This post is just a compilation of the games I mentioned in my recommendation thread on Bluesky. A lot of folks were doing Steam recommendation threads and thought Itch deserved a mention too. Like the title says, it’s rushed and half-assed since the posts were written right before my baby was waking up. But there’s good stuff in here and I think it’s worth checking out. If you read the indie game roundups then you’ve already seen a few of these but dang it, you should buy these anyway.
I bounce off a lot of space sims because I’m incredibly fussy and like open world stuff but a lot of them are too difficult for me to pick up. Liberation is inspired by 70s British sci-fi and has lots of personality and is easy for me to play
Every month a new issue of the Indiepocalypse games anthology arrives, collecting 10 games, often experimental. It’s an incredible source of games curation and I’ve discovered so many of my favorite game designers through it
Roguecraft screenshot
One of my favorite publishers that’s putting out new games for old platforms is Thalamus. Just earlier this year they published a new roguelike for the Amiga. But there’s plenty of great arcade games for modern platforms like Death Ray Manta and Rainbow Laser Disco Dungeon.
Did you know you can buy the classic adventure game Day of the Tentacle on Itch? Plenty of smarter people have explained why it’s one of the best adventure games. I just think it’s neat that it’s on here.
cybeRRRevolution has a better pitch than I can do so I’ll just copy it. It’s described as “an action-adventure game about talking with monsters, piloting godly mechas, and taking down bandits to secure a prosperous future for a nation in a post-war reality.” Also consider checking out the dev’s interactive fiction game Don’t Wake the Night.
It’s the year of the anthology! Anthology of the Killer is another one that’s worth your time! It’s not on sale but you should still buy it.
No indie dev is doing stealth action inspired by Metal Gear Solid better than Merlino Games. Can’t go wrong with any of these.
Videoverse is a visual novel where you explore friendship and love through a WiiU like interface. Itch purchase comes with a Steam key too.
Screenshot from Midnight Scenes 1
Midnight Scenes is one of my favorite modern adventure game series. Short horror games that can be played in one sitting and feature incredible pixel art. They can be played in any order so just get the one that you vibe with the most.
Looking for a game like Thief but in a cyberpunk setting? Check out NEON STRUCT. But I’m a big fan of everything by Minor Key Games.
If you’ve never played a solo tabletop rpg before, give it a shot! There’s plenty of free and pay-what-you-want ones, but Cezar Capacle has made a lot of great ones too like Against the Wind.
You should also consider playing a GM-less ttrpg. An Altogether Different River is a nice one! In a single session 2-4 players build a town and create the characters who live in it and explore their relationships with it.
There’s so many great point-and-click adventures and I’ll plug away at recommending them in this thread when I can, but one I’m a fan of is Cosmic Void. There’s a game for everything. Classic graphic parser adventures, horror, sci-fi, comedy, cyberpunk.
Kitsune Games made the excellent Super Mario Bros 3 spiritual sequel Kitsune Tails. The difficulty levels make it approachable for everyone too.
That’s it for the recommendations! I hope you find something cool to pick up from Itch.io!
I keep banging on about this, but it’s ridiculous to have a GOTY awards show of any kind (they really shouldn’t, they’re all bad) when people are still squeaking in bangers right before the year ends, incredible! If you like these, share them with a friend and then go pick up a weird game during the Itch.io and Steam sales. If I forgot something, please let a comment or send me a message through social media or email. I love hearing about everything.
Video Games
The 2024 Showreel for Godot is highlighting a lot of interesting things made in that engine on YouTube.
Die for the Economy (Steam) is a new game inspired by the classic arcade game Berzerk, featuring psychedelic pixel art and all the robot voices you would hope for from one of these types of games. I played it a bit this morning and it’s probably the best Berzerk-inspired game I’ve ever played. I love the humor about how much capitalism sucks and the difficulty levels make this approachable for any arcade game fan.
Escape from Castle Claymount (Steam) is a free escape room-style adventure game where everything is made from clay and other physical materials and photographed. This was previously released elsewhere but it’s new to Steam and me, plus I lose my mind over claymation in video games, so I think it’s still worth a mention. The art is really cute and there’s a generous hint system if you need help when playing adventure games, like I usually do.
PUNKCAKE Délicieux somehow released TWO games this week! Tummy Bonbons: The Sweet Monster (Steam/Itch.io) is an excellent free arcade game where you are a monster chasing children for candy while dodging crows. Features many color palettes but default is the ALWAYS GOOD cga colors.
The other is Hot Wax (Steam/Itch.io), a Tetris clone that introduces the mechanic of you placing candle blocks and then lighting them so they will melt and set off chain reactions. Currently it’s only on Itch.io but will be released on Steam eventually.
DraculaFlowSimulator (Itch.io) is a browser game made in GB Studio where Dracula drops bars.
WOLFCLAW (Itch.io) is a free game created by Heather Flowers and Noé Charron for the 7Day FPS 2024 jam. You are a werewolf ghost and must claw and eat enemies and possess enemies when the health in your current body is too low. Keep playing until you die and try to get a high score
Santatron 2024 (Itch.io) is a new game for the Amiga inspired by the classic Robotron. Clear rooms of enemies and saves elves to go to the next level. It’s a really solid arcade game and fun excuse to fire up my Amiga emulator (WinUAE). Available as Pay-What-You-Want.
BROK the InvestiGator – Natal Tail, A New Christmas (Steam/Itch.io) is a visual novel set in the BROK the Investigator universe. I didn’t play this yet because I thought I had to play the original adventure game first, but the page description says this is a prequel and it’s not required to play that one at all. The game is free but the devs are accepting donations since it took quite a bit of work to make.
