Indie Game Roundup (Sept. 20, 2024)

Moved these to Friday because it felt weird doing them on Monday. Anyway, video games. So much has come out in the last two weeks and I cannot play it all so I’m just going to breeze through it. Multiple things I’ve been waiting a long time for too. The last month has been ridiculous.

UFO 50 (Steam) is probably the big one. Everyone probably knows about this one but it’s nice seeing it finally come out and being so well received too.

TTRPGs for Accessible Gaming Charity Bundle (Itch) will let you buy a bunch of TTRPGs for $10 or more and the money goes to charity.

isometric view of a town by the water

Judero (Steam) is another one I’ve been waiting for a long time too. Action rpg with stop-motion art is so laser targeted towards my interests.

I was a big Void Bastards fan so it’s really nice to see the devs do a spiritual sequel with a western theme with Wild Bastards (Steam).

Every version of the Videotome engine results in some cool interactive fiction games so I’m happy we now have a new version (Itch.io) that adds some dating sim inspired functionality.

The new remaster of the first Broken Sword game (Steam) looks pretty snazzy.

a black and white desktop resembling the macintosh

EyeOS (Itch.io) combines two of my favorite things, fake OS desktops and games made in Decker.

retro pixel man standing in a fork in a path

We got two King’s Quest fan games recently! One is a demake (site) of the classic King’s Quest 6 and it’s really well done and a fan project that took many years for the dev to create.

cartoon man standing in the woods outside of a tree home

It Takes Two to Tangle (site) is a fan game sequel to the game King’s Quest 7. It does an incredible job emulating the art style from that game and feels like an evolution of the mid-90s style of Sierra point-and-click adventures, which I’ve always been a fan of. The production values for this game, which I believe was mostly by one developer but had a small time outside of it, is astonishing.

Indie Game Roundup (Sept. 9, 2024)

I think I’ve developed a pretty good method of doing these weekly now. Still have a massive backlog of games I want to talk about because people keep making cool stuff but it’s much more fun for me to do these little batches. Once in a while someone will be confused about the formatting of these posts (very understandable!), I generally bold the title of the game and then put a link to the game in ( ), usually to Itch.io and/or Steam.

If you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email, message me on social media (see About page), or just reply to this post with a link to your thing to let me know it’s out.

Banky’s Newborn Baby (Itch.io link) is a very good interactive poem thing made in Twine.

A few years ago I made a goofy little indie ttrpg name generator (Itch.io link) just as a fun little project to poke at for a couple of days. A whole dang game jam just wrapped up (Itch.io) where people made games using it. I had nothing to do with it but it makes me so happy that people actually made cool stuff using my thing.

A new Indiepocalypse (Itch.io) is out! As usually, there’s a lot of cool games in this monthly anthology zine.

view from a space ship cockpit and lasers are firing at a ship
Liberation

Liberation (Steam/Itch.io) is definitely not new and came out a year ago, but it’s new to me! I just picked it up as part of the Steam space exploration fest or whatever it’s called. I often get frustrated with finding the space sim that’s right for me, since I usually don’t want a pure level based arcade sim but also don’t want anything complex like the X series either, but I love this. There’s nothing wrong with arcade games or incredibly complex space sims, but they’re usually not for me. This feels to strike a nice balance and has a lot of character. I’m not sure how I found out about this one but it’s the most British game I’ve ever played, so I assume a British person in their 40s-50s posted about it since it’s strongly inspired by Elite and shows like Blake’s 7, The Tripods, Space:1999, Star Cops, Judge Dredd and Doctor Who. I’ve never seen Blake’s before and should probably watch it.

screenshot of green,brown, and grey hex tiles showing hills and mountains, and a map of all the titles in the lower right corner
Nikhil Murthy’s Syphilisation

Nikhil Murthy’s Syphilisation (Steam) is a postcolonial 4X game where you play a student doing a group report on Gandhi, Churchill and the Raj. I ran into some bugs when I streamed the game but I still love it. It’s doing so much that I haven’t seen in other 4X games and really think more people should check it out. This article on Unwinnable about the game is also very good.

This came out a year ago and I’ve posted about it before but Incubus – A Ghost Hunter’s Tale (Steam) is a fun adventure game I’ve been revisiting since it’s getting closer to Halloween. I’ve always enjoyed the developer’s other games like the Dark Fall series and this one is also a neat ghost hunting adventure.

