I’m finally free from school for the next few weeks which means you’ll probably see these posts more often. Since it’s been a while, this will probably be a longer one but there’s a few things I had to get out there now, so you’ll probably see a bunch of these over the next few days. Maybe play an indie game from Itch tonight instead of watching a bad awards show. If you enjoy today’s post, consider signing No Games For Genocide.

New Releases

The fifth Madvent Calendar is available for free on Itch.io. Every day a new short game with a PSX aesthetic becomes available for you to play! If you somehow get through all the games in this, I highly recommend checking out previous years.

Did you know that Raymond Briggs’ children’s book The Snowman had a game for the ZX Spectrum in 1984? I’m not British so I didn’t! Well, now it has a remake for the PC that is available on Itch.io as Pay-What-You-Want.

‘A Normal Lost Phone’, ‘Another Lost Phone: Laura’s Story’ & ‘Alt-Frequencies’ are getting delisted on Steam on January 30th 2026. I don’t know what that means for the games on Itch.io, but if you want to pick them up before then, they’re all on sale for less than a dollar. I only played A Normal Lost Phone out of these but liked that one.

Phobos Down (dev site) looks like a neat little low-poly twin sticker shooter on Steam and Itch where you shoot bugs.

The Krampus Case (Itch.io) is a free interactive fiction game made in Twine where you find out who kidnapped Santa. You’ve got 25 actions you can take but only 20 days so choose your actions wisely.

Random Dungeon Generator (Itch.io) is just a fun little browser toy that generates new dungeon ideas for you.

Every year, Tom Hall of Commander Keen/Doom/Anachronox fame makes a little Christmas-themed PICO-8 game and organizes a game jam for the community. This year his game is SANTA SACK (Itch.io), a game where you are Santa and extend your arm back and forth to collect falling toys and avoid coal. Tom is the best and it’s fun that someone who made games in my childhood that I loved is still noodling with smaller arcade games and helps organize things for the community.

I assume everyone reading this already knows about HORSES (Itch.io/GOG/Humble), the game that got banned by Steam despite being pretty tame. Not going to get into the bad faith takes on how Steam can do what they want or how it’s a good game, much smarter people have discussed it. I’ve been a hater of Steam’s moderation both on the store and community for a very long time. It’s why I do these posts, because so many indie sites and streamers will just not look at anything that’s not on Steam, even if they have Indie in their name. Anyway, good game, go check it out.

Game Manual Jam 25 is a jam on Itch.io where people make manuals for games that do not exist.

Finji has released CorgiSpace (Itch.io/Steam), a collection of games made in PICO-8. If you’ve been playing the PICO-8 games by Adam that I’ve been posting in here, you already know they are a good time. This contains some of those with fixes as well as new ones. Not that everything needs to be commercialized, but I do enjoy seeing people making commercial games with smaller engines like this. There is also a game jam to promote the game and encourage people to make small, experimental games.

That’s it for today. I’ll try to knock a few of these out over the next week so apologies for the spam in your RSS feed reader if you’ve got the site in there. If you’ve got a game that doesn’t use AI, feel free to send me an email about it with a link to your Steam/Itch/whatever page. Or you can just say hi. That’s fine too.

Today is the Black Friday day on Itch.io, where the site is not taking a cut from sales. Technically you can adjust the scale on your page so they never do this, but it’s fun to have a day where it’s enabled by default. Plenty of people have put their games on sale like mine, but I probably have more respect for people that have increased the prices on their games for today. I suppose you could always scan through this list I made on Itch to see what games that have been covered in these roundups are on sale.

Unrelated to indie games, have this video of a moose hitting a cop car on bluesky

There are still lots of new indie game releases happening every day too and here’s some of the ones I’ve noticed. Apologies for today’s post being a little low effort but for me today is a day where I don’t do much and mostly eat leftovers.

The Games

Endless Stairwell (Itch.io) is a pay-what-you-want system-neutral TTRPG one page dungeon inspired by surreal horror games like P.T. and MyHouse.wad. Throw it into your campaign if you want to mess with players.

TRANSMORFIGATION (Itch.io) is a solo lyric ttrpg about transmorfigation. It’s a new game by Maria Mison and that’s always exciting news.