Mini Mini Golf Golf (Steam) is described as “an indie storytelling experience that goes beyond the lanes of the here and now into distant memories of a future planetary collapse. Destabilize the present and plunge into a neon psychohistory of a bizarre entity in distress. This is not a game about minigolf.” I haven’t played it yet but that sounds very cool, I love how it looks, and it has positive reviews so I thought I would share it here.
Creeper World IXE (Steam) is the newest entry in the Creeper World series. It’s sorta like a RTS where you push back against a growing blob using turrets and guns. The last one I played was 3 but I am a fan of the series and didn’t realize it has changed so much over multiple entries.
HURTINGZONE (Itch.io) is a new commercial ZX Spectrum game where you are a nurse delivering to the mutated and it looks like it has a neat horror theme.
Interactive fiction game Ord. is now free on Steam for its 5th anniversary.
TheCabinFactory (Steam) is a first-person horror game where you inspect cabins and decide if they are haunted or not. Available for $2.99 but on sale for its launch.
TTRPG
There truly is a tabletop for everything and the two I’m highlighting this week both come from the Shitpost TTRPG Jam, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad or low effort games. Jersey Devils Don’t Pump Gas (Itch.io) is about the Jersey Devil and how folks in New Jersey don’t pump their own gas.
SO YOU HAVE A BAROMETRIC PRESSURE MIGRAINE (Itch.io) accurately depicts what it’s like to have a migraine.
Don’t have anything snarky to say about anything this week. Not even about The Game Awards! I’m all snarked out! This is going to be another larger post so I’ll try to organize it into more manageable bits, with non-genre specific stuff first and then everything after that divided into categories. I’ll have a game to promote in this next week, which will be nice. If you enjoy playing a game in one of these, tell folks about it online so they can play it too. As usual, if I forgot your game or you have something coming up next week, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email or message on social media.
There were a bunch of games showcases this week as part of The Game Awards. I have a hard time watching that many videos but it feels like the Steam pages have done a decent job rounding up everything, so here’s some of those.
The Yuri Game Jam 2024 (Itch.io) has wrapped up with 110 entries! I’ve only played a couple but would recommend slime feet and Purple, where all the art was made in one of the oldest commercially available art programs: PC Paintbrush 2.x (DOS).
Games for Blind Gamers 4 (Itch.io) starts in a month and has links to previous jams and resources if you are looking to make a game for blind gamers.
Indiepocalypse #59 (Itch.io) is out. I mention these every time an issue comes out and will continue to do so because I’m a giant fan. It’s a monthly anthology containing experimental games and a zine.
Indie Tsushin: 2024 Autumn Issue (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want zine collecting articles from the Indie Tsushin blog, a site that covers indie games from Japan and also features interviews with developers.
The student showcase for Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan is here. I am required to post this because it’s my local community, but luckily the games are good too. Nice work!
Advent Calendars
I don’t know if Advent Calendar is really a genre and they also don’t hit the same when it’s the middle of the month, but here are a few that you can go through and check out.
In this section I would first like to highlight two games seeking crowdfunding, both using methods that aren’t Kickstarter.
Dreams on a Pillow is currently seeking crowdfunding. It’s a stealth adventure game inspired by a historical Palestinian folk tale set during the ethnic cleansing that was the 1948 Nakba. It’s halfway funded with about 30 days to go. The art in this looks incredible.
Neon Hearts City is the latest from adventure game developer Cosmic Void. They are currently crowdfunding to get the budget for voice acting in the game. I’ve been a big fan of their previous games and I’m sure I’ll like this too. There’s a demo on Steam and Itch if you would like to try it first.
The Mansion (Itch.io) is a browser point-and-click adventure created for the Bara Jam where you rescue a friend in a mansion. It features multiple playable characters going into a mansion so does that make this a Maniac Mansion-like? Nice pixel art too!
NoseBound (Steam) is a horror noir point-and-click adventure. I don’t know much about it but Steam reviews so far seem positive and it kinda has a stop motion animation look.
Short Trip (Steam) is a relaxing game where you drive a trolley and transport folks around. I guess this is an enhanced edition of a game I had played a while ago. I really enjoyed that version so I imagine this new one that adds a new gameplay mode with points and stuff is nice too. Even if you’re like me and don’t have an interest in that version, it’s still worth supporting because the original mode is good too. The art looks incredible in motion.
MAVEION (Itch.io) is a free browser game featuring Macintosh inspired art and reminds me a lot of multimedia cd-roms and Hypercard stacks. I have no idea how to solve it but I had fun playing in the space.
Cold (Itch.io) is a survival horror adventure game playable in the browser and made with the classic ZZT!
Grizzly Man (Steam) is the newest from LCB Game Studio. I haven’t played this yet but all their previous games where good, campy horror with some very nice pixel art.
Escape Wizard (Itch.io) is a free browser game that combines survivors games, like Vampire survivors, and shmups. It’s also just an interesting experiment with the survivors format.
3D Don’t Die Mr Robot (Steam) is an arcade game where you avoid all the enemies flying through the level and pick up fruit to cause chains of explosions. I don’t know how I missed talking about this one last week. I was playing a lot of it and trying to get all the achievements for it too and just…..forgot? Anyway, it’s great. Please go play it. There’s a demo too that contains the game’s arcade mode.
Derbis (Itch.io) is a Missile Command-like arcade game made in PICO-8 by Adam Saltzman from Finji. I will always be terrible at Missile Command but it’s a good game.