Kickstarters/Crowdfunding:

Netcrawl is now crowdfunding. It already hit it’s goal but I think it looks like a neat cyberpunk ttrpg.

Self Promo Zone

Thank you for reading these! Consider supporting my work on Ko-fi so I can buy more games/maintain site costs, checking out my games on Itch.io, following me on Twitch where I will do streams of random indie games, checking out previous indie game roundups, or just by sharing these posts. An anthology I helped organize also came out this summer on Steam and Itch.io

I’ve also started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. If you do not have an IRC client or don’t feel like messing around with that stuff, you can easily join through the browser here. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

Indie Game Roundup (Sept. 2, 2024)

Todaybor Day is Labor Day! It looks like I managed to do these two weeks in a row. I’m still getting caught up on my backlog of games to talk about but if you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email, message me on social media (see About page), or just reply to this post with a link to your thing to let me know it’s out.

drawing of a shoe and watering pail pouring water on it
Five Years Old Memories

Five Years Old Memories (Steam): A short game collecting interactive animations and featuring interviews with the developer’s friends of their memories of when they were five years old. I saw a review discussing how the game was influenced by 90s multimedia cd-roms and yes, absolutely, it rules and I love seeing people being inspired by this era of software. It’s about 30 minutes long for a playthrough and only $3.

gif of a first person view of a canoe going down a lake
Wherever You Hike

Wherever You Hike (Itch.io): A short walking game made in 10 weeks by a team of two where you just walk and canoe in a relaxing area until you feel satisfied. It’s just a nice, relaxing space to spend a few minutes and is Pay-What-You-Want.

view from inside a cockpit with a lot of controls to interact with
Armored Shell Nightjar

ARMORED SHELL NIGHTJAR (Itch.io): Created for MechJam V by Warkus and Modus Interactive (two folks from the HauntedPS1 community), it’s a Getting Over It-like where you navigate intentionally awkward controls inside a mech to climb up a tower. I’m awful at these types of games but it’s very good.

first person view of a grainy view of two doors in a dungeon
Chalicebound

Chalicebound (Itch.io): Another game by Warkus, this is a short demo inspired by the classic adventure game Shadowgate. I always get excited when new games are inspired by the classic MacVenture series (Shadowgate, Uninvited, Deja Vu 1 and 2) and this one is great and creepy. It’s just a demo but I hope we get a longer, commercial game someday.

Nightmare SuperHighway

Nightmare SuperHighway (Itch.io): It’s another “Walking Sim” (I’m fine with the term!) where you explore a series of creepy spaces. I just walking around well-crafted spaces and this is one of those!

isometric view of a dungeon with an adventurer and chicken
Roguecraft

Roguecraft (Itch.io): Roguecraft is a brand-new roguelike for the Amiga inspired by Lovecraft. I haven’t played this one yet but hell yes, new Amiga games. I’m also a big fan of the publisher, Thalamus, and there’s a boxed copy of the game as well if you want to get a new physical copy of an Amiga game in the year 2024.

an adventurer standing in a village next to a large castle
Erenshor

Erenshor (Steam): Erenshor is a single player rpg strongly inspired by late 90s/early 00s MMORPGs and emulates how those games played. It only has a demo out right now and I haven’t played it yet, but I’ve been watching BogusMeatFactory play this on Twitch and it seems like a lovely rpg that I’ll have to play someday.

Other People Talking About Indies

A new Indie Tsushin (website) came out today! It’s great, like they always are!

Self Promo Zone

Thank you for reading these! Consider supporting my work on Ko-fi so I can buy more games/maintain site costs, checking out my games on Itch.io, following me on Twitch where I will do more streams of these short indies, checking out previous indie game roundups, or just by sharing these posts. An anthology I helped organize also came out this summer on Steam and Itch.io

Indie Game Roundup (July 7, 2024)

Hi, here’s a list of indie games that I think are pretty cool. Also the Itch.io sale is happening now, go buy some games from there. I’m hoping to continue doing these on a more regular basis than once a month. Also consider subscribing to the RSS feed for future blog posts! If you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email, message me on social media (see About page), or just reply to this post with a link to your thing to let me know it’s out.

gif of someone clicking around a living room.

