Morph Girl is an FMV game inspired by 90/00’s Japanese horror movies such as Ringu. You play as Elana, a widow who is unable to move on following the loss of her wife to cancer one year ago. A supernatural being resembling her wife begins to force itself into her daily life and the decisions you make during the game determine if she embraces or rejects the creature. It’s the first game by Autumn Knight, who later worked on D’Avekki’s game Dark Nights with Poe and Monroe as an editor and game tester.
It maybe lacks the production values that a FMV game by a larger studio would have but it’s an interesting game and I enjoyed the writing. Sadly it’s rare for queer relationships to be depicted in FMV games so it was nice to see a game entirely about one. I was confused by how some of the choices led to various endings. I did get a little frustrated by the inability to skip previously seen scenes too, especially in a game that needs multiple playthroughs to see all the endings, but I appreciated that the playthroughs were only 30 minutes long so it was easy to see it all and repeat scenes weren’t a big deal. Despite my criticisms, I had a good time with the game and appreciate that it explores themes that are unfortunately rarely seen in adventure games.
I don’t know what happened but it feels like there were a million games this weekend, so apologies for the massive and kinda messy list. I hope you all are doing well. Blaugust has been pretty fun so far and it’s been nice seeing so many posts from other people I follow. If you’ve got a blog, consider joining in and posting a bunch!
Video Games
A new Indiepocalypse (Itch.io) has been released this month, featuring a nice set of video games and ttrpgs.
Wildwood Down (Steam) is an adventure game where you must solve a murder mystery at a boardwalk in New Jersey. The game features a protagonist with Down Syndrome modeled after and voiced by the designer’s childhood friend and has been receiving positive reviews from what I can see, which I think is really neat. There’s a demo available too.
I haven’t played anything submitted to the GMTK jam but it has almost 10,000 games so I’m sure there’s a few good ones in there.
Strange Jigsaws (Steam) is what you expect it to be, a collection of strange jigsaw puzzles. But I was a big fan of their previous game, the very good and free 20 Small Mazes.
This Downpour game touring the games exhibit at a local library is great! More games folks should do events at their library.
FALLSTRUKTUR (Steam/Itch.io) is a free game where you must descend down a giant structure in a first person view without falling too far. Sometimes you’re just awful at a game but can appreciate that it’s well made.
Valerie Paris has a very nice asset pack and tutorial on Itch for doing your own Myst-style adventure game.
Zentera (Itch.io) was already out but the assets and engine were just released for people to use on their own games.
Wholesome Games is doing a whole thing on Steam, don’t @ me about discourse, and it seems like some games releases have happened during it too? Is This Seat Taken? is a puzzle game about seating people at tables and booths. And Tall Trails is a chill exploration game.
I don’t think? Tiny Bookshop (Steam) is connected to that one, but I am a book nerd so this has been one I’ve been watching for a while. It has a demo!
I don’t think Sands of Home (Steam) is either but it’s heavily marketed to the chill, cozy games crowd as well. It is an isometric puzzle game and features a demo.
1000 Deaths (Steam) looks like a very trippy 3D platformer and there’s a demo available to try. Something about it reminds me of early 00s console games.
I don’t know anything about PAGER (Steam) but it’s an adventure game with a nice 1-bit aesthetic so it’s going in the post. Someone let me know how it is!
I haven’t heard anything about Prometheum (Itch.io) either but it’s published by Thalamus so it’s probably a good arcade game where you blow things up. I was also excited to see that Ste Pickford did some art for the game.
Desktop Forest (Steam) is just a really chill time on your desktop and it’s $1. There’s a bunch of options so you can adjust it to the scenery you like and then you just let it run and listen to the nature sounds.
Azaran: The Demon Bottle (Steam) is a short game inspired by the first Zelda game.
TTRPGs
Dragon Reactor (Backerkit) is described as a “mythopoetic mech tragedy game about conflict on a grand scale.” It’s for 2+ players, with one as a GM, has a demo, and I think it’s worth a look. I’m a huge fan of Dinoberry Press and it’s always nice to see them working on another game.
