As I mentioned in my indie game roundup, I took a break from posting because of…y’know, and I guess I’m back at it because it takes my mind off things and brings me joy. If you enjoy these, subscribe to some blogs with a RSS feed reader (I use Inoreader) and start your own blog! Doesn’t have to be anything big, could just be with Zonelets or Bear Blog. We can at least make the web feel less small in 2025.
Collection Chamber is a great abandonware blog. Every month they upload five games that have been updated to work on modern operating systems.
Rob talks about two side blogs he’s started. Tatwatch is one focused on b-movies and Videogames is focused on video games. All three blogs are great and in my RSS feed reader.
Ephemeral Enigmas wrote about the 1983 Intellivision game Dracula. I’ve really enjoyed this blog for retro games writing, often focusing on console games I’ve never heard of.
Good Old Days also writes about old games I’ve never heard of. This time they have a review of the Atari ST game Simulcra.
Final Fantasy VIII Is the Best is active again. Please follow this one if you’re remotely interested in lots of blog posts defending a game that gets a lot of criticism even from fans of the series.
Prismatic Wasteland did a thread of posts on Bluesky about people writing on vampires in tabletop rpgs if you’re looking for more ttrpg writing in your RSS feed reader.
It’s not a blog post, I just like when cool people interview other cool people. Emily Price talks to Joe Richardson, creator of adventure games like The Procession to Calvary.
It’s not new but this seems like a nice guide to getting into making pixel art.
It feels dumb writing about video games on my blog after this week but I have to take my mind off things so here we are. This is a bigger one than usual too since it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve done one of these because of….y’know, everything. Maybe something in here will bring you some joy too. If you recently released a game, tell me! I like hearing about this stuff. If you enjoyed this post, pass it on and tell your friends about what indie games you’re excited about, whether it’s through your own blog or social media.
Video Games
There’s a few hours left for the Click-Or-Treat bundle (Itch.io), where you can get a bunch of Halloween games for $9.
AdventureX (Steam) is doing a free online convention and sale. Go check out talks about adventure games and maybe pick up a game.
Clarissa the Dogcow lost her job and is looking for additional backing on Patreon to help her finish some of her really cool games. Go check out her post on Mastodon for more details. The world needs more Zelda 2-inspired games.
Indie Tsushin (Site) has announced their Study Buddy jam, where folks learn a new engine or genre or whatever for making a game.
Adam Saltsman released two PICO-8 games for the browser, the rpg Rat Dreams (Itch.io) and the puzzle game Kuiper Cargo (Itch.io).
We got a new issue of the Interactive Fiction and Visual Novel zine ChoiceBeat (Site/Itch.io). Every issue is free and has reviews, previews, and interviews.
Barry Bonds enters the World of MYST (2004) is an interactive story made by Jon Bois, originally published on the comedy website progressiveboink.com. Cecile Richard has remade the game and put it on Itch.io for a new generation of Myst fans to enjoy.
It’s the beginning of the month so we have a new Indiepocalypse (Itch.io).
Airdorf made the very cute browser game Skeleton Game (Itch.io) with their 4 year old daughter. More people should make games with their kids.
ECTOCOMP (Itch.io) has ended and people are voting on the submissions now. Go check out a bunch of interactive fiction games celebrating Halloween.
PROCJAM (Itch.io) also just ended. This one is a jam focused on procedural generation. So like, the kind of AI that isn’t focused on stealing art.
Tallywinkle released her first parser interactive fiction. It’s called Thanksgiving Dinner (Itch.io), a free browser game about Thanksgiving Day.
We got a really snazzy looking Monkey Island game called The Booze of Monkey Island (Itch.io).
Johnson. A Plane Man (Downpour) is a found imagery game made from the Ryanair Boeing 737-8200 safety instructions. The game was created by Hyphinett using the neat game making tool Downpour. Free and playable in the browser and the Downpour app.
BITCH HELL (Itch.io) is a FPS that feels a lot like something made in the Quake era. I don’t really know the engine used (FTEWQ) well enough to tell if it was connected to the Quake engine but it rules. Available for $6.66.
Andrew Plotkin has released two games. Advent Door (Itch.io) is a free browser text parser Advent Calendar game game and TheBeyond (Steam/Itch.io) is an interactive comic.
