Michigan Video Game History Link Dump

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

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.

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

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.

the logo for ann arbor 200, showing a map of the city and the years 1824-2024

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!

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.

Games I’m Looking Forward To 2025

Every year I’ve been doing a post on the games I’m looking forward to. It’s a little bit late this year and some of the stuff I was planning to mention, like The Roottrees are Dead, are already out. Oh well, it’s my blog, I can post stuff late if I want. I think all the links on this post are going to Steam page if you want to wishlist. Like every year, it’s usually something I don’t know of that catches me off guard and becomes my favorite thing but maybe you’ll discover something new anyway.

Ron Gilbert put his rpg project on hold but said he has a much smaller game we should be getting soon. I have no idea what that is but it’s….something?

Tony Warriner is working on a game for that modern ZX Spectrum thing. I kinda don’t understand what makes a modern computer a ZX Spectrum but the game itself looks like a fun top down shooter thing.

New Inkle game this year. No idea what it will play like but it’s an Inkle game so I’ll probably like it.

Spirit Swap is a Match 3 game that comes out in a few days. I backed it on kickstarter a while ago so it’s already paid for and I can just enjoy this neat little queer game.

Trails and Traces: The Tomb of Thomas Tew is a point-and-click detective adventure. I liked the dev’s previous game from a few years ago so I’m happy to see them making another.

people sitting in a bar in the future

Old Skies! It’s a new Wadjet Eye game! I’m technically a beta tester on it, but haven’t really found that many bugs so I’m a pretty lousy one, but I am allowed to say that what I’ve played has been fantastic and at the level of quality you would expect from one of their games.

Citizen Sleeper 2 comes out in a couple hours but I published it before it came out so I can still say I’m looking forward to it!

A Chamber of Stars looks like a trippy visual novel or adventure game. I just really like the art and it has a demo.

The Ape Painting is an upcoming interactive fiction by an author I’m a fan of.

Peripeteia is an immersive sim coming out next month. I’ll always take more of those. It has a demo I haven’t played yet.

people fighting in a saloon

Rosewater! This one has been on a list or two before. It’s a western point-and-click adventure that has been in developer for quite a while and looks great. I love the rotoscoped art. We’re definitely getting this one this year since it was just announced that it’s coming out in March.

We’re getting a new Heroes of Might and Magic this year. There’s actually a couple of HOMM-likes floating around or entering early access so this might not even be necessary, but I’m still cautiously interested in it since it’s set in an older M&M world, Erathia, instead of the universe that Ubisoft has been putting their games in since they took control. Ubisoft’s setting has been boring as shit so I’m happy to see them return to this.

Quantum Witch looks like a fun and queer platforming adventure game. This one has a demo too.

Operation Zero just looks like a fun retro-looking arcade top-down shooter.

The Drifter has been on a previous list and I’m hoping we get it this year. I just really like Powerhoof’s shorter adventure games and think a long one would be good too.

We have a new game by the creator of Midnight Scenes. I will keep buying their short horror adventure games as long as they keep making them.

Nivalis is some sort of bar simulation set in a cyberpunk world. It’s by the developer of Cloudpunk, which I thought was very good.

first person view of a gun fight by a staircase

Agent 64 is a FPS inspired by Goldeneye. Really liked the demo of it and hope we get the full game this year.

Super Cucumber is a cute platformer by the creators of Down the Drain. I thought that game was a fun roguelike and this is a dev local to me so I’m looking forward to this game.

pinball set in a dreamy vaporwave setting next to a statue

Vaporwave Pinball is a pinball game with a vaporwave theme. Pretty straightforward! I like the demo so I’ll probably like more of that.

Legends of Castile is a historical point-and-click adventure set in Spain. I just think the art is very nice and reminds me a tiny bit of Curse of Monkey Island. It has a demo too.

Nekomancer of Nowhere looks like a really cute isometric puzzle game.

Soup Rooms is an upcoming anthology game where you explore various rooms. It’s inspired by an old game I’m not familiar with but the opportunity to walk around a variety of weird spaces sounds like a good time to me.

Having a little bookstore is a fun little dream I have so a game about that, Tiny Bookshop, where I can do that without all the actual stress of running a bookstore sounds nice.

Generation Exile is a game about humanity’s only generation ship. I’m sure it will be an emotional experience that will make me feel like crap. Can’t wait.

I don’t know much about Usual June but I like the art and I’m a Finji Fan.

