This blog was pretty quiet this week because it’s been a hell week but things have calmed down now. Oh well, these things happen I guess. How was your week? What have you been playing lately? Let me know in the comments.

The Videotome Jam (Itch.io) has started! Videotome is a series of small IF/VN engines and you can find all four on the jam page.

The Steam Next Fest is also happening right now. I haven’t really dug into the demos yet but there’s a lot of them. Maybe you’ll find something neat.

Collage Advertisement : Propaganda (Itch.io) is a short, political VN made in the hypercard-inspired tool Decker. Please read the content warning/disclaimer first!

Mourningstar (Itch.io) is a “satanic” “biblepunk” dark science fantasy tabletop rpg about resistance, rebellion, othering, theology, individuality, misfits, colonialism, divine politics, infernal magic, & exploring the stars as swashbuckling devils. The game is inspired by the Forged in the Dark framework. The game was created by super talented game designer and musician Devin Nelson.

Indie Games+ has a nice review of a new game called Snow Flow. The game is playable for free on Itch.io and the art reminds me a lot of 80s Macintosh games.

Lorenzo Pilia created a manifesto On Small Games (Itch.io).

Johnson. A Plane Man is a game created in Downpour (Link) by Hyphinett. Downpour is a really fun tool for making very small games.

Not new but still cool, Karambola (Steam/Itch.io) is a free point-and-click adventure that reminds me of games like Samorost. There’s an art book for sale (Steam/Itch.io) if you would like to support the dev.

The Ghost and the Golem (Steam) is an interactive historical fantasy story published by Choice of Games about if your magic amulet save your Jewish village from destruction.

It’s not indie but I think it’s really interesting that Backyard Baseball ’97 (Steam) was just rereleased on Steam with compatibility on modern OS and achievements.

NovaMundi (Steam) is an open world tactical game where you must unite the people of nearby towns to fight off Spanish invaders.

The Urge (Itch.io) is a short erotic story created in Twine by Oma Keeling about operating a machine.

That’s it for this week. If you enjoy these, subscribe to the blog through the RSS feed, tell a friend, and check out these games. I’ve also started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

It’s the first one of these in a post-Cohost world. What does that mean? Not much really. This is going to be a big one because I must clear out more the backlog in my list and people keep insisting on making games. Even that Geneforge guy who said there’s too many people making games keeps making them! What’s up with that? Always feel free to reply in the comments with either things you’ve made, or games you’ve been enjoying. I love comments. Anyway, here’s games.

Dodge 1000 Knives (Itch.io) is a free browser game where you must dodge 1000 knives. I’m bad at it but it’s good.

Raide (Itch.io) is a browser-based puzzle game where you put down train tracks for a train to move from a beginning to start point. I really enjoyed its short levels and artwork.

Backstreet Warriors (Itch.io) is a browser brawler game, like Double Dragon, made in PICO-8 where you must defeat 99 people to win.

The Queer Halloween Stories Bundle 2024 (Itch.io) is a collection of queer games, comics, stories, etc for $60, although there’s a bundle you can buy at a lower price too.

Pinball Spire (Steam) is a pinball game but with a Metroid-like structure. I watched a stream of it yesterday and it looked fun!

Cyclopean now has a demo (Steam). It’s a first person dungeon crawler inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and I think the art style looks pretty neat!

Just so you can see how far behind I am, Strange Scaffold has released two games! CLICKOLDING (Itch.io/Steam) is a game where you clicked a counter while a masked man watches you and I Am Your Beast (Steam) is a fast-paced covert fps set in micro sandboxes. Both games seem like they have done very well, which is always nice to see for a studio like Strange Scaffold.

The Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival is open again (Itch.io). This is a Pay-What-You-Want online game where you carve some pumpkins and put them up for everyone to see.

Tiny Glade (Steam) just looks like a very lovely diorama builder where you create castles and cottages where no specified goals or win conditions. It also seems like it’s been a massive success from looking at the number of Steam reviews.

ODDADA (Steam) looks like an incredibly pleasant music toy that was recommended to me by Flyover Games. Just look at all the fiddly little bits you can play with and bright colors in those screenshots.

The Portal Tomb (physical book) is a tabletop rpg for 5 players and 1-2 sessions that uses Ogham runes instead of dice to generate a story set at a queen’s funeral.

