Games I’m Looking Forward to in 2023

January 8, 2023October 12, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ 3 Comments

Happy New Year! 2023 has barely started and there’s already so much I’m excited to play this year and thought I would write about some of them. As usual with these sorts of lists, there’s going to be so many games I just forget to list. Some of my favorite games are those that come from nowhere or are games made by single developers so this will probably actually not even be close to what my favorite games of the year are. Some of these games are available on other platforms but because of my unusually specific interests, all of them are on the PC and most are adventure games.

She Dreams Elsewhere

a combat screen showing a variety of strange looking foes

She Dreams Elsewhere is a surreal RPG with a stunning art style. The art and creature design look wild and I’m looking forward to exploring this world when the game comes out.

Tactical Breach Wizards

a wizard using magic to take down multiple opponents

Tactical Breach Wizards is the newest game by Tom Francis, designer of Gunpoint and Heat Signature. It looks to be a fun tactics game with a fantasy influence and the screenshots showing off dialog indicate that it has the same humor his earlier games had.

Acronia

woman on a platform firing a rocket in a 2D game

Acronia is a queer DOS game inspired by Apogee-era shareware games such as Duke Nukem 1 and BioMenace. I loved the alpha version of the game that is available on their Itch page and hope that we see a full version released this year.

The Crimson Diamond

The Crimson Diamond is a point-and-click adventure game strongly influenced by Sierra’s 1989 adventure game The Colonel’s Bequest. I’ve been following the development of the game for a while now through the developer’s weekly dev streams and the demo on the game’s Steam page and everything indicates this should be a great mystery to solve.

Super Space Club

Super Space Club is a chill arcade space shooter. I really like everything about the presentation of the game and there’s a demo on Steam too.

The Drifter

The Drifter is a point-and-click adventure by Powerhoof, developers of games like Crawl. This is their first commercial adventure game but they’ve done a few short, free adventure games that I’ve enjoyed. It’s developed with their Unity plugin PowerQuest and it’s nice seeing another tool pop up for adventure game developers as well.

Exophobia

first person view of a gun shooting at large bugs

Exophobia is a Metroidvania FPS inspired by FPS from the 90s. I enjoyed my time with the demo when it came out. I don’t know if the Blake Stone series was an inspiration for this game but it reminds me of that era of FPS instead of most of the retro FPS revival shooters that seem to be inspired by ID Software and Build-engine games.

Rosewater

3 people standing outside a large building in the old west

Rosewater is the next point-and-click adventure by developer Grundislav Games. It’s a western set in the same universe as their previous game, Lamplight City. I’m excited for the diverse cast of characters, focus on multiple solutions, and love the rotoscoped animations.

Frogsong

Frog saying to another frog "I'm headed to Boreala, am I walking the right way?"

Frogsong is a cute action-adventure where you play as a frog named Chorus and need to explore strange lands so you can save your village. I really liked playing the demo with my daughter and we’re both looking forward to the full game scheduled for release early this year.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory

top-down view of people outside a castle

SKALD is a party-based rpg inspired by 80s CRPGs. I haven’t played the demo yet but I really like how it looks, I’m interested in the setting they’ve been showing off so far, and as a fan of the era of games that inspired it, I’m looking forward to seeing how they modernize that style of game.

Firmament

view of a snowy mountain and mechanical equipment

As a longtime fan of Cyan and the Myst games, it is always a huge delight to see them create new adventure games. I was a big fan of Obduction, their last game that was set outside of the Myst series and this is looking great as well. The game was designed for, but does not require, VR devices and after playing their Myst remake in 2021, I would say they have a very good grasp on how to design games for virtual reality.

Old Skies

Old Skies is the newest game developed by point-and-click adventure game studio Wadjet Eye Games. While they’ve produced other adventure games in recent years like The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, this will be the first they’ve developed since Unavowed. The time travel premise sounds like a lot of fun and it features great art by Ben Chandler.

Hellscreen

gun pointing at some large eyeball monsters

Hellscreen is a fast-paced FPS set to enter Early Access early this year. The game has a novel mechanic of having a rear-view mirror to help you see what’s happening as you fight. I really like the use of color and cosmic horror theme.

Agent 64

Agent 64 is a new FPS inspired by Rare’s classic N64 games Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I think it emulates the style of those games perfectly and the demo, which is available on the Steam page, was a lot of fun.

Thirsty Suitors

Thirsty Suitors looks like a very stylish adventure game with a fun variety of mini-games to keep players engaged and as a fan of the writers involved, I’m sure the story will be a delight to follow as well. A demo is available on the Steam page.

Loco Motive

I loved the original version of this game that appeared in the 2020 AdventureX game jam and this looks like a nice remake of that game with improved graphics. I’m interested in seeing how they expand the story as well.

Slayers X/Dreamsettler

FPS view of some floating brain monsters

I was a huge fan of Hypnospace Outlaw so it’s a delight to see that we’re getting two games set in that universe coming out this year. Slayers X is a FPS with numetal vibes that seems to be inspired by Build-engine era FPS, games like Duke Nukem 3D and Blood, that is “designed” by Zane, one of the characters from Hypnospace Outlaw. I enjoyed the demo and I’m looking forward to playing more.

Dreamsettler looks to be closer to a sequel to the original game but this time inspired by early 00’s internet. I’m looking forward to exploring that world again.

Akka Arrh

Llamasoft has been delivering bangers for over 40 years now and this looks like another one. Akka Arrh is a remake of a prototype of a game that was never released until it was leaked very recently and has everything you’d expect from a Jeff Minter game like bulls, audio samples, and bright, flashing colors.

