indie games

Virtue’s Heaven thoughts

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Developer: MOKKOGRAD
Publisher: MOKKOGRAD
Year: 2025
Genre: Platformer
System: Windows

pixel art box art of the game that I made

Virtue’s Heaven is a 2D Metroid-like where you explore a world that has been ruined by capitalism and you set out to eliminate those that caused that destruction and free your friends. Unlike a lot of games in the Metroidvania genre, you do not get powerups that allow you to explore new areas. You have all of your abilities at the start of the game and destroying bosses will give you keys to open new areas and make you stronger. My experience with the game was one where I didn’t initially click with the game, but when I figured out how I was playing the game incorrectly it became one of the most satisfying gaming experiences in a long time.

a guy about to kick a robot
Screenshot from Steam

My initial experience with the game was that I was very impressed with the art and music, and thought the combat system, which is based entirely on melee attacks, was an incredibly interesting approach. However, soon it felt like the game was becoming too difficult. The combat started to feel like a slog because the character was not doing much damage and enemies were too strong. I knew it was me doing something wrong though, since the game had put so much thought into every other aspect, that I just got annoyed with myself for missing what was probably an obvious detail and then got distracted by other things and put the game down for a month.

Cut to a month later and I finally came back to the game to see how I would do with the game this time. Pretty quickly I saw that I was correct and missed an obvious detail. The game expects you to go back to town after defeating bosses to get an upgrade to get more health and be able to use more of the powerups you’ve obtained, which you get from freeing your friends. This time the game really clicked with me and I was so happy with how great the game felt. The combat was still challenging but very fair and it was immensely satisfying to keep getting more upgrades after beating bosses. I kinda hate the term juice for describing the feeling of sound effects and other effects that happen when the player interacts with the world, like an explosion after defeating an enemy, but folks, it’s got very good juice. Some of the best explosions in a video game to be honest. The game’s anti-capitalist theme was obviously a big selling point to me too. It feels very rare to see it in a setting like this so I really appreciate the developer taking the big swings with the story it’s telling. It’s not really a game that sets itself up for a sequel but I think there’s some really interesting directions that it could go in if they do decide to make one, which I would certainly be the first in line to buy.

guy dodging an attack in the guy

I should point out that the initial bounce off the game was entirely my fault. The game is very generous with reminders on other aspects of the game and I was probably playing the game and not feeling very patient, which is the wrong mindset when going into a new game. I could have also played the game at the wrong time, when I wasn’t in the mood to learn a new ruleset. This has happened to me before. One of my all time favorite games, Morrowind, is one that I had initially bounced off of but when I came back and was more patient, it really clicked with me and I loved it. I think this was a similar experience. I don’t necessarily like to say that it needs to be appreciated on its own terms, because that might make it sound like you need to accept the shortcomings of something. These weren’t issues with the game. I had just played it at the wrong time. I think it’s even harder now when there’s just so many games that it’s hard to be patient and understand what the game is doing. It’s not like it’s doing anything radical here, I’m not expected to learn a brand new number system like in Riven, but it was still very easy for me to get distracted to jump to something else.

It feels a little silly to write about this massive journey I took with a game that’s ultimately only 4-5 hours long but if a game takes you on an adventure, you have to write about it folks. I’m so glad I came back and recognized what I was doing wrong because it’s a game that I now love and hope more people check out.

Virtue’s Heaven is available on Steam and Itch.io

Indie Game Roundup (November 28, 2025)

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Today is the Black Friday day on Itch.io, where the site is not taking a cut from sales. Technically you can adjust the scale on your page so they never do this, but it’s fun to have a day where it’s enabled by default. Plenty of people have put their games on sale like mine, but I probably have more respect for people that have increased the prices on their games for today. I suppose you could always scan through this list I made on Itch to see what games that have been covered in these roundups are on sale.