This bundle of queer art on itch just launched!

erysdren released a free compilation of MS-DOS demos (Itch.io)

The fantastic Moonring is now on Switch. My understanding from comparing the DX version on Switch and the Steam DLC to the free version is that it comes with a massive dungeon? In any case, Moonring! People should play it on either platform.

Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved (Steam) is a new visual novel/detective game in the style of older adventure games from Japan. Look at it! It looks great. It reminds me that I need to play Famicom Detective Club too.

Berserk B.I.T.S (Steam) looks like an auto battler/idler game strongly inspired by the Mega Man Battle Network games. While the Battle Network games were never quite for me, I can see why this game would be exciting for other folks. Steam reviews have been very positive too.

Windswept (Steam/Xbox/PS/Switch) looks like a really cute platformer where you are a duck and a turtle. It has a demo to try too!

Well the Cloudflare issues may have taken down most of the internet but you know what place didn’t go down? That’s right. I guess it didn’t really matter since Itch was down and a majority of the links posted wouldn’t work anyway. Here’s some games:

Gnorts Vs. the Greylenoids (Itch.io) is a free prototype platformer that resembles 2.5D platformers for the Playstation and I think it has a really nice filter it’s going through to make it look like it’s on an old tv. If you like the aesthetic it has, check out SodaRaptor’s other games. Check out the other entries for the ShroomJam 2025 too, since a lot of other games were aiming for a similar aesthetic for the theme like DUCK TAPE.

VIDEOVERSE is a visual novel inspired by the MiiVerse and early 00s forums that I’ve been a huge fan of for a long time on the PC (Steam/Itch) and now it has launched for consoles like the Switch and Playstation.

Drill Bird (Steam) is just a cute and affordable puzzle platformer and it’s got a demo if you want to give it a try.

Speaking of puzzle games, the ThinkyCon Jam 2025 just wrapped up and there’s a ton of free puzzle games for you to try on Itch.

Sometimes you just want a nice twin stick shooter with lots of bright colors and exposions and Sektori (Steam/PS/Xbox) looks like a nice one of those.

The Tower of the Forest Wizard (Itch.io) is not a video game and in fact a coloring book, but I think it’s neat that an artist I like put a coloring book on Itch so here it goes.

The developers of Trüberbrook have been working on this adventure game for the last four years. The Berlin Apartment (Steam) is a first-person adventure game where you explore an apartment to discover its history, but unlike the Robert Zemeckis film Here, it does not have uncanny valley Tom Hanks. There’s a demo if you’d like to give it a try.

it sucks to be us (Itch.io) is a free interactive fiction about a closeted trans masculine person and a trans man who was forced to detransition. Obviously there’s going to be content warnings that come with something like that but I think it’s really a remarkable and well-written game and even as someone who is not a trans man, did have things I could relate to.

BIRDCAGE (Steam) looks like an incredible Radiant Silvergun-inspired shmup for the PC. I only played the demo but it felt great to control, loved that it has difficulty settings, and nailed the aesthetics of its inspirations. It’s a golden age for people who are nostalgic for late 90s video games.

My attempt to post about all the indie games continues. I didn’t play that much these last few days because of school and was also listening to Tim Curry’s memoir, which I enjoyed. He mentions having fun working on Red Alert 3 but nothing about Gabriel Knight or Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster! Unbelievable! Still a very good book though. Video games are good but books? Also good. You’ll see a one or two pop up in today’s post.

If you enjoy today’s post, consider tossing a few dollars to indie game hero Rob, developer of great games like Death Ray Manta and supporter of many indie game devs over the last few decades.

The Games

Rebel Wars (Itch.io) is a new top-down action game for the ZX Spectrum available for pay-what-you-want. If you didn’t know that Itch.io has a very active ZX Spectrum community, then I recommend checking out the tag on Itch.io and seeing all the great games still being made for the computer.

Alien Detector (Itch.io) is a parody of those novelty programs you would see being made for Windows during the 90s.

Merp in Merpworld (Itch.io/Steam) is a new 2D platformer by maybell. that is inspired by GBC platformers. I am a giant fan of their previous games like satryn deluxe so I am excited to see them make something in a different genre.

MORSE (Steam) is a minimalist strategy game that teaches you morse code. You can even hook up a telegraph key to play it. I need a streamer to play this with a telegraph key, please.

