#Indie games Review

[zehecatl]

holds your face so fucking gently please leave reviews for indie games. please. every single review legit counts, especially if the game is small enough, and you don't even gotta say much if that's the problem!!

like, anything from a long ramble to a simple 'it was good' matters, because steam (and probably also the Other Ones) uses an algorithm. so the more reviews, the more exposure, the more money the dev team gets. like, please. please. leave a review. throw your small indie dev team a bone

[slitherpunk]

games i liked in 2023 (And Other)

I like games ! You know that ?! and I played a lot 2023! and I liked a lot :). They aren't in any specific order, it's just a little highlight of games that stood out to me this year. I've attempted to write a few thoughts on each so I hope take a look. I wrote playtimes for some also but that is very subjective.

-Ones that actually came out 2023-

Lunacid https://store.steampowered.com/app/1745510/Lunacid/ I think I mentioned enjoying this in 2022 but it officially released so I can say it was one of my favorite games in 2023 :3! I like to feel around this game's walls for secrets. I like the npcs that are full of hope and whimsy despite the bleakness of its world. Chill and occasionally spooky first person dungeon crawling around moody caverns and ruins varying from underground forests to vampire castles and blood lake. (Blood lake!!!! Lake of blood!!! Big creature there.) Lots of fun weapons and spells to find, I like the one that lets you turn blood into coffins.

~20 hours

Orbo's Odyssey https://feverdreamjohnny.itch.io/orbos-odyssey If you played the massively popular demo for "Peeb Adventures" by feverdreamjohnny then you know that Johnny makes some fun and funny games and this is certainly one of them. speedy and satisfying platforming! funny dracula moments! short and sweet.

~2 hours

A Walk in the Woods https://mooncaller.itch.io/a-walk-in-the-woods Quaint little GBStudio game :) Made by some friends of mine for a jam :) It's cute I like it. There's minigames where you catch bugs and birdwatch.

~30 minutes long

Undertale Yellow https://gamejolt.com/games/UndertaleYellow/136925 I've only completed the pacifist run and checked out a neutral run so far. as the title somewhat implies, this is a prequel to Undertale where you play as the fallen human who had the yellow colored soul. This Undertale fangame has a lot of charm!!! A lot of battles really feel like they could have been in the original, with quite a bit of extra flair in some circumstances.

~10 hours

vs really cool bird https://bobacupcake.itch.io/vs-really-cool-bird you know that really cool bird that rob bobacupcake made well you can fight it in undertale and it's really fun. yeah two undertale fangames. . . wat of it …

~30 minutes

Misericorde: Volume One https://xeecee.itch.io/misericorde I wont lie the main draw for me into this was cute anime nuns I sure didn't know a whole lot else about it when I dug into it. But it's (the first part of) a VN murder mystery! And I enjoyed it a whole lot. All the characters are memorable and I really enjoy how all of them have differentiating designs. The protagonist is so failgirl. She sucks so much and I love her. I'm very intrigued by the mechanics of the game's world, it clues you in near the beginning to expect something a bit supernatural/fantastical, which gives you (and later the protagonist) a curiosity about what's real and what isn't. The music is all very impressive too, with the ost reaching past 100 tracks varying through post-rock, folk, drum & bass, and others. (Remembering when the track "Scandal" played and my friends and I took a moment to be like- okay hang on this track pwns.) Big fan of its haunting locals and how the aesthetic of the game fits them well. Also the humor is a lot of fun, and I love all the moments getting to know the different characters. Very excited to see the eventual continuation of this.

~12 hours

Absolutely Perfect Specimen https://chambersoft.itch.io/absolutely-perfect-specimen It seems like a lot of people are craving toxic horror yuri lately. Here's a recommendation. It's a VN about the android maid "Pan" and the mad scientist girl who created her. Horrifying & gut wrenching & largely about having other people define you. The art and music is haunting & poignant and matches the ever increasing feeling of dread throughout. It's yuri with the chunks. Peak robotgirl horror for those who can stomach it.

~90 minutes

Wordhopper https://kokoscript.itch.io/wordhopper Very quaint word search type puzzle game for ms dos! I think its style is very slick and that's pretty impressive to see. Chill game with nice vibes and eyecandy visuals. also it was so cool to have played this and then ended up seeing the dev's booth at Vintage Computer Festival Midwest. I was like omg woah I just played this.