Weights and Crates Deluxe (Itch.io) is an updated version of a previously release Commodore 64 game, but still available for free. It’s an arcade game where you run on a platform and jump over moving crates. Some temporarily knock you out and others kill you instantly. It’s just a fun and simple arcade game featuring great C64 music and there’s no fussing with an emulator required because it’s playable in the browser.
I will replay Jetpac anytime someone remakes it and someone has done just that in PICO-8 (Itch.io).
Frozen Islands (Itch.io) is an impressive 3D platformer created in PICO-8 for the Christmas season.
Plane Lazy (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want arcade game for the ZX Spectrum where you fly through levels as public domain Mickey Mouse.
Pig in Hell (Itch.io) is a browser game where you’re a pig and must survive for 20 seconds. I really like the paper craft-like artwork.
Reavers of New Rome (Steam/Itch.io) is the newest from Renegade Sector Games. I haven’t played this one yet but all their previous games have the same incredible look and sound that remind me of 80s arcade games but with 90s art I guess?
BALLIONAIRE (Steam) is a game that seems to combine roguelikes with pachinko and features energetic 2D animation. I’ll admit that from watching a stream it seems to be too energetic to me since I’m 90,000 years old, but everyone else seems to really like it so maybe give it a look.
FPS
The 2024 Cacowards have been announced. This is a series of awards for the year’s best Doom WADs. It’s incredible that Doom is over three decades old and the community for it is still making great stuff. Incoming Doom hot take: None of the original developers are at ID anymore and the game should be public domain since Bethesda is just putting dodgy mod browsers in the game that let anyone upload a mod and say they made it.
The Light at the End (Itch.io) is a free fanzine celebrating the now closed Arkane Austin studio and the games Dishonored (2012), Prey (2017), and Redfall (2023)
Interactive Fiction
Hand in the Crusher (Itch.io) is a short erotic sci-fi (horror?) visual novel playable in the browser by Oma Keeling. Fantastic stuff as usual but read the content warnings first if you don’t like gore.
Fledgling Manor (Steam/Itch.io) is visual novel where vampires compete to save their eternal unlives in a high-stakes reality show. Haven’t played it yet but it sounds fun.
Wraithkal writes about the upcoming ShuffleComp interactive fiction game jam. Consider joining!
Puzzle
LOK Digital (Steam) is a new puzzle game where you decipher a cryptic language. I haven’t played a demo yet but it looks nice and has a demo so you can try it yourself.
Dubio (Steam) is a puzzle platformer game where you control a ball moving through ramps and platformers simply by making it jump. It all works very well, is easy to pick up and start playing, and the animation and music was very pleasant to me. It has some very good “juice” as professors teaching game design like to say. The game even has a demo if you want to give it a shot.
RPG
Breath of Death VII: The Beginning: Reanimated (Steam) is a remake of the game for X-Box Live Indie Games thing for the 360, which they really should bring back. I don’t have an opinion on this game since I haven’t played it yet but I remember liking the original at the time? Other people probably have more interesting takes on this than I do, go look at those.
The Exile Princes (Steam) is described as “a story focused, procedural RPG designed for short playthroughs in which you as a knight gather companions and fighters to bring your house to victory throughout the unique fantasy setting of the Exile Realms”. It just came out an hour ago so I haven’t played it but I will since it’s free!
Tabletop RPGs
Minimalist TTRPG Jam 3 (Itch.io) has wrapped up with 94 entries. The jam is focused on making games with no pictures or much effort spent on layout so the developer can just make games with killer rulesets and to encourage new developers to make stuff.
Stroll & Hike (Itch.io) is a cozy tabletop game available as Pay-What-You-Want where 1+ players create a forest and hiking path. It’s about 40 minutes long.
Aaron King has released two ttrpgs for free. I think these may have been zines before but they have put them on Itch.io for anyone to download. Spice World (Itch.io) is a game based on the Dune book series, not the Spice Girls film of the same name, and is built on the original Traveler ttrpg and Apocalypse World. Since Dark Sun is not getting a revival anytime soon, they also uploaded a supplement for Troika called Troika! Dark! Sun! (Itch.io) that allows you to play in that space. Aaron makes lots of great games. Go check out the rest of the stuff on their Itch page.
I Hope This Email Finds You (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want corporate horror game for two players that’s played entirely through email.
Starfreighter (Itch.io) is a ttrpg in development that just released a free ashcan version. It’s a solo game inspired by Wing Commander: Privateer and Freelancer, so it’s a game made just for me.
Tools
Impart (Itch.io) is a free, open-source, offline gallery organization tool.
If you’re an adventure game developer, here’s an 8-frame walk template (Itch.io) in PNG and Aseprite format.
Toys
There’s probably a better way to categorize these, but here’s some little games that have no win conditions and you can just play around with them and chill.
There’s a house in the sky (Itch.io) is a cozy browser toy where you build a landscape featuring trees and houses, with no win condition.
No one has better character creators than Rose and FlickSkeleton (Itch.io) is her latest one. You just make cool skeletons in your browser. It’s the best.
Unwrapped (Itch.io) is a parody of Spotify Wrapped by Mike Cook.
Not New But Still Cool
Sometimes I play something that’s older and doesn’t fit into the above, or just want to reshare a game because it’s good and I want more eyes on it. It’s ok to talk about something even if it’s a couple months old.
Did you know that Tom Hall of Commander Keen, Doom, and Anachronox fame is very active in the PICO-8 community? Consider checking out his Christmas games like MYRRH’S EDGE, WHO STOLE THE COAL?, and WHO TOOK THE BOOKS?
A Very Bold Character (Itch.io) is a short and free browser platformer with an art style that kinda reminds me of a game that feels like it could be played on a terminal.
