What a Time to Be a Fan of Adventure Games

May 27, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

first person view of a decrepit building inside at night

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

first person view of someone kicking a soccer ball into cones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

person sitting on a rooftop in a city at night

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Various Retro Gaming Bits

May 24, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

top down view of a robot dog flying through space

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

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

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

Indie Game Roundup (May 23, 2025)

May 23, 2025May 23, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

I realize I say it just about every week but hoo boy, what a week, and this time I mean it. Doing this post on time for once because tomorrow I’m going to a sleepover at a zoo and I will not give additional context to that. Anyway, instead of streaming Zork from some Microsoft cloud service that doesn’t even work, here are some indie games you can play instead. Or just download some free text adventures from IFDB.

Video Games

guy jumping while another guy is attempting to cast a spell at him

The biggest one for me this week is Virtue’s Heaven (Steam/Itch.io). I’ve been waiting a few years for it so I’m happy to see this come out. It’s one of those Metroid-like games but with a very nice Game Boy aesthetic and it’s felt great to play so far. I’ve been really enjoying the combat system and while I hate the term “Juice” to describe parts of games, sigh, it’s got good “juice.” It’s got a demo if you want to give it a try.

Six One Indie did a big showcase yesterday. Maybe you’ll discover a lot of cool, upcoming games through it?

Can a game about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles be considered indie? I don’t fucking know, I’m just some person with a blog named after a moose. But I like Strange Scaffold a lot so their newest game on Steam looks fun.

It’s been a ridiculous time for point-and-click adventures. I keep saying it every week but it’s because there’s been so many coming out. Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer is yet another one from a studio I like.

TweetTweetJam is a jam on Itch.io where people make a game in 500 characters or less. This is their 10th one and it’s always fun to see what clever stuff folks are making with such a small constraint.

Decker is a really neat tool for making Hypercard-looking applications, and now there’s a pink template.

I haven’t played the demo for Broken Relic yet but it looks like a very nice upcoming point-and-click adventure game.

s*ssy caption aesthetic II is an interactive collage….essay…zine? by bagenzo about a variety of personal topics. It’s brilliant, go check it out in the browser.

top down view of a blue guy hitting monsters with a sword

Blungo’s Dungeon Luncheon is a pay-what-you-want dungeon crawler strongly influenced by the NES, not just how it looks, but also the audio and how it controls. The language in it may be a turn off to something but I think it’s a neat little game. Plus I like saying Blungo.

first person view of a boat floating down a marsh at night

I haven’t played it yet but Overlook Trail looks like a very pretty exploration game and it even has a demo.

Tabletop Games

Treat yourself to a tabletop game about kale

Sandy Pug Games is the best and it’s always a treat to see them release a new game. Hellpiercers is described as “a tabletop tactics RPG about post-mythic warfare, mechs powered by ritual and divinity, and the struggle for total, unconditional liberation.” Sometimes people balk at $30 for a PDF but I don’t know, it’s a fucking ton of art in there and tabletop rpgs are games designed to keep a group of 3-6 people entertained for many hours. So $30 for all of that sounds like a great deal to me.

I’ve always wanted to learn how to play Mahjong so maybe this zine will help me out.

Crowdfunding

I’m so excited that the Kickstarter for the documentary about Jeff Minter, Heart of Neon, has already hit its goal. There has never been a better time to be a Llamasoft fan between stuff like this and recent releases like I, Robot.

Crescent County is a single player, open-world, broom riding game that looks pretty nice. I’m happy to see that it hit its goal so quickly.

Possible Worlds Games is one of my favorite ttrpg publishers and they’re so close to hitting funding for their newest set of games, J. Walton’s surreal fishing RPG Tacklebox & Tyler Crumrine’s people-watching RPG Better Strangers.

Not brand new but it’s new to me

Dispatches from VR (Itch.io) is a zine about the author’s experiences with VR as a disabled person. It’s pay-what-you-want and you can also check it out in the browser.

Indie Game Roundup (May 2, 2025)

May 2, 2025May 2, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ 6 Comments

We did it folks. We kinda sorta survived another week. Bandcamp Friday is today. Consider picking up an album or two when the site isn’t taking a cut from sales.

