Squeezing in one more roundup of things I saw on non-twitter places since I’m now self hosting and can actually embed Mastodon links now. I just got excited and wanted to try it for myself. It should make doing these a lot easier too.
Every week there’s a new gif from this game on Masto and Cohost and it still looks great
This looks like a nice little puzzle game that just came out
Waterpark tycoon game! Hell yes, sign me up
Part 1 of a retro looking EGA adventure game was just released for free
Here’s a clip from another EGA looking adventure game.
Good 1-bit racoon from this screenshot on Blue Sky
Hello! This is going to be the last one of these for the next month or two as I will be busy taking care of a newborn starting next week. 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. I’ve also tried highlighting other folks that talk about indie games a lot, so please follow them.
ChoiceBeat 10 One of those folks is ChoiceBeat (Itch link), zine focused on visual novels, interactive fiction, and adventure games. Every issue is free.
Indie Tsushin If you would like to learn about indie games from Japan, consider checking these folks out. The newest issue just came out (Itch link) and is available as Pay-What-You-Want.
Indiepocalypse 50 The newest Indiepocalypse just came out today. I will keep posting about these whenever they come out because I have discovered so many games from here.
Screenshot from The Curse of Unatxi Kamala
The Curse of Unatxi Kamala The Curse of Unatxi Kamala is an IF game created for the Queer Vampire Jam and also the Smoochie Jam. The game was created in binksi, which is a fork of bipsi that allows people to use Ink.
Angelblood I would also like to recommend Angelblood (Itch link), a visual novel also created for the Queer Vampire Jam that features some fantastic artwork.
Screenshot from The Hypnic Chain
LSDJAM 2023 LSDJAM is a game jam where people make games inspired by LSD: Dream Emulator. The jam ran for a few months and it looks like a lot of very interesting games were created for it.
Screenshot from Dead Names
Dead Names Dead Names is a free short sci-fi visual novel for the Game Boy, but you can also play it in the browser. Please read the content warning before playing it.
Alakajam Alakajam is a game jam similar to Ludum Dare and the 19th one just wrapped up. Check out the games here and consider participating in a future jam if you want to do something like Ludum Dare but in a much smaller community.
PowerJam #1 The first game jam for the PowerQuest plugin for Unity has just ended. PowerQuest allows folks to make point-and-click adventure games in a way similar to Adventure Game Studio but with all the pros and cons of Unity. Some really neat stuff was made for this jam.
Screenshot from Yip Quest
Yip Quest Not a new game but I finally played the point-and-click adventure Yip Quest, where you control 3 kobolds trying to steal treasure. It’s a short game made for a game jam and you can play it in the browser.
Self Promotion Time Before I take off for quite a while (I’ll probably keep posting on here but not doing these roundups, add this to your RSS feed reader!), here’s some of the stuff that I worked on this last week:
I made a zine! FMV Will Never Die is a little free zine I made for the Zine Month Alternative jam about modern indie games that have FMV. Maybe you’ll discover some neat games from it!
If you enjoyed reading these roundups, consider buying one of my games or checking out my Ko-fi, and please be very vocal about the indie games you love. People don’t hear about this stuff unless there’s folks screaming about them from the rooftops. Doesn’t have to be a blog. It can be on your Twitch stream or on social media.
Next month will be ridiculously busy for me so I made a quick little zine about modern games using FMV for the Zine Month alternative jam using Electric Zine Maker. FMV Will Never Die is a free zine on Itch.io covering recent games with FMV. I created it for the Zine Month alternative jam, which I think was ending tomorrow but I guess not, oops. But that’s fine, I doubt I would have finished it if I sat on it for any longer.
I basically have a 40 page version of this sitting on my computer but I keep slacking off on doing a nice cover and formatting so this goofy version is what people will have for now. I had fun finally making something with the Electric Zine Maker though and doing all those bad doodles and I suppose an expanded version of this is something I can look forward to getting out there in another month or two. That will also feature reviews of older games as well as reviews for more modern games and expanded reviews for some of the games in this.
Electric Zine Maker is just a blast to use though. Sometimes it’s nice just to make a thing very quickly and get it on Itch before you get tired of the idea. Highly recommend checking that out.
Hello! This is going to be a shortish one since I’m preparing for the arrival of a baby in two weeks and haven’t had that much time to play games. Maybe I’ll do one of these next week but then I’m taking a break from these for at least a month, probably two. Still some stuff I really enjoyed though!
Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story If this is the last one, I need everyone to know that Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story comes out very soon and I need everyone to buy it. It’s absolutely wonderful that Digital Eclipse is doing these interactive history things/game compilations and I don’t know if there’s one I could get more excited about than this.
Provenance Provenance is a ridiculously beautiful Bitsy. I did not know that Bitsy games could look or sound like this.
Smashtronaut It’s a month old so maybe not brand new but it’s a very fun little browser game on Itch.io where you smash into stuff with your ship and get points.