Unrelated to indie games, have this video of a moose hitting a cop car on bluesky

There are still lots of new indie game releases happening every day too and here’s some of the ones I’ve noticed. Apologies for today’s post being a little low effort but for me today is a day where I don’t do much and mostly eat leftovers.

The Games

Endless Stairwell (Itch.io) is a pay-what-you-want system-neutral TTRPG one page dungeon inspired by surreal horror games like P.T. and MyHouse.wad. Throw it into your campaign if you want to mess with players.

TRANSMORFIGATION (Itch.io) is a solo lyric ttrpg about transmorfigation. It’s a new game by Maria Mison and that’s always exciting news.

This bundle of queer art on itch just launched!

first person view of a gray tunnel

erysdren released a free compilation of MS-DOS demos (Itch.io)

The fantastic Moonring is now on Switch. My understanding from comparing the DX version on Switch and the Steam DLC to the free version is that it comes with a massive dungeon? In any case, Moonring! People should play it on either platform.

pixel art bartender saying "There was no woman. The girl came here by herself."

Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved (Steam) is a new visual novel/detective game in the style of older adventure games from Japan. Look at it! It looks great. It reminds me that I need to play Famicom Detective Club too.

robot person shooting and cartoonish robot creatures

Berserk B.I.T.S (Steam) looks like an auto battler/idler game strongly inspired by the Mega Man Battle Network games. While the Battle Network games were never quite for me, I can see why this game would be exciting for other folks. Steam reviews have been very positive too.

duck and turtle jumping over frogs

Windswept (Steam/Xbox/PS/Switch) looks like a really cute platformer where you are a duck and a turtle. It has a demo to try too!

Indie Game Roundup (November 26, 2025)

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It’s Wednesday but since I live in the US and it’s Thanksgiving week here, it’s basically my Friday before a long weekend. Hopefully you also have some free time coming up to play games, read a book, work on a little project, or whatever you want. A lot of time sensitive things popped up this week so I wanted to get this one out since I don’t think I’ll be able to do a writeup later this week over the holiday.

New Games

Here, have a bitsy. This one is called Kitten Town (dev site).

a box by binary star games that just says void shift in glitchy text

The physical version of VOID_SHIFT is out. It’s a solo deckbuilding game about doing hard jobs in space in the far future. There’s also a black friday sale on the designer’s site.

Roguelike designing legend Michael Brough just put a ton of their old Windows games in a bundle for Pay-What-You-Want on Itch.io

Angel Amore aka Cutestpatoot has been doing a game every day as well as a vlog about the making of the game. I think this is bananas and my body would fall apart but everything they’ve done this week looks amazing, the videos are interesting, and you should check out their YouTube and games on Itch.io.

pictures of goats and monty hall

Spindley Q Frog has made a game that combines Minesweeper and the Monty Hall problem. You can play it in the browser here.

person punching a robot and text being filled in saying "How do celebrities keep cool?"

Keys of Fury: Typing Action (Steam) combines retro beat ’em ups like Final Fight with typing games. I haven’t played it but Mike Drucker (review link on TheGamer) loved it. I also liked Mike’s memoir Good Game, No Rematch (bookshop.org). I feel like I’ve been pushing books a lot lately on this blog? If you take one thing away from today’s post it’s that people should go to the library more often and read books.

Here, have a new DOS game. Treasure Hunt II is a remake of a DOS game the developer made 35 years ago. Since they own the site it’s hosted on (DOSGames.com) and feel weird about reviewing their own game, they gave it 2/5 stars but I think people should have more pride in their work. You can also play it in the browser.

The Micro Fiction Games Jam (Jam site) has just started. It’s a jam where you make a game in 280 characters or less. This year’s theme is Absorb, Repose, Recursion.

The IF Short Games Showcase 2025 (Itch.io jam page) also started! It’s just an excuse to show off shorter works of interactive fiction that you made sometime this year. Consider submitting your game if you made a short IF this year.

white ball falling and taking out a lot of balls below it

Bubbled Bugs (Itch.io) is a free browser puzzle game where you drop colored balls and match them with other balls of the same color and it has a roguelike element in that you are picking powerups between levels. All done in PICO-8.