3D Workers Island (Itch.io) is a short horror story in the browser about a screensaver.
Slayaway Camp 2 (Steam) is a puzzle game where you’re a Jason Vorhees-like monster trying to wipe out all the people at a camp. Haven’t played this one yet but I liked the first game.
Apples Busy Day (Steam/Itch.io) is a short and cozy game about exploring and helping your neighbors. It looks like a really cute and comforting game if that’s what you need right now.
VERY NOT SAFE FOR WORK PAGE but HARDCODED (Itch.io/Steam) is out. It’s a very queer open world dating sim set in a cyberpunk world. I think it’s great and features some incredible pixel art but AGAIN, THE GAME PAGE IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK.
Robert’s Spooktacular Ghost Train (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want game where you build a little ghost themed ride at a fairground.
TETRACHROMA (Steam) is a Tetris-like that also block color changing mechanic.
Hesitation (Itch.io) is a short visual novel playable in the browser where you piece together a story by interacting with the items in a small room. Make sure you read the content warnings first. Also check out the developer’s tabletop rpgs on Itch.io.
ROGUE FLIGHT (Steam/Switch/Xbox/PS5) looks like a fun arcade space sim. It has a demo too!
Moida Mansion (Itch.io) is a new Lucas Pope (Obra Dinn designer) adventure game that’s playable in the browser and resembles one of those LCD handheld game things.
Stardust Demon (Steam/Itch.io) is a Metroidvania featuring some really impressive pixel art and 3D CGI FMV cutscenes. I’m a big fan of resnijars’ other games so this probably rules too. There’s a demo as well if you want to try it first.
Danielle Riendeau made a graveyard building strategy game called Tower of the Dead (Itch.io) for Cosmic Horrors Jam III
Tabletop Games
Escape from Wonderland (Kickstarter) is a tabletop rpg being designed by Turtlebun about trying to escape an amusement park. They’re great. Go check out the Kickstarter or some of their other games on Itch.io.
In The World We Left Behind (Itch.io), play as astronauts trekking across an alien planet. It’s a GMless game for 1-5 players. I think it’s fascinating that it was originally commissioned by a ballet collective?
Unspeakable Gate (Itch.io) is a solo TTRPG in which you take on the role of an artist building a mysterious Gate and becoming more and more absorbed in the reality that lies on its other side. Peach Garden Games has made so many good solo ttrpgs, check them out!
I think this one came out a while ago because I got the Kickstarter reward months ago, so I think this is just new to Itch.io, but The Coven of P.S. 13 (Itch.io) is a GM-less game for 2-6 people inspired by The Craft where you and your coven are planning for a big event occurring on the night of the full moon.
Sign for a closed store called Computer Nation Milwaukee, Wisconsin Photo credit: Hypnocoin on Twitter (which got deleted and a crypto thing took over)
People posted on their blogs a lot this week! Apologies in advance for this being a long one. If you enjoyed any of these blogs, subscribe to their RSS feed and consider doing your own blog roundups since Google sucks now.
Talkin’ About Old Games
So many folks talked about old games this week that I thought it deserved its own section.
The Genesis Temple goes into the history of the very weird NES game Monster Party.
Badger Trebuchet Diagram No. 17 talks about the old Windows rpg Castle of the Winds.
Final Fantasy VIII Is the Best has been incredible active this last week. I can’t even link to one post because there’s been a ton in the last week. Just go check it out.
Dev logs are the best. I love seeing how people are doing on their games, it allows folks to go into much more details than they could on micro blogging spots, and writing my own has been good motivation for me on my game. Highly recommend doing your own if you’re thinking about it.
David Lindsey Pittman goes into the work he’s doing on Eldritch 2‘s hub spaces and trying to make the game more of an immersive sim.
Prismatic Wasteland has two great posts about playing tabletop rpgs. One is on how to play as a ghost after dying and the other goes into how they let players have vampire characters. Great stuff! Go check out their games.
I keep discovering great music through the Morning Music blog.
I have gotten really into Answer Phone lately, my friend’s project where he uploads old cassette and answering machine tapes he finds at thrift stores.
Not new, but POINTCLICKING has a lot of nice adventure game fan art.