As I was typing this, a new Indiepocalypse is now available (Itch.io). This one features future classics like SNAKEBYTE, a very good Metroid-like game where you explore a computer as an ASCII snake, EyeOS (I think I covered that one before?), and an arcade game called Be Not Afraid, But Run by Renegade Sector Games.

10BF.EXE (Itch.io) is a dual screen bullet hell but you can also capture spell cards and use them on your enemies.

Melon Head (Itch.io) is a new surreal point-and-click adventure featuring EGA art. I don’t even know how to describe it so you’ll have to check it out yourself. There’s a free demo if you’re interested.

Forever Space (Itch.io/Steam) is a remake of a previously made game by Pinhead Games. I haven’t played it but I’m a fan of their previous games like the Nick Bounty series and this seem the developer going in a horror direction.

Spaces are moments, not abstract or far away (Itch.io) is a free browser game described a poemware. I thought it was a beautiful space to explore and really liked the photography mechanic.

Hamayumishi: Night Parade of a Hundred Yokai (Itch.io) is an upcoming twin-stick shooting platformer by Nice Gear Games that I think looks really nice and it just got a demo.

Linker has a new game in developer that looks like a nice puzzle platformer (Itch.io). No title yet and it’s early in development but everything by them is great.

Here’s some things that aren’t games but I think you’ll enjoy:

If you are a fan of Hypercard then you’ll love Decker (Itch.io). It’s a free browser tool for making interactive documents and we just got a new version.

Wonderful game dev Big Hand In Sky has released 3 short stories that are Pay-What-You-Want on Itch.io: OVERLOAD, Name: [Here], and Looking at Clouds.

If you’re working in Zonelets, here’s a tool to make working with RSS a little easier.

And finally, here’s a couple of indie games that aren’t new but I finally got around to playing them and would recommend:

Here’s a remake of the classic arcade game Berzerk in PICO-8 (Itch.io). Everyone likes Berzerk!

Snoik! (Itch.io) is a twist on the classic Snake game for the Playdate. This time you’re switching between two planes to avoid hitting your tail.

Well, this is the last roundup I’m doing before Cohost becomes read-only, so if you’ve enjoyed these consider subscribing to my RSS feed? I’ve still got a backlog of games to post about but if there’s something cool you’ve (or a friend) worked on, please let me know either on social media or in the comments here. Or even just comment on this post with what you’ve been playing lately, indie or not, I always love to hear that too.

With Cohost winding down, some people have started to make games and toys featuring its mascot Eggbug. You can find some in this collection on Itch.io but I’m sure there’s plenty of other games too, like this game and this eggbug creation tool.

Speaking of Cohost, people there keep talking about how great Crypt Worlds (Itch.io) is. I haven’t played it yet but the devs have been making free games for a long time and it sounds like they could really use the support right now, so consider picking it up.

I’m not a racing person but Golden Lap (Steam) seems like a fun management game from the people who brought you Art of Rally.

Parking Garage Rally Circuit (Steam) looks like a Sega Saturn-ish inspired arcade racing game and the reviews for it have been very positive so far.

Ramón Wilhelm made a free point-and-click adventure game a while ago that I really enjoyed called Yip Quest, and he’s back at it again with another kobold adventure game called Gurk in Trouble (Itch.io). It’s free and playable in the browser too.

It was part of the $108 Adventure Game Challenge game jam, which got a bunch of entries. Consider checking those out on Itch.

There were also some really interesting adventure games that were made for the PowerJam3 game jam back in August too (see, big backlog of things to post). These games (Itch.io) were made using the PowerQuest plugin for Unity. PowerQuest is a tool just for making point-and-click adventures and kinda sorta feels like Adventure Game Studio from my limited experience with both. The one that seemed to get the most attention was Terminal City, a game that plays like an endless runner but with a text parser, but check them all out.

Devil’s Hideout (Steam/Itch.io) came out earlier this month if you’re looking for horror point-and-click adventures. I’m a big fan of Cosmic Void’s games and this is another great one.

Exophobia (Steam) is a retro-looking FPS that was released back in July that I enjoyed even despite some of my exhaustion of the retro FPS revival that’s happening (partially because they just look and don’t feel retro). This one is kind of a mix of early FPS like Wolfenstein 3D and Catacomb 3D and Metroid-style exploration games.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!

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.

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.

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!

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