Duskpunk (Steam) is a Citizen Sleeper-like rpg that is inspired by tabletop rpgs. This one seems to have more of a survival focus and is set in a Steampunk world. I don’t know a whole lot about it but startmenu seemed to like it.

Dominic Tarason recommends billions of interesting indie games all the time on Bluesky so here are some you should check out. Consider following him if you want to learn about more games. He’s a far better writer too. This is kind of a lazy dump because I need to mention them now or they’re probably never coming up, despite looking really cool and worth your time.

  • Morsels (Steam) is a fast-paced creature collecting roguelite
  • Kingdoms of the Dump (Steam) is a SNES styled JRPG set in a fantasy world of garbage

VORON: Raven’s Story (Steam) is a Norse-inspired adventure game, including puzzle solving, but it has you flying around as a raven and gaining new powers to access new areas.

Wishlist

Here’s some recent indie game announcements that you may want to add to your wishlist on Steam.

Sometimes I just want a 2D platformer where you shoot things. Junk Sec (Steam) looks like a nice one of those. Because I have Amiga nostalgia poisoning, it reminds me of the game Obliterator, despite it actually looking nothing like that and probably being much better too.

I’m so excited for Young Suns (Steam) by KO_OP. A co-op space game with chill vibes and a bunch of great narrative designer/writer folks working on it? Yes, absolutely. That’s 100% for me.

Thank you for reading today’s post. If you’re interested in telling me about a game, feel free to comment or send me an email. Your own games are welcome too as long as they don’t use AI. Comments/emails to say hi are always welcome too.

Crystal Caves HD thoughts

~ mpklamerus ~ 2 Comments

Developer: Emberheart Games
Publisher: Apogee Games
Year: 2020
Genre: Platformer
System: Windows

Crystal Caves HD is a remaster of the 1991 shareware game by Apogee where you play as Mylo Steamwitz, a miner in outer space, trying to become rich. The platformer has you going through levels and grabbing all the crystals in each one while trying to avoid various monsters and traps. There’s also a puzzle element as you have to carefully plan the use of the timed power ups in the level to reach certain areas and the order that you’ll unlock doors and activate platforms. I used to play the original version quite a bit as a kid so it was nice to see this rerelease happen. Emberheart has done a few of them at this point, with Secret Agent and Monster Bash being the other two Apogee remasters they’ve done. I’ve previously played through the Secret Agent one and enjoyed that quite a bit, and the gameplay and additions in this remaster are very similar.

a miner jumping on metal or stone platforms behind a giant green monster
Image taken from Steam page

The remaster adds more color and smoother animation to the original game, music, an entire new episode of levels, and a level creator. I can see the argument for the additional colors removing some charm from the original game but I think it looks nice. The music is fine too but if I did have any criticisms of this remaster I think it’s that the music almost sounds more like something on an older video game console rather than a PC game from this era. This is a very minor gripe though. I think the new levels are very solid and feel like a good continuation of the previous three episodes, and the level editor seems to have been embraced by a very active community with the developer still adding stuff years later.

a screen about how the main character has found success with his burger restaurant, which is floating in space
This ending screen from episode 3, also in the original game, is just Monolith Burger from Space Quest 3, isn’t it?

I’m very possibly too nostalgia poisoned to accurately assess this game but I think it holds up pretty well and Emberheart has done a wonderful job with the remaster, just like they did with Secret Agent. If I had any complaints about the game, not the remaster, it’s that it becomes tedious to marathon the game and it’s why I very slowly played this over a year, but it’s still pleasant to play in short bursts. The developer has also done a remaster of Monster Bash, another Apogee shareware game I loved. I haven’t played it yet but the reception on Steam seems to be very positive and I’m sure it’s great if it’s anything like the other two they’ve done. I haven’t finished it yet but Emberheart also developed the fps Wizordum, which kinda feels like if Catacomb 3D had kept being iterated on instead of ID moving on to Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. If you’re a retro FPS fan, I highly recommend it. There’s also an upcoming remaster of BioMenace that is not by this developer but looks amazing, with it having lots of features I wish this had, like the ability to switch between the old and new graphics. Give the demo a try if you have fond memories of the original.

