DAWN CHORUS is an upcoming interactive fiction game that recently had a demo put online after being shown at ALT: GAMES 2026. The 30 minute demo tells a story about two friends and a band named Dawn Chorus while the world is falling apart. I loved how it uses links that pop up new windows to expand on the world the game is set in, and the art and music do a fantastic job of contributing to the melancholy feeling of trying to live your life while the world is ending. I think the influences section is worth reading too. The sad feeling the game has reminded me a lot of Kentucky Route Zero so it was fun to see that listed after I had played through the demo. It also lists a few DOMINO CLUB games if you want to see the Jupiter Engine and make a game yourself that uses the popup window functionality this game has.
Something that caught me by surprise was the brief mention of the Windsor Hum. I always get excited about things local to me appearing in video games so that was a fun reference. It was a humming noise that people in Windsor, Ontario could hear from 2011 to 2020 and probably came from a factory on an inland between Canada and the USA but was never completely confirmed. You can read more about it on Wikipedia. There’s also a song by Detroit post-punk band Protomartyr that references it.
There’s not much else I can say about the demo without spoiling it but I think it was very well written and I’m looking forward to the full game.
DAWN CHORUS [DEMO] can be played in the browser on Itch.io.
As a longtime (3 years) fan of Wavey Games, I was very excited to see that they just released a new game. The Dissident is a short pay-what-you-want first-person point-and-click adventure game where you must assist someone escaping the authorities by helping her get into her own dreams by fixing and using an altered tape recorder. It’s a very surreal plot and the whole game follows this vibe but not at the expense of the puzzles, which all felt very fair. They were the right level of challenge for this type of game, where I did have to pause and think for a minute but nothing too tough, which I think is good in a game like this where the draw for me is exploring the world. The game’s puzzles also provide a few points where it makes the most sense to map something or write some notes, which I enjoy doing in adventure games.
One thing I really enjoy in the works of Wavey Games is the use of retro aesthetics that people generally don’t think about. Their previous games Melon Head and Celestial Coffee Quest (highly recommend both) both used an EGA-palette and this one has a CGA-palette. Even though I considered the CGA colors to be incredibly ugly at the time when DOS shareware games were coming out, it’s fun seeing it intentionally selected for the look of a game and I think it’s used very well here. Most of the game has a nice jazzy soundtrack too, which all fits in very well with the weird but relaxed mystery vibe the game is going for. It’s just a nice little adventure game that you can play in a sitting so go check it out and then play some of the other adventures by Wavey Games if you like this one.
The Dissident is available on Itch.io for Windows and Mac.
Lady at the Costco Gave Me Her Extra Hot Dog Soda Combo is a short browser game about exactly what it says in the title. You fill up your soda and put toppings on your hotdog and enjoy a wonderful song at the end. I don’t believe I’ve played any games by hubol before but I loved this one. The animation is a delight and vaguely reminds me of the squigglevision we used to see in Dr. Katz. Even if you’ve never been to a Costco, I recommend it. Maybe one day we’ll get a sequel about the Costco Chicken Bake.
Lady at the Costco Gave Me Her Extra Hot Dog Soda Combo can be played for free on Itch.io
Anonymous game collective DOMINO CLUB has published a new set of games for their Questions and Answers jam (or if you’re in the UK, go here). At the moment there are 8 submissions for the theme Questions and Answers in a variety of forms such as visual novels, adventure games, interactive fiction, writing in PDFs, and more. If you follow the blog or me on social media then you’ll know I get excited about the jams because there’s always a few things I fall in love with and I love the experimentation that happens in these jams since they are semi-anonymous. When the games are published, the developer names are not listed however they can reveal themselves at a later date (two weeks later? I forgot).
My guy made with the character creation tool The Killer
These jams happen a few times a year so if you haven’t played any of their games before, consider poking around their Itch.io page, clicking on a jam theme that sounds interesting, and playing a few of the entries. Some of the games are more approachable than others so I recommend trying a few if you haven’t looked before, but I think DOMINO CLUB is doing some of the most interesting work in indie games at the moment and at the very least I think folks interested in experimental games and interactive fiction should give them a look.
Anyway, if you haven’t noticed already, I had stopped posting roundups a while ago and I think I’m deciding to wind those down. I just suddenly lost interest in doing them since they were getting so time consuming and kept putting off doing another one because I didn’t have the enthusiasm to do another big post, which probably means it’s time to slow down on them. What I’m probably going to do instead is just doing individual posts on whatever indie games I’ve been enjoying. It means less games will get mentioned but the ones that do will not get buried in a giant post and will have more to say about them other than “well, this looks neat” so I don’t really think it’s a loss. Anyway, just wanted to give a heads up in case you’re read them and wondered why there’s suddenly more posts about individual games. I think it will work better anyway and it will be more fun for me, which is the whole reason I have a website in the first place.