Laura Takes a Stroll (Itch.io) is also a free browser poetic game featuring some nice animation. Use all four arrow keys to navigate the space.
Every week I slowly lose my mind as I see more takes about how no one makes interesting games anymore instead of just reading my posts and supporting the people that do. Did you know people are also already making GOTY lists even though there’s still a month left and great games being released every week? Weird shit! Here’s some of those great games! As usual, feel free to tell me about things you or friends recently made. Comments on here or through any of the ways listed on the About page are fine. I’m only one person and can only find so much. If you enjoy these, subscribe to the RSS feed and tell a friend.
Video Games
The AdventureX Jam has ended and now there’s tons of free point-and-click adventures for you to play on Itch.io.
Vaultron (Itch.io) is a free toy that lets you build underground cities and then you watch it come to life as elevators and trains on monorails start moving around in your city. I thought it was really impressive and hope it gets more updates.
Pym’s Daily Word Square Puzzle (Developer Site/Itch) is a brand new puzzle game for DOS. Each day reveals a new partially filled word square which you must complete. The game is available for free but the developer also accepts donations.
Botos do Diabo (Itch.io) is a short dolphin horror point-and-click adventure.
Michigan Tech University has a game making club and since I live in the state I’m obligated to report that they’ve just published a new set of games on their Itch.io page!
I wasn’t able to go to No Quarter because I don’t live anywhere near NYC but it sounds like there were neat things there, including an exhibit that involved lots of smaller games? Or something? I don’t know, I’m a dummy, but anyway it means we have new Bitsys from Rose and Adam.
PERSON – adventures in WORLD (Itch.io) is short and somewhat autobiographical walking sim but it’s made in the Doom engine. Or GZDoom I think? Don’t yell at me, I don’t know all the different Dooms. I just think it’s neat.
Frosty’s Snowed Under! (Itch.io) is a platformer made in PICO-8 for the PICO-8 Advent Calendar. I haven’t played any of the entries in the calendar yet but I’m happy that such a thing exists. I’m not familiar with it, but I guess this is a remake of the Commodore 64 game Frosty the Snowman/Frosty’s Busy Night.
A Body Is Subsumed In The Work (Itch.io) is a browser collage game created by Hyphinett using the Flatgame Maker plugin for Unity.
LocZine (Itch.io) is a browser-based zine made in the Hypercard-like tool called Decker that’s all about video game localization.
Escape From Castle Matsumoto (Itch.io/Steam) is a free game where two shinobis race against each other to recover stolen items and escape a castle. It reminds me of that old Spy Vs. Spy game from decades ago. The same developer used (I think) this engine to remake the adventure game Enclosure and experimented with remaking scenes in old Sierra adventure games. It’s a neat look!
Caves of Qud (Steam) 1.0 is out after being in Early Access for so long! I don’t have anything interesting to say about the game. It’s great. Lots of smarter people have already talked about it.
The Twine Cookbook (Store) is now available in print. All proceeds from sales go toward the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation.
Honor Bound (Steam) is an interactive novel by Harris Powell-Smith where you protect an exclusive boarding school and rebuild your life after scandal as a military bodyguard. Harris is a great writer and I really liked their previous interactive fiction writing.
IKEELYA (Itch.io) is a game where you play as a disillusioned hitman who has grown tired of his day job, and dreams of becoming an interior decorator. During the day you must do hits on people so you can buy furniture at night and eventually get side gigs doing interior design. The game is available for Pay-What-You-Want.
Cave Hikers (Steam) is described as a relaxing and humorous 2D interactive cartoon mockumentary that follows three characters through a cavernous world, on a quest to find the mystical “cave with an infinite ceiling”. I haven’t played this one yet but I really like the art and it has a demo if you’re interested in trying it out.
Ollie-Oop (Steam) is a game about a skateboarding dog. It looks cute!
TTRPGs
Shoot the Moon (or, Die in the Labyrinth) (Itch.io) is a ttrpg created for the Minimalist Jam by Adam Bell that uses the game of Hearts as its central mechanic. Players are stuck in a labyrinth built by the Queen of Spades and held together by the power of the renegade moon and must either escape the labyrinth or shoot the moon with a huge gun.
The Devil They Buried (Itch.io) is a new solo journaling TTRPG by Kienna Shaw following an outlaw revenant’s quest for revenge.
Tiny Tome 2 (Itch.io) is a book of 50 RPG treasures from 50 different creators. It includes complete games, variant rules, one-shot adventures, and many other things. The Itch page has a link to where you can buy a physical copy too.
AllTinker has just released a patch (Itch.io) for the first Gabriel Knight game that fixes the pops and crackles in the audio. They made a video showing the before and after and it’s really quite impressive. The page for the patch also goes into detail how one can fix the mixed resolution effect in the cd version where objects you can interact with are displayed at a higher resolution. I’ve always wondered if you could make a patch for the remake that moves the audio from this version into the remake and replace the new recordings but someone pointed out to me that the remake also has new lines that the original cast did not record. Anyway, thought this was really cool and just wanted to share.
I’m posting this one a little early because today (Friday) is the Itch.io Creator’s Day, where the site isn’t taking a cut from sales. Luckily this week’s post is much smaller than last week’s. People are doing sales as well since it’s the Autumn Sale. Go pick up a game or two! If you like these roundups, consider supporting me on Ko-Fi or buy my games!
Solitomb (Itch.io) is a dungeon crawler based on the solitaire card game made in PICO-8. It’s playable for free in the browser but also has a downloadable version for sale to support the developer.