Gobliiins 5

Gobliiins 5 is another entry in the adventure game series created in the 90s by Pierre Gilhodes and Muriel Tramis. Coktel Vision developed the three games in the 90s with Pierra developing a 4th game in the series in 2009. While I bounced off Gobliiins 4 because of its dull 3D graphics and puzzles (which I heard improve later in the game), I am hoping this is a return to form. I already think the return to 2D graphics is an improvement and it’s fun watching the game get developed in Adventure Game Studio through its Kickstarter updates.

[I] doesn’t exist

user typing interactions with a mushroom

[I] doesn’t exist is a text adventure in the spirit of games like Zork but is aimed at being more approachable by having beautiful pixel art and a conversational approach to interact with the game instead of the traditional approach of using a specific set of verbs. Commercial text adventures are rare today so it’s exciting to see this being made.

Nighthawks

Nighthawks is a RPG written and designed by Richard Cobbett (Sunless Sea/Sunless Skies) with art by Ben Chandler (Technobabylon, PISS), and produced by Wadjet Eye Games. From following the Kickstarter updates, the worldbuilding seems like a lot of fun and it should be a pretty lengthy game.

Captain Disaster 3

guy in spaceship with slug people in cells

This year we should see the third game in the Captain Disaster series. The first two games were fun sci-fi adventures and I’m really impressed by the improvement in art style in the screenshots that have been posted so far.

Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends

Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends is a 2D platformer based on the Little Nemo comic series. I think the art is fantastic and as a fan of the character ever since I played the NES game many years ago, it’s nice to see another video game being made starring the character.

A Long Journey to an Uncertain End

space ship on the roof of a futuristic building

A Long Journey to an Uncertain End is a sci-fi management sim where you recruit a crew for your ship and take jobs to keep ahead of your abusive Ex. I like the art and it looks very gay.

Wonky Works

Wonky Works is the newest game in development by ondydev. I don’t know much about it but I’m a fan of the developer’s previous games like Tres-Bashers and Binky’s Trash Service

Tachyon Dreams 3

person on a moon with text saying "hug alien crystal"

The Tachyon Dreams games are a series of short, comedy sci-fi games influenced by Sierra’s graphic parser games from the 80s like Space Quest. I had fun playing the first two games and it was nice that they were available as Pay-What-You-Want so I’m looking forward to another one. The third game is planned to come out at the end of January or early February.

Sam & Max Season 3 Remaster

It’s not really a new game but I’ve enjoyed the remasters of Telltale’s Sam & Max games by Skunkape. They make the games look like how I remember the game looking and not how they actually looked, and are generally hands off with the content of the game, only making small changes to parts where the humor has not and other small enhancements. The Sam & Max series got better with each season so I’m looking forward to revisiting the best one Telltale made.

A Highland Song

A Highland Song is a new adventure game by Inkle, creators of games like 80 Days and Overboard. I really enjoy the setting and beautiful 2.5D art, and my enjoyment of Inkle’s previous games make this an instant purchase for me when this comes out.

El Paso, Elsewhere

person diving and shooting a monster in a cemetary

El Paso, Elsewhere is a third-person shooter by Strange Scaffold where you fight werewolves and vampires in a massive hotel. In the early 00’s we had a wave of shooters utilizing features like Bullet Time and diving while shooting after the massive success of Max Payne and then getting dropped completely so it’s exciting to me to see a game revisit this era of action games.

Incubus – A Ghost Hunter’s Tale

person in an old house doing a zoom with two other people

I’m a fan of Darkling Room’s Dark Fall series of adventure games and this looks like another fun ghost hunting adventure by the developer. Ghost hunting isn’t something I follow or know anything about but I still think it’s kinda fun getting a peek at that community through these games. I think it looks nice for a game by a small team and I will always get excited by the addition of FMV to adventure games.

System Shock

After a long period of development, Nightdive’s remake of System Shock is finally coming out soon. The game has run into its issues, it had to make the switch from Unity to Unreal, switch art styles, and reduce its scope, but the game is shaping up to be a solid remake of the classic. With System Shock 3 seeming like it’s no longer in development, this might be all we’re getting from the series for a long time.

Phonopolis

Amanita Design has been designing point-and-click adventures for decades so I’m very interested in checking out Phonopolis when it comes out. The game looks like a drastic departure in style from their previous games but the stop-motion animation style they’re going for in this game looks cool to me and I’m interested in seeing how moving to 3D changes how they design adventure games.

Alone in the Dark

Being a fan of Alone in the Dark is the video game equivalent of being a Weezer fan. There hasn’t been a good entry in the series since the first game and even that one gets harder to recommend to people because of the gameplay mechanics aging poorly over time. However, this one is a remake of the first game, set in the early 1900s, and has two playable characters again so could this finally be another good Alone in the Dark game? Maybe?

ScummVM support for Director

This is not a new game but it’s very important to me. ScummVM has been working on adding support for games made in Director for a long time now and maybe this is the year where we finally see it implemented. Imagine a future where you can play Bad Day on the Midway without having to fire up a virtual machine running Windows 95.

What I Learned From Making an Itch Bundle

January 3, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

This is a repost of a Medium post I made about two years ago. I haven’t used the account then so I’m removing it but thought I would copy this post. Since then I’ve done a zine and more co-op bundles and this is something I’d like to revisit again.

