What a Time to Be a Fan of Adventure Games

May 27, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve been following my indie game roundups, you’ll know that I’ve been in shock at how many adventure games have been coming out lately. I’ve never been an “adventure games are dead person” but even as someone that’s a bit touchy about that subject, I feel more comfortable lately saying it’s a great time to be a fan of the genre. If you like this post, both Adventure Game Hotspot and Adventure Gamers do a much better job of covering new adventure games than I do and you should add them to your RSS feed reader. You can even check out the calendar on Adventure Game Hotspot for more games released this year. You may also like ChoiceBeat for Interactive Fiction and Visual Novel coverage.

I also think Fireflower Games deserves a shoutout. If you’re looking for DRM-free adventure games, consider picking up a game from their store. Itch.io doesn’t get every indie game and this site has done a pretty good job building up a catalog of games from various adventure game folks. Plus a chunk of their proceeds gets donated to environmental groups (see their FAQ).

Anyway, here have been some of the ones I’ve come across this year. Some of the descriptions will be recycled from previous roundups (reusable content baby!) just because this list is massive and is already taking a long time. It’s also not even counting all the great interactive fiction games. Please leave comments with other games that you’re excited about because there’s definitely a lot I’ve left out. I was going to also include upcoming adventure games and others that have entered Early Access, but this post is already too big so I’m splitting that into a separate post along with one featuring adventure games I’ve enjoyed in the past few years before 2025.

Amerzone (Steam) got a remake and it looks great. I was a fan of the original and from looking at the Steam review, it looks like the remake does the game justice.

a shot of two astronauts and one is thinking "That's it, but the signals are still indecipherable."

Asterism (Steam) is an interactive concept album by Claire Morwood, filled with lovely music, but the highlight for me is this stop-motion art. Everyone probably knows by now that if a game has stop-motion art I’m required to put it in here. Look at it! Incredible. It also has a demo.

first person view of a decrepit building inside at night

After being in development for over a decade, horror point-and-click adventure ASYLUM (Steam) is now available. I’m a fan of the developer’s previous game Scratches, which is no longer on Steam due to a fallout with the co-designer, although they have said it’s fine if people find that game….online. They also have a free adventure game they released 10 years ago called Serena.

Au Revoir (Steam) is a cyberpunk point-and-click adventure described by the HauntedPS1 curator page as “Blade Runner Point and Click with a Haunted PS1 coat of paint. The puzzles ask you to really pay attention to the environment around you, but luckily that environment is a treat to take in.”

Do I even need to post about Blue Prince? I think everyone knows about it at this point. I’m not sure if a roguelike adventure game is for me personally but it sounds great and even the developers of Myst are very into it, so consider checking it out. It’s fun seeing a roguelike adventure game being such a massive hit vtoo.

Brassheart (Steam/GOG) is a 2D point-and-click adventure in a Steampunk setting. Adventure Game Hotspot and Adventure Gamers both liked it.

I fully support people making adventure games with big heads like in the original Maniac Mansion, so THE BRiLLiANT COUP (Steam) is a game that got my attention.

My understanding of the new Carmen Sandiego (Steam) is that it actually does a pretty good job maintaining the spirit of the original games even with it having 3D platforming elements.

Citizen Sleeper 2 (Steam) is maybe I weird one to include here because some people think of it as a rpg, but it’s Interactive Fiction enough for me to include. Absolutely loved the original and just haven’t gotten around to this one yet. I will someday, hopefully soon, and I’m sure I’ll love it.

first person view of someone kicking a soccer ball into cones

despelote (Steam) is a game that I’ve heard a ton of praise for in the lead up to its release. I think it looks fantastic.

Discolored 2 (Steam) is a first-person puzzle adventure game inspired by the Myst series, with a focus on puzzles based around color. I was a fan of the first game and this looks like it builds on that to create a bigger game with characters you interact with.

Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping looks like a really cute detective game and the Steam page says it’s only 2-3 hours, which sounds great to me. I guess it’s a standalone sequel to a game that came out last year.

a guy with red hair and a lab coat standing on the roof of a buildilng with a small rocket and telescope

Elroy and the Aliens (Steam) is a new point-and-click adventure where you play as Elroy and Peggie in the search of a long-lost father in an alternate version of the 90s. It looks like a very charming adventure game and there’s even a demo if you want to give it a try. I’m not too familiar with the team other than it has Robert Megone working on it, who has also worked on games like Return to Monkey Island and Thimbleweed Park. A recent video from the Space Quest Historian even has him saying it’s one of the best adventure games he’s played recently.

hard to describe but it's a first person view of a conversation with a house and it is giving a thumbs up and saying "they can't kidnap our free will to go to the bathroom"

ENA: Dream BBQ (Steam) is a free first-person adventure game where you explore surreal environments.

a woman saying to a crying girl "Verity Amersham, as of this moment...you are expelled!"

Expelled! (Steam/Switch/iOS) is the newest game by interactive fiction developers Inkle. You are a student at a school that has been framed for attempted murder and must prove your innocence or find someone to take the fall in a limited period of time. It follows a similar framework as one of Inkle’s previous games, Overboard, which I was a massive fan of. Hooray for interactive fiction.

Frog Bard (Steam/Itch.io) is a short, poetic experience about finding inspiration in the world around you.

I don’t really know what Ginger (Steam) is but I keep seeing people recommend it and saying how weird it is, so I guess take a look if you like weird adventure games?

pixel art of a man and a woman standing outside of a closed pawn shop at night

Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer is one that I think a lot of adventure game fans were excited. I was a fan of the first game and the studio’s other adventure, Whispers of a Machine.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Steam) is the newest game by DON’T NOD, creators of the Life is Strange series. I haven’t played it yet but I imagine if you like those games, you’ll also like this. It’s set in the 90s in northern Michigan so it feels targeted directly at me.

a person shooting some kind of flaming ball towards a giant stone cup in the water

I don’t know a whole lot about Many Nights a Whisper (Steam) but it looks like a beautiful adventure game (or at least adjacent to the genre), has quite a few positive reviews, and it’s described as “A short interactive essay on dreams, pressure, and expectations. Take part in an ancient ritual where one shot determines the fate of a generation.” and that sounds interesting to me.

Metamorph (Steam) is a horror adventure game described by the HauntedPS1 curator as “Fantastic short Kafka inspired game with HPS1 vibes. Discover the ordeal of being known and, if you’re lucky, the rewards of being loved.” Does that make it a Bad Mojo-like?

Near-Mage (Steam) is the newest game by Stuck in Attic, developers of Gibbous. You discover you are a witch and attend the Transylvanian Institute for Magick.

person sitting on a rooftop in a city at night

Neon Hearts City (Steam/Itch.io) is the newest adventure game from Cosmic Void. I’m a fan of Cosmic Void’s previous games and I’m looking forward to digging into this one too. I just don’t know how they manage to put out so many solid adventure games so quickly. I know there’s folks helping like Stephen Don (check out his games too) but man, that’s still a lot of games.

a woman sitting in a futuristic bar with a man and a hologram for a bartender and saying "It always depends"

Old Skies (Steam) is the newest game by Wadjet Eye Games. I’m so happy this is out. I got to play a beta and think it’s one of their best, if not best, point-and-click adventures, and replaying the game right now confirms that. It’s a time travel story featuring incredible art by Ben Chandler and great voice acting by a lot of the folks that have acted in previous Wadjet Eye Games adventures.

text saying "You are inside the cave. You hear the sounds of small animals scurrying away. You look for a place to dig. You dig and find some gold coins!"