Choose Your Own Adventure books count as games IMO and if you were a fan of the Tex Murphy adventure game series, a new mystery in CYOA format has been released. You can pick it up on Amazon and I THINK on Aaron Conner’s site as well if you want a signed copy of it or any of the other Tex Murphy books.

I suppose it might be a little weird to put something published by Devolver here since they’re getting pretty big but Heart Machine is a great developer that has been hit by layoffs right before releasing their latest game Possessor(s) (Steam). I know there was some understandable hesitation from some folks about buying the game but it sounds like people will receive revenue sharing even if they were let go.

After being in development for 7 years, GIGASWORD (Steam) is now available. It’s a metroidvania that leans more into a puzzle focus and has a demo if you want to try it.

If you enjoy arcade games with trippy visuals (aka Llamasoft fans) then THRASHER (Steam) may be worth a look. It’s from some of the folks that worked on THUMPER and has an optional VR mode.

Gila RPGs has published their free playtest for RAID (Itch.io), which is their take on the OSR style of ttrpg. It mixes sci-fi and fantasy elements into a game about killing gods. It’s only 11 pages long but already looks pretty snazzy.

That’s it for today’s post! If you’ve got something you’ve recently released and it doesn’t use AI, feel free to send me an email or message about it!

Did you know that about a billion new games come out every day and a lot of them are good? I feel like I cover a lot of games in these things and yet I know I’m leaving out tons of great stuff that is covered elsewhere. I just think that’s neat. The very good website No Escape said it’s not covering AAA games next year and focusing more on indie stuff, so if you would like to see more coverage of indie games, consider supporting their Patreon.

Anyway, here are some games. I have a big backlog of things to post about and more games keep coming out, so expect a few more of these roundups on a more regular basis.

Pomo Planet (Itch.io) is just a very cute pomodoro timer for your desktop, available as Pay-What-You-Want.

The Warrens (Steam) is a first-person horror immersive sim where you need to escape a murderous cult of rabbit-headed men. It has a demo too!

Fiction in the Space Between (Itch.io) is a collection of various ttrpg things inspired by Tracy Chapman songs.

Apparatus: Exanimus (Steam) is a first-person adventure horror game about navigating unsettling corridors and features a nice aesthetic inspired by late 90s 3D games.

Dragon Slayers (Itch.io) is a ttrpg by Gila RPGs and does the adventuring and fighting things in a fantasy setting thing, but is based on the Slayers rules so it’s much easier to pick up and play than the big fantasy ttrpg.

Q-UP (Steam) is a game about a coin flipping eSport that I’ve seen a lot of folks praising but don’t know a whole lot about. It’s the year of coin flipping games I guess. I’ve also seen a lot of comparisons to Balatro, a game that maybe isn’t quite for me but I know basically everyone loves. There’s a much better writeup of Q-UP here.

It continues to be an amazing year for adventure games. TRACE Definitive Edition (Steam) is a remaster of a first-person escape room adventure game from 2022 where you explore a strange planet. There’s also a demo if you want to give it a try.

There’s actually quite a few remasters and remakes of adventure games this last week. We had the (not indie but including it anyway) Syberia 1 remake (Steam) that just came out and also one for Intrigue At Oakhaven (Steam) from 2006. It’s not a game I ever heard of, but I have a weird fondness for adventure games from this era, when the genre was “dead” (it wasn’t but that’s a whole other topic) and you had a lot of weird low budget adventure games coming out during this time. Intrigue at Oakhaven still looks like a mid 00s adventure game even in the remake so I’m very curious about this. It’s fascinating to get two 00s adventure game remakes in the same week.

Generation Exile (Steam) is a turn-based city-builder set on a generation starship, where you must take care of your society in a sustainable way. This just entered Early Access but looks nice and the reviews so far look very positive.

Demos

TÖLT (Itch.io) is an upcoming game by the creator of horror games like The Enigma Machine and ECHOSTASIS with a look inspired by early 3D games. You are a horse. This is an unhinged observation from me but something about it reminds me of Lego Island.

SHRIMP GAME (Steam) is a solo or multiplayer third-person shooter RPG set in an abyssal realm. You pilot a shrimp and fight giant sea monsters.