Promise Mascot Agency just looks like a wild adventure game and I’m very excited to see Alpha Chrome Yayo doing the soundtrack.

Sleight of Hand is a stealth game with a really fun looking mechanic where you have cards you draw from and each one has an effect to help you stay hidden and dispose of enemies.

Angeline Era is a new game by the Anodyne devs featuring bump combat!

person on a platform shoot rockets at monsters

Acronia is a platformer inspired by old DOS games. It has a demo on the Itch page that runs in DOS.

I think Roman Sands comes out this year? I was a fan of their previous game Paratopic and really like the Y2K aesthetic this has.

We’re getting a new Halloween Harry this year! By the same dev as the original game.

Perfect Tides: Station to Station is the sequel to one of the best recent adventures, by the creator of the comic Octopus Pie.

Streets of Fortuna looks like a really interesting sandbox rpg.

Heir of the Dog is a new adventure by the creator of Lucy Dreaming. That was a fantastic point-and-click adventure and I’m sure this will be a good one too.

Dream Settler is the sequel to Hypnospace Outlaw, one of my favorite games!

Zid Journey is a sequel to Zniw Adventure and looks like another point-and-click adventure that the whole family can play.

a marble on a platform floating in the sky

I really like the vaporwave aesthetic that the puzzle game Axyz has.

Tiny Garden is a game I backed that looks like a chill gardening game set in tiny Polly Pocket-like containers.

EEK3 2025

Usually I put all my indie game stuff in the roundups but there was enough here that it deserved its own post.

EEK3, a virtual showcase of horror games inspired by the PSX era, just wrapped up and you can watch it all on YouTube. Overall it was good, I discovered a lot of new upcoming games from it, and we got a new HauntedPS1 demo disc that you can now download on Itch. I thought I would highlight and link to some of the ones I’m most interested just to get some extra eyes on them, but you should just watch the showcase and download the demo disc. This might be a weird list anyway because I like creepy stuff, but not games that are actually scary or have jump scares.

angeline era screenshot of a person with a sword attacking a large person

Angeline Era is a new bump combat game by the developer of games such as Sephonie and Anodyne 1 and 2. Bump combat is back!

Ticky’s Tower of Time just looks like a nice 3D platformer from the PSX era. Sure, I’ll play another one of those. The music in the trailer is pleasant too.

I’m not quite sure what Of Love and Eternity is, maybe an adventure game? But it looked interesting and it has a demo so I should probably go play that.

first person view of a bedroom and hands. one hand is holding a key

Eclipsium looks like a horror adventure game and man, I get so excited about digitized sprites.

Axyz looks like a fun puzzle game with a vaporwave theme.

The art in Juice is so fun and Colorfiction has made plenty of cool games before.

I didn’t know until now that No Players Online was getting a commercial release but I was a fan of the original free game.

Spyrit Walker looks like a fun retro FPS and has a demo too.

Children of Saturn is really exciting to me. I will always be into stories about teens trying to get by while it feels like the world is ending. It’s an interactive fiction game that doesn’t seem to be horror, and it has a demo.

Prison of Husks looks like a combination of the slower, difficult combat in Dark Souls with an aesthetic inspired by ICO.

Scissors in Hell is a first person turn-based dungeon crawler so yes, I will be playing that.

Death in Abyss looks like a Star Fox-type game but horror themed and set under the water.

Morn is another horror retro shooter and it’s got a demo so you can see if being a priest and shooting demons is for you.

Athanasia. Hell yes, a new horror immersive sim.

Shrimp Game is a roguelike where you are a shrimp under the water. Wonderful.

It’s kind of funny seeing something with the Wholesome tag make it into the showcase but VORON does seem like a nice adventure game where you are a raven exploring the world.

MOTORSLICE is a non-horror platformer that actually reminds me of the PS2 era of games and the movement in it seems really well done.

Please Insert Disc is a horror adventure where it seems like you explore a haunted PS2-era disc? It’s by the devs of Home Safety Hotline, which I never played but people seemed to love.

Tamarindos Freaking Dinner looks like a very trippy and silly adventure game and was a nice way to mix things up with all the very serious games in the showcase.

RADIANT ELUSION seems to be a 3D platformer with a vaporwave theme.

And then finally, Soup Rooms sounds fascinating to me. I guess it is inspired by a 2007 game from Japan. It’s 100 rooms that I think you just explore and will be free. That sounds pretty great to me.

