The Flipside of Gaming
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
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
On each episode of Indie Inquiries, we review an indie game store page and provide marketing advice for how to best present your game. For this episode we looked at Elven Warmaiden. If you would like me to look at your game in the future, please reach out.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
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.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Broken Connections is a little game by prolific roguelike creator Slashie, Santaigo Zapata (Facebook), that puts you in the shoes of Rogue co-creator Glenn Wichman (also on Facebook) in 1980. His then-roommate Michael Toy (yep, also on Facebook) worked on Rogue over a dialup connection to the mainframe at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The game poses a (probably fictional) situation that the connection is lost, and you are tasked with traveling to campus and finding out what is wrong with the connection and reestablishing it before the system reboots and a weekend’s work is lost.
There’s no enemies or anything like that. It’s a turn-limited quest that only requires that you find your way to the machine in time and plug in a cable, but along the way you encounter a number of people who have minor problems, or recognize you and want to tell you about something, or are just about on their day. Glenn is a very nice person, but it’s up to you if you want to engage with them or continue along on the task you’re there to do. If you feel up to it, you can go back after plugging the cable in, when there isn’t a pressing time limit.
The stakes are pretty minor. If you don’t make it, a weekend’s work is lost. I’m sure Michael Toy can recreate his work, but it’d still be very nice to be able to save it. There is no big win condition, or reward for being nice to people, other the just being a good person. In that way it’s like real life.
If you want to know more about Glenn, Michael and the game, Slashie discusses it on his blog.
Broken Connections (itch.io, $0, playable in browser)
This is another huge topic that I should come back to later, but in the meantime here’s an article, mostly about the British type-in scene, from Wireframe Magazinne last year. It mentions the longest type-in game ever, Axys: The Last Battle (Youtube), an Amstrad program that had to be printed in five successive issues, and what it calls the best type-in game of all, Crossroads from COMPUTE!, although I’m dubious about that claim, there were lots of type-ins. It’s definitely great, though. It’s worth a read if you have the time, although who has enough of that these days?
The Rise and Fall of Type-In Games Listings (Wireframe)
We’re back with more store pages to review on Indie Inquiries. If you would like us to review your store page in the future, please reach out.
0:00 Intro
1:37 Capsule/Thumbnail
4:47 Trailer
10:03 Screenshots
12:45 About this Game
18:53 The Title Card
21:08 Final Grade and Outro
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
The final part of my best of next fest February 2023 showcase.
0:00 Intro
00:24 Meet Your Maker
4:24 Rin the Last Child
6:43 Xenonauts 2
9:04 Wantless
11:49 Dark Envoy
14:34 Takara Cards
15:58 Ogu and the Secret Forest
17:55 Enenra
19:23 Pizza Kidd
20:50 CursedSword
22:03 The Last Starship
23:56 Black & White
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Indie Games Plus’s Joel Couture, who’s kind of a friend of the blog, reviewed this silly exploratory platformer/horror game/dating sim. They admit that they’re running a campaign to promote it, but that it doesn’t affect their review. I believe them, because the premise is way too ridiculous and charming to pass up. I can assure you that I have no connection with them! It’s on the PS Store, the Xbox Store (if that’s what it’s called, I’m fuzzy on it), the Epic Store, and Steam, which is a store but doesn’t include the word store in its name. They say It’ll be in the Switch eStore eShop later on.
You can choose to play either a male or female Dracula. I don’t see signs of a gender ambiguous version, but we are talking about a vampire here, they’re kind of notorious in popular culture for not caring a lot about what their partner’s sex or gender is. There’s 12 monsters across two genders and lots of species. Hey, it’s got Cthulhu in a dress!
Admittedly there’s lots of games that don’t live up to a great premise. The memory of the $4 I wasted on Animal Fight Club still sticks in my craw. The Steam reviews are mostly positive, with some people complaining of jank and some implementation issues, so you should know about that going in. But it’s only been out a week so far, so it’s likely to improve in the coming months. It’s up to you if you want to jump the gun now or wait to see if it gets better, but its presentation is charming already, tastefully sexy and playful without being raunchy. I can appreciate that!
Romancelvania (Indie Games Plus review – PS – Xbox – Epic – Steam)
Part 4 of my favorite games of Next Fest 2023 showcase.
0:00 Intro
00:18 Monster Crawl
1:42 Cavern of Dreams
3:32 Witch Guild Survivor
4:37 Extreme Evolution Drive to Divinity
6:52 MistRogue
8:08 Shattered Heaven
9:54 Baldy Bounce
12:07 Horde Hunters
13:45 A Sister’s Journey
15:37 Roots of Yggdrasil
18:34 Gods of Defense
19:40 Trinity Fusion
21:33 Wall World
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
One of a number of great gaming blogs you should be reading is A Secret Area, which has been around for awhile now. Back in December they did a piece covering the worst off all of the instances of The Game Awards, an institution so prestigious that this may be the first time I’ve even heard of it.
The most fun of the Oscars and other award shows is mocking the whole awful affair, and the Game Awards are no different. Please, have a look and enjoy!
Lowlights of the Game Awards (A Secret Area)
Edit the Frog is still taking a break from covering romhacks, there’s thousands to sift through on romhacking.net, but in the meantime, here’s a fan-made, browser-playable version of Metroid! Although it looks a lot like the NES game, it’s no hack, but a from-the-ground-up reimplementation.
It was made specifically to help overcome the limitations of the NES platform, so Samus animates much more smoothly, there’s particle effects, multi-directional scrolling areas, built-in mapping, and the music uses later, more orchestral versions of the original’s music, although with an option to switch to the 8-bit originals. (I find that the music is a bit reluctant to play in the current version, though.) There’s other interesting features new features to find as well.
Most interesting is a built-in randomizer mode, and a second, alternate planet to explore! It’s designed along the lines of the original Zebes (here called “Zebeth,” a nod to the on-screen Romanization of Zebes in the NES game), but has some new elements, including areas that scroll in all directions, and new bosses!
Metroid is approaching 37 years old, and it was looking a bit long in the tooth three decades ago. Yet it’s still remarkably atmospheric for its age, and I find there’s something evocative about how the game’s world doesn’t feel designed like a challenging obstacle course for the player, like it just exists on its own and doesn’t particularly show any care for the player. There are some item gates, but like the original NES Legend of Zelda, many fewer than you’d expect, especially compared to their SNES sequels.
Screed time! Will Metroid still be played 20 years from now? I think so, although I find that most of the internet energy around these classic NES games now is focused on speedrunning, randomization and romhacks, and two of these three things Nintendo is actively fighting against. It’s a good example of how copyright law and corporate control has the potential to hold back both fan interest and property longevity. The rights to these games should be released to the public, while there is still a public that cares about them. Nintendo would probably get more money out of it, in the long run, from making sequels anyway.
This is part 3 of my favorite games of next fest February 2023 showcase.
0:00 Intro
00:18 Bleak Sword DS
1:27 Yog-Sothoth’s Yard
3:38 Full Void
5:30 Striving for Light Survival
7:04 Teslagrad 2
8:38 Desynced
10:48 Afterimage
12:41 Mika and the Witch’s Mountain
14:30 Gamma 19
15:46 Shumi Come Home
17:24 Dragon Bell Xi
18:53 Death or Treat
20:23 Darkest Dungeon 2
22:38 Highwater
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