A new Indiepocalypse is out! I’m excited that it has a new game by Hexcavator.

art of an orange space ship called the star unicorn

Flickship allows you to easily create cool space ships.

gif of a gree creature saying "he should be able to trade you a fish for a crunch veggie!"

Sprout Yeartide is a new, short game by Princess Internet Cafe. I’m a big fan of their games and love seeing all the branches that have come from Bitsy. This was made in binksi hd, which is based on Binksi, a fork of bipsi that lets you create games using Inkle Studios‘ Ink, and bipsi is inspired by Bitsy.

A new issue of Indie Tsushin is out! I’m going to be lazy and copy the Itchio text here: “This is the 2024 May-June zine issue compiling articles from the インディー通信 Indie Tsushin blog, a handmade site celebrating and introducing indie and doujin games from Japan!” Despite my laziness, it’s a fantastic zine and website!

Not a game but Crisis Arcadia 0: The Angels of Bloodharvest is a short sci-fi story by a game developer and available for $2.

The Neo-Twiny Jam just wrapped up. The jam features submissions of Interactive Fiction games containing 500 words or less.

Iowa Jack and the Crystals of Chaos is a new text adventure for the Commodore 64 that is a parody of Indiana Jones and meant to have a lower difficulty level for newcomers to text adventures.

screenshot from Paper-Girl-Chain of someone saying "I shuffled around in my seat guiltily, fully waking myself up" and some dialog choices
Screenshot from Paper-Girl-Chain

The menhera vn jam also just wrapped up. The jam is described as “This is a jam for games about living and coming to terms (or not) with unseen burdens, whether they be mental, emotional, physical, psychological, or otherwise.”

Self-Promo Zone

I’ve started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. If you do not have an IRC client or don’t feel like messing around with that stuff, you can easily join through the browser here. I’ll never be able to get people to drop Discord for IRC, but I personally prefer it. I don’t feel like I have to follow along with every single conversation and I’m not getting pinged all the time by notifications or the “Everyone” tag. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

I also helped with a games anthology that’s coming out soon. Locally Sourced Anthology I: A Space Atlas is a collection of 8 experimental games from different indie game developers. Grow tea on the Moon! Fish on Saturn! Find love on Mars! And 5 other things! Wishlist it now on Steam! It’s also coming out on Itch.io

Indie Game Roundup (June 25, 2024)

It’s been a while since I wrote one of these which is why I’m not waiting until Friday to publish this. Thank you so much for reading these and feel free to check out the posts I’ve made from previous weeks for more indie games. Also consider subscribing to the RSS feed for future blog posts! If you recently released something that you want included, always feel free to send me an email, message me on social media (see About page), or just reply to this post with a link to your thing to let me know it’s out. Or even if you didn’t make it and you just think it’s neat, let me know!

A new Indiepocalypse came out so I’m required to post about it.

top down view of a car driving through a city

Dryft City Kyngs looks like an interesting racing game with a neat aesthetic.

man and dog in a truck and text saying "Manastash, Washington, 1997"

Mel’s Bucket is a short, free point-and-click adventure that’s playable in the browser based on the 90’s Coast to Coast calls about the mysterious Mel’s Hole that I have a fascination with, so this is a GOTY for me.

Swan Neck is a short and great Twine game that’s playable in the browser on Itch. Be sure to read the CWs before playing.

Trouble in Paradisa is a system-agnostic murder mystery for tabletop rpgs inspired by 1990’s Lego sets.

Blister City is a rules-lite ttrpg where you seek revenge against the factions that have ruined life on Mars.

Ostrichmonkey Hack is an in-progress, modular ruleset in the N/OSR tradition.

False Idols is a 1 page ttrpg for 3-5 players where you are musical idols taking down corporations.

TTRPGs for Palestine is a charity bundle where you can get a ton of ttrpgs for $10 or more, with all proceeds going to medical aid for Palestinians.

man in front of a house and trees on a yellow background

LXD::Red Honey looks like a lovely, short, and free metroidvania that came to my attention through Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

bridge leading to a dome over the water

Most importantly, the Riven remake is here. This is all I’m going to talk about for months. Reviews have been good and I’m so curious what the new content being added to the game is.