About a week ago a bundle I helped organize, the Locally Sourced Spring Bundle, was launched. I was inspired by the Indiepocalypse series of indie bundles and was trying to think of a way that something similar could be done for Michigan’s indie game development community through Locally Sourced, a group I co-founded to help promote indie game development in Michigan. The bundle started with a tweet in mid-April asking if people would be interested in submitting tiny games for a collaborative bundle on Itch.io and quite a few developers were interested. Developers had about a month and a half to create small games and by the deadline date we had 13 new tiny tabletop and video games by indie developers in Michigan. Product pages were created for each game by their developers and then I created a co-op bundle containing all of the games on Locally Sourced’s Itch page. The bundle was launched at noon on May 15th.

At this time the bundle has sold 53 copies with an average buy price of $15.56, exceeding the $13 price point of the bundle. According to the anonymous feedback form I sent to the developers, the bundle did as well or better than expected and everyone said they would be interested in doing another one, so I consider the bundle a success. At least one developer released their first game, a few more made their first commercial game, and for some others it was their most commercially successful game on Itch. I feel like a big issue in indie games right now is that developers are pressured to make their games free or Pay What You Want so it was nice to see game developers receive some compensation from their work, even if it wasn’t a ton.

Still, I made a few mistakes and learned a lot during the creation of this bundle. Here’s some of the things I learned and hopefully it will be use of you when you make your own:

1. Itch.io is the best place to do bundles with game developers. It also has huge flaws

I went with Itch.io to create this bundle because there really isn’t another place that’s as developer friendly. The co-op bundle feature allows you to easily create bundles by adding games by other developers and quickly launching it once they approve. It’s still tremendously flawed and created the bundle was a frustrating experience.

Ideally I could create a single product page like the Indiepocalypse bundle, and have equal revenue sharing to everyone who submitted a game. Itch does not allow this. If I wanted to have a single product page, I would have to keep doing paypal payments to each developer so they would get the money they are owed.

To avoid this headache, I figured a co-op bundle would allow them to have the money go directly to them, with the bundle being priced that each developer would receive $1 for each bundle sold, so $13 for a bundle with 13 games. Unfortunately this is not how Itch does sharing for their co-op bundles and I didn’t realize this until the day of.

Itch relies on percentages, so if I have 5 games in a bundle then each developer gets 20%, great! There is no way to divide 100 by 13 with whole numbers. Itch doesn’t allow for numbers like 7.69% so most developers were getting 8% and a few were set to 7%. Because I didn’t want the people at 7% to get paid less or to pay them what they were owed out of my own pocket, I added an old game by me to the bundle so everyone could get 7% and I get 9%, and in a couple of weeks I will Paypal each developer an equal percentage of what I get. So I probably could have just done what Indiepocalypse does and I have one product page and pay everyone later, but I wanted people to start getting paid right away and I figured a co-op page is more transparent, which is important to me when some random goofball on the internet is asking people to make new games and submit them for a weird experiment he’s doing online.

With future bundles I’m going to cap the amount of submissions at 10 people so everyone just gets 10 percent and I won’t have to fight with Itch with weird tricks to make sure people get paid.

2. Having a mix of tabletop and video games helped sales

While I don’t have any real proof of it, I think that having a combination of video game and tabletop rpgs helped sales of the bundle. Pulling people in from different communities allows for a much greater reach and led to the bundle being marketed towards video game and tabletop communities. I would strongly encourage you to work with game developers outside of the medium you create in. You’ll be marketing your game to people who normally wouldn’t see it and there’s so many great people making games in different mediums. Having 13 people from multiple game communities, plus the Locally Sourced social media feeds, all yelling about how you should check out a games bundle turned out to be pretty good for sales.

I also liked including tabletop rpgs because I’m so desperate for people to be exposed to TTRPGs that aren’t D&D.

3. Having it be a bundle focused only on Michigan developers also helped sales

While restricting it to only Michigan people maybe limits the pool of people that can submit a game, I think it greatly improved sales as well. This is all probably pretty obvious info but people were excited to support game developers who were local and it meant I could also post about it on places that normally wouldn’t care, like LinkedIn, and get a couple of sales through there and also discover that one or two people I used to work with are now interested in game design. You really shouldn’t just interact with game developers around you just for your own benefit, but it turns out that spending over a year helping out other local game developers and doing community building in your area means that people are happy to help you out when you need it.

If you live in an area that normally isn’t associated with game development, I would strongly encourage you to do that community building. It’s been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.

4. Having a lot of new little games for a low price was a successful combination

Last fall I used Locally Sourced to create a bundle of 5 games I loved for $15. It sold a total of 5 copies. The games are great so it’s not the fault of those, but I think the price point was too high for people to see it as an impulse buy and the games were already out for a while so most of the people in the Michigan games community probably already had them. By having a bundle that’s a little cheaper and includes a lot more games that are brand new, seemed a lot more eager to pick this one up, even if the games in the bundle were substantially smaller.

What are other things I would do differently?

Ultimately I think the bundle is a success and I’m already planning on how the next one will go with some changes in mind. I made some mistakes like not being specific and telling everyone to price their to be more expensive than the bundle so people will look at that instead. I don’t think it affected sales of the bundle but I should have been more clear. It also sounds like some of the developers wanted a theme, so I might alternate between a theme and not having one, because there’s also people like me who don’t want one. I’ll also be more clear about how developers can collaborate with others in the discord or even just use the channel for testing or to bounce ideas off each other. Most importantly I want people to have more time. It was meant to be a month for a game jam game that would be the size of something created during a weekend jam, but more time is always appreciated by game developers.

I hope this write-up was useful and it inspires you to start a co-op bundle with other game developers.