People are still making games for the Commodore 64. Pirates of the Black Seas (Itch.io) is a new text adventure available for Pay-What-You-Want created with the classic IF writing software Quest Writer by Loadstar.

a tiny clown in tall grass with a home made out of household garbage

Poco (Steam) is “a 2D/3D hybrid point-and-click adventure game where you play as Poco, a two-inch tall clown who is banished from a giant walking circus, and left to fend for themselves in the undergrowth of the Below World.” The art in this looks fantastic, it has hundreds of positive reviews, and it’s free!

a giant finger riding in the back of a truck — Promise Mascot Agency

Promise Mascot Agency (dev site) is the newest game by the developers of Paradise Killer. It’s an open-world adventure game/mascot management sim and has been a total delight to play. The soundtrack by Ryo Koike and Alpha Chrome Yayo has been a highlight for me. This one was a little bit of a stretch but if Adventure Game Hotspot says it counts then that’s good enough for me.

image of a cork board and there being a to-do list to help the player complete the family tree of the roottree sisters

The Roottrees are Dead (Steam) is an expanded version of the original hit game created for Global Game Jam 2023.

One of the biggest releases for me this year is the point-and-click adventure Rosewater (Steam), a western adventure by the creator of Lamplight City, and set in that universe but you do not need to play that first (but you should also play that). It’s a fantastic game and man, look at all those rotoscoped animations!

Slender Threads (Steam) is a paranormal point-and-click adventure that I’ve seen get a lot of praise by folks in the adventure game community.

first person view of someone using an old computer — Spider Land

Spider Land (Steam/Itch.io) is a short interactive fiction about a doomsday prepper and is available for free/pay-what-you-want.

Spring Thing is a yearly IF competition that’s always worth a look.

Stellar Mess: Operation Kush (Steam/Itch.io) is the second part in the Stellar Mess series. As an enjoyer of the era of Lucasarts adventure games where the art was in EGA and people had big heads, I think it deserves a shoutout.

deep sea divers under water and a man saying "terrible, about that creature. Still, you can't be caught out with those diverse. Just pick someone who's strongheaded enough to make a move"

Sub-Verge is a game where you control a group of deep-sea divers and looks incredibly stressful, haha. I think it looks really good though.

The Talos Principle: Reawakened (Steam) is a remake of the first game and adds the DLC and some new stuff with some snazzy new graphics. I’ve been a long time Croteam fan so it’s interesting to me darn it.

person wearing a gas mask saying "may I incline my heart to speak with you, Penry?"

the Devil rais’d the storm (Itch.io) is a visual novel/adventure game about locating a radar signal deep in the canyons near your remote outpost. Available for just $2.

Type Help (Itch.io) is a brilliant Obra-Dinn/Roottrees are Missing-like that is free and playable in the browser. Don’t really want to give too much away but it’s very impressive that this was all done in Twine and critically acclaimed interactive fiction author Andrew Plotkin has also discussed why it’s brilliant on his blog.

Various Retro Gaming Bits

May 24, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really know where to categorize all of these things but feel like they should be shared, so here’s kind of a link dump of retro gaming stuff I’ve come across in the last month that I think is neat.

a laptop showing the text adventure game amnesia but with a lot of UI elements added

The 1986 adventure game Amnesia has a very nice restoration where you can play the game as it was originally released on the C64, Apple IIe, and PC, but it also has a contemporary web mode with tons of quality of life features added.

A new ZX Spectrum fan zine launched about a month ago and it’s available for free on Itch.

man in a film studio asking another man in a hole "what are you doing in there?"

denzquix has done a lot of great translations of adventure games and the latest is for Bi-Fi: Action in Hollywood, a promotional point-and-click adventure game from 1994 for Bi-Fi Rolls, a salami-based snack originating in Germany and sold across Europe. You can read more about it here on BlueSky.

The cd-rom TRIPITAKA 玄奘三蔵求法の旅, the sequel to the legendary Cosmology of Kyoto has finally been saved and put on the Internet Archive! It’s incredible that this has been preserved and you can read more about it on BlueSky. If you’ve never played Cosmology of Kyoto, it’s currently abandonware but you can treat yourself to this nice repackaging of it.

This looks like a nice update of the classic DOS game Abuse.

top down view of a robot dog flying through space

Rex and the Galactic Plague just looks like a fun teaser for an Amiga game and the dog reminds me of K9 from Doctor Who. Sometimes I just get excited about people still making Amiga games and this one is on Itch.