Developer: Christina Stone-Bush Year: 2019 Genre: Solo TTRPG
THIRST and HUNGER are two tabletop rpgs created back in 2019 for a game jam where the rules must fit on a business card. Both games are erotic solo ttrpgs about a vampire biting a human, but each game is played from a different perspective. The games are played with a deck of cards and something to write your notes with. You answer some prompts at the beginning, and each card that is drawn is another prompt to describe what is happening or how you are feeling. The game ends in a way similar to blackjack, you must keep drawing cards if your total is under 14, if it is over that then you may stop. If it over 21 then the game automatically ends. The two ranges where the game ends also have different prompts. Both games are very short and should only take a few minutes to play, but can be replayed many times. The layout of the games is great, with everything cleanly organized to fit on a business card without feeling cramped. The rules are very concise due to the business card limitation, which makes it very easy to pick up. As everyone knows, vampires are hot and this game succeeds in its goal. In addition to the games being effective at being erotic, I just think it’s mechanically interesting to use the Blackjack limitation of 21 for a ttrpg. It inspired me for my game Navigator, so it’s also very important to my own creativity as well.
While they have been delisted on Itch, THIRST and HUNGER are still available for download on Itch.io
Since I skipped doing this last week, this is going to be an entry that is both huge and also missing a lot of stuff so apologies in advance for that. I’m probably not going to talk about a lot of bigger things like the new Ninja Gaidan because I don’t even know if those things qualify, but feel free to reply with whatever things you’re excited about. If you have time, help fight against the delistings of games by calling in to payment processors. You can also play this Game Boy game on Itch for more information.
TheVideo Games
The Chambers Beneath is now available! I think I mentioned this one in a previous blog update but I’ll mention it here too. It’s a new roguelike for DOS that I got to beta test and I think it’s very good. The game is available as Pay-What-You-Want on Itch.io and the developer’s site. I’m not good at it (I’m always awful at roguelikes) but it was very easy for me to pick up and get going in this one.
INSERT/DATE/HERE is a short browser game about the genocide in Gaza on Itch.io and the amount of deaths that have happened so far.
Draw a Fish is a browser game where you draw a fish, see how accurate of a fish it is, and then have it swim with other fish people have drawn.
No Signal (Itch.io/Steam) is a first person adventure game about exploring an abandoned space station and learning about what happened to the crew.
Dead Take is a new horror adventure game on Steam. I know nothing about it other than it has FMV so it automatically goes in this post.
Mishina (Steam) is a digging game by the folks that made Judero and it’s filled with tons of great stop-motion animation.
Heartworm (Steam) is a horror game inspired by classic games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill with optional tank controls.
Sunken Stones (Steam) is a turn based puzzle-strategy game about pirates and cursed treasure. If you want to try the game out first, there’s a demo on Itch.io.
The Manhole from Memory (Glorious Trainwrecks link) is an attempt to recreate the classic Cyan game The Manhole entirely from memory inside of Decker.
Co-op Kaiju Horror Cooking (Steam) is the newest game by Strange Scaffold, folks I’m always excited to see new games by. It’s a co-op horror game you are medieval monks and must feed giant monsters, so I guess it’s what it says on the tin, as British people would say. I refuse to call this friendslop because slop is supposed to have chunks of things in it.
Time Flies (Steam) is an adventure game where you have a limited amount of time as a fly to do a variety of goals and features some great looking 1-bit art.
TheTabletop RPGs
Playlist Dungeon is a dungeon crawling ttrpg that is designed to be quick to pick up and play for 1-4 adventurers and one DJ, with the character creation process being based on playing songs. It’s available as Pay-What-You-Want on Itch.io
Underneath (Itch.io) is a solo cave mapping game of the unexpected things you encounter underground using a map, journal, and dice. Just got this one from backing the kickstarter and I’m so excited to play it.
Black Hole Havoc is a puzzle arcade game created for Playdate’s Season 2. Black holes have opened up in the sky and it is up to you to close them by creating black holes of equal size and shooting them into the holes to close them. You do this across a series of 80 levels, with animated cutscenes regularly appearing between levels.
The core gameplay loop of creating black holes and shooting them is great. The crank is used very well to grow and shrink the size of the black holes before you shoot them. There’s a combo system you can take advantage of for more points if you shoot faster, which I didn’t really use too much, but I’m glad it was there. The game introduces so many variations in the levels as you play so the game never felt like it got tiring for me. I saw one or too criticisms, probably on backloggd, that each mechanic wasn’t used more but I loved that. I feel like a lot of games overuse a new mechanic once it’s introduced and this game often only sticks with them for a few levels or at least rotates through it. The game ends with a boss level, which I didn’t really care for but it’s pretty quick and when 79/80 levels in a game are good, I can’t really complain. I know games are often tempted to add a big finale like that but it often doesn’t work for me. There’s an arcade mode too. It’s fine! It’s what it says it is but I felt very satisfied after playing through all the levels once.