Well I said last week that things were calming down and lol, oops. No. Haven’t really been posting much here or on social media because of everything going on. Well, anyway, games.
I don’t think I posted about IF Comp at all? A pretty huge mistake on my part if I haven’t. The results and just been announced and you can check out all the games and winners here.
The Campsite (Itch.io) is an hour long point-and-click adventure game available for Pay-What-You-Want. It’s about an hour long and I feel like it’s appropriate for people less experience with the genre.
Mohrta (Itch.io) is a demo for an upcoming game made in GZDoom and I’m really impressed with what it does in the engine. I know it’s not the same engine that ID Software used to make Doom but you know what? Still really cool. Comparing games to Dark Souls is overdone but I’m going to do it anyway. The game has a slower pace than what you would find in a Doom engine game, with combat encounters usually just involving a couple enemies at a time at the most. I really enjoyed the world design too.
Water Level/b.l.u.e. EXPLORATION (Itch.io) felt like playing a PSX game in a dream.
second fall 24 (Itch.io) is a fun musical toy playable in the browser. It kind of reminds me of little mini-games you would find on multimedia cd-roms. Maybe I’ve been playing too many Peter Gabriel cd-roms lately.
The Solar Server has its first game! This is a server that is powered entirely by solar power, meaning you can only play the games on the server during a limited window. The site has more info on how the server was setup too.
Vladimere’s Lore (Steam) is an anthology of 14 games created by the developer over 10 years. I’ve played some of these games through HauntedPS1 releases and had a good time. Worth checking out if you’re into horror games with a retro 3D aesthetic.
PRIM (Steam) looks like a lovely point-and-click adventure if you’re looking for a creepy but also sorta cute game to play at this time of year.
Wilmot Works It Out (Steam) is the newest game in the Wilmot puzzle series. I loved Wilmot’s Warehouse when that came out, so I’ll probably really like this too when I get around to it.
I’ll have a longer review of it soon, but The Protagonish (Steam/Itch.io) is a short interactive story where you basically control everyone in a story outside of the protagonist himself. The story only takes a few minutes to play through and you make different decisions through all the side characters for different outcomes. I think it’s pretty neat. I really liked the art and was amused by how the protagonist is very much like your traditional adventure game protagonist, but not in a good way, and takes everything around him and doesn’t really care about the people around him, with all the characters you control around being kind of tired of him.
That’s it for this week. If you enjoy these, subscribe to the blog through the RSS feed, tell a friend, and check out these games. I also have an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!
It’s another roundup of blog posts I enjoyed reading this last week. If you like these posts, consider subscribing to some of these blog through your RSS feed reader (I use Inoreader and think it’s nice) and consider doing your own roundup since Google Search is busted for discovering new things.
I don’t actually like Cory Doctorow, sorry, but I do think people should listen to him when he says you should be using a RSS feed reader. It’s certainly made using the internet a lot more fun for me over the last year.
This blog was pretty quiet this week because it’s been a hell week but things have calmed down now. Oh well, these things happen I guess. How was your week? What have you been playing lately? Let me know in the comments.
The Videotome Jam (Itch.io) has started! Videotome is a series of small IF/VN engines and you can find all four on the jam page.
The Steam Next Fest is also happening right now. I haven’t really dug into the demos yet but there’s a lot of them. Maybe you’ll find something neat.
Collage Advertisement
Collage Advertisement : Propaganda (Itch.io) is a short, political VN made in the hypercard-inspired tool Decker. Please read the content warning/disclaimer first!
Mourningstar (Itch.io) is a “satanic” “biblepunk” dark science fantasy tabletop rpg about resistance, rebellion, othering, theology, individuality, misfits, colonialism, divine politics, infernal magic, & exploring the stars as swashbuckling devils. The game is inspired by the Forged in the Dark framework. The game was created by super talented game designer and musician Devin Nelson.
Snow Flow
Indie Games+ has a nice review of a new game called Snow Flow. The game is playable for free on Itch.io and the art reminds me a lot of 80s Macintosh games.
Lorenzo Pilia created a manifesto On Small Games (Itch.io).
Johnson. A Plane Man is a game created in Downpour (Link) by Hyphinett. Downpour is a really fun tool for making very small games.