Developer: Grace Bruxner, Thomas Bowker Publisher: worm club, SUPERHOT PRESENTS Year: 2018 Genre: Adventure System: Mac
Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island is a short first-person adventure game where you are a detective who is also a frog and need to investigate reports of a ghost haunting the island. My oldest has been playing the series on her own and her younger sister wanted to see them so we just played through the first one together. I’m glad I got to revisit it because I liked it more than I remembered and my daughter loved it. I had always liked the game but I had some small gripes about the game that were much more minor than I remembered.
The gameplay is very simple. You walk around and talk to various characters on the island, asking them about the ghost, other folks, and if they need help with anything. You continue doing this and helping them with their needs and it eventually leads you to the end of the mystery and game. The puzzles are very simple and there’s no fail states, which may frustrate some experienced adventure gamers, but the focus of the game is on the humor and art and I think that makes it a great intro to adventure games for folks. It’s also fun exploring the space that Grace created, which is filled with a lot of fun little details to look at if you aren’t trying to rush through the game.
The gripes that I had with the game before still remain but are much more minor than I remember. The puzzle solving is a bit repetitive since it’s mostly dialog puzzles you solve by going from person to person but again, I think it’s mostly fine since it’s not meant to be a challenging game anyway. The other issue I have is that the humor does start to feel repetitive towards the end as well, but the game is very short (45-60 minutes) that once I had started to feel that way, the game was getting to wrap up anyway. It was also much easier to overlook since I played it with my 6 year old and she was having a great time walking around and talking to everyone. I think playing the game with someone who doesn’t have Gamer Brain really helped me appreciate that it’s a game filled with lovely artwork and that I should just take my time exploring this space instead of viewing it as a series of conversation puzzles to solve.
I have to imagine that anyone who is reading this already knows about the series and has either played it or never will, but maybe this recommendation will slightly nudge you towards checking it out or replaying the game.
I was looking through the notes app on my mac and just saw this big list of games in one doc. I’m not sure why. Given the amount of student games on here, these may have been notes I took of the indie games conference thing that Lawrence Tech University in Southfield was doing at the time. It was by no means a big event but it’s been 7 years (the notes are from April 21, 2019), so I thought I would dump this all here with any commentary I have, and a games historian can stumble across this in 10 years and pick out the interesting bits. I don’t think this will be of interest to many folks but I think it’s good to have it available anyway. The titles of the games are in bold and my commentary is in unbolded text.
Some of these folks are still making games, some not, and it looks like a few of the students here ended up going into the games industry so that’s lovely to see too. Not going to name them because that feels like doxing to me even if they’re success stories, but I still love to see people doing well.
MageQuit is a multiplayer game where you duel each other as little wizards. A very fun game. I believe at the time this was in Early Access since the release date on Steam is October. I think it did well judging from the number of Steam reviews and it getting releases on consoles. It’s two brothers who make up the studio, I’m not sure if they’re still in Michigan, and at the time of this writing they’re working on a new game, MageQuit Dungeons.
Another cool one. They created a visual novel about dragons called Golden Treasure (Steam/Itch.io) that I would recommend. I think there were attempts to make a follow up to this but judging from the last news posting being in 2023, I don’t think this will happen. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Pretty sure this one was a student game. I know I played it but don’t really remember my feelings on it. But since my memory is a bit crap in general, I don’t think that should reflect on the game. Given that it’s a twin stick shooter and looks nice, I should play it again.
Another student game. The way I remember the game dev program at Lawrence Tech working is that all the students would split off into groups and make games. From looking at the credits for this one, maybe they could do solo projects as well?
Oh hey, this one is still in development! RAD, which changed its name to RAD-venture after Double Fine’s RAD was announced, is a collect-a-thon. I backed the Kickstarter for this….last year? Maybe the year before? It’s one of those games where it will come out eventually but I haven’t followed it closely enough to know when. But the early builds I’ve played, including the ones from this time seven years ago, have all been great. It doesn’t seem like there’s a demo currently available but you can play the student game version here. The student game version was not through Lawrence Tech.
I remember playing this one! This one was a student game that I remember liking. I haven’t heard from Spencer in a while but I know they made a lot of other lovely games and interactive fiction that you should check out on Itch.