KidBlocks (Itch.io) is a very chill and minimalist train track building toy. I think it nails the look of wooden toy trains that a lot of us played with as kids and it was fun watching the scenes I built come to life with little people and trains moving around as I created loops of tracks and built houses. It’s just $1 too.
Meditation On Your Body (Itch.io) is a solo journaling game by the fanastic interactive fiction writer Norbez Jones. You draw tarot cards and reflect on parts of your body. Available as Pay-What-You-Want.
AdventWindows (Itch.io) is a new text adventure created by Andrew Plotkin for the Confounding Calendar 2024. The game has the clever design and great writing you would expect from one of his games. It’s free and playable in the browser. If you’ve never played a text adventure before, I think this one you could start with.
screenshot from thunk
Entries for the Videotome Jam (Itch.io) continue to come in. I really liked playing thunk and slime feet this week.
Fill in the [ ] CITY (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want city building ttrpg by Viditya Voleti. Sometimes you read a game at 10:30pm and go “ARGH I want to play this right now!” but you can’t because it’s 10:30pm and you simply cannot get the people together for that and even if you could you have to get up early for work tomorrow morning, come on, you don’t want to be tired all day at work. Just wait until you have a good time scheduled to play this. Chill out.
Anyway, that’s how I felt about Fill in the [] CITY.
Torasu (Itch.io) is a Pay-What-You-Want love letter to the NES version of Gyruss. That version of Gyruss rules and so does this.
SunkCost (Itch.io) is a ttrpg for 3-5 Freebooters and one Grotto Master set in Cardinal Basin, a fantasy world that suffered an apocalyptic flood. It’s currently early in development and available to download for free.
Sluggish Morss: The Table Top RPG (Itch.io) is a storytelling ttrpg based on the video game of the same name. This is perfect timing for me since I just started playing the dev’s game Judero and loving that. It’s currently having a launch sale where it’s available for £11.20 GBP and has a free quickstart version if you want to get a feel for what the game is like.
Games to Wishlist
Here’s a couple of games that seem neat and might be worth adding to your wishlist:
Rock Digger (Steam) is an upcoming resource management platformer game where you explore an alien planet, dig for resources, and try to find secrets. It has a demo if you want to try it out.
Mesektet (Steam) is an upcoming sci-fi point-and-click adventure by Point & Pixel Adventures where you explore an archaeological site and discover a greater mystery.
Midnight Scenes: The Highway is the first entry in a horror anthology series by Octavi Navarro, who also worked as an artist on Thimbleweed Park. There are currently five games in the series, with each one being completely standalone, but I would still recommend this one as a great place to start. The games feature gorgeous pixel art and all can be completed in one sitting, with some like this game only being 15 minutes long and later games in the series taking about 90 minutes to play through.
In Midnight Scenes: The Highway you play as a woman who is stranded on a road after her path is blocked by a downed power line and must explore the area to find a way around, but something creepy is lurking out there. This entry in the series is strongly inspired by The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits and revisiting it reminds me that later games pull back on this and do their own thing a bit more by transitioning to color, dropping opening narration, and feel more violent and arguable more monster focused too. This certainly isn’t a complaint about any of the games in the series. I think they’re all great. It’s just interesting to see how the series has evolvesd. I think adventure game fans who enjoy horror but don’t want to be frustrated will be into this game. It’s not a difficult game, with puzzles that are very straightforward but don’t feel like busy work, no death sequences, and it only being 15 minutes long. That might be a turnoff to some hardcore fans of the genre but I feel very comfortable recommending it to people that just want some creepy vibes for a bit.
Octavi also developed some other short horror games outside of this series that I would recommend, The Supper and The Librarian, that play very similarly to the Midnight Scenes series and can be completed in one sitting.
Midnight Scenes: The Highway is available on Itch.io and Steam.
Well, this is a big one this week. I don’t know what happened. Due to the volume of releases this week, I tried to split things up into genre so it doesn’t get overwhelming. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. As usual, please let me know what you’ve been playing and enjoying lately, or something you or a friend has been working on! Replies here are fine but DMs and emails are welcome too! If you enjoyed this week’s post, share it with friends, buy one of these games, and tell folks about a weird obscure thing you love.
Before we jump into the games, LudoNarraCon is taking submissions right now if you are working on an interactive fiction or adventure game. Alright, here’s some recent indie games that I think are neat.
Video Games
Action
Bug Castle (Itch.io) is a slick twin stick shooter made for the TIC-80 virtual machine for the 20 Second Game Jam. Free and playable in the browser.
Cowgummi (Itch.io) is a short browser game where you are a purple cow that rolls around, knocking other cows off your meadow. The best game with purple cows that I’ve played all year. It even has merch!
Loser Lane (Site) is a game protesting Ontario removing Toronto’s bike lanes.
Adventure/Interactive Fiction
Chiaroscuro (Itch.io) is a short experimental text adventure game inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure available as Pay-What-You-Want. I like when text adventures insert small amounts of graphics or sound for immersion and thought the use of sound in this one was really good. I’d also recommend this one to people who haven’t played a text adventure before.
Great God Grove (Steam) is an adventure game about stopping the end of the world since the gods are too busy squabbling to do it.
CODENAME: ICEMAN is an adventure game designed by Jim Walls and published by Sierra in 1989. Often considered their worst adventure game, the game starts off ok enough with you spending time on a beach and eventually getting your mission details, but then you board a submarine. You spend half the game on this submarine, fighting with awful controls, little plot development, and doing incredibly tedious tasks. Eventually you leave the sub and do some puzzles that don’t make a whole lot of sense and the game ends with a frustrating mini game. There’s fan games for many games in the Sierra catalog but not this one.
Not until today.
