work on this one but Locally Sourced Anthology II: The Timeline (Steam) is a collection of 5 games set in different points in time in different genres.

_ΩMEGA_POINT (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want walking simulator where you explore the last moments of a dying world in a mech.

Indiepocalypse #68 (Itch.io) is out. Check it out for a great collection of experimental indie games. Only one more month until we get to the nice number.

I’m just really fascinated by Mars Attracts (Steam) using the dormant Mars Attacks license to make a sim game. It’s nice to see that the user review for it have been positive too. What a weird thing to exist (complimentary).

Eclipsium (Steam) may not be for me because I’m not a big horror games person but I really like it looks. I just like a game that always has a hand sticking out in front.

Toward From (Itch.io) is a short experimental browser game that I think does some neat stuff connected to movement and was created for the Game Poems Community Showcase.

Matt Stark keeps creating really fun browser toys focused on building things and they’ve made another one. Mazegarden (Itch.io) is, as you would expect, a game focused on building maze gardens.

A new PUNKCAKE Délicieux game has arrived! Frontline: War of Echoes (Itch.io) is a capture the flag game where you play against recordings of yourself from previous runs.

Snarl (Itch.io) is a short point-and-click horror adventure set in a diner and available for Pay-What-You-Want. Be sure to check out the developer’s other adventures on their Itch page too if you’re a point-and-click adventure fan.

A Chirp in Space (Itch.io) is just a cute 3D puzzle platformer available for free!

Finally, have some Bitsy game poems!

I don’t know what happened but it feels like there were a million games this weekend, so apologies for the massive and kinda messy list. I hope you all are doing well. Blaugust has been pretty fun so far and it’s been nice seeing so many posts from other people I follow. If you’ve got a blog, consider joining in and posting a bunch!

Video Games

A new Indiepocalypse (Itch.io) has been released this month, featuring a nice set of video games and ttrpgs.

Wildwood Down (Steam) is an adventure game where you must solve a murder mystery at a boardwalk in New Jersey. The game features a protagonist with Down Syndrome modeled after and voiced by the designer’s childhood friend and has been receiving positive reviews from what I can see, which I think is really neat. There’s a demo available too.

I haven’t played anything submitted to the GMTK jam but it has almost 10,000 games so I’m sure there’s a few good ones in there.

Strange Jigsaws (Steam) is what you expect it to be, a collection of strange jigsaw puzzles. But I was a big fan of their previous game, the very good and free 20 Small Mazes.

This Downpour game touring the games exhibit at a local library is great! More games folks should do events at their library.

FALLSTRUKTUR (Steam/Itch.io) is a free game where you must descend down a giant structure in a first person view without falling too far. Sometimes you’re just awful at a game but can appreciate that it’s well made.

Valerie Paris has a very nice asset pack and tutorial on Itch for doing your own Myst-style adventure game.

Zentera (Itch.io) was already out but the assets and engine were just released for people to use on their own games.

Wholesome Games is doing a whole thing on Steam, don’t @ me about discourse, and it seems like some games releases have happened during it too? Is This Seat Taken? is a puzzle game about seating people at tables and booths. And Tall Trails is a chill exploration game.

I don’t think? Tiny Bookshop (Steam) is connected to that one, but I am a book nerd so this has been one I’ve been watching for a while. It has a demo!

I don’t think Sands of Home (Steam) is either but it’s heavily marketed to the chill, cozy games crowd as well. It is an isometric puzzle game and features a demo.

1000 Deaths (Steam) looks like a very trippy 3D platformer and there’s a demo available to try. Something about it reminds me of early 00s console games.

I don’t know anything about PAGER (Steam) but it’s an adventure game with a nice 1-bit aesthetic so it’s going in the post. Someone let me know how it is!

I haven’t heard anything about Prometheum (Itch.io) either but it’s published by Thalamus so it’s probably a good arcade game where you blow things up. I was also excited to see that Ste Pickford did some art for the game.

Desktop Forest (Steam) is just a really chill time on your desktop and it’s $1. There’s a bunch of options so you can adjust it to the scenery you like and then you just let it run and listen to the nature sounds.

Azaran: The Demon Bottle (Steam) is a short game inspired by the first Zelda game.

TTRPGs

Dragon Reactor (Backerkit) is described as a “mythopoetic mech tragedy game about conflict on a grand scale.” It’s for 2+ players, with one as a GM, has a demo, and I think it’s worth a look. I’m a huge fan of Dinoberry Press and it’s always nice to see them working on another game.

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.

Lemon Shark (Itch.io) is a fun PICO-8 game that turns Pac-Man into a turn based puzzle game. There’s a little more to that but it’s a really nice twist on the formula.

The pink decker jam is still going on Itch.io and there’s already quite a few games submitted. Decker is a Hypercard-like tool and this jam is about making apps and games using a pink palette created for the jam.

As required by law, I am here to inform you that a new Indiepocalypse is out on Itch.io. This one features a brand new ttrpg by Viditya Voleti so of course it’s a great one.

A Solitaire Mystery (Steam) is a collection of solitaire games by the designer of Baba is You, with some of them being more standard solitaire games and others being more experimental.

I somehow missed that INFINITE TEARS released the new walking sim The Light of Our Yearning as pay-what-you-want on Itch.io. I highly recommend this and every other game they’ve made.

GrimVaders (Itch.io) is a neat autobattler for browsers with nice pixel art.

BioMenace Remastered (Steam) released a demo with a full released planned for this fall. Bio Menace was originally a 1993 shareware game that was published by Apogee, but I believe the original developer owns the rights. The developer who worked on the remasters of Duke Nukem 1 and 2 for the Evercade is leading development of the remaster.

ChipWits (Steam) is a remake of the 1984 puzzle game for the Macintosh.

A Chamber of Stars (Steam/Itch.io) is a surreal adventure game about the rise and fall of a rock star.