Crystal Caves HD is available on Steam and GOG.

Indie Game Roundup (November 18, 2025)

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Well the Cloudflare issues may have taken down most of the internet but you know what place didn’t go down? That’s right. I guess it didn’t really matter since Itch was down and a majority of the links posted wouldn’t work anyway. Here’s some games:

Gnorts Vs. the Greylenoids (Itch.io) is a free prototype platformer that resembles 2.5D platformers for the Playstation and I think it has a really nice filter it’s going through to make it look like it’s on an old tv. If you like the aesthetic it has, check out SodaRaptor’s other games. Check out the other entries for the ShroomJam 2025 too, since a lot of other games were aiming for a similar aesthetic for the theme like DUCK TAPE.

VIDEOVERSE is a visual novel inspired by the MiiVerse and early 00s forums that I’ve been a huge fan of for a long time on the PC (Steam/Itch) and now it has launched for consoles like the Switch and Playstation.

a bird with a drill for a beak jumping through the air

Drill Bird (Steam) is just a cute and affordable puzzle platformer and it’s got a demo if you want to give it a try.

Speaking of puzzle games, the ThinkyCon Jam 2025 just wrapped up and there’s a ton of free puzzle games for you to try on Itch.

top down view of a triangle shooting at various shapes on a grid

Sometimes you just want a nice twin stick shooter with lots of bright colors and exposions and Sektori (Steam/PS/Xbox) looks like a nice one of those.

The Tower of the Forest Wizard (Itch.io) is not a video game and in fact a coloring book, but I think it’s neat that an artist I like put a coloring book on Itch so here it goes.

view of an office with a desk and lots of drawers for files.

The developers of Trüberbrook have been working on this adventure game for the last four years. The Berlin Apartment (Steam) is a first-person adventure game where you explore an apartment to discover its history, but unlike the Robert Zemeckis film Here, it does not have uncanny valley Tom Hanks. There’s a demo if you’d like to give it a try.

it sucks to be us (Itch.io) is a free interactive fiction about a closeted trans masculine person and a trans man who was forced to detransition. Obviously there’s going to be content warnings that come with something like that but I think it’s really a remarkable and well-written game and even as someone who is not a trans man, did have things I could relate to.

top down view of a ship shooting lots of lasers at other ships while dodging dots

BIRDCAGE (Steam) looks like an incredible Radiant Silvergun-inspired shmup for the PC. I only played the demo but it felt great to control, loved that it has difficulty settings, and nailed the aesthetics of its inspirations. It’s a golden age for people who are nostalgic for late 90s video games.

Indie Game Roundup (November 14, 2025)

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My attempt to post about all the indie games continues. I didn’t play that much these last few days because of school and was also listening to Tim Curry’s memoir, which I enjoyed. He mentions having fun working on Red Alert 3 but nothing about Gabriel Knight or Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster! Unbelievable! Still a very good book though. Video games are good but books? Also good. You’ll see a one or two pop up in today’s post.

If you enjoy today’s post, consider tossing a few dollars to indie game hero Rob, developer of great games like Death Ray Manta and supporter of many indie game devs over the last few decades.

The Games

Rebel Wars (Itch.io) is a new top-down action game for the ZX Spectrum available for pay-what-you-want. If you didn’t know that Itch.io has a very active ZX Spectrum community, then I recommend checking out the tag on Itch.io and seeing all the great games still being made for the computer.

old windows status bar filling up and saying "checking national enquirer..."

Alien Detector (Itch.io) is a parody of those novelty programs you would see being made for Windows during the 90s.

a little sprout like thing jumping

Merp in Merpworld (Itch.io/Steam) is a new 2D platformer by maybell. that is inspired by GBC platformers. I am a giant fan of their previous games like satryn deluxe so I am excited to see them make something in a different genre.