DOS Games Jam

December 30, 2022 ~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

One of the things that has helped keep sanity the last few years with the whole pandemic and all has been organizing the DOS Games Jam. The DOS Games Jam is a casual game jam I’ve been running twice a year since the beginning of the pandemic that is focused on celebrating games from that era by making new DOS games and games for modern computers inspired by that era. It’s important to me that the game jam is as stress free as I could possibly make it; there’s no voting, required theme, it’s a month long and often gets extensions, and people can start development before the jam officially starts. I guess it could be argued it’s not much of a game jam if it’s this casual but I’ve never been very comfortable with how many game jams force people to crunch.

If you ever wanted to start making DOS games but didn’t know how to get started, here are some tools that could help:

PunyInform is a library written in Inform 6 which allows people to create text adventure games / interactive fiction to be played on 8-bit computers as well as newer platforms.
LoveDOS – A framework for making 2D DOS games in Lua.
dos-like is a programming library/framework, kind of like a tiny game engine, for writing games and programs with a similar feel to MS-DOS productions from the early 90s. It’s technically not for making DOS games, just games that feel like they’re from that era, but it’s very cool and I’m putting it in the list anyway.
Lantern Text-Adventure IDE lets devs create text adventures for retro computers in an approachable way
DOjS is a JavaScript programming environment for systems running MS-DOS, FreeDOS or any DOS based Windows (like 95, 98, ME).
jSH is a script interpreter for DOS based operating systems like MS-DOS, FreeDOS or any DOS based Windows (like 95, 98, ME).

If you have game development questions or just want to talk about DOS games in a welcoming and inclusive environment, consider joining the DOS Shareware Zone discord

With the most recent jam wrapping up just now, I thought I would highlight some of my favorite games from previous jams. I had to leave a ton of games I really like off this list or else this writeup would go on for forever. If you’d like to see more, check out the page for the newest jam, which has all the entries for this jam and links to the previous jam pages.

SlipSpeed

SlipSpeed is a futuristic racing game for DOS and Windows that looks a little like the classic Micro Machines game for the NES but with hover cars. The composer for the game also co-hosts the lovely DOS Game Club which had me on as a guest to talk about the game jam. It also exists in a big box physical version. If you bought the Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid you already own this game.

Death Taxi 3000

Death Taxi 3000 is a game like the Crazy Taxi series where you pick up passengers and drop them off at different points in the city all while trying to save time by taking shortcuts and avoiding obstacles. While the full version of the game is on Steam, the shareware version is for DOS only.

Neut Tower

Neut Tower is a puzzle game for DOS and web browsers about escaping an office tower after an earthquake. It reminded me of puzzle games I used to play on shareware compilation discs in the 90s.

Super Spray n’ Slay 3D

Super Spray n’ Slay 3D is a surreal FPS for modern computers where you play as a maid cleaning up a hotel. During the 90s there were a lot of FPS doing unusual concepts after Doom came out and this feels like something that would fit in along that group.

Kalevala

One of the fun things about the DOS Games Jam is seeing how people revisit concepts tried in games that never took off for various reasons. I really like the adventure game Kalevala because it uses the ellipsoid aesthetic that obscure DOS game Ecstatica used but hasn’t been seen since then.

Acronia

Acronia is a platformer game inspired by DOS platformers like Duke Nukem and BioMenace. It’s currently in an alpha state but I couldn’t be more excited for the full version based on my experiences with this early version.

ASCII Delve

The DOS Games Jam isn’t just for computer games. ASCII Delve is a solo tabletop rpg inspired by Rogue and it’s fun seeing how tabletop games can use aesthetics and ideas from older computer games when so many of those were inspired by D&D.

The Anarchic Kingdom

The Anarchic Kingdom is a strategy game for DOS where you play as a lord building up your kingdom and attack other lords. I also really enjoy Cyningstan’s other games and recommend Ossuary as well

SpaceButton

SpaceButton is a text adventure that can be played with just a single button. I thought it was a well-designed text adventure but what I really loved was its focus on accessibility. The web version even has screen reader support.

Cats of Broombas

Cats on Broombas is an adorable puzzle game for DOS where you guide cats around on Roombas to gather all the stars on a screen. I thought the puzzles were well designed and not frustrating, and loved the EGA graphics too. I hope we eventually get a full version.

Hopefully you discover some cool new games and consider looking at some old games for new ideas to try putting in your next game!

Favorite Games of 2022

December 28, 2022 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

It turns out 2022 was a great year for adventure games and interactive fiction. Typically, they’re genres where you can kinda sorta play all the big ones that come out that year but there was such an overwhelming amount of them that there’s many I’ll have to get to next year like Perfect Tides and Blood Nova. Instead of picking one Game of the Year to rule them all, I just selected four in no order that were my favorites this year. I’m also leaving off a ton of stuff I really liked such as Immortality just because I have to stop somewhere. All four of these games are also discussed on various episodes of the Adventure Game Club podcast, so consider checking that out if you want longer discussions on why I thought these games were so good.

Return to Monkey Island

I never expected it but we got a new Monkey Island this year and we didn’t have to wait too long for it after the surprise announcement on April Fool’s Day. I feel like people have varying opinions on parts of it like the art style and ending but I don’t care, I loved it all. I also thought that mechanically it was one of the best designed adventure games, meaning all the quality-of-life stuff like double click to run, an in-game hint book, item highlighting, and hovering over items to get text on what Guybrush was thinking. Adventure games have had some of these things before but it was still nice seeing all of it executed so well in this game.

NORCO

I loved the writing in this game and will be thinking about it for a long time. The way this game talked about poverty, family members with illnesses, and living in a city that is slowly decaying resonated strongly with me and they’re all things we don’t see discussed enough in games. I thought the art was beautiful, loved the soundtrack enough to buy it on vinyl, and the game continues to improve by getting patches that add features like being able to skip the combat.