Zine in a Cassette Not exactly a game but if you wanted to know how to distribute a game or zine in a cassette case, this guide on Itch.io is incredibly useful.
Word Sprint Word Sprint is a free browser game on Itch.io where you make as many words as possible in 2 minutes. I’m awful at these types of things but it’s very well made and I had fun playing it.
20 Small Mazes 20 Small Mazes is a free game on Steam where you do a bunch of clever mazes. Great stuff and I like how the game looks too.
NIDUS Haven’t played NIDUS (Steam link) yet but look at that! It looks fantastic and early Steam reviews are positive too.
Sokobond Express Haven’t played this one yet either (Steam link) but I’ve really enjoyed other puzzle games these folks have made so I’m sure I’ll like this too.
Other People Talking About Indie Games Fortunately there’s lots of other people that are better at talking about indie games than I am that you can follow while I’m on break.
The Pixel Prophet has a very nice newsletter from Buttondown about indie games and other things
Rascal just launched. It’s always nice seeing more people talk about tabletop rpgs that aren’t Dungeons & Dragons.
Other Things
I guess I should have been putting new album recommendations in here this whole time as well. Tim Midyett, most famous for the bands Silkworm and Bottomless Pit, just released a new album (Bandcamp) from his band Mint Mile and I think it’s pretty good stuff.
Mary Timony (Helium, Ex Hex) also released a new solo album today (Bandcamp). I haven’t heard it yet but she’s just a fantastic guitarist.
I liked this article about 80s Lucasfilm Games MMO Habitat and 30 years since the closing of Club Caribe
I got grumpy about it feeling like outlets covering #ScreenshotSaturday are only doing it for X, which is just a dying social media platform for the far right at this point, so here’s some of things that I thought looked pretty neat elsewhere. Some of the posts have multiple images, so click on the links to see more. I only got Blue Sky, Mastodon, and Cohost this week but can check out other places like Tumblr, Instagram, and Threads in future weeks.
Shadow jumping game SCHiM is looking pretty nice over on Cohost
I continue looking forward to The Crimson Diamond, a point-and-click adventure inspired by games like The Colonel’s Bequest. (Mastodon, Blue Sky, Steam)
Frenzy is pitched as a demake of Far Cry from an ecofeminist lens (Mastodon)
I’m a huge fan of Cosmic Void’s games and will be the first in line to buy Devil’s Hideout as well. (Mastodon, Blue Sky, Steam)
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
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
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
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
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:
Dirigitive regularly uploads Let’s Plays of obscure indie games to YouTube
Cohost user spacevalkyries has a big post on Steam Next Fest demos
The Adventure Games Podcast has a 2nd video on adventure games released this month.
So a few days ago I’ve started uploading videos to my YouTube account, partially to share my experiences playing games, partially to spread awareness of indie games I enjoy, and also to document games that don’t have videos, either because they’re lost games or because they’re indie games that are just too obscure.
Since my interest is mostly in adventure games and interactive fiction, I guess my question now is: What is the ideal Let’s Play for an indie game developer’s game? The last thing I want to do is cost a sale of a game I liked because someone just watched my playthrough instead. Commentary or no? Just the first 30 minutes of a game and then I just play the rest offline? Does this differ if the game is free vs being paid? I’m guessing it’s fine to play through an entire thing if it’s a demo or free game. So what I may do is if it’s a new commercial game, I’ll play for 30-60 minutes and then do the rest offline? But I would love to know from game developers what they think in the comments or replies.
Here’s what I’ve been excited about this week. Let me know if you’re working on something that I missed!
Screenshot from Esther’s
Indiepocalypse 49 The newest edition of the monthly indie games compilation zine is out and features a lovely assortment of games. I recommend Esther’s, a really cute interactive fiction game.
Threes Threes is now available on Steam! It’s probably my most played iOS game so I hesitant to fall down that wormhole again, but it’s really a great little game.
Screenshot from Q.P.I.D.
Q.P.I.D Digital Eclipse has released another game in their Digital Eclipse Arcade, a series of small games inspired by 80s arcade games. Digital Eclipse is much more known for rereleasing old games but these are pretty neat too and this one is free.
Screenshot from Stairup
Stairup Stairup is the newest game from the anonymous game dev collective Domino Club. It’s a very short turn based rpg made with RPG Maker MV where you climb a series of stairs and stuff happens. It’s got some very good writing and I thought it was funny. Playable in the browser on Itch.
Canabalt The classic endless runner has been ported to HTML 5 and the source has been posted to Github. You can play it in the browser/download it for free on Itch.io.
TTRPG Bundle for Trans Youth A game developer is raising funds for their local trans youth group Emerge and has put together a bundle on Itch featuring tabletop rpgs from a ton of different game developers. You can buy it on Itch for $5 or more.
Cookie Cat Grandma A local game developer has started working on a chill platformer game and I think it looks really nice! Follow them on YouTube for further updates on the game.
