The Design of Horace Interview

For this perceptive podcast I spoke with the designer of Horace: Paul Helman. We talked about how the development of the game went and the challenges of fine-tuning the various elements of it.

A Double Indie Game Review of OTXO and Cassette Beasts

A double indie game review featuring OTXO (played with a press key) and Cassette Beasts (played with a retail key)

Anglerfish and Meatgrinder Double Review

This is a double review of Meatgrinder and Anglerfish played with a press key and retail key respectively.

The Latin American Games 2023 Showcase

This is an indie showcase covering the demos I check out during the Latin American Games Showcase for 2023.

0:00 Intro
00:29 Super Crane Bug
1:56 Uniduni
3:07 Tiny Witch
4:21 The Bunny Graveyard
5:45 Super Hiking League DX
7:33 God Machine
8:44 Hannah

Short and Sweet Reviews of Lunistice and A Space For the Unbound

This is a double review of Lunistice and A Space for the Unbound. Lunistice was played with a retail key, and Space was played with a press key provided by the developer.

Base Builder 2023 Fest Indie Showcase

This is a spotlight of my favorite games played during Base Builder Fest 2023, all games shown are either demos or EA builds.

Josh’s Favorite Games of 2022 – Most Original Games

3: I was a Teenage Exocolonist

A game I played while doing IGF judging, this was a visual novel choose your own adventure mixed with some deck building. You play a child heading to humanity’s first colony, over the course of 10 years, you’re going to see a lot, experience a lot, and have a role to play in who lives or dies. There is a lot of variance going on here in terms of what endings and routes you can go down. Every life experience you get will earn you cards, and your deck is literally made up of all the good and bad things that shape your life.

While not for everyone, if you’re a fan of visual novel/RPG games, this is a must play for you.

2: Last Command

What happens when bullet hell and snake team up? We get Last Command. This game has you exploring the digital space in the future where there are no more humans left to figure out what is causing malfunctions. All combat is based on you controlling a snake that has to gather data in order to use it against enemies. Meanwhile, enemies attack you with a variety of bullets and patterns that would be right at home in a bullet hell shmup.

This is not an easy game to play, and I ran into some issues with some of the advanced challenges. This is a great game if you’re looking for something different and challenging.

1: The Case of the Golden Idol

After Return of the Obra Dinn I was hoping we would see more investigation-styled games, and The Case of the Golden Idol fits that category with multiple challenges to your critical thinking skills. Each vignette involves the golden idol and a murder, and it’s up to you piece together how it all happened by examining the scene and putting the clues together one dialogue box at a time.

While the game starts off easy enough, soon it grows to multiple screens of people and situations to parse thru and the complexity of the cases grows fast. This is the perfect game for someone wanting to flex their critical thinking skills and I hope between it and Obra Dinn we start seeing more of this style.

A Double Dreamy Review of Lucy Dreaming and Neverawake

This is a double review of Neverawake and Lucy Dreaming played with press keys for both on PC.

Indie Game Showcase 11/30/22

The weekly indie showcase spotlights the many indie games we play here on the channel. If you would like to submit a game for a future stream and video, please reach out.

Haiku the Robot Developer Interview

An interview with Jordon Morris who designed the metroidvania Haiku the Robot for a chat about the game and metroidvania design. We spoke about the creation of Haiku, how the environments were designed and balanced, and more about making a metroidvania.

Dizzy Dwarves Developer Interview

For this Perceptive Podcast, I spoke with one of the designers about the mobile game Dizzy Dwarves about starting their first major game development, working on mobile in today’s market, and more.

Balancing Education and Entertainment With So to Speak

For this perceptive podcast, I spoke with Erik Andersen about his upcoming game So to Speak. We discussed designing a game about learning Japanese and still providing entertainment as well as education.