KIDNAME:ICEBOY (Itch.io) is an incredible tribute and parody of CODENAME:ICEMAN where you play as the child version of the protagonist from the original game as he goes to the US Navy’s Submarine Camp. I won’t spoil the game because I strongly recommend it to everyone who’s vaguely familiar with the original game, but I think it does an excellent job emulating Jim Walls’ unique adventure game style and is one of the funniest adventure games I’ve seen in a while if you’re familiar with his games too.
Loco Motive (Steam/GOG/Nintendo Switch) is a new comedy point-and-click adventure where you must solve a murder on a train. I haven’t played this version yet but I loved the game jam version and this has been receiving great reviews so far.
inkjam just wrapped up! ink is a scripting language used for narrative games and this is a jam hosted every year on itch for the language. You can check out all 19 entries on Itch.io
Maybe that’s all we need (Itch.io) is a short (15 minutes) about a masochistic gay woman created for the Videotome jam. Read the CWs first since it’s a NSFW game.
Miniatures (Steam/Itch.io) is a collection of short stories, about 30-40 minutes total, each with their own unique art style. Gamers With Glasses liked it.
Monkey Island Manual Game (Itch.io) is just a nice tribute to The Secret of Monkey Island made in Bitsy where you explore the island and read snippets of the game’s manual.
I think I covered this game last week but THRESHOLD (Steam) is now out. I’ll play this game someday when I’m not being a baby about horror but it seems like reviews have been very positive and I love how it looks.
Playdate
Hausbau (Itch.io) is a free game for the Playdate where you build modernist cityscapes by placing tiles. I haven’t played it yet but I really like how it looks and the game promises jazzy tunes.
One-Armed Space Bandit (Itch.io) is a remake of the slot machine game from Space Quest 1. Unlike that version, this has multiple difficulty levels if you want to die less or more times than you would playing the game. It kinda reminds me of the Macintosh version of Space Quest because of the art. Anyway, it’s a great port and the crank is used well in this game. If you like this, check out their King’s Quest 1 Redux project.
Puzzle
Domino Grove (Itch.io) is a wonderful and free browser game where you domino blocks with trees on them and get points by placing similar dominos next to it until you fill up the screen. I thought this was a fun mechanic for the puzzle game, and thought the art direction and sounds made this a very relaxing puzzle game.
InfluxRedux (Steam) is a remake of a 2013 game where you roll a ball through a variety of different environments and puzzles.
Meal Plan (Itch.io) is a free puzzle game where you find the common element in two 7-item sets. It was created for the Win32 jam so it has some glorious windows in it.
Robot Detour (Steam/Itch.io) is a very cute puzzle game where you play as a little robot delivering batteries to robot friends. I’ve only played the demo so far but the puzzles felt fair but gradually increased in challenge with unique mechanics being introduced to keep it from feeling stale, and the art and music made the game a relaxing experience.
Racing
Thalamus has become a favorite publisher of mine by publishing a variety of games for retro consoles and computers, and games inspired by classic 80s games. Their latest release, Nitro (Itch.io), is a racing game for Game Boy Color. You can play it in the browser or buy it for $1.
RPG
Cybil (Site) is a free 20ish hour long rpg inspired by Might & Magic 3. It was made with megazeux, a game engine from the 90s that I believe is a sequel to ZZT?
Dungeon Clawler (Steam) is a roguelike deckbuilder that uses a claw machine to get items. I haven’t played it because claw machines make me angry but Indie Games+ liked it.
Strategy
Rogue Command (Steam) is a RTS with roguelike elements that has just entered early access. I haven’t played it yet but I thought it would be worth mentioning since it feels like RTS are fairly rare these days and so far it has positive reviews on Steam.
Visual Novel
INTERSTATE 35 (Steam) is a visual novel that follows a young woman returning to her hometown in Texas after a nuclear disaster.
Pinup (NSFW! Itch.io) is an adult M/M fairy bondage visual novel. I liked their previous game Off the Cuff and this one is Pay-What-You-Want and playable in the browser.
Stellifier (Steam) is an idol drama game about an older group making a comeback from retirement, featuring a GxB/BxB/non-binary romance. I haven’t played this one yet but I really liked their game Sifting Thyme. It’s also exciting to me that this studio continues to make VNs since they’re local to me.
Tabletop Games
Bloodsuckers (Itch.io) is a new-ish tabletop rpg available as Pay-What-You-Want where you play as a vampire. It just got a one-shot that starts in a bodega (Itch.io). Since we all know these do not exist outside of Brooklyn, we can finally roleplay the fantasy of being in a bodega.
Crux (Itch.io) is a solo tabletop rpg about overcoming challenges and climbing a mountain. The Itch.io page also links to where you can get a print version of the game.
The Deep Water Jam (Itch.io) is a currently running game jam about making tabletop rpgs about water.
Folklore Jam 2024 (Itch.io) was a game jam where people would write an analogue game that incorporates elements from a folklore or a place where they belong. The jam has ended and you can check out all 39 entries on Itch.io.
MeatCastle GameWare Annual #2 (Itch.io) is a zine collecting TTRPGs, articles, Mothership 1e add-ons, and more published in the second year of Missives from the MeatCastle. The digital version is available as Pay-What-You-Want but there is also a print version available for pre-order.
Polymath (Itch.io) is a new font for dice. It looks nice, it’s free, and has a really nice license.
Solovember (Itch.io) is a currently running game jam where people create solo tabletop rpgs. There’s 8 days left but it already has a lot of entries.
Wicked Tales (Itch.io) is a solo tabletop rpg available as pay-what-you-want where you play as a villain and hopefully not be stopped by the heroes.