BroBots! Another one that wasn’t by student, I remember liking this one quite a bit. It’s kind of a twin-stick shooter co-op game. I think the studio planned on doing more but I don’t believe that happened. I do remember it originally being $2, it’s the only game I’ve bought on GameJolt, but at some point they made it pay-what-you-want for everyone to enjoy.
Oh hey, one I actually remember playing. It’s an arcade space sim that was made by a large-ish team. I still have a little pin from this one. The teams were encouraged to make little things to give away at their table, I assume to give them experience tabling for cons, so I have various stickers and pins from some of these games. Maybe I can update this post later with photos of some of them.
[MEMORY_LEAK]
Had to double check with the dev who was working on this. It’s still alive and in development. It’s a turn based rpg inspired by Paper Mario. All I had in my notes were a twitter link but the dev has moved to Bluesky years ago at this point. No Bluesky account for this game but they do have one for their other game in development, Admit One.
Oh hey, one I really know. Steven co-founded local indie game collective Locally Sourced with me so yes, I know he’s still around making stuff. WaveCrash!! eventually got a release on Steam if you only want to play games on that platform. He’s currently working on a puzzle game.
I don’t know if this one is still being actively developed but if you poke around the page you can see the developer has done a bit and I know he’s very active with local Warhammer and other tabletop communities.
Stardust Hyperdrive
This was a top down arcade game for the Android. It doesn’t seem like it’s available anymore which is too bad because I remember liking it. I never had an Android device so I was always hoping it would get ported to other stuff but I don’t think it did. You can already read more about the game on the dev’s site, where it also lists the soundtrack. I also made a MobyGames page for it.
Hey, I remember this one. It’s a top-down runner-like arcade game where you dodge asteroids and lasers being shot at your ship from the ships chasing you. Josh is still involved with the local game dev scene, I think through IGDA Detroit.
Great game (also on Itch) and it eventually led to other projects like Cellular Harvest. Nate now works at New Blood, where he works on games like Gloomwood. This one wasn’t a student project. The showcase/convention also had commercial games and projects by non-students there.
I’m not actually sure if this one is still in development, doing game dev as a hobby while also being a parent is tricky, but I really liked what is there. He’s also made other games on his solo Itch page.
There was also a System Shock mod at this thing from a non-student. I’m not sure how that happened but I love it. I tracked down the mod and it’s called Lazarus Decλy. My notes had a link to a Facebook page but that’s no longer active.
Student game Misadventure
There’s some others that weren’t in my notes but I found through some digging on Itch. Some more student games at the showcase include:
Misadventure is a short platformer where you are on a pirate ship. I remember it doing some fun physics stuff and the team just being very happy that folks were checking out their game they made.
Isa’s Edda is a 3D platformer I know I did not play, but some of the same folks went on to make a first person adventure game Farewell Call that I remember liking.
Saviour is a cool one where you are navigating a space in pitch black and relying entirely on sound.
Prison of the Damned is a first-person puzzle student game that I remember being at the showcase but did not have time to play.
I do remember really liking Crime and Nunishment, a top-down game where you are a nun shooting at nuns. It had a really cool art style that slightly reminds me of the 90s fps ZPC. I have a sticker from their booth.
Crime and NunishmentAesthetisphereVaporstride
Another pair of projects that I didn’t have in my notes but suddenly remembered were the pair of first-person vaporwave. My memory is that it started as one but then had creative differences and split off into their own projects. So here are A E S T H E T I S P H E R E and Vaporstride for you to play and enjoy.
Anyway, those are my notes. Like I said, this is probably going to be boring to most folks but I wanted to document it anyway. Feel free to correct me if I’m misremembering this stuff or left any games out. These are my memories of a games event from a long time ago. I just thought it might be good to preserve this stuff somewhere. A long time ago I made this Itch collection of local student games and some of them may have been in this showcase as well.
It’s Friday the 13th, the most cursed day for indie games. A lot of people are weird about hobbyist game devs and I would just like to say, you all rock and are making some of the best games. Please keep putting cool stuff on Itch.io and elsewhere, and making things with weird little game engines. Here’s some of those games and also some by people that somehow manage to do it full time. It’s going to be a long one since I didn’t do one last week so I’m splitting it into smaller categories. I’ll try to do another one of these posts soon because there’s a bunch I still plan to write about, but just don’t have the time today. If you enjoy these posts, maybe consider playing one of my games. Most of them are free.
Adventure
Choicebeat #16 is the latest issue of the free zine for adventure games, visual novels, and interactive fiction.