Crowdfunding

Indiepocalypse and Iron Circus Comics are teaming up to create a games/comics anthology and have launched a crowdfunding campaign. It looks pretty great!

People Talking About Indie Games

Choicebeat is a fantastic, free zine about visual novels and interactive fiction.

This Steam Curator lists games that are available on Itch, where the dev gets a better cut and the games are DRM free.

Shout out to Party of One Podcast for no reason other than it continuing to highlight great indie tabletop rpgs.

The Imaginary Engine Review is a great new site covering obscure indie games.

The Access-Ability Summer Showcase 2024 features 20 games with a focus on accessibility.

Self-Promo Zone

I’ve started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. If you do not have an IRC client or don’t feel like messing around with that stuff, you can easily join through the browser here. I’ll never be able to get people to drop Discord for IRC, but I personally prefer it. I don’t feel like I have to follow along with every single conversation and I’m not getting pinged all the time by notifications or the “Everyone” tag. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

I also helped with a games anthology that’s coming out soon. Locally Sourced Anthology I: A Space Atlas is a collection of 8 experimental games from different indie game developers. Grow tea on the Moon! Fish on Saturn! Find love on Mars! And 5 other things! Wishlist it now on Steam! It’s also coming out on Itch.io

Indie Game Roundup (June 7, 2024)

Being on parental leave means I have a little bit of time to write these regularly, although maybe not enough time to play everything. A lot came out this week!

woman at a coffee table saying "Queer love is messy. You of all people know that"

Queer Quest
Queer Quest is a new point-and-click adventure game that is available for Pay-What-You-Want. “Play as long-haired-butch Lupe as you traverse the gayborhood fetching things for femmes and thems. There’s a naked bike ride blocking the road. Ryan’s selfies suck. Stevie Hix needs some tape for tucking. Oh, and your hot girlfriend is missing!” Haven’t played it yet but it looks pretty great and I love point-and-click adventure games.

What Waits Beyond
WHAT WAITS BEYOND is a solo journaling game from Dinoberry Press.  In Beyond, you find yourself in a starship at the edge of a black hole, all hope lost and the end of the road right in front of you. I haven’t played any solo rpg from Dinoberry Press before but I have played some of their other tabletop rpgs and they’re all great. It’s only $3 too!

The Electrum Archive Issue 2
The Electrum Archive is a series of zine issues describing the science-fiction/fantasy setting of Orn that uses a simple core rule system. If you enjoy weird fantasy settings in games like Morrowind and want something like that for tabletop rpgs, consider checking it out.

POV pixel art of a kayak going down a river and the game's title The Zen of Kayaking

The Zen of Kayaking
The Zen of Kayaking is a new text adventure for DOS from pixelturkey and gamedevjeff. Pixelturkey is a wonderful artist and streamer and gamedevjeff has created some really cool stuff like an English translation of the DOS game Father World. New commercial text adventures and DOS games aren’t very common so it’s fun seeing one come out. It’s available on Itch for $5.

Creating a Website
Creating a Website is a short, mostly-autobiographical story about the benefits of making your own website. I might be slightly biased as I’m posting this to my own site but yes, you should make one.

a low poly fairy with red hair saying "I don't want you to break your heart"

Wingless Fairies
Wingless Fairies is a free game by Lily Belmira about becoming someone new again. After you play this (it’s only 30 minutes), go check out all of Lily’s other games. They’re great!

The Twine Grimoire Templates
Grim Baccaris has put a ton of work into making great Twine tutorials and now they’ve started making Twine templates as well! Absolutely worth your time if you’re interested in Twine.

Selaco
Selaco is a new FPS in Early Access that uses the GZDoom engine. It’s exciting to me whenever I see people making cool stuff using older technology. It looks great.

Sketch of a man and a neighborhood and him saying "i'm sorry. I didn't mean to run into you"

Liminal
Liminal is a very short visual novel playable in the browser on Itch about two young adults that run into each other a few months after a break up. The game features voice acting and beautiful art.