Writing
None of these are games, but they’re all on Itch and I thought they were beautiful so I’m including them anyway.
Andromeda Zine (NSFW? Itch.io) is about Andromeda from Greek mythology and how they’re sometimes portrayed with a penis in medieval art. It’s available for Pay-What-You-Want.
Cartomancy Anthology was an incredibly influential games anthology for me from two years ago so it makes me happy to see that they just released an art book (Itch.io) for it that I can nerd over.
Sonia Sulaiman has two zines about Palestinian folklore and folk religion in the Paranormal Palestine series. Both are available on her Itch.io page and available as Pay-What-You-Want.
WORLD IS A FUCK (Itch.io) is a zine by Oma Keeling featuring adult sci-fi short fiction and illustrations.
Crowdfunding
There’s also a lot of games currently crowdfunding that I think are worth a look.
Michael Brough is crowdfunding a new game! 868-BACK is currently crowdfunding on Backerkit and it will probably be pretty great, as all his games are.
Legends of Castile (Kickstarter) is a point-and-click adventure set in 19th century Spain, about a village girl who investigates folk legends in order to become a nun.
The Time We Have (Backerkit) is a two-player storytelling card game about brothers in the zombie apocalypse and the final days before one of them turns.
I mentioned Nochi earlier in this post and they’re also crowdfunding their next game. This one is a port of their game Somnium Eleven (Kickstarter) from mobile to PC.
Demos and Upcoming Games
Car Pack Capital (Steam) looks like a fascinating sim game to me. You try to wipe out a city and make it as unwalkable as possible to sell more cars and parking spaces. So basically the most evil sim game since Dungeon Keeper. It’s a really interesting concept but may be too depressing for me to play.
Cart Life is back? Maybe? It has an Itch page where you can download a demo anyway.
According to the dev on Bluesky, horror visual novel Grizzly Man (Steam) should be arriving sometime by the end of the year.
The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker 2 (Steam) is an upcoming FMV game by D’Avekki. There isn’t much to see yet but I liked the first game. I can’t tell if this one drops the text parser, but the first game used one in really interesting ways.
Kathy Rain (Steam) returns in a new point-and-click adventure. I liked the first game and the art in this looks great. The Steam page also has a demo for folks to check out.
I am a big fan of Cosmic Void’s point-and-click adventure games and I’m happy to see them making a cyberpunk game with Neon Hearts City (Steam/Itch.io). The page also has a demo.
It’s only been a week since I’ve done one of these and I already have a ton of games to talk about. I’m not going to act like the Spiderweb Software guy and tell ya’ll to stop making games and become doctors instead, or whatever the hell he was talking about, but I do wish I have more time in the day to play stuff. Just an endless supply of great art being made every week. Nice work. If you enjoy these posts, I would really appreciate if you could give a couple of dollars to SWANCHIME’s Ko-Fi. Their games have been featured in here a few times and they could really use the support. Also consider making your own indie game roundup! The more people doing these sorts of things and spreading the joy of independent art the better.
If I missed something you or a friend made, please tell me! Social media, email, or here as a comment, all are good. I just love knowing what people are making.
Video Games
The Zium Exposition (Itch.io) is described as a “Museum Exploration Game filled with artwork and installations from artists around the world, working in various mediums and styles”. It’s just an incredible space to explore and look at the beautiful art. The vibes are very good and it’s free. I loved it very much.
L.E.V.E. (Itch.io) is an arcade puzzle game by shrunken studios, which I think is a small collective of game developers, where you control little organisms eating stuff and the complexity increases with each level. Lots of fun, it’s free, and available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Death of the Reprobate (Steam) is the third in a trilogy of silly point-and-click adventures by Joe Richardson that use Renaissance paintings as the source for all the artwork in the game. I haven’t played this one yet but I’m a fan of his previous adventures.
Upcoming horror game THRESHOLD has a demo on Steam. I’m a baby so I don’t know if I’ll play it but it looks very cool.
PROXIMATE (Steam/Itch.io) is a short interactive fiction game about trying a new AI visor. I really love how you navigate the world in this game using its map, and the writing and voice acting are great too. The game strongly recommends using a controller to play but the mouse and keyboard controls felt good to me.
Star Dodger (Itch.io) is an arcade game created during the 0 hr game jam 2024 between 1:00 AM November 3, 2024 – 1:00 AM November 3, 2024, during the daylight savings switch.
The remake of Little Big Adventure (Steam) is now available. I’ve always been a fan of the series and I’m looking forward to a version of the game with better controls. I enjoyed the playtest they did for the game a while ago, but you don’t have to take my word for it, a demo is also available.
Inspector Waffles Early Days (Steam/Itch/GOG) is a top-down adventure game prequel to the point-and-click adventure game Inspector Waffles. You can even buy the game for the Game Boy.
Sorry We’re Closed (Steam) is a horror game inspired by 90s classics like Resident Evil, with an aesthetic inspired by them too. Again, I’m a big baby so I don’t know if I’ll play it but Rock, Paper, Shotgun liked it and there’s a demo for it as well.
I WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN (Itch.io) is a short horror interactive fiction by SWANCHIME about being a girl in love with a girl who is dead, and then not being a girl any longer.
SCAVENGER (Itch.io) is a short erotic visual novel by Oma Keeling about the birth of a machine god.
Oktrollberfest is a game jam about creating trollgames. You can check them out on Itch.io. Many (all?) of them were made with ZZT.
Grid Ranger (Steam/Itch.io) is a shmup with 80’s inspired vector graphics. I played the demo a while back and thought it was a very challenging but fun arcade game.