Apologies in advance for this one because I don’t actually know what it is but saw it recommended by folks and it has FMV so this is one where I’m just going to copy the description and you can decide if it’s interesting or not. kevin’s PLAYING in berlin (Steam/Itch.io) is an IGF Nuovo Award finalist consisting of three games. In Ke Vin, evin asked 200+ questions around the Berlin Wall in a language of the body without verbs. The audio was recorded in Kyiv. In What if Ginger is a Religion unlock a brand new language with a unique writing system. You’ve Received XX Messages in a Language Unknown Even to Its Speaker is an emotional ASMR game.
You Are Elon Musk (Twine) is a simulator created in Twine where you play as Elon Musk and see how much you can do for the world with his obscene amounts of wealth. It’s the sequel to You Are Jeff Bezos and even more depressing than that was, but also very funny. It’s got quite a few endings in it and I haven’t even found any secret endings yet.
Back in the Swamp (Steam) is a first-person point-and-click adventure set in a post-apocalyptic swamp. I haven’t played it yet but I like the art and it reminds me of 00’s-era adventure games, which I actually mean here as a compliment. It’s got a demo too.
Game Jams
Skellywave
The CGA Jam wrapped up on Itch, where folks made games for DOS using the CGA standard. While it was a set of colors people hated at the time, I think it can look really nice at times. There’s 9 brand new DOS games for you to play here.
The Trans Joy Jam (Itch.io) was about creating brighter futures for trans folks
Fake Game Magazine jam (Itch.io) is, as you would expect, a jam where people make free game magazines.
Platformer
Haunted Lands (Steam) is an EGA-era looking platformer inspired by the classic DOS game Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion and the rest of that trilogy, which was created by some ID Software folks. I was a huge fan of that series and this looks to build on that with even more gore and more playable characters. If you want to get a feel for it, you can try some previous games/prototypes on the Itch page.
Moss Moss (Itch.io) is a nice non-violent metroidvania made in PICO-8 where your goal is to cover every surface in moss and discover secrets. I really liked the mechanic of covering everything in moss to unlock new areas. Playable in the browser.
Return to Dark Castle (Steam) is a rerelease of a game that came out on Mac only about 10-15 years ago, but now for Windows and Linux as well. It’s the sequel to a classic Macintosh game from the 80s, which I used to play the Amiga port of with my dad. I remember it being very hard and from the Steam description, that still seems to be the case.
Puzzle
Swappy (Itch.io) is a demo for a puzzle game made in PICO-8 where you must get each character to their goal and swap characters around to get through obstacles. It’s hard to explain but is easy to pick up if you try out the browser demo. I liked it and hope we get more levels.
RPG
Mowguelike (Itch.io) is a roguelike for browsers where the main mechanic is using your lawnmower to mow grass in every level, as well as using that lawnmower to fight enemies.
Hoop Dungeon (Steam) is a basketball turn-based tactical roguelike game and I think that is a really interesting premise. It’s just entered Early Access and there’s a demo available if you want to try it out. The same developer made Nikhil Murthy’s Syphilisation (Steam), a postcolonial 4X game, and I highly recommend that one to Civilization fans.
TTRPG
places to be is a free (Itch.io) systems neutral location creator zine using a 1d20 and 1d6.
Other Bits
A new indiepocalypse (Itch.io) is here, featuring a collection of experimental indie games. I can highly recommend the fmv typing game how to walk out the door.
Demos
SALANN (Steam/Itch.io) is a first-person rpg with a nice 1-bit aesthetic where you explore a decaying city.
Wishlist
I was told about Gonzalo the Chicken – Episode I (Steam), a low poly 3D platformer where you are a chicken and throw your explosive friend at enemies. You can watch the trailer for it here.
Super Robot Survivors (Steam) is a new Survivors-like by the creator of classic games like Halloween Harry and Flight of the Amazon Queen.
That’s it for this week! Hope you found something new to play. Feel free to mention your games to me in the comments/email/DMs if it doesn’t use AI. I also live for comments on what you’ve been playing lately. Have a nice weekend!
Developer: Codeglue Publisher: Codeglue Year: 2016 Genre: Arcade System: Windows
Rocket Riot is an arcade game where you fly around an arena in a jetpack shooting at other enemies with rockets until you beat them all. Originally released for the X-Box 360 in the summer of 2009, I wanted to revisit the game and slowly played through the single player campaign in the Steam release. There isn’t much to say about this one. You essentially do the same thing in different level layouts, with the occasional mini boss thrown in and they sometimes mix it up by having different level types, like running a football across a level for points, but for the most part you are doing the same thing, shooting other guys with rockets, most levels. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, I play arcade games all the time where you just do the same thing repeatedly, but once you play the first set of levels you kinda know what the rest of the game is like and it doesn’t really increase the difficulty over time.