Playing Asheron’s Call 1 in 2025

I’ve decided it now, 2025 is the year of Asheron’s Call. It’s a game I’ve always wanted to play since Asheron’s Call 2 was the first MMO I ever played and I’m taking the time now to revisit it. That might seem a little odd since it was a MMO that started in 1999 and shut down for good in 2017, but fans have managed to keep it alive!

If you would like to play it, the instruction on this website are actually very straightforward and were easy for me to follow. The page has a warning for it at the bottom, but a few folks including myself have run into an issue where the game crashes when you sign in and it’s easily fixed by just playing in Windowed Mode.

Once you have this all setup, you just need to pick a server to play on. A couple of us in the Discord for Twitch streamer BogusMeatFactory (Twitch link) are going to be playing a retail release Asheron’s Call fan server called Levistras that also enforces a strict, no-bot policy. This means we will experiencing the retail game experience around the era of 2004-ish. If you are interested in playing with us, you can download the launcher through the link here.

This is an easy executable that is your hub portal to all of the different servers available now and is incredibly easy to use! The server we will be playing on is the Levistras server, whose information can be found at the link here.

I also highly recommend checking out the manual. The game actually has a solid in-game tutorial but the manual provides all the lore and additional info for playing the game. It’s readable in the browser on the Internet Archive.

You’re more than welcome to join me! I will be on Fridays around 9pm EST, but playing other times as well, with a character named TofuPirate. I’ve only played a tiny bit of the game so far but I’m having a good time and very excited to play more of it.

A Half-Assed Itch.io Winter Sale Recommendation Post

This post is just a compilation of the games I mentioned in my recommendation thread on Bluesky. A lot of folks were doing Steam recommendation threads and thought Itch deserved a mention too. Like the title says, it’s rushed and half-assed since the posts were written right before my baby was waking up. But there’s good stuff in here and I think it’s worth checking out. If you read the indie game roundups then you’ve already seen a few of these but dang it, you should buy these anyway.

first person view of a space ship shooting at another ship

I bounce off a lot of space sims because I’m incredibly fussy and like open world stuff but a lot of them are too difficult for me to pick up. Liberation is inspired by 70s British sci-fi and has lots of personality and is easy for me to play

Every month a new issue of the Indiepocalypse games anthology arrives, collecting 10 games, often experimental. It’s an incredible source of games curation and I’ve discovered so many of my favorite game designers through it

isometric view of a person in a dungeon with bones on the ground and also a chicken
Roguecraft screenshot

One of my favorite publishers that’s putting out new games for old platforms is Thalamus. Just earlier this year they published a new roguelike for the Amiga. But there’s plenty of great arcade games for modern platforms like Death Ray Manta and Rainbow Laser Disco Dungeon.

Did you know you can buy the classic adventure game Day of the Tentacle on Itch? Plenty of smarter people have explained why it’s one of the best adventure games. I just think it’s neat that it’s on here.

cybeRRRevolution has a better pitch than I can do so I’ll just copy it. It’s described as “an action-adventure game about talking with monsters, piloting godly mechas, and taking down bandits to secure a prosperous future for a nation in a post-war reality.” Also consider checking out the dev’s interactive fiction game Don’t Wake the Night.

It’s the year of the anthology! Anthology of the Killer is another one that’s worth your time! It’s not on sale but you should still buy it.

No indie dev is doing stealth action inspired by Metal Gear Solid better than Merlino Games. Can’t go wrong with any of these.

Videoverse is a visual novel where you explore friendship and love through a WiiU like interface. Itch purchase comes with a Steam key too.

black and white pixel art of a woman next to a downed power line
Screenshot from Midnight Scenes 1

Midnight Scenes is one of my favorite modern adventure game series. Short horror games that can be played in one sitting and feature incredible pixel art. They can be played in any order so just get the one that you vibe with the most.

Looking for a game like Thief but in a cyberpunk setting? Check out NEON STRUCT. But I’m a big fan of everything by Minor Key Games.

If you’ve never played a solo tabletop rpg before, give it a shot! There’s plenty of free and pay-what-you-want ones, but Cezar Capacle has made a lot of great ones too like Against the Wind.

You should also consider playing a GM-less ttrpg. An Altogether Different River is a nice one! In a single session 2-4 players build a town and create the characters who live in it and explore their relationships with it.

There’s so many great point-and-click adventures and I’ll plug away at recommending them in this thread when I can, but one I’m a fan of is Cosmic Void. There’s a game for everything. Classic graphic parser adventures, horror, sci-fi, comedy, cyberpunk.