~bunny

Bossgame https://lilyv.itch.io/bossgame This game is yuriful as f*ck. Delightful humor and fun character dynamics! A simple-to-understand-difficult-to-master boss rush battle system that makes you satisfied to get it right, and enticing to get just a little farther if you get it wrong. There's a lot of detail and charm to this game's menus and dialogues and win screens, I remember noticing that once you beat a boss there would be some marquee text that would pass by with some prose on it. I love how it balances its silly moments with its heartfelt moments and its high octane moments. I like the character development and revelations had throughout the plot. & I like how good the protagonists are for each other :) It's very sweet. It's hype as hell. if you want some boss rush action paired well with that sweet sweet girl's love, you *will* play this game.

~5 hours

Elly's Adventure https://bikwins.itch.io/ellys-adventure Very cute and witchy!! You are the little witch girl "Elly" on an adventure to get your toys back!! Feels like a pretty authentic gameboy type experience, it takes a lot of design cues from Kirby's adventure and the like. I am a big fan of how playful it feels.

~1 hour

Nour https://store.steampowered.com/app/1141050/Nour_Play_with_Your_Food/ This was a treat for me, but I understand that not everybody is going to get it. It's a game where you play with food(and food accessories). And that's it. It knows what it was going for. I think a lot of people were expecting something else for some reason. It's a cute little toy game and I felt satisfied with my time with it.

~food

Hi-Fi Rush https://store.steampowered.com/app/1817230/HiFi_RUSH/ Do I have to say this game is super fun? It's a big one everybody probably already knows it. This game's dopey humor made me laugh a lot and I'm not afraid to admit it.

~12 hours

WHISKEY.ST2007S https://bonicle.itch.io/whiskey-st2007nes One of the last games I played in the year because it released super last minute. Does anybody else get a rush when running a shopping cart down the parking lot? This emulates that feeling. Short game where you collect whisky stones in the whisky stone dimension because you forgot to go christmas shopping until the very last minute. it rules. It's very short you can go play it right now & get a highscore.

~5 minutes

re:curse https://devpalmer.itch.io/re-curse Discovered this one near the very end of the year also. Fun little rpg maker horror/humor game about a weird scientist lady, her butch, and an evil clown computer virus that figured out how to warp reality. I got a kick out of it. and also enjoyed digging through the game's files, which was actively encouraged by the dev, which I thought was very fun.

~90 minutes

-Didn't technically get to until 2024 but released last year-

SWOLLEN TO BURSTING UNTIL I AM DISAPPEARING ON PURPOSE https://1207.itch.io/swollen-to-bursting-until-i-am-disappearing-on-purpose People love to dunk on a lot of indie rpgs for being "quirky Earthbound inspired and about depression" or whatever. Earthbound's great. If people can nail the kind of humor and absurdity it likes to pull off while also balancing difficult topics I think that deserves a high mark. SWOLLEN TO BURSTING was fun. Bizarre and charming places to explore & distressing secrets to find. I like how it blends meander-around-the-town gameplay with Yume Nikki sort of exploration and effects. Also I'm a big fan of the music. I like how it has the lofi sound which matches the early 3d look of the game.

~6 hours

HalOPE https://starbage.itch.io/halope Another for the fans of sweet little rpg maker games that have a lot of heart. HalOPE is about an incomplete little angel wondering through worlds. Each has a theme, usually to do with an emotion or feeling, and they do well at evoking that feeling as well as its antithesis. a lot of the music is very homey and charming at moments and unnerving at others, sometimes lonely, all doing well in their corresponding chapters to further the feeling of its specified theme. There are so many delightful characters and designs in this & I found myself feeling really attached to their tiny little stories. The narrative at the core of it all hit me. If I may be vulnerable, I cried a whole lot at various moments in this game. It was really cathartic. I feel very excited for people to experience this game.

~5 hours

-Favs I finally got around to that didn't come out 2023-

An Outcry https://quinnk.itch.io/an-outcry Kind of sad it took me so long to get to this one, but glad it meant I got to play the "definitive" updated version of it. Apartment wandering RPG maker horror. Bum smokes from your neighbors and use them to save the game. I wish I could unwrap a lot more of what I like about this game than I can without spoiling too much. But if I could, I'd probably go on for too long. Let me attempt to be succinct & not giving too much away. You can tell pretty early on that An Outcry is about taking action when necessary & not turning a blind eye. What it explores about player vs protagonist agency is very fascinating to me as well, and I enjoyed learning about the inspirations for why the game's narrative works the way it does. The character Anne is such a sweetie and I love her a whole lot. This game has a very tangible feeling, this apartment complex is dirty and crumby, it smells of smoke, and there's a surrounding desperation you can feel.