Day of the Hamster
Day of the Hamster is a short and free point-and-click adventure inspired by Day of the Tentacle. It is playable in the browser on Itch and the dev’s previous game was how I learned that was something you could even do for games made in Adventure Game Studio

blurry image of a tree in water

[Echostasis]
Echostasis is a new first-person shooter horror game by ENIGMA STUDIO, developer of the games The Enigma Machine and Mothered, where you jump into the minds of test subjects and find out what happened to them.

Other Folks Talking About Indies

The Imaginary Engine Review is a new games outlet from Grace Benfell and Phoenix Simms focused on independent, obscure, and/or retro games. Add it to your RSS feed reader or follow them on Cohost or Bluesky.

Self-Promo Zone

I’ve started an irc channel for indie and alt games/gamedev talk at AfterNET at #AltGames. If you do not have an IRC client or don’t feel like messing around with that stuff, you can easily join through the browser here. I’ll never be able to get people to drop Discord for IRC, but I personally prefer it. I don’t feel like I have to follow along with every single conversation and I’m not getting pinged all the time by notifications or the “Everyone” tag. Consider giving it a try! No registration required!

Indie Game Roundup (April 20, 2024)

A lot of neat stuff has come out in the last two weeks and it’s the funny number day, so here’s another one of these indie game roundup things of things that I enjoyed. If you released a thing and I missed it, feel free to reply in the comments.

Craig Maloney
Craig Maloney passed away on April 2nd after battling cancer for three years. I never met him in person but enjoyed talking with him online and reading his posts on his blog. If you would like to see his writing or the games he made, there’s links to everything on his page.

https://decafbad.net

black and white photo of an arena with text describing what they're seeing

New Domino Club games!
A new batch of Domino Club games has been released. Domino Club is a collective that releases games anonymously. Each batch of Domino Club games features incredibly interesting experimental stuff. They’re the best!

Palestinian Relief Bundle
A charity bundle just came out today with all proceeds going to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. For $8 or more you can get hundreds of games. I’m happy to have my game MindExplorer in there.

New Husky Game Development Games
Husky Game Development is a game dev group at Michigan Tech University since 2004. They’ve uploaded some new games to Itch so go check them out!

Tiny Circumstance
Tiny Circumstance is a really cute and technically impressive Bitsy game.

Broken Roads
If you’re in the mood for some more Fallout after watching the new tv show (I enjoyed it!), consider checking out Broken Roads, a post apocalyptic rpg in the Australian Outback. Reviews for it are currently mixed but maybe you’ll be into it?

Crowdfunding

Here are some crowdfunding campaigns that I found interesting:

  • Devil’s Hideout is a new point-and-click adventure from the developer of games like Twilight Oracle and Blood Nova.
  • Free Stars is a new Star Control game by the original designers in everything but name. The game even includes all the aliens from those original games.

Other People Talking About Indie Games

Indie Tsushin continues doing fantastic work with their developer spotlights.

I liked this post from Lotus that’s critical of the Triple-I Initiative.

Self Promo Zone

Not much from me this time. I continue to play lesser known games on my YouTube and Twitch channels and a previous post discusses a game I’m working on. I also have a list on Itch that I update every day with games I really like

Microsoft, Pay Me to Remake King’s Quest

Had a crisis, started remaking King’s Quest with clay

animated gif of king graham from King's Quest made out of clay and walking around in front of a castle

I absolutely half assed this clay model and the photos and it still took hours to digitize. All for a 15 second shitpost gif. It was really more of a proof of concept for myself and even with the very ugly clay model (or because of it?), I think it’s an interesting look. I also just wanted to see what the process of doing something like this would even be like and now I know. Had a lot of fun learning this stuff. All it really was was photographing that King Graham model and then using Aseprite to clean it up and digitize it. I also used Retrospecs to make it look a little more like the VGA era. Even though I rushed the model and photographs, it still took forever to import into Adventure Game Studio because I didn’t photograph it against a green screen.

I do like working with clay though and kinda want to make a game using it, just maybe a tiny bit more effort put into the models. Picked up more clay yesterday so we’ll see what I come up with after more practice.

That said, huge “could a depressed person make this?!” energy* coming from this gif, haha.

*I’m doing fine

I’m still working out what to even make with this knowledge so if any friends want to make a weird clay game (I can probably do better art than this) let me know.