I’m always surprised at how good games can sound and look on the Playdate and I was really impressed by the animation in this game. The animation style reminded me a lot of flash cartoons from the 00’s. In fact, my only real complaint about this game is that it feels like internet humor from the late 00s in how the characters talk. I didn’t really care for it and felt dated with the jokes about people posting too much on social media or taking selfies, but it was harmless and unlike the actual humor from that era, it wasn’t obnoxious or trying to be edgy.
It was nice to see Season 2 end on a high note. I wasn’t familiar with these devs at all so this game was a very pleasant surprise.
Glypha: Vintage is a remake of the 80’s Macintosh arcade game of the same name. It’s a variant of Joust, which happens to be my favorite arcade game, where you fly around on a giant bird and use your lance to destroy enemies by bumping into them while you are at a higher height than them. As far as Joust variants go, I think it’s one of the better ones, but to be fair there’s not really that many Joust clones I can think of. It’s mostly the same game, but with everything modified to have more of an Egyptian theme. The thing that stands out to me is how fast it moves compared to Joust. Everyone moves faster and less floatier, so you have to hit the flap button quite a bit more to stair in the air and enemies can turn around much faster. The egg items hatch a lot faster too. This all makes the game a lot more difficult than the original but to compensate, Glypha is much more generous with the extra lives you get from accumulating points. It took a few minutes to get used to but once I did, I thought it had felt very good.
The original Macintosh era was all a bit before my time. By the time I was in elementary school, our classrooms all had Macs that had color, so I don’t have any nostalgia for this era of computers. That doesn’t mean I don’t love the art in black and white Mac games though. It’s essentially the same art as the original Glypha game but obviously at a much higher resolution and a lot smoother. I’m guessing there’s some additional animations as well but I’m not familiar enough with the original game to know. I think it looks great.
I never played the earlier Glypha games but my understanding is that they eventually got color and probably other changes as well. I think they were all developed by John Calhoun, who is also know for his paper airplane arcade game Glider, also for the Macintosh. He eventually worked for Apple for a long time before retiring and I think this most recent version of Glypha was developed either right before retirement or right after. If you want to see what else he’s up to, I highly recommend adding his blog to your RSS feed reader.
Anyway, this is probably one of the best versions of Joust that you can actually buy for the PC. As far as I know, the original arcade version of Joust isn’t for sale anywhere and yes, obviously you can always just emulate the game, but it’s nice having this version as well with its ideas on how Joust should play and I’m not usually an achievements person but they’re fun in an arcade game like this.
Devil’s Hideout is a short horror point-and-click adventure by Cosmic Void about a woman searching for her missing sister, after discovering that cultists faked her death. While it’s in the horror genre, I feel like it’s going for more of a schlocky 80’s horror film that you would find on VHS at your local video store. That probably sounds like a criticism of the game but I absolutely loved that it had that feel. It never scared me but the vibes are very good and fun. I think the excellent pixel art and the colors used in the art help contribute to this mood and if you’ve played Cosmic Void’s games before, you won’t be surprised that the art in this is good.
If anything, I wish it had pulled away even more from trying to be scary. There’s a few points where it tries to do jump scares but these didn’t work for me and the atmosphere in the game was already very good.
The plot in this is pretty straightforward but I didn’t have an issue with that at all. I wouldn’t have minded if it was longer and had more time to develop characters, but it’s a smaller budget game and I was perfectly fine with the length, which took me about three hours to complete. It has multiple endings too, which I don’t know if I’ve seen in a Cosmic Void game before, so it took some time to go through both of those as well.