Citizen Sleeper

This was another game I had been waiting a long time for and it did not disappoint. I loved how it was strongly influenced by indie tabletop rpgs to handle how you take actions and I hope we see other video games look at indie ttrpgs for inspiration instead of getting so many games borrowing dated mechanics from D&D. The ending I got was beautiful and made me cry so I guess that means it’s Real Art. I’m also failing to mention everything else about the game that worked for me like the way it handles exploration to come across events, the art, and music, but I thought that was all incredible as well. I’m looking forward to revisiting the game once all of the DLC is out.

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me

If you follow me on social media you’ve probably seen me discuss this game a billion times, including a post I just made a few days ago, so I’ll just briefly say that it’s a fantastic game plus it’s short and free (but leave a tip anyway!) so if you’re ok with the things mentioned in the content warnings then it’s a must play.

Best Old Game – Riven: The Sequel to Myst

I replayed Riven earlier this year for Adventure Game Club and huge surprise, I still think it rules. It still looks great and the world building is incredible. If you’ve never played a Myst game before, please do not start with this one. The new Myst remake is a great place to start. I will never shut up about Myst.

Best New Trend – Indie Game Anthologies

So this isn’t actually new or a trend but it seemed like there were more of them this year than previous years and I’m ok with that. I previously wrote about them here.

Anyway, those are my GOTY awards no one asked for. It turns out video games are pretty neat!

Games You May Have Missed in 2022

December 26, 2022 ~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

I’ll do some sort of GOTY list sometime soon but I thought I would write about various games I enjoyed that people may have missed while all the holiday sales are going on. There’s a ton missing from this since it’s just a list I quickly threw together and I played a lot this year.

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me

If there’s a game on this list where I would do some sort of For Your Consideration Lynch-inspired campaign where I would sit outside with a cow, He Fucked the Girl Out of Me would be it. This is a game about the developer’s experiences doing sex work and the trauma that came from that. It was one of my favorite games this year and I thought the writing was incredible. Making a Game Boy game of something Nintendo would never approve for their platforms was an interesting choice too. The game lists the content warnings so please read those before playing.

Dungeon Lad

Dungeon Lad is an arcade roguelike where you’re constantly on a timer and must quickly move through floors while picking up power ups. Just started playing this after picking it up in the Steam sale that’s going on now and it’s been a lot of fun.

Mezzanine

Mezzanine is a free adventure game absolutely nails the look and feel of mid-90s Myst clones that I haven’t seen any other indie game do. It’s worth checking out if you’re into Y2K aesthetics.

Cartomancy Anthology

I actually wrote about this one before but Cartomancy Anthology is great. It has games by a lot of developers I like and I loved the tarot theme too. More game anthologies please!

Elsewhere in the Night

Elsewhere in the Night is a short (60 minutes) first-person adventure game with art by Sierra’s Manhunter series. Even though I am a defender of those games, this is vastly more playable and fair but is still very weird. The same developers also released the game Blood Nova a few months ago and I’m excited to play that in the Adventure Game Club

Legend of Etad

I was just really impressed by how they pulled off this dungeon crawler for the Playdate. The community for the handheld is doing a lot of neat stuff and I’m looking forward to what they do next year.

Funny Walk – A Garbage Voyage

I’m a big fan of Graceless Games and it was nice to see them release another game a few months ago. The use of digitized sprites that a lot of adventure games did in the 90s is something I’m extremely into and they have a unique sense of humor that I love.

BOSSGAME: The Final Boss Is My Heart

I don’t know if this game is that obscure because I’ve seen it covered on a few games sites but whatever, I’m going to mention it anyway. BOSSGAME is a mobile game about two girlfriends fighting monsters and it rules. Even if you’re not great at action games, there’s some nice accessibility options in here and it’s worth playing just for the art and writing. I have it on iOS but I’m looking forward to the PC versions that’s coming out in the spring.

Jennifer Wilde

Jennifer Wilde is a point-and-click adventure about a young French woman in the 1920’s teaming up with the ghost of Oscar Wilde to solve the murder of her father. I discuss it more in my review for Adventure Gamers but I was pleased by how they managed to pull off this absurd sounding concept to tell a queer story with unique puzzle mechanics.

Ten Tales From the Records of the Adamant Gambit

I guess this was technically made at the end of last year but Itch publish date lists this as earlier this year, possibly a revised version, so I’m listing it anyway. This is an anthology of short games made in Bitsy telling stories about the people on a massive starship. I was shocked by how much the developers could do in Bitsy.

Hope you had a nice holiday season and discover a few games from this list that you end up loving!

Notebooks!

December 13, 2022 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Something I’ve been into this last month has been writing in notebooks for game design and notes for myself while playing games. There’s a couple of things that happened at the same time that kicked this off for me. At the beginning of this month the Adventure Game Club started playing the text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure, a game that requires note taking to understand the layout of the caves. While I’ve made notes plenty of times for adventure games, they were always on scrap pieces of paper that got thrown out after I was done playing. After coming across some notes I took for Dark Fall a while back and enjoying looking through them, I decided to get something that I can actually write notes in and not lose a week after I finish the game.

The other thing that motivated me to pick up a couple notebooks has been #Dungeon23. This is a project where you create a mega dungeon, one room at a time, over a year. I just do tabletop rpg design as a hobby so it’s been a lot of fun for me to do something as big as a mega dungeon but in a very manageable way. I’ll eventually post some of the rooms on social media after doing this for a month or two. They’re kinda sloppy since it’s my first time really doing something on this scale but it’s been a fun project and I encourage people to try it.