That’s it for today’s post but I’m still working from my giant list of releases this week so expect more posts over the next few days. As usual, feel free to let me know if you’re working on something as long as it doesn’t use AI. Emails are nice too.

It’s only been a week since I’ve done one of these and there’s already been a billion games that have come out, so I’ll probably do a few of these over the next few days. It’s a bit less overwhelming and one of my kids has their birthday today so I don’t want to spend all day writing one of these.

If you enjoy this post, consider checking out Michael Coorlim’s site (games writer and narrative designer) and buying one of his books, checking out his patreon, or hiring him to work on your game. I liked his book Cold Reboot.

Anyway, here are just some of the games released this week

Oktrollberfest 2025 just wrapped up on Itch. It’s a game jam where people create troll games using ZZT and MegaZeux.

Minerva Labyrinth (Steam/Itch.io) is now available! It’s a first-person turn-based dungeon crawler set in the future. Sometimes these are referred to as blobbers. I was a beta tester on it and while I wasn’t very good at finding bugs, it’s a very good game and I recommend it.

No Players Online (Steam) got a commercial release! I was a huge fan of this horror adventure about a dead online game when it was just a freeware game so this is probably very good too.

It’s kind of been a ridiculous year for adventure games. Foolish Mortals (Steam) has been another big release that folks have been waiting for. I think the art looks fantastic and Adventure Game Hotspot gave it a glowing review.

Pepper Odyssey (Steam/Itch.io) is the newest game by Wavey Games. I was a big fan of their adventure game Melon Head and this one looks wild too. It’s an rpg where you are a pepper merchant stranded on an island and need to explore and interact with others to find a way off.

And finally there’s Indiepocalypse 70 (Itch.io), an excellent collection of experimental indie games.

That’s it for today because I don’t have time for the whole list but I’ll try to do one every day for a while and hopefully that’s not too much.

If you’ve noticed that I’ve been doing these a lot lately, you’re right! It’s less daunting to do a post on a smaller list of games than a big one so I’ve found I’m enjoying these more when I don’t wait so long. I’m also hoping that each game gets more attention too if it’s not part of a giant post.

If you enjoy this post, consider tossing a few dollars to the (very good fmv) Morph Girl creator’s (Itch.io/Steam) GoFundMe for Facial Feminisation Surgery.

Here are The Games

ECTOCOMP (Itch.io) just closed its submission window and now there are plenty of interactive fiction games available for voting on. ECTOCOMP is an interactive fiction competition focused on the month of Halloween and includes Twine games, parser adventures, and more!

Dead Sight (Itch.io) is a short, free horror game that is modeled after DS adventure games. It was created by Siactro, who I am a big fan of because of their Toree platformer games.

Blood & Money (Steam) is a Gauntlet-like that came across my feed from one of those bots that posts every release on Steam. I haven’t heard anything about it but 1. I like Gauntlet and 2. the graphics remind me A LOT of early 90s VGA DOS games so I would really like to know more if anyone has tried it. It sounds like there’s a demo but I haven’t been able to get to it.

Streamer and organizer of DOSember emmfoolery has released Emmy, Fool of Fen (Itch.io), a new CGA game for DOS that is available as Pay-What-You-Want. It was created for the DOSember game jam, which still has a month left.

HitoPetto! (Itch.io) is a free ttrpg for two people (but supports more) by Bez where someone must take care of the soul of someone that is trapped in a virtual pet game.

Lil Kobold’s Big Stew (Itch.io) is a new PICO-8 game by Adam Saltsman where you are a little kobold gathering ingredients for a Big Stew.

Speaking of PICO-8 games, The Door In The Wall (Itch.io) is an Atari-esque adaptation of the HG Wells short story by the same name. It was created for the Book Club Game Jam and you can check out the other entries here.

Faster, Ace, Kill, Kill! (Itch.io) is a board game where you are a teenage monster on a volleyball team trying to win this year’s tournament for your school. It was made for Folklore Jam 2025, an analogue game jam.

Finally, because I am a big Myst nerd, I need to mention there is a big Humble Bundle of the entire Myst series.

Thank you for reading today’s roundup. Always feel free to reply with what you’re working on or enjoying, or send me an email. Nothing AI generated please! Consider adding this blog to your RSS feed reader too.