Not new but still cool, Karambola (Steam/Itch.io) is a free point-and-click adventure that reminds me of games like Samorost. There’s an art book for sale (Steam/Itch.io) if you would like to support the dev.
The Ghost and the Golem (Steam) is an interactive historical fantasy story published by Choice of Games about if your magic amulet save your Jewish village from destruction.
It’s not indie but I think it’s really interesting that Backyard Baseball ’97 (Steam) was just rereleased on Steam with compatibility on modern OS and achievements.
NovaMundi (Steam) is an open world tactical game where you must unite the people of nearby towns to fight off Spanish invaders.
The Urge (Itch.io) is a short erotic story created in Twine by Oma Keeling about operating a machine.
That’s it for this week. If you enjoy these, subscribe to the blog through the RSS feed, tell a friend, and check out these games. I’ve also started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!
Another collection of blog posts I liked reading this week. If you like these, consider subscribing to the blogs on your RSS feed reader and doing your own roundup posts if you’ve got a site. Google Search is becoming useless now and this is a way people will find new stuff.
Dante talks about Memoriapolis, a city builder I never heard of but sounds really cool and possibly addresses some of the issues I have with the genre?
Speaking of city builders, badger trebuchet diagram no. 17 posted about Sim City 3000 vaporwave.
I just like when people talk about what they’ve been into lately and Meredith Gran, creator of Perfect Tides, wrote one of those.
The Fungus Zone explains how it’s the year of the games anthology. I’m possibly biased because mine is listed there and I’m working on another right now, but I agree.
Chuck Jordan (Curse of Monkey Island, Telltale’s Sam and Max) has a nice post reflecting on being out for 20 years on National Coming Out Day.
Amiga Boing Blog is a nice blog covering Amiga games. Although personally, I think if your game is called Moose Drive then it should be more interesting than a generic racing game.
Not Blog Posts but here’s some other things
I liked this piece on RogerEbert.com about Megalopolish, the Joker sequel, and how more directors should be allowed to make potential misfires.
Aftermath wrote about how forums are alive and well, and lists a ton of active ones. Personally I’m kind of “hmmmm” about their hesitance on listing forums related to sexuality but gun forums are ok I guess? But I appreciate the enthusiasm and do think forums are nice. If you like talking about DOS games, then I recommend DOS Game Club and IntFiction.org isn’t bad for Interactive Fiction discussion. Data preservation issues aside, I personally find forums to be a lot less overwhelming than something like Discord and wish we could see more people using them.
I have fun posting any and all Gobliins 6 related news on here so here’s another update. Gobliins 6 has just launched a Kickstarter to fund development and finish the game. I enjoyed Gobliiins 5, which I had backed on Kickstarter, and this lists quite a few improvements on that. The rewards are pretty interesting too if you’re really into the artist’s work. I don’t recall any roadbumps or big delays with the campaign for 5 so it seems like a pretty safe one to back if you were thinking about it.
Every year I do a handful of indie adventure game recommendations for Halloween, like here, here, and here, and thought it would be time to do a couple more.
I’ve mentioned it a few times but Incubus – A Ghost Hunter’s Tale (Steam) is a fun adventure game if you enjoy ghost hunting and FMV. I’ve always enjoyed the developer’s other games like the Dark Fall series and this is another ghost hunting adventure by them. While I’m not into ghost hunting in real life personally, this feels authentic to what folks in that area do….I think.
Homestar Runner has a long tradition of referencing point-and-click adventure games and one of their recent commercial games (well, 2023), Homestar Runner: Halloween Hide n’ Seek (Steam), continues that tradition. The game features characters dressed as references to a variety of classic adventure games, both recognizable and obscure, and can be played in one sitting. I think this is maybe a rerelease of something they made before but with added voice acting and extra material but I’m not sure. It’s fun!
I am a big fan of Cosmic Void’s adventure games and Devil’s Hideout (Steam) is another solid game by the studio. Like all of their previous games, Devil’s Hideout features great pixel art and music to tell the story of a woman looking for her missing sister.
Excuse Me Sir (Itch.io) is a weird one because it’s just a demo for a game that has since been canceled, but I love how weird it is and I think the demo is self-contained enough that I would still recommend checking it out.
