The Flipside of Gaming
This is a review of Chronicles of the Wolf played with a press key from the publisher.
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 indie showcases highlight the many games we check out each week on the channel. Games shown are either press keys, demos, or from my (Josh Bycer’s) own collection.
00:00 Intro
00:14 Runman Race Around the World
1:08 Eternalgorhythm
2:11 Fowl Damage
4:01 Super Roboy
5:16 Smells Like a Mushroom
6:48 Lucky Tower
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”
It’s a time for annual reminders, so here I am holding up a sign, reading “ROGUELIKE CELEBRATION THIS WAY ->“. And another sign, “<- ROGUELIKE CELEBRATION SHOP’S OVER HERE!” And a third sign, “ROGUELIKE CELEBRATION STEAM SALE AROUND THAT CORNER ⤷!” Yes, I’m carrying three signs. It’s a trick I picked up from Zaphod Beeblebrox.
This year it’s happening between Saturday and Sunday, October 25-26. That’s the day after tomorrow! There’s an unusually good roster this year, and I don’t just say that because I helped find speakers for it this year.
We’ve already had a preview event with a couple of great talks, including a real star, Jon Perry, who created two of the best games in UFO 50, Mini & Max and Party House. While I spent a lot of time with Mini & Max uncovering its many secrets, it’s but a small fraction of the time I’ve played Party House. (If you want to hear Jon Perry’s talk, from September, you can find it here, as well as Ezra Stanton’s talk on Synergy Networks in roguelikes, and Alexei Pepers’ Designing for System Suspense.)
I’ve already gushed voluminously about Party House here. Let’s move on to this year’s talk schedule. Times given here are Eastern/Pacific/GMT. (The later times in GMT are pushed into the following day.)
| Time | Speaker | Talk |
| 12:30 PM 9:30 AM 6:30 PM | Michael Brough | The Roots of Roguelikes in Fantasy Fiction |
| 1 PM 10 AM 7 PM | Sébastien “deepnight” Benard | Mixing Hand-Crafted Content with Procgen to Achieve Quality |
| 1:30 PM 10:30 AM 7:30 PM | Max Sahin | Stuff: The Behavioral Science of Inventory |
| 1:45 PM 10:45 AM 7:45 PM | Florence Smith Nicholls | Roll for Reminiscence: Procedural Keepsake Games |
| 2:30 PM 11:30 AM 8:30 PM | Alexander Birke and Sofie Kjær Schmidt | Hoist the Colours! Art Direction and Tech Art in Sea Of Rifts, A Naval Story Generation RPG |
| 3 PM Noon 9 PM | bleeptrack | From Code to Craft: Procedural Generation for the Physical World |
| 3:30 PM 12:30 PM 9:30 PM | Zeno Rogue | The Best Genre for a Non-Euclidean game |
| 4:30 PM 1:30 PM 10:30 PM | Cole Wehrle | Play as Procedural Generation: Oath as a Roguelike Strategy Game |
| 5 PM 2 PM 11 PM | Jeff Lait | Teaching Long Term Consequences in Games |
| 6 PM 3 PM Midnight | Ray | A Mythopoetic Interface Reading of Caves of Qud |
| 6:15 PM 3:15 PM 12:15 AM | Johnathan Pagnutti | Wait, No, Hear Me Out: Simulating Encounter AI in Slay the Spire with SQL |
| 6:30 PM 3:30 PM 12:30 AM | Jamie Brew | Robot Karaoke Goes Electric |
| 7:30 PM 4:30 PM 1:30 AM | Stephen G. Ware | Planning and Replanning Structured Adaptive Stories: 25 Years of History |
| 8 PM 5 PM 2 AM | Tyriq Plummer | Scrubbin’ Trubble: The Journey to Multiplayer Roguelikery |
| 8:15 PM 5:15 PM 2:15 AM | Andrew Doull | Roguelike Radio 2011-Present |
| Time | Speaker | Talk |
| 12:45 PM 9:45 AM 6:45 PM | Ada Null | Dyke Sex and Ennui: Generating Unending Narrative in “Kiss Garden” |
| 1 PM 10 AM 7 PM | Younès Rabii | We Are Maxwell’s Demons: The Thermodynamics of Procedural Generators |
| 1:30 PM 10:30 AM 7:30 PM | Dennis Greger | The Procedurality of Reality TV Design – An Overview |
| 4:15 PM 1:15 PM 10:15 PM | Paul Dean | Picking up the Pieces: Building Story in a Roguelike World |
| 4:45 PM 1:45 PM 10:45 PM | Patrick Belanger and Jackson Wagner | Hand-Crafted Randomness: Storytelling in Wildermyth’s Proc-Gen World |
| 5:15 PM 2:15 PM 11:15 PM | Nifflas | Music algorithm showcase |
| 6:15 PM 3:15 PM 12:15 AM | Seth Cooper | Building a Roguelike with a Tile Rewrite Language |
| 6:30 PM 3:30 PM 12:30 AM | Quinten Konyn | Anatomy of a Morgue File |
| 6:45 PM 3:45 PM 12:45 AM | Alexander King | Don’t Pick Just One: Set-Based Card Mechanics in Roguelike-Deckbuilders |
| 7 PM 4 PM 1 AM | Brian Cronin | Playtesting Process for Ultra Small Teams |
| 8 PM 5 PM 2 AM | Mark Gritter | Sol LeWitt, Combinatorial Enumeration, and Rogue |
| 8:15 PM 5:15 PM 2:15 AM | Dan DiIorio | Luck be a Landlord – 10 Lessons Learned |
| 8:45 PM 5:45 PM 2:45 AM | Liza Knipscher | The Form and Function of Weird Li’l Guys: Procedural Organism Generation in a Simulated Ecosystem |
If some of these talks seem like they’re spaced closely together, some of them are “lightning talks,” very short. Those have their titles in italics in the above list.