It’s just been a nice way to process my thoughts and have something that feels a little more personal than going on Backloggd or wherever, saying I completed a game, assigning a star rating, and then moving on. Doing little doodles for each game is fun too. I’m not abandoning Google Docs for game dev note taking either but I think occasionally going to a notebook for slower note taking is useful too and allows me to think about game design in a different way.

Plus it’s just fun to cover your notebooks in stickers! If you sell stickers for your game or whatever, please leave a link in the comments. I would like more!

Monthly Game Clubs

October 13, 2022 ~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

One of the things that has helped keep me sane the last couple of years of being mostly isolated because of the pandemic has been through playing games and talking to people online, and the way I’ve been doing that has been through monthly game clubs. I thought I would talk about why you should check one out or maybe even start your own!

What is a monthly game club?

A monthly game club is a group that selects a game to play every month and discusses the game as they play it. Usually these groups have some sort of theme like a console platform or game genre but not always. The clubs can take any form but I’ve mostly seen them on Discord since it’s so easy to start one up there. They also sometimes have a podcast to discuss that month’s game but many do not.

Why should I join one?

It’s a great way to play older games. It feels like on social media people generally stop talking about a game once it’s a couple of months old, especially if it isn’t a gigantic hit. Monthly game clubs allow people to try out games and have a community that they can discuss the game with. I really like this because I usually don’t get around to playing a game until much later, when most people have moved on. I’ve also found it’s just a nice way to meet people around the world and be social now that I’m a bit more isolated because of the pandemic.

Here’s some of the clubs I follow along with. If you’re looking for more, I also made a list of some that have a Twitter account here. This is also missing all the ones that don’t have a Twitter account, like the monthly playthroughs on the AdventureGamers.com forums and the one I run for the monthly games zine Indiepocalypse (message me if you want an invite). But hopefully this will help you get an idea of what they’re like.

DOS Game Club
DOS Game Club is a monthly group focused entirely on playing games on DOS that has been around for over five years. They play games from every genre and cover games both popular and obscure. One thing I really enjoy about this club is that the club discusses games on a forum and IRC channel. It’s fun to use something that reminds me of earlier days on the internet and club hosts have complete control over instead of a company like Discord. You can read about the club and find their forums and IRC here.

The Safe Room
The Safe Room is a newer group focused on horror games. It started earlier this year and has already played some classics like Silent Hill. You can listen to their podcast and join their Discord here

Cartridge Club
Cartridge Club is a group that has been around for over nine years. They play through a wide variety of games, both on consoles and PC, old and new. Their Twitter and Discord are here.

Adventure Game Club
Adventure Game Club is a monthly adventure game playthrough group that I started near the beginning of the pandemic as an excuse to get through my adventure game backlog. The adventure game genre has always been vaguely defined but generally we have a pretty loose definition and include interactive fiction related games like Citizen Sleeper and have had months for things like IFComp. It’s been nice having a place where people can discuss the games as they play them with other people who haven’t played them before and ask for hints on puzzles when needed. We also started a podcast earlier this year as an excuse to talk more after a few years of only talking through text. The Twitter page has links to the Discord and podcast

Start your own club!

If it feels like these clubs don’t quite fit what you’re looking for, consider starting your own! It doesn’t have to be anything big or have some sort of project attached to it like a podcast. It can just be you and a couple of friends talking about a different video game or tabletop rpg every month as you play them. I’ve found that they make games a more social and enjoyable experience for me and hope you consider checking one out.

Indie Game Anthologies

October 8, 2022September 18, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

Something I’ve really enjoyed seeing over the last few years has been more game anthologies consisting entirely of games by indie developers. I thought I would write about why I enjoy them so much and list some of my favorites. Consider checking them out or even supporting indie developers by starting your own!

Why are game anthologies cool?

They are a fantastic way to discover new games. Every anthology listed here has helped me discover new game developers I wasn’t aware of before.
Paid anthologies help game developers make money. Making money as a game developer is a very hard task, especially if you create experimental games that people might hesitate to spend their money on. An anthology helps reduce that risk of their purchase being a dud since if they don’t enjoy one game, there’s plenty of other ones they might be into.
They help preserve games! Many of the games in these collections would be forgotten or lost in 10 years without the help of these collections providing another place where these games can exist.

I think I also love game collections and anthologies because they remind me of when I would browse through shareware collections and magazine demo discs in the 90s and try out all sorts of games. If one game wasn’t enjoyable to me then I would just move on to the next one.

Super Rare Games Mixtape

The Super Rare Games Mixtapes are a series of physical game compilations featuring 30 games each and demos on a USB tape cassette with a manual all in a cool little box. The compilations pay the developers to include their games so it was fun seeing the late 90’s freeware game Dink Smallwood in one of the releases. They have a limited print run so some of the early ones are sold out but you can get them here.

Indiepocalypse

Indiepocalypse is a monthly anthology of tabletop and video games. Each issue contains ten games as well as a zine. One of my favorite things about Indiepocalypse is how in addition to paying developers to include their games, it also pays royalties to those devs from sales. I also really like how so many of the games are experimental and by developers that don’t have big followings. It even commissions a new game each issue so it’s helping new games get created as well. Indiepocalypse has had a giant influence on me and all my weird little indie game dev projects. I really wish it got more coverage in various outlets. I would strongly encourage you to pick up an issue and check out all the games.