The gameplay is what you would expect from a first-person point-and-click adventure. You go from room to room, grabbing items and using them elsewhere, etc. There’s some pixel hunting that I found frustrating until I realized the game has a hotspot finder, which I always appreciate seeing in adventure games. I don’t think finding the right pixel to hunt is challenging in an interesting way at all and I’d rather not have to go through that. The mouse cursor will also change to a different color when there’s nothing else to say or do with an object is very nice and helps eliminate some of the busy work too. There’s some little mini games in here too like a Blackjack game and variation on the Lights Out puzzle game and while it can be a little silly that have that stuff pop up in an adventure game, they’re easy and add some variety too. I think they were fun.
If I did have any real criticisms of the game, it would be that there’s a few moments where the game is really fussy about how you must interact with things in a certain order before some objects will give you the info you need. Like looking at a painting before clicking on a tv to get essential information from a report. It’s not a puzzle or anything you would really know to do and the only way around it is to just click on everything repeatedly. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves in adventure games so it was a little frustrating to see here.
That gripe aside, I liked the game quite a bit and would recommend it if you’re looking for something with an 80s horror vibe. Cosmic Void’s games have always been very enjoyable to me and this one is no exception.
Devil’s Hideout is available on Itch.io and Steam.
This week it would mean a lot to me if you could support the GoFundMe for Roberta Vaughan. She is going through a horrific medical crisis right now and any support, no matter the size, would help her family. She’s done so much for many other folks in the adventure game community and it’s time for all of us to do what we can to help.
Well, there’s no way to really make a transition from that to games talk, but here we go. Here’s some recent games I was excited about I guess!
Video Games
This year continues to be packed with so many adventure games. Ghost Town (Steam) is a VR game (by the developers of The Room?) where you are a ghost hunter with supernatural abilities looking for her brother in London during the 80’s.
The Drifter (Steam) is a point-and-click adventure game that I’ve been waiting for quite a while. You play as a drifter (of course) that’s been murdered and then brought back to life. I really enjoyed Powerhoof’s games, including their games on Itch.io that use the PowerQuest plugin for Unity, a plugin for making point-and-click adventure games that is meant to work in a similar way to Adventure Game Studio.
Signs of Life (Steam) looks like a creepy and surreal mystery game available for free.
The newest and final season of Neurocracy has started! It’s a free (although they take donations) interactive fiction game where you explore a wiki set in the future and uncover mysteries, all while interacting with the rest of the community on a forum and roleplaying in character.
Super 10 Pin (Itch.io) is a new bowling game from Modus Interactive. I played the demo and was incredibly impressed with how it captures the feel of a Nintendo 64 game. It’s not on Steam yet but buying it on Itch.io will give you a key.
Speaking of which, Steam has started removing adult games from their store because of bullying from Mastercard and Visa. Other people are already doing better writing elsewhere on why Steam should stand up to this but you know who isn’t removing them? Itch.io. EnbyKaiju put together an Itch list of some of their favorite queer adult games. Some of my favorite games, adult or not, are on there and I think it’s worth a look.
Cyclopean: The Great Abyss (Steam/Itch.io) is a CRPG inspired by games like Ultima and Questron where you switch between two views, a top-down view for navigating an overworld and a first-person view anytime you enter a dungeon. I think the retro aesthetic looks very nice too.
Kaizen: A Factory Story (Steam) is a new puzzle automation game by the original Zachtronics team. I’m not smart enough for these games but I sure do respect them.
The Necromancer’s Tale (Steam) is an isometric rpg with tactical combat where you play as a Necromancer (of course) seeking revenge. I also appreciate that when they bring up how much they wrote for the game, they point out that they did not use generative AI at all. I suppose we’ll be seeing that a lot from now on.
Sunfluffs (Steam/Itch.io) is a relaxing game in Early Access focused on exploration and platforming, with no fail states and has Gamecube controller support.
Occlude (Steam) is a solitaire-like in the form of a cosmic horror narrative puzzle game.
Tabletop RPGs
This free Skyrim TTRPG on Itch.io is meant to emulate the gameplay of the video game while trying to eliminate as much of the grind as possible.
MAC Attack: Mobile Armour Colossus is a mecha miniature tabletop wargame from Bastionland Press that is currently seeking crowdfunding. It’s already complete so this would just be to fund a print run of the rules.
Glitter and Grit (Itch.io) is a Laser & Feelings and Honey Heist hack in which you are trainees in a Kpop survival show, trying to debut in a Kpop group. It is available as Pay-What-You-Want.