MORSE (Steam) is a minimalist strategy game that teaches you morse code. You can even hook up a telegraph key to play it. I need a streamer to play this with a telegraph key, please.

Choose Your Own Adventure books count as games IMO and if you were a fan of the Tex Murphy adventure game series, a new mystery in CYOA format has been released. You can pick it up on Amazon and I THINK on Aaron Conner’s site as well if you want a signed copy of it or any of the other Tex Murphy books.

person hitting someone with a bat

I suppose it might be a little weird to put something published by Devolver here since they’re getting pretty big but Heart Machine is a great developer that has been hit by layoffs right before releasing their latest game Possessor(s) (Steam). I know there was some understandable hesitation from some folks about buying the game but it sounds like people will receive revenue sharing even if they were let go.

After being in development for 7 years, GIGASWORD (Steam) is now available. It’s a metroidvania that leans more into a puzzle focus and has a demo if you want to try it.

a big dragon like thing in the sky

If you enjoy arcade games with trippy visuals (aka Llamasoft fans) then THRASHER (Steam) may be worth a look. It’s from some of the folks that worked on THUMPER and has an optional VR mode.

Gila RPGs has published their free playtest for RAID (Itch.io), which is their take on the OSR style of ttrpg. It mixes sci-fi and fantasy elements into a game about killing gods. It’s only 11 pages long but already looks pretty snazzy.

That’s it for today’s post! If you’ve got something you’ve recently released and it doesn’t use AI, feel free to send me an email or message about it!

Indie Game Roundup (November 11, 2025)

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The almost daily indie game roundups continue as I attempt to cover all the games I think are neat. People keep insisting on making games though so the list keeps growing! If you enjoy today’s post, consider buying Geeky Jay a coffee to help cover some bills they recently got.

Today’s Games

a motel at night

TRIPtych (Itch.io) is a short walking sim where you explore various places at night during a road trip and I thought it had nice vibes. I think this game was made for a class? I’m currently making a game for a group project in a class too so I feel compelled to put this one at the top today because it’s a weird way to make games.

two guys in the woods, one is stuck in a tree

Julia Minamata, creator of the wonderful adventure game The Crimson Diamond, just released a fan game for Over the Garden Wall (Itch.io) that reunites creator Patrick McHale, background artist Levon Jihanian, musicians The Blasting Company, and Elijah Wood is back as Wirt. Can something be considered a fan game if the original creator is involved? Anyway, it’s a great, short game.

a robot with a staff overlooking a chasm

Hypogea (Steam) is a 3D platformer where you are a robot that must escape from a giant underground structure. The game itself reminds me a lot of something you would see in the early 00s. Not just the graphics, but just the general feeling of it being something you would see on a CompUSA shelf during that time, which I 100% mean as a compliment. The game itself is a platformer but I really think a lot of adventure gamers would enjoy it too because of the puzzle solving and storytelling being done without words. There’s a demo if you want to give it a try.

Go Kart Island (Steam) is an open world kart racer where you can explore an island and do different types of racing events. The character design in this kinda reminds me of the characters in the old shareware game Wacky Wheels. A demo is available too.

a underground cavern with small monsters and rocks filled with worms

Farewell (Itch.io) is a challenging free platformer where you must dig down through an abandoned mine to cure a plague. You have a limited time because of your torch and must buy powerups or find pickups to extend the life of your torch to get to the end.

Puzzle Depot (Steam/Itch.io) is a sokoban-like set in a post-apocalyptic world and features lots of nice pixel art. The game has a demo if you want to try it out.

Crowdfunding

A few folks are currently doing crowdfunding for their tabletop rpgs. Heart of Glass is a mini-campaign for the synthwave inspired ttrpg Street Wolves. Apocalypse World: Burned Over is the 3rd edition of the incredibly influential post-apocalyptic ttrpg. Both have already hit their goals too and will be happening.