Mangotronics Employment Collection

This is a collection of short games about employment that was organized by the publisher Mangotronics. The collection features nine games, I believe most of them exist elsewhere, but a couple of new games as well. I just really loved how this was a collection that was about a very specific theme. It is available on both Itch.io and Steam.

Hand Eye Society Mixtape

The Hand Eye Society Mixtape is a collection of games by The Hand Eye Society, a Toronto not-for-profit dedicated to supporting and showcasing video games. The purpose of the mixtapes is to showcase the diversity of indie games. The mixtape pays each developer to include their game in the collection and the bundle itself is available for free, but I highly encourage you to pay for it to help fund future bundles if you can afford to. There are currently two mixtapes available here.

HauntedPS1 Demo Disc

HauntedPS1 is a community that started a few years ago that was focused entirely around creating games inspired by horror games that were on the Playstation 1. Over time some of the developers from the community have started experimenting with different aesthetics or genres but the big projects that come from there are still focused on horror games. One of my favorite things they do is the HauntedPS1 Demo Disc. This is a collection inspired by 90s magazine demo discs containing demos of games by folks in the community. The presentation of the demo discs is fantastic as well. The first one is like the magazine demo discs that inspired it, but later ones have a 3D environment for you to explore. Best of all, they’re free!

If you enjoy these, also check out the Madvent Calendars that the community creates every year. They’re advent calendars with a very small game to play each day.

Dread X

Dread X is a series of horror anthologies published by DreadXP. Each collection features a variety of games by various game developers, many of them being involved with the HauntedPS1 community as well. There are five collections with each containing 7-12 games. Some even feature an impressive world to explore as a way of selecting the game you want.

Utopias: Navigating Without Coordinates

Utopias is described as a videogame network of nine worlds – each one a personal utopia developed by a member of AAA collective. It is available as Pay What You Want.

`10mg

10mg is a collection of 10 games, each with a playtime of around 10 minutes. The games cover a wide variety of art styles and gameplay with the 10 minute playtime being the only thing they have in common. I really liked all the games and at $10, it’s very affordable too.

Locally Sourced

I suppose I can plug my own collection. The first issue of the Locally Sourced zine is a collection of writing and games by people in the state of Michigan in the United States. I basically just copied what Indiepocalypse was doing and made a very local version of it. I had a fantastic time putting it together though and I’m very slowly working on another. If you would like to help more get made, consider picking up a digital or physical copy.

a woman named Cyan saying "We woke up somewhere new again..."

And in 2024 we have released another anthology! Locally Sourced Anthology I: A Space Atlas is a collection of 8 experimental games from different indie game developers with an outer space theme.

Cartomancy Anthology

Finally, I’d like to give a shout out to the Cartomancy Anthology. It’s a little different than the rest of the collections I’ve talked about here because it’s all new games exclusive to this collection. The collection has a tarot deck theme, with each game being based on a card in the deck. I really enjoyed the presentation and it was nice to see so many game developers I’m a fan of, such as Lowpolis, have a game in the collection. Cartomancy Anthology is available on both Itch.io and Steam.

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More Adventure Games for Halloween

September 28, 2022 ~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

A few days ago, I wrote a post listing some adventure games that I would recommend for the Halloween season. I thought I would do another one since there’s so many games I wanted to recommend.

Before I do that, I should probably mention The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, which comes out today. I haven’t played it yet but it’s probably a game that will be good since it’s developed by Cloak and Dagger Games, a studio I recommend later in this article, and published by Wadjet Eye Games, who are responsible for a lot of wonderful games as well like Unavowed and The Shivah.

The Corruption Within

The Corruption Within is a first-person psychological horror game set in the Victorian era. The game was developed by Cosmic Void and Dave Seaman, who both made adventure games on their own that I enjoyed. Cosmic Void created the Space Quest-inspired series Tachyon Dreams and Dave Seaman created the comedy series Captain Disaster under the developer name CaptainD. I was really charmed by the atmosphere in this game, the interesting cast of characters, and pixel art. The puzzles were challenging but never felt unfair or held me up too long, and the game only took me about 90 minutes to complete so it never wore out its welcome.

Both developers have new games coming out very soon. Cosmic Void is creating a sci-fi adventure game called Blood Nova and CaptainD has the retro-looking puzzle game Snow Problem.

Dark Fall

Dark Fall is a first-person adventure game created by Jonathan Boakes in 2002, which I guess makes this both an indie and a retro game. You play someone who has received a message from his frightened brother asking for help at an abandoned train station. The game involves you investigating the ghosts that inhabit the station and felt authentic to me, someone who doesn’t know a single thing about ghost hunting. I have a soft spot for it since it came out during a time when there weren’t many commercial adventure games being released and very few of them were worth playing. That said, I think the game holds up outside of that context. The game manages to be very creepy without resorting to jump scares and I thought the various storylines of the people you read about in the station were interesting.

I think I would maybe have a hard time recommending it to someone who doesn’t enjoy puzzles, but if you do or at least don’t mind having a hint guide open, then I think it’s a game worth checking out if you have an interest in ghost stories. Jonathan has continued making games in the Dark Fall series so if the game sounds interesting but you want a more modern game, consider checking out one of the later games in the series since they’re standalone outside of some references and two games sharing the same location.

Don’t Escape: 4 Days to Survive

Don’t Escape: 4 Days to Survive showed me how much an adventure game could innovate on genre mechanics that I used to think should have been left in the 80s. It is a post-apocalyptic survival adventure where you must carefully manage your time if you want to survive. In many ways, this game reminded me of early Sierra adventure games which I felt had dated mechanics. It’s easy to die and you can softlock yourself if you aren’t careful. But with the way the game is broken down into four chapters and relies on replaying them to maximize your time use, these mechanics felt very fresh to me and I didn’t find it frustrating in the ways that I often do with early adventure games. If you bought the Bundle for Ukraine that was on Itch earlier this year, you already own the game.