Six One Indie put together a nice collection of sites for folks to consider supporting now that Polygon and Giant Bomb are gone and the world of games journalism continues to shrink. This Neocities page lists some of the ways you can follow Polygon folks. It’s a less impressive list but I also listed a few places in a post here and there’s always the Cool Site Zone at the top of the page. It’s just unbelievably rough for everyone in games right now and I guess just do what you can to help each other out.

Well alright, here are some of the games I was excited about this week. Since I am not using social media, I am counting on you (points out at the screen at you) to spread the word about these roundups, if you feel like it.

EDIT: I have confirmed that this successfully autoposts to bluesky and mastodon, lol, hooray! This was never an issue with masto but the plugin I was previously using was fussy.

There’s two charity bundles that I think are worth a look. This TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Ohio charity bundle wraps up very soon. For $5 or more you can get hundreds of great ttrpgs. I have a ttrpg in this Crips for eSims for Gaza Bundle. For $16 or more you can gets tons of video games and ttrpgs and help Palestinians.

a cat dressed as a magician and the word "meow" appearing behind it

Skin Deep (Steam) is here! It’s an immersive sim by Blendo Games that I’ve been waiting for quite a while and I’ve seen nothing but praise for it. It looks like Die Hard on a space ship but with the goofy situations that pop up in games like the Hitman series.

One Million Chessboards (dev site) is a site with a million chessboards. Moving a piece moves it for everyone, instantly. There’s no turns and you can move between boards.

Dragonfeed (Itch.io) is a free browser game meant for mobile devices and a fascinating thing for me to play as I try to pull back a bit from social media.

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

a warrior bleeding on the floor and saying "I fought many battles in my youth, but I never rashly sought out glory. I retired into the palace guard, and lived in harmony with the land."

Waiting for the Death Wind (Itch.io) is a free, short interactive story created for the Dialogue Jam about conversation between a dying warrior and his goddess. I loved it. I was really impressed with the art, music, and voice acting all created for this jam game.

The Velox Formido 2 game jam (Itch.io) is a visual novel jam featuring games by some of my favorite IF writers like SWANCHIME and Norbez Jones.

Navicula Meatus (Steam) is a dark first person dungeon crawler set in a decaying town. It may be too much meat for me but there’s a demo for you to check out to decide for yourself how much meat is enough.

World of Goo 2 (dev site, basically every platform) is here and looks like what you would expect from a sequel to the original game. More goo puzzles!

a cd-rom and 3d text saying Anglesoft C2 Prototype

The DiscMaster Jam (Itch.io) was a week-long game jam using vintage computer files from The Internet Archive. I highly recommend Anglesoft’s C2 Prototype but I’m sure I will be looking at the games from this jam for a long time and doing the sickos meme.

You Are Generative AI (Itch.io) is a browser game where you are a generative ai, answering prompts in growing in power usage. I also recommend the author’s game You Are Jeff Bezos if you haven’t played that one either.

two pixel characters hitting balls back and forth while and audience watches

10S FOREVER (Itch.io) looks like a really cute tennis-like arcade game. It’s also coming to Steam in a little bit but it’s on a launch sale now and the designer seems to prefer sales from here anyway.

Taxi Quest 67 (Itch.io) is a browser game about two friends heading down a river in a boat. It was created for the road trip jam and yes, it being a boat game is addressed in the game. The character animation reminds me of the squigglevision in Home Movies and Dr. Katz. It’s very good. I am pro squigglevision.

TWENTY-SOMETHING YEAR OLD FAGGOT (Itch.io) is a solo ttrpg by Sandy Pug Games about being a young queer person, fresh out of the closet and eager to join a dark, mysterious, dangerous queer underground in their city. I believe it’s a hack of Thousand Year Old Vampire.

Mythical Concept STARNAUT (Steam) is a Survivors-like by the El Shaddai devs.

Wizordum (Steam) has left Early Access! This is Catacomb 3D-inspired FPS where you are a wizard doing wizard stuff and shooting everything. The developer worked on some very good remasters for the new version of Apogee. I believe you are only on one height level and never go up and down steps, which makes it a Catacomb 3D-like for me. Anyway, it has a demo for you to try out.