~5 hours

Pigments https://punkcake.itch.io/pigments Honestly I had gotten this game in a bundle and while I was playing it I hadn't looked at the name and I just kept calling it FRUIT. On call with my friends I'd be like "hey im gonna play more FRUIT". I straight up didn't read the title screen. But it's called Pigments. You play as a fruit and you try to paint the whole floor and not get sliced by buzzsaws. Fun little arcade type game.

~fruit

Bridge, October 3rd https://lowpolis.itch.io/bridge-october-3rd Very short vignette. I like it. It's what it says it is. I'm not going to overexplain.

~like a minute

-Other Games I Want To Mention-

Pseudoregalia https://store.steampowered.com/app/2365810/Pseudoregalia/ I think a lot of people might have already known this one but I felt like it was a pretty fun 3d platformer. There were a few issues I had with it (boss fight at the beginning was frustrating, and I got lost a lot [but it looks like there's been a map patch by now, so, perhaps for some that is a fix]). I enjoyed it but sure felt weird that the only accessibility option was to give the protagonist pants. What kind of joke is that?

~5 hours

Mushroom Musume https://mortallymoonstruckgames.itch.io/mushroom-musume (Disclaimer, this game is still early access, but I saw a lot of people talking about it last year. SO I will mention here?) Haven't played much of this yet, but I have enjoyed what I played so far!! As of writing I've gone through 6 playthroughs, I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface and I've been so impressed by its depth. It's very charming, you never know what sorts of fairytale shenanigans are going to happen, and it's very cool to see how your different stats will affect things. It very much plays out like a roguelike vn. Which is not the sort of thing you may expect to make much sense but it pulls this off well. Also all the mushroom girls are very cute and I love them very much. I hope the sad goopy one who had bugs in her skin rests in peace.

~mushroom

Knuckle Sandwich https://andybrophy.itch.io/knuckle-sandwich -_- Hm. Where do I start with this one. I was pretty excited for this one since the demo and kickstarter in 2018. I felt like the demo was a hell of a hook that got me curious & horrified. As time went on, it seemed to be shaping up into something really cool. turn based combat with action commands and wario-ware-type microgames?? with a banging soundtrack?? like, count me in!! Then it released and well, the gameplay, art, music all delivered. It was very fun and engaging in those aspects. But the story… oh it just devolves into disappointing nonsensical randomness. The whole hook at the beginning seemed to be completely thrown away for the wild goose chase plot that ensues, leaving you to wonder if it was ever going to be relevant again. It felt like it had no idea what it was trying to say or do. It disappointed me that a game that has so much good in so much else about it gets brought down so much for me by this plot.

~12 hours

Rhythm Doctor https://store.steampowered.com/app/774181/Rhythm_Doctor/ (Putting this one in mentions because it is early access.) I really enjoyed the act 5 release. When I first saw this game, I kind of shrugged it off, thinking "that base mechanic doesn't seem like it will last". I thought it was basically just that one ghost shooting game from Rhythm Heaven which I Hate. Well let's just say I am now seeking penitence for my previous transgressions. It's really fun. There's a lot more to it that I didn't know when I first took a look. Also, consistently amazed by people's custom levels, I had no idea that its level editor allows people to do so much in it, I look at some levels and think "This editor seems as complex as an industry standard video editor". I'm looking forward to what they're planning next, very curious how they could possibly one-up the last update.

~rhythm

El Paso Elsewhere https://strangescaffold.itch.io/el-paso-elsewhere This was really fun & funny so far but unfortunately I had been encountering an issue with a certain level where the game would crash. I reported the issue, got a response, and there has been an update since then so I think there's a possibility that it got fixed but I have not tried yet. I would like to return to this sometime but having to relearn controls midway through is always daunting to me.

~?

-Things that looked good but didn't get around to-

Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood https://store.steampowered.com/app/1340480/The_Cosmic_Wheel_Sisterhood/ Still don't know a whole lot about this. But there are witches, and I like witches.