The Playdate community at Uncrank’d have a bundle of games and an upcoming showcase. You can find the links on Mastodon.
Mister Jack (Itch.io) is a retro-looking point-and-click adventure about Jack the Ripper that was made for Scream Jam 2024. Free and playable in the browser.
Dust Settlers (Itch.io) is a browser game made in PICO-8 where you arrange Tetris blocks to restore a planet.
Remember desktop pets? Doguru (Itch.io) is a modern one of those featuring really cute artwork and it’s free!
Dungeons of Blood and Dream (Steam) is a roguelike dungeon crawler. I haven’t played it yet but I love dungeon crawlers and aesthetically it looks like it’s just for me! Gamers with Glasses seemed to like it.
Bullet Runner (Steam) is an arcade bullet hell game about fighting a clone army that a friend helped with and in my opinion I think it looks pretty neat!
Tricky Madness (Steam) is a snowboarding game inspired by the beloved SSX Tricky and that sounds like a really lovely thing I could use right now. It has just entered early access.
At a couple points this year I took a break from doing the indie game roundups because I had more important things to focus on like my baby, but I still maintained a list of things I played and other games that just looked cool to me. Here’s some of those games:
Frontiers of the Mind (Itch.io) is a free horror game resembling a multimedia cd-rom that is about a fictional tv show from the 90s called Maze Masters. There is nothing more laser targeted towards my interests than this so of course I loved it. I highly recommend just looking up hints once you get through everything you find, so you can find all the hidden material too.
Pantsmo’s Pantaloon Adventure (Itch.io) is a mod of the classic shareware game Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure but adds pants to Cosmo. That’s it! It’s great. A classic game has finally been fixed.
Seeking Stardust (Itch.io) is a free browser puzzle game where you try to last out in space as long as you can, with the game generating a new level every day.
tramstertram (Itch.io) is a free minimalist Amsterdam-inspired town builder with trams playable in the browser. It’s an incredibly chill game and the low poly graphics are very nice too.
Tabletop RPGs
Fast Food (Itch.io) is a free LARP for 4-10 players about ordering food before your board game night.
dan qui dam published a history of solo tabletop rpgs on Itch. Holy shit yes, this rules.
Speaking of solo ttrpgs, Jude’s World (Itch.io) is a solo journaling game about reconnecting with your estranged parents, inspired by 90s tv shows like The Fresh Prince and Clarissa Explains It All.
Poetry and Other Art
The last few weeks have kinda been nightmare fuel and some folks have made art as a response to it all.
I Love Being Trans (Itch.io) is a beautiful stack made in the Hypercard-like tool Decker by erysden, creator of the previously covered fps BITCH HELL.
Eat Shit and Die, Fascists (Itch.io) is a collection of poetry in response to the recent election.
We Will Get Through This (Itch.io) is a vent by ToulouTouMou that was also created right after the election.
Street Lamp Lover (Itch.io) is an interactive poem playable in the browser with a unique presentation and nice music.
Developer: ICOM Simulations, Inc. Publisher: Mindscape Year: 1985 Genre: Adventure
This month’s game in the Adventure Game Club discord is Deja Vu: A Nightmare Comes True so I have finally played through that for the first time after it sitting in my backlog for forever. It’s the first MacVenture by ICOM and man, weird game. I’ll mention the stuff I was frustrated with but it’s difficult to get too mad at the game when it’s one of the first point-and-click adventures ever, it’s short, and the Macintosh art really holds up!
The premise of the game is that you wake up in a toilet stall and must find out who you are, what happened to you, and why. In addition to that, you have also been injected with something and have a limited amount of time to find a cure. That’s really all there is to it! You walk around a city and various buildings, occasionally taking a taxi to different regions to do some more exploration, but luckily it’s a pretty small world, since you will need to restart a few times from softlocks and optimizing your path because of the time limit. The time limit is also the source of most of my frustration with the game. It’s not that aggressive of a time limit but every single action takes time off, making it feel like you’re being punished for basic actions in any adventure game like examining objects. That’s right, even looking at an object means time is removed and I have to reload to get that time back. I’m generally a hater of time limits in adventure games anyway because to me, part of the appeal is an adventure game is that I usually have a world to explore and now the game wants me to focus instead on creating an optimal path instead of focusing on the world building. Oh well.
Eventually you do find a cure and can explore more freely. Even without the time limit though, the game still feels a bit tedious because of the verb system. I honestly don’t mind it that much, but there’s parts where it feels like a slog, such as having to pay the cab driver in quarters. But this is where you can tell it’s an early graphic adventure and they’re trying to figure out how to adapt that.
Another part of the game I really disliked is the occasional racist joke and frequent fatphobic jokes. The game cannot get enough of making fat jokes and it really sucks!
What did I actually like about the game? Well, the art is great. Black and white art on the Macintosh is incredibly charming to me and what you see here is great. The versions on the Apple IIGS and NES with color art aren’t bad either. I guess it just comes down to what you like more. The puzzles aren’t usually that difficult either, it’s just a time limit you fight with and busy work with the verbs. It’s also short! That sounds like I’m making fun of the game but I do like short games.
Eventually I want to play the rest of the Macventures. I’ve poked at Uninvited and Shadowgate before and knew of the time limit in the latter, but I guess every Macventure has a time limit? Come on man, just let me vibe and look at the great art.
So who would I recommend this to? I guess adventure game history nerds? It’s not actually painful, especially if you are ok with peeking at a walkthrough, the art is great, and parts of the writing are charming too.
Deja Vu: A Nightmares Comes True is available on Steam and includes the Macintosh and Apple IIGS versions.