That’s it for today’s post. Always feel free to let me know through here or email if you’re working on a game and it doesn’t use AI. Also consider adding this blog to your RSS feed reader

Death By Scrolling thoughts

~ mpklamerus ~ 1 Comment

Developer: Terrible Toybox
Publisher: Microprose
Year: 2025
Genre: Arcade
System: Windows

top down view of the grim reaper chasing an adventurer in the snow while they fight monsters

Death by Scrolling is the latest game by Ron Gilbert, who is often known for his games like The Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion but has created many non-adventure games as well. It’s an arcade game with roguelite elements where you are an adventurer walking through a level, killing monsters and grabbing gold, while the screen slowly scrolls behind you so you must keep moving so the wall of fire doesn’t kill you. Occasionally the grim reaper will show up to chase you around until you outrun it. The goal is to get enough gold by completing levels so the ferryman can get you out of purgatory and into the afterlife. The roguelite element is that you’ll find diamonds in levels and these can be used to purchase permanent upgrades.

As of this review I have about 7.5 hours put into the game and have been enjoying my time with it. The gameplay loop really works for me and I think the small amounts of humor sprinkled throughout the game is very pleasant. I’ve also found the pixel art and animations to be very nice.

I’ve been watching this bounce between Mixed and Mostly Positive on Steam and I think part of the issue is that the game is marketed as a roguelike but it’s really an arcade game with some minor roguelite elements. I think it’s a very good arcade game, but aside from buying upgrades, there really isn’t that much roguelite stuff there. I don’t have an issue with that at all, but I suppose if you were buying this game expecting a roguelike then you would be disappointed. I do think the text on the Steam page makes this sound like it’s more of an rpg than it really is.

The other complaint I’ve seen is that the game lacks content, but I disagree with this. The game is $8 and I have arguably “completed” it at 7.5 hours, by getting all the characters to the afterlife. I don’t know, I suppose it’s very subjective but that sounds like a good deal to me. I certainly wouldn’t complain if there was more “stuff” in the game but I don’t feel like it was lacking either. Again, I think this ties in a little with the rpg stuff. I’m also kind of a grump about the roguelike community sometimes and feel like every game is expected to be a game that can be played for an infinite time.

There’s also one or two people that think Ron should just keep making adventure games and to that I say, fuck off. People can do more than one thing in life.

Anyway, I’m not saying it’s a perfect game above all criticism but I think if you go in expecting an arcade game with some very light rpg elements, you’ll have a good time.

Death By Scrolling is available on Steam.

Indie Game Roundup (November 8, 2025)

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Did you know that about a billion new games come out every day and a lot of them are good? I feel like I cover a lot of games in these things and yet I know I’m leaving out tons of great stuff that is covered elsewhere. I just think that’s neat. The very good website No Escape said it’s not covering AAA games next year and focusing more on indie stuff, so if you would like to see more coverage of indie games, consider supporting their Patreon.

Anyway, here are some games. I have a big backlog of things to post about and more games keep coming out, so expect a few more of these roundups on a more regular basis.

a timer that looks like a planet, and it's changing colors.

Pomo Planet (Itch.io) is just a very cute pomodoro timer for your desktop, available as Pay-What-You-Want.

someone with a rabbit head looking at you at sunset

The Warrens (Steam) is a first-person horror immersive sim where you need to escape a murderous cult of rabbit-headed men. It has a demo too!

Fiction in the Space Between (Itch.io) is a collection of various ttrpg things inspired by Tracy Chapman songs.

view of a pedestal or something, with a large glowing pink circular pattern behind it

Apparatus: Exanimus (Steam) is a first-person adventure horror game about navigating unsettling corridors and features a nice aesthetic inspired by late 90s 3D games.

Dragon Slayers (Itch.io) is a ttrpg by Gila RPGs and does the adventuring and fighting things in a fantasy setting thing, but is based on the Slayers rules so it’s much easier to pick up and play than the big fantasy ttrpg.