Developer: Takuma Okada Year: 2021 Genre: Solo TTRPG
Alone on a Journey is a collection of three solo tabletop rpgs with a focus on exploration. The collection is divided into three games. Alone Among the Stars is a solo game where you explore outer space and check out various planets. Alone in the Ancient City has you exploring the districts of an old city. Both of these were previously released games along with a new game, Alone Among the Shifting Trees, which has you exploring a mysterious forest and documenting the strange objects you find there. Each game is played with a journal, a standard deck of 52 cards, and a six-sided die. The three games have slight mechanical differences but the core part of each game is having you draw cards from the deck for prompts to describe the object you just found.
The collection also contains tips for making your own hack, or mod, of these games. The tabletop rpg community is very friendly towards people making their own versions of games and being allowed to distribute them, and the author of this game even put together a list on Itch of games based on Alone Among the Stars, featuring a couple of mine.
The book itself has a very clean and easily readable layout, with cute illustrations between each game to help provide some separation and know where they start and end.
I’m assuming that much better writing about the games exist elsewhere but I just played Along Among the Shifting Trees and wanted to use this post as an excuse to praise all three games. The three games are similar but even outside of the different themes I think there are enough differences mechanically to make it worth playing all three. They’re very relaxing games that I think are excellent examples of tabletop rpgs being more than just dungeon crawlers where you kill monsters, as well as examples of ttrpgs that aren’t using the traditional game master and 3-5 players structure.
Alone Among the Stars may also be one of the most important games I’ve ever played. While I had made games before playing it, it did lead me down the rabbit hole of making solo ttrpgs and then other games because making hacks of it is so approachable and encouraged. You can check out the released of Alone Among the Stars along with a 2-player version and Game Boy and Twine ports on Itch.io. I think all three games are lovely though and would encourage you to check them out if you want to have a relaxing experience creating your own worlds.
Developer: Cosmic Void Publisher: Dionous Games Year: 2025 Genre: Adventure
Neon Hearts City is a short point-and-click adventure game set in a cyberpunk future where you are a private investigator searching for a missing girl, and unfolds into a greater mystery involving androids. I’ve mentioned Cosmic Void’s games on this blog a few times before and how I’m a fan of their games, and I think this is another solid entry in their catalog. It’s just a solid and straightforward point-and-click adventure where you walk around different screens, pick up items, and use them elsewhere to make progress in your story. If you want another one of those in a cyberpunk setting, great, I think this is one worth checking out.
It has great art and music like I’ve come to expect from a Cosmic Void game. It’s what you would hope for in a cyberpunk game, with pixel art of a gritty city at night and the appropriate synth music to set the mood. The voice acting is very nice too and it was fun to see some names I recognize from other adventure games.
Without spoiling too much, I think the mystery itself was good too and even though it does unfold into something bigger, it’s still ultimately pretty low stakes and I always appreciate when games aren’t about you saving the world. The city is being watched by a fascist government that wipes the memories of people they deem criminals, sometimes picking off random people just to fill a quota. I think it’s good that it’s not really about overthrowing them and remains focused on people just trying to survive in that world, and the ending was very satisfying to me.
The game got some criticism in Steam reviews and elsewhere for being too short but I didn’t mind the length at all. It took me two hours to complete and I am perfectly fine with that. I will always support games being shorter if the developers think that is the appropriate length to tell their story. It would have been fun to see more of the world though, since I think the world building was the best part of the game, and maybe more interactivity with the world would have been nice so we could learn more about the setting as we click around and explore. It’s an interesting setting and I wanted to play around in the world a bit more, even if meant more interactions that don’t advance the plot. The game is at its best when it starts to engage more with the world and not just your standard adventure game puzzles. The world building starts to include some weirder stuff towards the end that you don’t see as often in cyberpunk stories, and I hope we’ll get more of this if there’s a sequel or another game set in this world.
If anything, if I did have any criticisms it would be about some of the puzzles. I think the inventory item focused puzzles were fine but you come across a couple riddles and other self contained puzzles that felt like they were there just for the sake of an adventure game needing more puzzles and didn’t really get excited about them.
That said, I enjoyed the game quite a bit and would recommend it to folks looking for a cyberpunk point-and-click adventure, especially if they want one on the shorter side. I don’t know if I need a direct sequel to this game but I’d love to see another game set in this world.
Neon Hearts City is available on Steam and Itch.io