If you follow indie gaming circles, there are a fair number of exciting speakers among the talks! Jeff Lait (homepage) has made twenty highly interesting roguelikes, many as 7DRLs. Nifflas of course is the creator of Within a Deep Forest, the Knytt games, Affordable Space Adventures and others. Dan DiIorio is the creator of the oft-mentioned (at least in my hearing) Luck be a Landlord, and Zeno Rogue makes the long-lived, and brain-bending, HyperRogue.
And make sure to have a look at the Redbubble and Steam links too! In this year’s Steam selection, MidBoss and Shattered Pixel Dungeon are already on sale.
It’s your annual reminder that adamgryu’s Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival is online and live again, through and a couple of weeks beyond Halloween.
Log in, carve up a gourd with the easy mouse-based controls, and submit your new orange child to reside on the shelves for people to gawk at and wonder over.
And some of the pumpkins that were up when I logged in this year:
This is a review of the Shattered Spectrum fan mod for The End is Nigh. It is free to play but requires a copy of the End is Nigh to work.
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”
Our weekly indie showcases highlight the many games we play here on the channel (Josh Bycer’s Game Wisdom). Games shown are either press keys, demos, or from my own collection.
00:00 Intro
00:14 Altered Alma
1:20 Arsonate
2:35 Demon’s Mirror
4:21 Mecha Simultactics
6:04 Bore Blasters
7:23 Eye of the Commando
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 review of Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo 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”
The weekly indie game showcases cover the many games we (Josh Bycer and friends) play each week on the channel. Games shown are either press keys, demos, or from my own collection.
00:00 Intro
00:14 exophobia
1:33 The Paradogx incident
2:48 RKGK
4:22 Rabbit and Steel
5:57 Battle Train
7:46 Knights of the Road
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”
And with this video, my (Josh Bycer’s) coverage of Steam Next Fest June 2025 edition comes to a close.
00:00 Intro
00:16 Operation Octo
01:27 Off
2:35 Tackle for Loss
4:02 Shattered Divinities
5:04 Net.Attack
6:31 Awrak
8:03 Flan’s BN
9:20 Singou Breaka
10:04 Mod Mage Mike
11:19 Danchi Days
13:17 Consume Me
14:57 Meow Tower Doomsguard
15:54 Lia Hacking Destiny
17:14 Starbirds
18:47 Abra-Cooking-Dabra
21:10 Cinderia
Typo, I said Space Birds instead of Starbirds
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”
More of my (Josh Bycer’s) favorite demos from Steam Next Fest, June 2025 edition.
00:00 Intro
00:16 Trash Heart
01:16 Sojourn Past
2:13 Theropods
3:17 Little Rocket Lab
5:31 Ace Overheat
6:20 Chordioid
7:58 AeroMachina
9:27 Truxton Extreme
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 decades of video gaming history there has now been have had many companies, developers and studios that have went under, due to one thing or other. Many of those names are revered, and their vanishing have left lacks in the world of vidyagaems that are felt to this day. A few of those: Atari (the current one has improved greatly lately, but it’s still not the same), Midway, Bally, Williams, Lucasarts, Rare (in its non-Microsoft incarnation), Telltale, SSI, New World Computing, and many more if I cared to dredge them out of the muck of my mind. And that’s just Western companies, there were plenty more in Japan, I just wanted to narrow the field down a bit.
One of those companies probably isn’t Acclaim. They were one of the biggest third-party publishers in the NES era, and they lasted to around the N64 era, but although they did put out some Premium Quality Entertainment (thanks Murderbot), they also put out a lot of what in Yiddish is called drek. Towards the end it felt like the drek percentage was getting pretty high, and it didn’t help at all that they kept pulling some dodgy ad stunts. They ran a context where they offered to pay couples to name their kid Turok, another where they tried to put ads for Shadowman on tombstones in cemeteries, and the less said ab0ut BMX XXX, possibly the game that destroyed the company, the better.
Well nostalgia certainly sells, even for the less savory publishers, and so it is that some people have decided one of the brands we needed to once again be subjected to is Acclaim. They released a promo video yesterday that unveils their initial releases, here it is (relevant portion 13 minutes):
The games shown:
The question remains, why did they feel like they needed to resurrect the Acclaim brand and logo? Having a leg-up from obscurity is enough reason I guess, but none of the new games are based on and of Acclaim’s old IP. Maybe they could revive Extreme-G, Turok or Wizards & Warriors, but they haven’t yet.
This is part 7 of my (Josh Bycer’s) favorite demos from Steam Next Fest, June 2025 edition.
00:00 Intro
00:19 Neon Inferno
1:44 Vampire’s Best Friend
4:05 Possessor(s)
6:10 Sping
7:25 Primland: The Magnus
9:15 Glaciered
11:13 Heroes Against Time
12:42 Rogue Eclipse
13:41 Jetrunner
14:50 Funi Raccoon Game
15:43 Hirogami
17:10 Gurei
18:51 Away From Home
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”