Indie Game Roundup (April 5, 2024)

After taking a few weeks off because I now have a baby to take care off, I am doing another post about indie games stuff that was exciting to me over the last month. These probably won’t be weekly again for a while but I’m excited to post on here more often.

New Releases

The Gender Constellation Bundle
The Gender Constellation Bundle is the second bundle run by GAME DEV GALAXY, a Discord server for game developers who are gender-/sex-marginalized. There’s a ton of fantastic work in here and it’s available for only $10 or more.

Indiepocalypse #50 and 51
There is a new issue of the indie game compilation zine Indiepocalypse so of course I will include that on here. And of course, as I was typing this, Indiepocalypse #51 was just released.

Barney Bear Joins a Harold Team

bear pointing at a chalkboard that says "yes and"

This is a game created in Adventure Game Studio that is a parody of the Barney Bear educational game series but this time you learn about improv. Possibly the most important game to come out this year?

Make a Zine!
I really enjoyed this free zine about how to make a zine. You should make one!

Sylvie RPG
Sylvie RPG is a fantastic short rpg with a bump combat mechanic like in Hydlide and YS. It’s available for free but if you pay $7 or more, you get a lot of really cool bonus stuff.

miniBOSSGAME

a monster and two smiling faces in the corners

miniBOSSGAME is a fan port of BOSSGAME: The Final Boss Is My Heart’s mechanics to the Pico-8 fantasy console. BOSSGAME was one of my favorite games from last year and it’s fun to see a demake of it with the original designer’s blessing.

BIG HEAD

zx spectrum screenshot of two people and a platform

BIG HEAD is a neat little platformer created for the ZX Spectrum by a 10 year old.

The Legend of Skye

woman in a cloak in a village

The Legend of Skye is a new fantasy point-and-click adventure with a verb system like Lucasarts adventure games.

Brain Hotel: Remodeled

guy saying to another guy "Aren't you that guy? From that movie?"

Brain Hotel: Remodeled is a remake of a Flash game from 2004 by Telltale Games alumni Mark Darin. I haven’t played this one yet but I’m a fan of his Nick Bounty games.

Picotron

desktop for the picotron showing a terminal window open

Picotron is a new Fantasy Workstation by the creator of PICO-8 for making pixelart games, animations, music, demos and other curiosities.

Downpour
Downpour is a new app for making little games on your phone. I think it’s pretty fantastic and even made my own little game.

Passage: A Job Interview Simulator

person saying "Should I go over weird questions next? Or should I review basic questions again?"

Passage is a new visual novel from Emcat Games about navigating the corporate world. It’s from a local dev too so that’s always exciting for me. The publisher is Mangotronics, who also published the great Mangotronic Employment Collection.

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story

screen showing that 21st March 1982 was the origin of the name Llamasoft

I am a massive fan of the rerelease work by Digital Eclipse so of course I would be thrilled when they announced a collection of games by Jeff Minter. It’s everything I hoped it would be and will probably be my Game of the Year.

Midnight Scenes: A Safe Place

guy in his room saying "what the hell is this?"

Midnight Scenes is an anthology of short horror point and click adventures and the newest entry, A Safe Place, was just released. Each game ranges from 15-90 minutes long and only costs a few dollars. Haven’t played this one yet but I really enjoyed everything else by the designer. A Safe Place is available on Itch.io and Steam.

The New York Times Simulator
The New York Times Simulator is a short browser game about how much the NYT shows their ass. Great game about an awful place.

Other Folks Talking About Indie Games

After a hiatus, Bobbins’ Olde Tomb of Videogames is back! It’s like these posts but better, and with more of a focus on arcade games.

I really liked this post from Autumn Rain on cohost about games she liked in 2023

I just found out about a nice fan zine for the Playdate called Uncrank’d.

Kickstarters/Crowdfunding

After ignoring Kickstarter for a long time, 3 crowdfunding campaigns popped up in two days that I had to back.

  • Devil’s Hideout is a point-and-click adventure by Cosmic Void, who I’ve always been a fan of. There’s a demo available that I enjoyed too.
  • That Rug is a supernatural ttrpg zine that uses children’s playmats that every parent has.
  • Street Wolves is a synthwave ttrpg using the Savage Worlds rule system.