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

That’s it for this week. I hope you have a swell weekend!

Indie Game Roundup (Apr. 25, 2025)

April 25, 2025April 25, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Even though it’s been less than a week since I’ve done one of these, there’s already a bunch of indie games to talk about and none of them are part of a boycott (as far as I know). If you like these, considering adding the site to your RSS feed reader. I will be away from social media for the month of May while I get used to going back to school again. These will continue automatically posting to social media though. Ok, here’s some games.

Jeff Minter in a field of low poly sheep — Hypersheep Eats All the Biscuits

Last week I mentioned Llamasoft’s wonderful I, Robot remake and there’s also been a game jam celebrating Jeff Minter and his games. For whatever reason the jam page doesn’t seem to list all the games and there isn’t a jam on Itch I can just look at, so to the best of my ability, here are all the games I could find and my thoughts. I’m confident that I’ve missed at least a few so please let me know in the comments what other games are out there so I can play them. I’m griping about the jam a bit but it’s nice see a lot of people celebrate someone and the games they’ve made and maybe the industry should do this kind of thing more often.

Hypersheep Eats All the Biscuits (Itch.io) is a really cute one by PsychicParrot, developer of other fantastic games like Die for the Economy!, and it also has cover art by Rob Fearon. You play as a sheep that must remind Jeff to feed them biscuits and occasionally daydreaming about being a superhero. The developer says the VR version is superior but I played the non-VR version and still had a fun time.

PROTOBEAST (Itch.io) is just a really slick and straightforward twin-stick shooter with all the bleeps and bloops you would want from an 80s inspired game, with some fun references to Minter’s games. Definitely recommended if you like your Geometry Wars-likes and what not.

Perfect Cycle (Itch.io) is a browser game where you cruise down a road shooting at neon things and big words appears like you would expect in a Minter game. I guess you could call it a Polybius-like?

Crackle Attack (Itch.io) has you dodging attacks from a giant thing with gears for hands and gradually ramps up in difficulty. Surprisingly both relaxing and hectic at the same time.

The Beastly Siege of Irata 7 (Itch.io) kinda reminds me of Asteroids in that you fly around a space and shoot at UFOs, but has the very clever mechanic of you retrieving debris from those ships and feeding them to the beast in the center of the screen and trying to keep it alive for as long as possible.

MAMA CABRA (Itch.io) is a browser game made in PICO-8 where you’re a goat flying through space shooting stuff and saving sheep. How can you beat that? To be honest, I didn’t actually know PICO-8 games supported the mouse until I played this.

StarGiraf (Itch.io) is an Atari 2600 space shooter playable in the browser where you are a giraffe with a very long neck and shoot things. Incredibly charming.

I highly recommend checking all of these games out if you are a fan of Llamasoft, or even if you never played a Llamasoft game before and just like arcade games and sheep.

Adam Saltsman continues to put out great PICO-8 games. In the puzzle game Mole Mole (Itch.io) you are are a mole (of course) and must reach the exit of each level by blowing things up.

Old Skies (Steam) is the newest game by Wadjet Eye Games. I’m so happy this is out. I got to play a beta and think it’s one of their best, if not best, point-and-click adventures. It’s a time travel story featuring incredible art by Ben Chandler and great voice acting by a lot of the folks that have acted in previous Wadjet Eye Games adventures. Between games like this, Rosewater, Blue Prince, and many of the other games I’ve highlighted in recent roundups, we’re in a great period for adventure games.

New games for old platforms are always fun to see. Frontier Force (Itch.io) looks like a fun shoot-em-up for the Sega Master System and SkillTeam (Itch.io) is a clever Sokobon-like for the Amstrad CPC (but playable in the browser).

a board filled with various shapes and a guy on the left side of a screen and an evil version of him on the right

Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 (Steam/Itch.io) is the newest game by Strange Scaffold. I remember hearing about this being worked on a while ago and looking forward to it, so it makes me happy to see so many folks praising the game. It’s a Puzzle Quest-inspired game where you Match 3 objects in a row to fight opponents, but apparently has Metroid-inspired exploration elements too.

isometric view of a guy walking on floating platforms

Bryce Tiles (Steam) is another one I’ve been looking forward to for a while! I was a fan of the free Klik And Play-inspired (I assume this means nothing to people under 35) platformer Bryce’s Movement Engine¹ (Steam/Itch.io) and this looks like it keeps that aesthetic but moving to the genre of Isometric Puzzle Game.