Project Magma is a restoration of the game Myth that’s new to me and maybe it’s new to you as well. If you’ve never played Myth before, it’s great!

Idk, that’s all. This isn’t a recurring bit on this blog. I just wanted to share all these things because I think they’re cool.

Doctor Who is so Good

May 17, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

just watched the latest episode and man, this season has been so good. Probably the best the show has been in a long time and I wish it kicked off with this quality level last year, even if I liked that season too. I won’t spoil anything but the latest episode was just such a nice surprise for fans of the old series and I’m looking forward to what happens next. Just so much I would never expect to see and last week’s episode was even better in terms of the writing level. Good stuff!

Music CDs Are the Best

May 5, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ 5 Comments

Yesterday was the last day of Bookstock, a local week-long used book sale that’s held at a nearby mall to raise additional money for Detroit schools. It was rainy and crummy outside so I went that and ended up picking up a lot of cds from the 90s and 00s from artists like Enya, Tori Amos, Zero 7, Midnight Oil, Mazzy Star, and Sarah McLachlan. On top of the cds already being cheap, everything was also half off so they could get rid of as much as possible. Of course I ripped all the cds to my plex server while reading the booklets, something I really enjoy from the cd era. What no one told me though, and I guess why would they, is that Sarah McLachlan’s album Surfacing is a fucking multimedia cd-rom??

screenshot showing merch from lilith fair, a festival from the 90s that sarah organized. It's two posters.

Three posters from the cd that were available for sale.

It will probably surprise no one that I absolutely lost my shit when I realized this and it made me so happy with absolutely no irony. You can choose between two applications. There’s the catalogue where you can look up various items to order, like cds, prints, vhs tapes, and jewelry. There’s also an electronic press kit about all of her albums.

a menu screen for the electronic press kit showing a tree and faint links that would show up when you have the mouse over them

I realize that I’m the only person getting excited about this in 2025 but man, those colors and fonts! I wish most cds had done this. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that I’ve leaned much more into cd collecting this last year but making a Plex server really pushed me into it. I still get to have a nice little physical piece of art to accompany the music but it’s so much cheaper than having a vinyl record, which is the opposite of how things were when I had started collecting records. I don’t know if I buy that Gen Z is going to bring back the cd format but I have been having fun picking up cds at an incredibly low cost and have even bought a few through Bandcamp as well. Anyway, if you’re a musician reading this, have you considered paying a developer to put together a little program listing all of your works, biography, maybe song clips, video, and all that with your album? Because I will be the first in line to buy your album if you do.

text about the making of the album Surfacing and where it was recorded

By contrast, this is what I get when I put in the Zero 7 album. Boooooooo

a message that thanks you for buying the cd and has a link to a webpage or just to play the cd

Good Stuff Saturday

April 26, 2025April 26, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

It’s Good Stuff Saturday! The day when you post “good stuff” on someone’s Itch (or other art) page!

I did not invent the day. I think I posted one time about how you should post “good stuff” on someone’s Itch page instead of just giving 5 stars and it morphed into that elsewhere. Giving 5 stars/a positive review is also very good and nice but it always makes me happy when I get a nice comment on a game I make too.

You do not literally need to post “good stuff.” It’s probably actually better to post a more thoughtful comment than that, but consider taking the time to say something nice about someone’s game (Itch.io/Steam), music (Bandcamp), or other art. I don’t think comments on Itch and Bandcamp have any algorithm boost, it’s just to make someone feel good about their art.

Social Media Break in May?

April 19, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ 6 Comments

After seeing a few other folks take breaks from social media recently, I think I’m going to do one for the month of May. I just think it would be good for me to take a break for a little bit since the world is…..a lot right now. The timing also works out because I’m going to be starting grad school and having less distractions while I get adjusted to being in school again would be good for me. This really just means not using Mastodon, Blue Sky, and Instagram. I’ll still keep using Discord and forums and I’m going to allow myself to cancel this hiatus if there’s any major life events or emergencies that I need to tell about. Mother’s Day is also in May so I’ll probably make a post about that. My blog posts will automatically go to both Mastodon and Bluesky but I won’t be looking at them so please comment directly on the posts if you have any thoughts.