(Per Person) Refillable (Per Person) Refillable (playable in browser) is a very short and lovely interactive fiction filled with nice art about ordering too many lemon ice teas.
Nesterin Trail We got a new text adventure for the Commodore 64! Available as pay-what-you-want, it’s also playable on modern computers.
Meatverse Meatverse is a short horror adventure developed for a game jam about an office made from humans.
Mushroom Soup Mushroom Soup is a new platformer for the ZX Spectrum 128. Available for free on Itch.io
Devil’s Hideout Devil’s Hideout is an upcoming horror point-and-click adventure by Cosmic Void. I’ve enjoyed everything else by this developer so I know I’ll pick this up when it comes out too.
Mops & Mobs: A Sweeping Dungeon Novel Mops & Mobs is a prototype of a game where you have started working in a dungeon and helping the various creatures with tasks that need to be done. It controls a lot like your traditional dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master but is essentially the opposite of those. Instead of walking around and murdering everything you see, you’re cleaning and decorating the dungeon, and talking to the creatures that have defeated previous adventurers. It’s a really good game and I’m looking forward to future versions of the game. I actually just started a YouTube channel to get footage of various tiny indie games and you can watch my Let’s Play of the game here, although the game is only 15-20 minutes long and I highly recommend it.
Other People Talking About Games
There’s also lots of cool people talking about indie games elsewhere. The Adventure Games Podcast has put out two videos this last week. The first video is about adventure games released this month and the second video is about games that aren’t adventure games but are very narrative focused.
When the use of cd-roms for games became mainstream in the 90s, there was a massive explosion of people taking advantage of all that extra space by adding full motion video to their games. A lot of great games were released during this time but it became a short lived trend since there were also a lot of bad games released. Having grown up playing a lot of these games, I’m now (mostly unironically) a fan of FMV in games and love seeing what new games are using it on Steam and Itch. While FMV can limit what kind of games can be made, I think it also has advantages. Video of real people or things can possibly help players connect to the story being told and even low budget or bad FMV can be charming. While it sounds intimidating to record something for a game, it doesn’t mean it must be a big production and there are a lot of tools to easily add video to your game.
Adventure Game Studio Adventure Game Studio is a free and open source game engine for making point-and-click adventure games. While most games made with the engine are 3rd person adventure games, the engine can be used in a variety of ways. This excellent tutorial by Space Quest Historian shows how someone who has never used AGS before can make a first-person game that uses FMV. Even if you have no interest in using AGS, there’s some good advice in here.
Anyone can record video for a game as long as you have a smartphone. Making FMV doesn’t mean you need to have massive camera, people doing makeup and lighting, and a cast of actors. I’ll talk about it later but last year I made a game with my cat and an iPhone.
Plan all the video you’re shooting in advance – Make sure you know everything you’ll have to film before you start shooting your game. It will be a massive headache to go back and get more video once you’re halfway through coding the game and realize that you forgot to film something.
Organize your videos – Make sure you have a good folder structure and naming scheme for your videos. If you have a lot of little video clips, it can quickly become overwhelming to figure out what videos are used for what.
Charles Engine for Unity If you are more interested in doing a Choose Your Own Adventure/branching narrative game, I can recommend the Charles Engine plugin for Unity as an option. The Charles Engine was made by Charles Games, developer of games like Attentat 1942 and Svoboda 1945. I made a very tiny FMV game using this plugin with my cat last year and while I would maybe recommend having an actor less difficult to direct than a cat, making a game with the plugin was very easy and the engine provides an easy to use tool to plot out all the nodes and branching that your interactive story will use. But the plugin can do more than just interactive movies and the tutorial that comes with the plugin has you eventually creating a game set on a fake computer desktop, kind of like making your own version of Her Story.
A screenshot of the game I made with Charles Engine
Narrat Narrat is a lovely tool for making interactive fiction games, with a layout that seems to be inspired by RPGs like Disco Elysium. But that’s not all it can do. The creator of the engine also made A Walk Through the Forest, a short interactive fiction game where you walk on a trail through a forest while the narrator talks about their personal thoughts. Parts of the game can have you looking at video of parts of the trail. Narrat also has integration with Godot if you prefer to work in that engine. Hopefully one of the takeaways from this post is that your game doesn’t even need to have people in it, it can just be video of nature or animals.
GDevelop I was recommended the tool GDevelop by game developer Damon L. Wakes. They added video into their golfing game Nine Hole Ninja because they felt it was the easiest way to add a story in the final hours of the game jam. What they liked about using GDevelop (link to Mastodon post) was that videos are game objects just like sprites or particle emitters: you drag them where you want on screen, and then there are events to start/pause/show/hide them based on conditions you choose. Nine Hole Ninja plays them over top of each level when it starts, then deletes them when they’re done.
I hope this post was useful and you’ll consider putting video in your next game, whether it’s a personal story or a total schlock fest. I also recommend this article that lists 10 tips from folks that have made games with FMV before. If there’s other tools that you use for this type of thing, please let me know in the comments!