Does the Amerzone remake fit into this roundup? Probably not right? I don’t think it counts as indie? Whatever, maybe some folks with find it interesting since I’m guessing most of the folks reading this are also adventure game nerds.

Finally, a Kickstarter has launched for the second edition of the city building tabletop rpg Ex Novo. I really like the first edition.

Well that’s it for this week. I hope you found something to play that you’ll end up loving!

Thoughts on Detective Boiled-Hard / Case File – Death of the Space Dino Hunter

April 22, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Developer: Because Because Games
Publisher: Because Because Games
Year: 2020
Genre: Adventure Game

Detective Boiled-Hard is a traditional point-and-click adventure that came out in 2020 that I was also curious about but didn’t get around to playing until now.

a picture of two men in front of a fake dinosaur and a head on a stool behind a camera

You played as Detective Boiled-Hard and must investigate the death of someone to see what happened. It’s a very breezy adventure game. The puzzles are easy and it took me just under an hour to complete, but I had fun playing it. I had been motivated to play it after playing a lot of Reality-On-the-Norm games lately and this always reminded me of the early 00’s AGS freeware era. That could maybe sound like an insult to some people but I really mean it in the nicest way. I love that everything, including the voices for all the characters, was done by one person.

Since the game itself isn’t difficult, most of the fun comes from all the jokes packed into the game. There’s plenty of dialog choices that are just there for additional jokes and plenty to interact with in the game. It’s just a very light and silly adventure game that I think is worth a look if you want an easier and more relaxing adventure to playing in an evening or have a fondness for that AGS era I mentioned. I also just found out there’s a free mini-case of all new material if you want a demo or played the original game and want more, so I’ll need to check that out next.

Detective Boiled-Hard / Case File – Death of the Space Dino Hunter is available on Steam and Itch.io

Indie Game Roundup (Apr. 6, 2025)

April 6, 2025April 6, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Hoo boy, what a week. Well…..here’s some indie games.

Acid Web (Steam) is a twin stick shooter where you control a spider with a skull head on a web and shoot various baddies. I tried the demo and it all felt good to control and I think it’s worth a look if you enjoy these types of games and don’t have a problem with looking at a spider with a skull for a head. The art actually reminded me a bit of early VGA shareware games.

gif of a pinball bouncing in a table and there's roman statues and columns next to the table

Vaporwave Pinball (Steam/Itch.io) is a pinball game where all the tables are set in a vaporwave aesthetic. I had previously played a demo of the game before and had really enjoyed it, so I’m looking forward to playing the full release. I’m actually hoping to stream this one soon.

Wednesdays (Steam/Itch.io) is a game about child abuse and trauma. I’m not in the place to play it right now but it was strongly recommended by Taylor McCue, who create He Fucked the Girl Out of Me, a game that I did think was incredible, so I trust that it carefully handles the subject.

A new Indiepocalypse (Itch.io) is available so I am required by law to mention it.

Gold Brick Simulator (Itch.io) is a game released on April Fool’s Day where you get a high score on a global leaderboard by repeatedly clicking on a gold brick. Did I buy this? Yes, of course I did.

isometric view of a fighter in a dungeon casting a spell hitting zombies

I don’t know a whole lot about Tower of Kalemonvo (Steam) tbh but I saw a couple folks praising it and there’s a demo available so if you’re a fan of Diablo 1, consider giving it a look.

Social Democracy: Petrograd 1917 (Itch.io) is a political simulator playable in the browser and created for Spring Thing 2025 where you play as the Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Kadets, or Bolsheviks, and steer the revolution to victory or collapse.

You should actually check out all the Spring Thing 2025 entries for more interactive fiction games.

Turbo Tomato (Itch.io) is a new arcade game for the Amiga. I haven’t played it yet but I get excited about how there are still physical commercial games for the Amiga in 2025 and I have really enjoyed some of the dev’s previous games.

a mechanic talking to two aliens with pig noises who are lounging on a beach in a space station.