Kitsune Games made the excellent Super Mario Bros 3 spiritual sequel Kitsune Tails. The difficulty levels make it approachable for everyone too.

That’s it for the recommendations! I hope you find something cool to pick up from Itch.io!

Who is Covering Indie Games? Lots of People

Last week there was some annoying discourse on social media about how no one makes innovative or experimental indie games anymore, but there’s actually a lot of greats folks pointing you to those games so I made a list of some.

This is going to be a very flawed list. I’m probably forgetting a bunch, unaware of others, I can only read English, and this is focusing on places and not specific people at places like PC Gamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun who are doing great work and can be followed on social media, so I want to apologize to you all in advance since it’s incredibly frustrating to see people lament that “(type of game) isn’t being made anymore” when you’re yelling about them every week. I just needed to cut the list off at some point. Hopefully someone smarter sees this list and puts together an even better one on their own site. But I hope this will give you some cool things to add to your RSS feed reader of choice and maybe some new podcasts to listen to.

I’ll also add that since I am an adventure game nerd, this list is going to be leaning more on that genre. Some of these folks cover experimental games than others, but I think they’re all worth a look anyway. I also couldn’t be bothered to separate TTRPGs and video games but you know what, maybe consider giving something other than D&D a try. You deserve better.

Like I said earlier, I know I missed a ton. Please leave comments with links to who you follow!

Name

Format

Description

Adult Analysis Anthology Magazine Adult games
Adventure Game Hotspot Website Adventure games
Adventure Games Podcast Podcast Adventure games
Alpha Beta Gamer Website
Alphas and betas of games in development
Bobbins’ Olde Tomb Of Videogames Website
Roundup of smaller indie games
Buried Treasure Website
Reviews of indie games that John enjoyed
CalamityNolan Streamer indie computer games
ChoiceBeat Magazine
Free zine about interactive fiction and visual novels
Cressup Streamer
Adventure game streams and interviews with indie game devs
Debug magazine Magazine
Quarterly print magazine covering indies
Dirigitive Streamer Obscure and alt games
Find Nice Games Website Highlights indie games
Folio Podcast
Actual play podcast about solo & epistolary TTRPGs
Gamers with Glasses Website
Reviews, game crit, and interviews
Garden of Indie Streamer Variety of indie games
HauntedPS1 Anthology
Free anthology of demos by folks in the HauntedPS1 community
Heart of Neon YouTube
Frequent interviews with indie game devs
I Am a Rat Website
Games on Itch and Interactive Fiction
Indie Games+ Website Reviews
Indie Hell Zone Website Reviews
Indie Hive Website Reviews, news
Indie Mixtape Podcast
Highlights a batch of indie games each episode
Indie RPG newsletter Newsletter
Weekly newsletter about indie ttrpgs
Indie Tsushin Website Games from Japan
Indiepocalypse Monthly anthology
Monthly anthology of experimental games
KRITIQAL Website
KRITIQAL is constantly interviewing experimental game devs
LotusLovesLotus Streamer
K-Pop talk. Indie games and demos, often from Itch
Museum of Screens Website
Current and retro browser games
Party of One Podcast
Podcast that plays a different 2-player ttrpg each episode with a designer or actual play performer
Press Play Gaming Website
Does a giant GOTY series focusing on a variety of very specific genres and types
Pursuing Pixels YouTube
Focuses on indie arcade games
Sidequesting Website
Reviews, podcast. Often retro related coverage too
Six One Indie Website
Showcases and interviews
Sloanysoft Streamer
Streams modern ZX Spectrum games
SummerB76 Streamer
Streams adventure games
TacoAdventure Streamer
Split between new and retro adventure games
Thinky Games Website
Puzzle and adventure games
Three Moves Ahead Podcast
Every episode covers a new strategy game
Uncrank’d Magazine
Print magazine and community for Playdate devs
VillainyVS Streamer
Streams adventure games, including ones from game jams
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Gabriel Knight Speech Repair Patch

AllTinker has just released a patch (Itch.io) for the first Gabriel Knight game that fixes the pops and crackles in the audio. They made a video showing the before and after and it’s really quite impressive. The page for the patch also goes into detail how one can fix the mixed resolution effect in the cd version where objects you can interact with are displayed at a higher resolution. I’ve always wondered if you could make a patch for the remake that moves the audio from this version into the remake and replace the new recordings but someone pointed out to me that the remake also has new lines that the original cast did not record. Anyway, thought this was really cool and just wanted to share.