Football Game

When people describe something being Lynchian, it usually means that it’s set in a small town and there’s some quirky characters. Football Game is certainly a game inspired by him but its inspiration is more than just borrowing the aesthetics of his work, and tonally feels closer to later Lynch works like Twin Peaks: The Return. There is a feeling of uneasiness that carries through the entire game, assisted by the fantastic soundtrack by JUPITER-C. The game is only an hour long and I’d recommend it to any Lynch fan.

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The Lost World of HeroMUD

September 26, 2022 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

This article was originally published in the Michigan indie game zine Locally Sourced. If you enjoyed reading this, consider supporting further Michigan game history research by picking up a digital or physical version of the zine. If you have any memories or info about HeroMUD not mentioned here, please leave it in the comments!

In the early days of online video games, before games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch, there existed the MUD. Short for Multi-User Dungeon, these games combined elements of text adventure games like Zork with tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons to create a virtual world that would allow players to connect to a server through their local network or phone line and explore a world together with other players. Players would type their actions into the computer and get a response back from the server describing what happened in text. While the genre still exists today, they were mainly played from the late 70s to early 90s. Most of the servers from that time have been shut down, but the one that interests me the most is a game called HeroMUD.

HeroMUD was a MUD set in the fictional city “Metadelphia” based on Ann Arbor, Michigan[1]. The game ran on servers at the University of Michigan at the art and engineering schools. Since the MUD was not approved by the university, it would occasionally get shut down and would be offline until it could find another server to run on.

When players signed onto HeroMUD for the first time, this is what they would see[2]:

The Diag You are standing on the Diag of Metadelphia Universitat. A holographic clock pulses in the air above you. A small sign reads: Orientation -- ‘press button’ for guided tour.

Obvious exits: northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast, south, west

Crity the utter frosh is standing here.

After being presented with this text, players were given the freedom to type in different commands to interact with the environment. They could examine different objects in the room, press the button for the guided tour, and talk to characters like Crity. The beginning areas were laid out just like the University of Michigan campus and heading in different directions from here would take players to parts of Metadelphia that resembled the campus.

The game itself seemed to have influences from everything that was popular in pop culture at the time. Character classes had powers inspired by Spider-Man, Wolverine, The Incredible Hulk, Green Lantern, and Jedi from Star Wars. Events in the game were also influenced by pop culture; players could walk into a movie theater playing Die Hard and join John McClane and Hans Gruber in the Nakatomi Building[3]. There was a section of the game modeled after Toontown from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, that supported actions like sticking your thumb out to have Benny the Cab pick you up. The game even had Darth Vader as one of its toughest enemies.

The game was filled with interesting mechanics not seen in other games. In most online games, a sudden disconnection leaves the player’s character standing in place for a few minutes before being removed from the game. Suddenly disconnecting from HeroMUD without logging out would turn the player into a marble statue for others to see until they reconnected[4].

Like other MUDs, HeroMUD had players complete quests for experience points to level up. A few quests in the game relied on humor. One involved having to get refused service at a convenience store by having to get No Shirt and No Shoes objects from NPCs in town, before getting the No Service quest object from the convenience store[5].

HeroMUD had its own form of moderators. Police Officers were a player type who enforced the rules of HeroMUD. If a player was given the Police Officer role, they were given access to the Police Station where they were given a locker containing equipment such as armor and weapons that were of higher quality than the gear players normally had. The Police Station also had a box of donuts that players could eat to regain hit points.

The mechanic for death in HeroMUD was unique as well. Upon dying, players would float around and observe the world, unable to interact with anything, until the timer ended and the player was resurrected. Many online games work like this and it’s nothing unique, however there was a faster way that players could be reborn. HeroMUD featured a player role known as Death that was the highest level that players could achieve as a regular character. As Death, the goal was to retrieve as many souls floating around so they could advance to the next level of power that was more advanced than death. Players with the Death role would sit in a waiting room known as “Death’s Waiting Room” where they would wait to be alerted by their scythe that a player had died and their soul was waiting to be retrieved. This often resulted in a
scramble by all the Death players to be the first to retrieve the soul. Once the soul was collected, the player character would be resurrected and could interact with the world again. The MUD started sometime during 80s and ran until 1991, when it appears to have been shut down for good. When the game was shut down, they slowly flooded rooms until there were only a few left.[6] This is the message people would see when they tried to telnet to the MUD:

Sorry, Further access from Michnet to HERO MUD will not be allowed. This situation will not change. Please do not bother Michnet with questions about HERO MUD. HERO MUD is not a public service. Connection closed by foreign host.

There was an attempt a year later to create a HeroMUD 2 but it was never completed[7]. While HeroMUD seems to be lost forever, the game has had a lasting impact on its players. Even today, people exchange stories on Twitter and elsewhere of a game they played thirty years ago. More info about the game is discovered every few months and who knows, maybe the source code to the game will be discovered somewhere.

https://localwiki.org/ann-arbor/HeroMUD
The Internet for Everyone. Richard W. Wiggins. 1994.
https://twitter.com/timburks/status/1410454899708424196
https://twitter.com/jeremymika/status/1432689215792320513
https://icaruslaughing.livejournal.com/356627.html
https://twitter.com/jeremymika/status/1432690652647542790
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.mud.lp/c/DCg944vVJlo/m/65HMY9ejWCAJ

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