After being in development for 13 years, SpaceVenture (Steam/Itch.io) has entered Early Access. It’s a new point-and-click adventure by the creators of the Space Quest series from Sierra. I only played the version released to backers 2 years ago, but my understanding is that while this version still has a few bugs, they’ve been working quickly to get them fixed. There’s probably a whole blog post I could do about the history of this game and how they went so many personal issues while making this game and how unhinged some of the backers have been, but I assume the Space Quest Historian on YouTube has it all covered.

Blood on my Name (Itch.io) is a solo journaling RPG that follows a former assassin on a mission of revenge. by Kienna Shaw and Jason Cutrone.

What is the ‘Secret Technique’ To Creativity in TTRPGs (Itch.io) is a PWYW book about making ttrpgs.

That’s it for this week. Hopefully you found something that’s exciting to you!

Discolored

March 17, 2025March 17, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

Developer: Jason Godbey
Publisher: Jason Godbey
Year: 2019
Genre: Adventure Game

black and white shot of a diner in the desert at night

Discolored is a 2019 first person adventure game created by Jason Godbey that I recently picked up because I saw the recently released sequel pop up on a few sites and was in the mood for a Myst-like game. There isn’t much of a plot, you are told that a diner in the middle of the desert has lost all color and you are sent to investigate. This is essentially all the plot you come across in the game and just exists to get you to the puzzles as soon as possible. Fortunately the puzzling in this is very good. The game starts off with having no colors in the world, but through various poking and prodding, you add some to the world and they allow you to interact with more objects in the game. It’s a nice way to keep you from feeling overwhelmed when you are first introduced to the world but it also keeps the small environment interesting to look at as you keep seeing it in new ways as additional colors are added. The game also features some clever puzzles using perspective.

The game has two modes for controls, free-roam and point-and-click. Usually the point-and-click mode in first-person adventure games feels like an afterthought but I thought it felt very good to control and actually used it quite a bit since I have been having some wrist pain lately and needed this control scheme to play it.

shot of a bedroom that's mostly black and white except for green walls

It’s a short game. I completed it in two nights but each session was very short and the puzzles made me think but I was never stuck for very long or frustrated. The game even has a built-in hint system if you want help with a puzzle. I said at the beginning of the review that I was in the mood for a Myst-like but it really wasn’t a Myst-like game at all. This isn’t the developer’s fault as they never claimed it’s like Myst, but I will explain what makes a game a Myst-like anyway since this is my website. A Myst-inspired game to me actually has quite a lot of storytelling being done through the environment and this storytelling is tightly integrated with the puzzles in the world, where this game just felt like an excuse to have a bunch of good puzzles related to color and perspective. Nothing wrong with that at all and it’s just not what I expected going in due to my assumptions with first person adventure games.

I really enjoyed my time with this game and I’m looking forward to playing Jason’s other games. I already own The Search from a charity bundle on Itch.io and Discolored 2 looks to be much more ambitious and seems to have more of a story and adds more characters.

Discolored is available on Steam.

Samorost 1

March 15, 2025March 15, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

Developer: Amanita Design
Publisher: Amanita Design
Year: 2003
Genre: Adventure Game

a guy with a hookah on a hill and a little gnome in white clothing in the background going skiing in the background

Recently played through this one with the kids and it still holds up! My kids are fans of Chuchel so I thought it would go back to their earlier stuff since this one is so short and simple. The game originally came out in 2003 but we played the remastered release from 2021, which updates the visuals and music but didn’t go too far with the updates. There’s not a whole lot to say about it. You help a little space gnome save his home by pointing and clicking on stuff and it only takes 15 minutes to play. I suppose there are technically puzzles, but most of the fun comes from clicking on things and seeing what happens. I suppose it’s sorta like the Gobliiins series in that way, but much, much easier. Anyway, my kids liked it and we’ll be playing 2 and 3 soonish.