But that’s it. There’s no moral reason for it, I’m just exhausted by it at the moment. That said, I do hate FOMO and encourage everyone to join me for purely selfish reasons.

This does mean that I will be posting on here a lot more often, because I must still post. But I will avoid junking up your RSS feed with more than one post a day.

Like my About page says, I welcome Discord messages and email, and you’re welcome to message me on Signal at mikeklam.87. Yep, even just saying hi is welcome!

I do wonder how much this will impact my indie game roundups since I find out so much from Bluesky and mastodon, so again, please feel free to message me or comment on posts with your games or other ones that excite you. I’m looking forward to this and seeing how it goes since I spend way too much time on social media.

Michigan Video Game History Link Dump

April 15, 2025April 15, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

I recently came across two things on the Internet Archive that I thought might interest other folks that are local to the area. The first was brought to my attention by streamer BogusMeatFactory. It’s a complete backup of the University of Michigan Atari Archive. Bogus originally sent it to me because it might have contained info on the MUD I keep searching for, HeroMUD. It does not, but it’s still a fascinating snapshot of what the university had for Atari related stuff.

The second thing is an archive of the Michigan Atari Computer Enthusiasts Journal. I’ve only looked at a little bit of it so far but it’s already a fascinating snapshot of a community in a specific region. There’s so many ads for local businesses too. I’m really hoping to come across MUD info in here. This looks like it eventually merged into the Michigan Atari Magazine, which also has at least a partial archive uploaded by Kay Savetz, writer and host of the great Eaten by a Grue podcast.

cover of Michigan Atari Computer Enthusiasts featuring a man and a woman but they have computers for heads

Every MMO I’ve Played

April 1, 2025April 18, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

I’ve decided that 2025 is the year of the MMO for me and have already played a few games that are new to me in addition to always being interested in Myst Online. So even though no one has asked for it, here is a list of every MMO I’ve played in my life with a quick comment or two on each. Eventually I’ll do longer writeups on some of these. I guess it’s April Fool’s Day too so I’m unintentionally doing the Ron Gilbert thing of not doing anything silly today on here.

Asheron’s Call 2 – I believe this is my first MMO. My dad and brother were already playing Everquest but for whatever reason this was the one that interested me. It was divisive at the time but since I didn’t have any experience with Asheron’s Call 1, which this is a big departure from, I thought it was great. Unfortunately it didn’t last too long but I’m glad there’s been an effort in recent years by the fan community to bring it back.

RuneScape – My other possibly first MMO, at this point I can’t really remember if this or AC2 came first. I had played this one extremely early on in its life, back when 2D sprites were used for all the characters and managed to pull a few friends into playing it since it was free. It’s so weird seeing how much nicer it looks now even though, yeah, of course they would upgrade the visuals over 20 years.

Shattered Galaxy – This was a weird one. I had discovered the free beta for this during an IGF awards listing, very early on in the life of the IGF. It’s basically a RTS but everyone controls a single unit? I guess kinda like Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor but uhhhhh better. I had fun with it though even though I never completely got it and my brother ended up getting the retail release, but I didn’t play that one.

Star Wars Galaxies – Also a weird one! I went through the arc of thinking it was a disappointment at first, and then realizing how brilliant it was by not allowing everyone to be a jedi and focus on building playing towns and other neat world interaction by the players. I’m sure other games have done this since then but I haven’t seen it. I eventually fell off around the time they released the first expansion.

World of Warcraft – Everyone has played this game. Nothing new to say about it. I had a great time with it and it’s probably my most played game ever and had the unfortunate and unintentional effect of inspiring MMOs after it to copy it in an attempt to replicate its success.

The Secret World – Underrated MMO that I wish I had put more time into. I thought the adventure game puzzles in it were a really neat idea. FUNCOM at the time were The Longest Journey devs to me so this made a lot of sense. I should see if there’s any fan servers for it.