Self Promo Zone

If you enjoy these posts, here’s some ways you can support me:

Indie Game Roundup (Feb. 16, 2024)

Hope you’re all doing well! I’m still getting over a cold that has actually been pretty mild but I’m a big baby so I’m acting like it’s the worst thing ever. For some of you it’s probably a 3 day weekend as well, so that’s a nice thing to look forward to. Despite my mild cold completely ruining my life, I still found a way to play some video games. If there’s something I missed, especially if it’s something you worked on, please reply with it in the comments or contact me (see About page) with a link to your thing.

Vaporwave Pinball

top down view of a pinball table with a statue and roman columns to its right

Vaporwave Pinball is an upcoming pinball game being developed by Mixtape Games UK. I played the demo as part of Steam’s Next Fest. I thought it was really neat. It’s got some quirks that should be fixed as development continues and I didn’t get to the more abstract tables that pop up in the screenshots. I feel like if a pinball table in a video game is not a 1:1 recreation of a real table, then it needs to get really weird, which is what this seems to do in later tables and something that I feel like Pinball FX needs to do more of with their fictional tables. I’m also learning how to do Let’s Plays and did one here.

Lost in Space

a boy, a man, and a robot around a space ship console

Lost in Space is an upcoming point-and-click adventure game based on the classic science fiction tv show. I played the demo and idk, it’s fine! They picked a weird spot for the demo. From watching the trailer at the end, it sounds like they use audio from the show for some of the other characters but not the player, which is the thing I was actually most interested in and how that’s pulled off. It’s a completely average adventure game, meaning I’m kinda just fine with it but would lose my shit if they made game at this quality level of a different IP, like a Farscape adventure game. So if you like Lost in Space then I would recommend it! (YouTube Let’s Play)

Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge 2

game boy screenshot of a golfer in bed saying "Mornin Morty! I bet you're as excited for the Springfield Cup as I am!"

Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge 2 is a point-and-click adventure for the Game Boy based on a joke at the end of an episode of The Simpsons back in season 7. It’s not too long or challenging, took me about 30 minutes to beat, but the jokes really worked for me and there’s a lot of hidden jokes I didn’t see but know I missed because of the achievement system. The game is also playable in the browser. (YouTube Let’s Play)

8BUTTERF.EXE

Gameplay footage of 8BUTTERF.EXE

8BUTTERF.EXE is a bullet hell game made for the TIC-80 fantasy computer where time only passes when you move. I really enjoyed this game and highly recommend checking it out. Elements of it almost make it feel like a puzzle game in that you have to manage your resources and plan your movements ahead. It’s playable in the browser here.

Kobold Quest
Just a very pleasant and short Bitsy where you’re a Kobold. (Itch.io)

Gelatinous
A solo tabletop rpg where you play as a gelatinous cube and eat things. Don’t know how I can sell it better than that. (Itch.io)

Advanced Fantasy Dungeons
A tabletop rpg available as pay-what-you-want that is strongly inspired by Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition and compatible with supplements as well. Despite that era being kind of clunky, it’s what I grew up with so I have a ton of nostalgia for it. I’m interested in seeing how that type of game is redesigned to be a bit more approachable. (Itch.io)

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is a spiritual sequel to the infamous Zelda platforming games on the Philips CD-i. Weirdly enough, I do sorta have some nostalgia for those games, despite being pretty awful, since I actually played them at a CompUSA when they came out and was confused why there were non-traditional Zelda games out there and on a non-Nintendo console. I always get excited when people do a spiritual sequel to something that wasn’t good and my hope with this is that the approach was “what if we did one of these but it was good?” Because why not? We have plenty of remakes and sequels to good games. Let’s revisit things that maybe had some good idea but the execution wasn’t 100% perfect.

Ultros

I know nothing about this game other than it’s a metroidvania but look at this art! I think it’s lovely. (Steam)

News Tower

news tower screenshot of a side view of a tower

I haven’t played this one but the concept is really interesting to me and I heard good things about the demo. It’s a game where you run your own newspaper and looks pretty great. The game is available in Early Access on Steam.

Other People Talking About Games
There’s also lots of other people talking about indie games that you should follow:

And then finally on my YouTube channel I’ve uploaded footage of games I’ve played like Super Space Club, Glypha: Vintage, and Dead Petals Bliss.