It’s too bad about that because the core of the game plays very well. It feels good flying around and flinging rockets around, and the game has a nice retro aesthetic. I suppose the game itself is retro now since it was a 2009 release, but what I mean is that it has an art style that has 2D art but with 3D blocks flying around when things explode. It looks good in motion. It’s very strongly influenced by 80s British computer games too with cassette loading screens between levels and music that feels like it was slightly influenced by that era.
Another frustration with the release on Steam is that it’s missing multiplayer, which is arguably half the game. The gameplay is a very good fit for it and works well on the X360 release, but is missing from the PC version. Even a local multiplayer feature would have been appreciated.
Anyway, the game is fine. I can’t make a strong endorsement for it but if you want to occasionally play an arcade thing for a few minutes and don’t mind it being a little repetitive, then maybe you’ll have fun with it.
It’s getting warmer here again, after it was warm last week and then got cold and snowed again. This will probably happen a few more times before the warm weather finally holds, but I’m looking forward to it.
If you like these roundups, maybe you’ll want some Girl Scout cookies? My oldest is selling Girl Scout cookies if folks in the US are interested. If you live in the metro Detroit or Ann Arbor area, I can deliver them too if you want.
Video Games
Steam Next Fest is this week and I absolutely do not have the time for this. Lots of folks have been writing about demos though including Indie Hell Zone, Thinky Games, and Jank. Probably a billion websites are covering the demos, those are just some that I saw in my feed.
The Midnight Cafe (Itch.io) is a cute arcade game for the browser where you are bunny at a cafe in the woods and retrieve food for animals placing their orders. I loved the collage art look for this game.
Imagine IF is a browser game made in Twine where you play through various scenarios as a librarian and learn about the history of intellectual freedom. I really appreciate that this game exists. Conservative attacks on libraries and book bans have never been at a higher rate and librarians are under more pressure than ever.
Cat President: 3rd-Rate Candidate is a visual novel where you are human campaign manager helping a cat running for president. You can choose between 6 cats to help in their campaign. I playtested this one! I thought it was very funny and you do not need to have played previous games in the series to understand this one. I’m just a fan of Oh, a Rock! Studios in general and all the silly games they make.
Pico8 Cookie is a remake of a game for the ZX Spectrum developed by Ultimate Play the Game (who later became Rare) and released in 1983. I never played the original but this is just a good arcade game! Because I’m an American, my brain shorts out when I read that developer name. Is there a pause? Is it read like Ultimate….Play the Game? UltimatePlayTheGame? Are you just supposed to say Ultimate?
The Queer Vampire Game Jam 2026 just wrapped up and you can check out visual novels, interactive fiction, and lots of other good stuff here.
Lithobreakers is continuing to put out games from their latest jam. TALK FAST, TYPE FASTER! is a screwball comedy typing browser game set in space. I really liked the collage art look they do in this one and it’s a really unique combination of inspirations. Also released by Lithobreakers is This Place is a Message, an interactive fiction prequel to the movie Event Horizon. I do not care for that movie but this game is good.
I don’t know anything about the game Cococommander but it reminds me a ton of the late 90s/early 00s Mac game Bugdom. It just has a similar energy as platformers for computers from that era, which is different than early 3D console game platformers in a subtle way I can’t explain.
Cookie Cutter RM2k3 Jam is, to my understanding, a game jam where people bought RPGMaker 2003 while it was on sale, downloaded a template, and started making stuff. I didn’t make time to play the games yet but a lot of folks I’m a fan of have made games for it and I’m excited to play them.
I legally have to cover all moose related games so here is Simply Moose. It’s a Boulder Dash-like puzzle game from Poland that was originally made in 2002 I guess.
Playdate continues to put new games on their Catalog store all the time and here’s a roundup from them of their 5 latest games.
Swappy is a demo of a puzzle game made in PICO-8 where you get all the characters to their matching exits. It’s very easy to pickup and only took me about 20 minutes to play through the demo. I’m looking forward to more levels being created for it.
Tabletop RPGs
Roll +Bond Bundle is a bundle of mostly ttrpgs, with some video games too, raising money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. EDIT: Also just informed that (see comments for this) the“Roll +Bundle” Bundle is part of the Roll +Bond Livestream that is also happening over the weekend, raising money for the same charity:
Hungry Out of Habitis a worldbuilding game by Adam Bell for 2-6 players with no GM where rulers of neighboring kingdoms taking turns describing and inventing the world they’re trying to control.
Dungeon Pulp is a single player dice rolling dungeon crawler by Alfred Valley where you are an adventurer moving through a horrid acid-corrupted dungeon.