This game was such a big deal when it came out! This was during the adventure game drought when Sierra and Lucasarts had recently stopped making adventure games so people were starved for high quality adventure games. One of my biggest memories of hanging out on the Adventure Gamers forums was people making a thread about this game every week saying “have you all seen this game Samorost? It’s great!” and not realizing that there had already been many threads on the game. It happened to the point of it becoming a meme on the forums. But I think it shows that even when the genre was “dead” there were still folks making memorable point-and-click adventure games.

The game was such a success that it led to the studio becoming a full time gig for the folks there. First by making tiny free browser games like this for companies (man, remember flash games being a profitable gig for devs?) and then making their own games. In fact, I think it took a while for me to get to playing Samorost 2 because it came out in 2005 and was a digital purchase, before indie games were being sold on Steam. I don’t think I even had any way of buying the game and I don’t think I even considered asking my parents because I knew they wouldn’t buy a game online. I think it had even received some criticism for being too short for a paid game.

The studio stuck with this format for a long time. It wasn’t until the last few years that they started to explore horror and branching out from their linear style of adventure game design more. The format works for me though and I can play a lot of their games with my kids, which is always a plus, since that’s when I usually have time to play video games. They’ve been taking their biggest swing with their current game in development, which is supposed to arrive next year. It will have been a five year gap between games, which is wild to think about. But as long as they keep making solid adventure games, I’ll keep picking them up.

Samorost is available for free on Steam, Itch.io, and many other places.

Indie Game Roundup (Mar. 14, 2025)

March 14, 2025March 14, 2025 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

It turns out that when you don’t wait a couple weeks to write these, the posts are actually quite a bit smaller. Who would have guessed? As usual, if you enjoy these then tell a friend, or do a post on your own blog of recent games and other art you’ve been enjoying.

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

side view of an astronaut flying over a planet and alien space ships

Jetpac Defenders (Itch.io) is just a nice and free Defender clone made in Picotron.

old computer screen saying "have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?" Yes/No"

qualia (Steam) is a free interactive fiction horror game about what it means to be human. Be sure to read the content warnings and be aware that the game does have a jumpscare if that kind of thing isn’t for you.

Blobun (Steam/Itch.io) is a cute, top-down puzzle game where you are a blob bunny and must touch every tile of a surface. If you bought that massive California Wildfire Relief charity bundle on Itch then you already own this game.

an aquarium filled with jellyfish and a photo frame featuring a photo of a foggy street

The 5th LSD Jam has concluded and you can check out the entries on Itch.io. LSDJAM 2024 is a game jam where people are prompted to “Create an interactive experience based on dreams to celebrate the release of LSD: Dream Emulator.” The only one I played out of these is Ephemeral Frame, a great puzzle adventure game where the main gameplay mechanic is using picture frames to enter new areas and features some fantastic visuals as well, but I’m sure the other games also have trippy visuals and are worth a look too.

card with game designer Jim Walls on it, where he has sunglasses and a mustache. The card says 'Trying it more or less doing it by the book' The current story now needs (3) procedural elements to be completed"

The Imaginary Cards Jam is a jam on Itch.io where folks are making cards to games that do not exist yet. It’s just a fun excuse to make up little cards without thinking too much about mechanics since the games aren’t real. There’s still 10 days left in the jam so consider joining!

Not a new game but I just played the browser puzzle game DungeonScape (Itch.io) and recommend it.

PSYCHOSEXUAL DREAM CRISIS (Itch.io) is a short erotic sci-fi story that is playable in the browser, and the download on the page features 16 short animations.

Every paid game by thecatamites is on sale right now in this bundle on Itch. Worth it for Anthology of the Killer alone, one of last year’s best games.

There’s also a big spring sale happening on Steam right now too.

Crowdfunding

There’s two tabletop game crowdfunding campaigns right now that I think are worth checking out. This Kickstarter is for two games, a solo journaling game about cooking for your loved ones, and a storygame of doomed travelers on a perilous journey home.

A Land Once Magic is a worldbuilding TTRPG by Viditya Voleti, one of my favorite ttrpg designers.

Jay Tholen just launched a Patreon to fund development of Dreamsettler, the sequel to Hypnospace Outlaw.

Wishlists

Aerial_Knight’s DropShot (Steam) looks like an incredibly stylish FPS. I love the finger gun mechanic and I was a fan of the dev’s previous games, the Never Yield series.