Myst Online – I’ve written and posted about Myst Online many times, even writing about how the community is still active and the game continues to receive updates. It’s free and wonderful, go play it.

Guild Wars – The selling point for this one was of course that there were no monthly fees. Don’t really remember a lot other than I thought it was fun.

The Elder Scrolls Online – Meh. I plan to give it another shot someday but it felt like it had missed what people enjoy about those games. But what do I know, it’s still going strong.

Guild Wars 2 – Same as the first game. Had a lot of fun playing it but couldn’t tell you a single thing about it.

Eve Online – Just did the trial for this one. I respect the game but I’ll never be able to get into it.

Warhammer Online – Played my brother’s account a bit for this one and thinking it was pretty neat. IIRC the appeal of this was that it was basically a spiritual sequel to Dark Age of Camelot, with a focus on pvp. It still wasn’t the hit it needed to be and shut down after a few years.

Defiance – The gimmick for this was that there was a tv show happening at the same time and they were supposed to intersect at some points. I never watched it but I probably should since I’m a Farscape fan, even though I’m guessing it’s a pretty mid show if no one is talking about it today. The show got 3 seasons though! I remember the game itself being perfectly ok but not too memorable. I think it was on a Steam sale and I knew it had no monthly fee so I picked it up. I didn’t know it had only shut down a few years ago and probably should have revisited it.

EDIT: A week or so after making this post, a revival of it launched! I’m going to pretend I manifested this.

WAKFU – Steam says I’ve played WAKFU in 2015 for a few hours. I have no memory of this.

Asheron’s Call 1 – Played this one for the first time this year and I’m having a great time. There’s plenty of fan servers too. I even wrote a guide if you want to play the game.

Book of Travels – A very underrated game. I’m sad that it hasn’t done as well as expected so it won’t be receiving too many updates in the future, but I think it’s still very much worth checking out. It’s a very relaxed MMO focused on story and light on combat, featuring what I think is great world building. Kinda controls like a point-and-click adventure too.

Sky: Children of Light – By the creators of Journey and really feels like if you took the mechanics of that game and expanded it to a MMO. It’s free to play and I enjoy playing it with my kids occasionally.

Here’s some other games that kinda don’t count as MMORPGs but also kinda sorta do?

Path of Exile – Played it during the beta and had enough fun with Diablo: The MMO but it never really stuck with me.

Age of Empires Online – Weird game! This was launched at the same time as their Microsoft Flight Simulator reboot that was retooled to be more casual too, so everyone was grumpy that Microsoft was bringing everything back as a casual game. I remember it not really coming together mechanically? I guess the fan community has kept this one alive on fan server.

Marvel Heroes – Basically just Diablo with Marvel characters. I thought it was a big hit but I think there was some drama behind it being shut down too?

Kind Words – Was incredibly skeptical of this one when it came out but it was pleasant enough. Shockingly didn’t come across any trolling in it despite it being a huge hit.

Kind Words 2 – What you would expect a sequel to be. More and bigger. I like it more since there’s plenty of side activities you can do and I basically just avoid the letter writing at this point since I’m not really in the mood to try to help people with their problems online. I’m not qualified for it! But the side stuff where people recommend video games, music, and what not are fun. It seems like it’s done alright but definitely not as well as the first game. I’m assuming it’s from the game just costing more, from it having a lot more stuff.

Sea of Thieves – Really enjoyed this one until a friend and I hit a bug that completely made it impossible for us to do more quests and Microsoft put it no effort to fix it. I might reinstall it to see if it’s magically fixed but that sure killed the motivation to play it.

Some that I have in my Steam backlog are:

WEBFISHING – Everyone has played this by now. Seems great. I’ll play it sometime with friends when I need to chill.

Meadow – By the devs of Book of Travels. Seems like it’s part of their Shelter series.

Fallout 76 – Don’t know how I’ll feel about it given my feelings about ESO and how Bethesda writes Fallout but sure, I’ll give it a shot.