Q-UP (Steam) is a game about a coin flipping eSport that I’ve seen a lot of folks praising but don’t know a whole lot about. It’s the year of coin flipping games I guess. I’ve also seen a lot of comparisons to Balatro, a game that maybe isn’t quite for me but I know basically everyone loves. There’s a much better writeup of Q-UP here.

first person view of a room in a home and there's weird symbols in art on the wall. The sky is purpl

It continues to be an amazing year for adventure games. TRACE Definitive Edition (Steam) is a remaster of a first-person escape room adventure game from 2022 where you explore a strange planet. There’s also a demo if you want to give it a try.

There’s actually quite a few remasters and remakes of adventure games this last week. We had the (not indie but including it anyway) Syberia 1 remake (Steam) that just came out and also one for Intrigue At Oakhaven (Steam) from 2006. It’s not a game I ever heard of, but I have a weird fondness for adventure games from this era, when the genre was “dead” (it wasn’t but that’s a whole other topic) and you had a lot of weird low budget adventure games coming out during this time. Intrigue at Oakhaven still looks like a mid 00s adventure game even in the remake so I’m very curious about this. It’s fascinating to get two 00s adventure game remakes in the same week.

isometric view of a purple planet and buildings being built

Generation Exile (Steam) is a turn-based city-builder set on a generation starship, where you must take care of your society in a sustainable way. This just entered Early Access but looks nice and the reviews so far look very positive.

Demos

TÖLT (Itch.io) is an upcoming game by the creator of horror games like The Enigma Machine and ECHOSTASIS with a look inspired by early 3D games. You are a horse. This is an unhinged observation from me but something about it reminds me of Lego Island.

SHRIMP GAME (Steam) is a solo or multiplayer third-person shooter RPG set in an abyssal realm. You pilot a shrimp and fight giant sea monsters.

That’s it for today’s post but I’m still working from my giant list of releases this week so expect more posts over the next few days. As usual, feel free to let me know if you’re working on something as long as it doesn’t use AI. Emails are nice too.

Indie Game Roundup (November 7, 2025)

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It’s only been a week since I’ve done one of these and there’s already been a billion games that have come out, so I’ll probably do a few of these over the next few days. It’s a bit less overwhelming and one of my kids has their birthday today so I don’t want to spend all day writing one of these.

If you enjoy this post, consider checking out Michael Coorlim’s site (games writer and narrative designer) and buying one of his books, checking out his patreon, or hiring him to work on your game. I liked his book Cold Reboot.

Anyway, here are just some of the games released this week

Oktrollberfest 2025 just wrapped up on Itch. It’s a game jam where people create troll games using ZZT and MegaZeux.

a first person view of five people fighting 4 monsters

Minerva Labyrinth (Steam/Itch.io) is now available! It’s a first-person turn-based dungeon crawler set in the future. Sometimes these are referred to as blobbers. I was a beta tester on it and while I wasn’t very good at finding bugs, it’s a very good game and I recommend it.

first person view of someone holding a gun in an old online game

No Players Online (Steam) got a commercial release! I was a huge fan of this horror adventure about a dead online game when it was just a freeware game so this is probably very good too.

a person talking to a ghost at a table

It’s kind of been a ridiculous year for adventure games. Foolish Mortals (Steam) has been another big release that folks have been waiting for. I think the art looks fantastic and Adventure Game Hotspot gave it a glowing review.

view of an island and being asked where you would like to go next.

Pepper Odyssey (Steam/Itch.io) is the newest game by Wavey Games. I was a big fan of their adventure game Melon Head and this one looks wild too. It’s an rpg where you are a pepper merchant stranded on an island and need to explore and interact with others to find a way off.

And finally there’s Indiepocalypse 70 (Itch.io), an excellent collection of experimental indie games.

That’s it for today because I don’t have time for the whole list but I’ll try to do one every day for a while and hopefully that’s not too much.