indie game roundup

There were a lot of really cool indie games in April! Here’s some things you might be interested in! I hate writing intros!

The Aching

a person falling into a pool of green stuff

One of the games I was most excited for this month is The Aching. It’s an adventure game inspired by 80s Sierra adventure games but without the things in those games that annoy me like frequent softlocks, poor parser, and hugely problematic writing. I don’t mind deaths in adventure games but this doesn’t have those either and it actually has some fun puzzles that involve great harm happening to your character. I love the art and how it runs on basically everything, including DOS. It started as an entry in the DOS Games Jam I organize and it’s cool seeing how far it has come. It’s the first game publisher by DOS games publisher Hadrosaurus Software and hopefully many more will follow.

Breathe

a bird and text saying "I get that in some regions they are an invasive species, in direct competition for resources with the"

Breathe is a relaxing walking simulator (their words, not mine!) by PRINCESS INTERNET CAFé. I was a huge fan of one of their previous games about a dying MMO, Running Back to You. I was impressed how this was made with a heavily modified version of Bitsy. It’s fun seeing how much people have changed Bitsy and I’m curious what they’ll do with it next.

Barren Planet

top down screenshot of two space armies fighting

Barren Planet is another DOS game that came out this month! I love seeing games come out for platforms that are supposed to be dead but people continue making exciting things for them. Barren Planet is a turn-based strategy game where two corporations battle on another planet. The campaign starts off pretty simple but introduces new mechanics and units with each level. I also got to beta test this one too!

LesbiAnts

LesbiAnts is a rpg for the Game Boy with erotic elements. You play as a colony of ants investigating mysterious seed pods and fighting mutated insects. Not only do I love seeing games for “dead” platforms as stated above, it’s exciting to see queer games that Nintendo would never approve of being made for their platforms. The Itch page also has a playable demo in the browser if you want to try it out.

DOMINO CLUB Dream Gallery Jam

a computer desktop that looks like it's from the 90s

We also got a batch of new DOMINO CLUB games this month! DOMINO CLUB is a collective of game developers who anonymously create experimental games during jams that occur 1-2 times a year. Each jam has games doing really exciting and new things and there’s always a couple games in each jam that I absolutely love. If you’re looking for a place to start, why not try im doing better now or TRAUMAKT~4.SEXE

Here’s some very brief thoughts on games that came out in January that I really enjoyed

Luckily, My Arm is a Shotgun

This is a new game by the developer of The Chameleon where you play as a little dude on an island trying to escape. You explore the island in search of parts for your boat and shoot monsters with the shotgun arm mentioned in the title of this game. It’s a fun, cheap game that’s available on Itch. Weirdly enough, it reminded me of Ocean’s Jurassic Park game from the early 90s. It’s much better than that but the way some parts of the island were designed looked somewhat like that. Who knows. I should probably just stop thinking about bad games from the 90s with great soundtracks.

WASTE EATER

WASTE EATER is a short (10 minute) interactive fiction game about rebuilding the world after the apocalypse and is both melancholic and hopeful. Since it’s so short I don’t want to say much about it other than I thought it was great and moving, and people should check it out.

Boundless Dungeon of Sexual Misadventures

I was a fan of the developer’s previous game Some Sword / Some Play and was excited to see her create a tabletop game. It uses a tarot deck to provide prompts for writing sexy stories and I thought the mechanics to inspire writing were cleverly designed. As you can probably guess, both games mentioned here are adult games and not safe for work.

Tachyon Dreams 3

This is the third game in a trilogy of adventure games by an adventure game dev Cosmic Void. I’m a fan of the Tachyon Dreams trilogy because it’s strongly inspired by the classic Sierra games from the 80s which were graphic adventures but used a text parser for commands, like the early Space Quest and King’s Quest games. However, the parser is better designed than those and adventure game designed has improved so much by then so it’s fun to revisit that style of adventure game design without the frustrating parts. If you are looking for more games in this style, I also recommend Snail Trek, which is available on Steam, and this list of parser graphic adventures I put together on Itch

The Virtual Moose

April 2023 Indie Game Roundup

January 2023 Indie Game Roundup