Some modern ones I really want to check out are:

ATLYSS – This one is kinda known as the furry mmorpg. I heard great things about it!

Animyst – Don’t know a whole lot about it other than it looks weird and it’s free. It has been around since 2018.

Project: Gorgon – Looks like it’s doing the modern day version of Everquest thing. Seems nice enough

Creating Games for the Ann Arbor District Library

March 5, 2025March 9, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ 3 Comments

I mentioned a few times that I helped organize a games anthology for the district library (anthology link on the library’s site here but I prefer you play the updated version of my game here) and even made a point-and-click adventure game for it, but I don’t actually think I actually did a post about it or why it happened? So for the sake of incredibly specific Michigan game dev history, here’s the deal with all that.

Back on my birthday last year, in August, I got an email from the Ann Arbor District Library saying that they were interested in commissioning a video game or anthology for the city’s bicentennial celebration. The Ann Arbor District Library had been doing a series of commissioned works such as music, documentaries, interviews, writing, and other works to celebrate the city. They had proposed doing a small anthology of games, 3 in total, about a historical figure in the city named Dr. Alvin Wood Chase. He was basically the city’s version of Dr. Oz in the late 1800s and sold recipes for remedies to ailments that didn’t work and found some success doing so. The printing house he established is still standing today. You can read more about him at the link at the top. Each game would be about a different stage of his life and by a different developer. As an aside, I’m not actually the first person to make a game for the Ann Arbor District Library, that would be the text adventure games that Christopher Becker made for an Interactive Fiction program at the library.

a bearded man standing in front of a house — Dr. Chase’s First Adventure, by me

Originally I was just an organizer because I didn’t think I would be able to create a game since my family just had a baby, but then I got FOMO and asked if I could make a backup game. This got approved and with everyone picking a different era, development commenced. We had about two months to make our games, with each one having the goal of about 10-15 minutes of gameplay. Unfortunately one person had to drop out due to medical issues, but they’re ok now. It was a challenge for me since it was my first game in Adventure Game Studio, but I actually got it done. The other two games are great, one is a puzzle game about running a printing press and the other is an adventure game made in the Game Boy about the end of his life.

stacks of books in different colors — Dr. Chase’s Mean Steam Machine by Flyover Games

The games and anthology page were published on December 30th, right before the end of the year. I am so proud of this project, maybe even more than the Locally Sourced Anthology that I helped with and came out during the summer. Not because I think one is better than the other, but I got to finally check off making a game in AGS, a goal of mine for an incredibly long time. It was a delight to make a game for the Ann Arbor District Library, a place I love visiting. Most importantly, I got to show the game to my kids and one of them immediately found a few bugs that no other tester did, so I got to fix those bugs and add her in the credits as a tester. For whatever reason she wants to grow up and be a video game QA person so it was fun to be able to give her her first video game credit.

top down view of a bearded guy saying "Ah, another new morning." — Chasing Glory by Lilycore Games

Personal Blogs Are Great!

February 20, 2025February 20, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

I follow about a billion different blogs and sites right now through my RSS feed reader and I feel like once in a while, but not too often, I’ll see a post where a person has a comment in their post where they wonder who this is even for or assume no one is going to read it, and I just wanted to say that I think it’s the best. If anything, this site is too focused on video games and technology. It brings me a lot of joy when I see someone post on their site about what they’re up to, art they’ve been enjoying, and also incredibly specific things like their bookshelves or whatever.

There’s also just something about reading it on someone’s personal site, instead of on social media, that makes it feel more personal or real and not focused on brand building, since it can’t really get shared through retweets. That isn’t to say that people are posting about the sandwich they liked on social media to build their brand, they’re clearly excited about that sandwich and posting to social media is the fastest and easiest way to mention it. But if they do that blog post about that sandwich then man, they must have really loved it if they’re putting that much effort into it.

Anyway, just wanted to say that I like reading the personal posts like that if you ever feel self conscious about that stuff or feel like you’re going off topic.

The Virtual Moose

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