Casette Beasts https://store.steampowered.com/app/1321440/Cassette_Beasts/ I haven't felt thrilled about Pokémon lately. I know a lot of people seemed to really enjoy this little monster-collecting-rpg. The style is appealing to me as a die-hard gen 5 fan. I started playing it but haven't set aside the dedicated time for it yet, but I'm excited to dig in more when I do.

Little Goody Two Shoes https://store.steampowered.com/app/1812370/Little_Goody_Two_Shoes/ Started watching a friend play this, and I'm certainly curious.. Some sort of horror fairytale but also there's yuri? Yum. Enjoyed the style and animation in the nightmare segments that I saw.

Venba https://store.steampowered.com/app/1491670/Venba/ I've picked this up a while ago but still haven't gotten around to it, but I'm eager to, I've heard nothing but good things.

Goodbye Volcano High https://store.steampowered.com/app/1310330/Goodbye_Volcano_High/ I think there are gay dinosaurs in a band and it's going to be the apocalypse? I have also heard nothing but good things about this.

-Things I watched friends play-

Signalis https://store.steampowered.com/app/1262350/SIGNALIS/ This was a pretty big one. You probably already know it, right? Watched a friend play this and I missed various parts but I understood a solid bit of it. hey. robotgirls are always getting put in these fucked up situations. have you noticed this? one time i got really high and cried about it. it isn't fair

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk https://store.steampowered.com/app/1353230/Bomb_Rush_Cyberfunk/ This one was also probably big enough you don't need me to sing its praises. but it looked really neat. swag.

-Various Thoughts-

Lately I've been thinking more about design and narrative. I feel like I haven't been doing as much analysis as I should be when it comes to games. I want to dissect more what games are saying and figure out meaning. Also attempt to see how the mechanics aid in that. I feel like most of my own work is pretty abstract & random. I simply make what I like. While that's fun and all, I still want to improve in a lot of ways, especially in having more of a theme or message. Figuring out how other games accomplish this is obviously a good step toward this.

If you saw games here that interest you I highly urge you to take a look, many are pretty short, and I pretty explicitly wanted to highlight some smaller titles. If you know me you know I like to uplift small games. (Save for the occasional big game, but that's rare these days) I think it's healthy for you to play and support independently developed & published works. I don't want to ramble too much this time about why that's important, but I hope that you might have found something you may enjoy here and if not then I encourage you to find small stuff that you would like. And I would like to encourage everybody to share their findings as well! Little games need our help to be seen and talked about! They don't have the budgets the big ones do for advertising, and advertising on your own is a whole ton of work. If you like something, spread the word! I'm sure the developers would very much appreciate that.

[webzazes]

THE WHIMSY THE THE WHIMSY

LITTLE GUY ALERT?? SQUISHY LITTLE SILLY BUDDY,!!!??!???

I would destroy the world and all rules ever made for him

he deserves some scritches.. im adopting him he’s my son now as wellacjagajcjjagak

SO GLAD TO HAVE THIS SPARK OF SUNSHINE

he’s not obligated to get me out of any bind though he can chill

(no i did not loop rambley review while going to sleep)

[gamenburger]

Alright. It's here.

REVIEW OF THE KILLER is a (mainly spoiler free) zine review featuring commentary, analysis, comics, and various evil activities. It released on my itch.io page and will be free for anyone to download, as well as a convenient reader embedded in the page itself. It is releasing alongside the steam version of Anthology Of The Killer by @myfriendpokey.

It is available to print in both a4 and letterhead format, in color and B&W. All of these will be available in 600 or 300 PPI (as disgustingly high as Itch will allow) as well as regular old, web and storage friendly formats. I recommend vibrant pink and canary paper for greyscale copies. It is free to distribute as you please.

If you have liked any of the art I've done so far, please share this anywhere and everywhere you feel charitable to do so.

I hope you enjoy. I am always hoping you enjoy.

[windienine]

the best game of 2024 was an hour-long visual novel demo, and i can't tell you how it ends

attack and dethrone god.

okay. oh my god. soul of sovereignty by ggdg (of lady of the shard & deltarune fame) is discounted for only a few more days, so i need to get this one out while the iron's hot.

so: i'm inviting you along on another journey. we're following a polite gentleman of the wizardly inclination (loïc) who is approached by a sickly woman in dire need (ysmé). all she requests, in her plea, is an escort to guide her to the nearby temple. his decision to support her may turn out to be the most important choice he ever makes.

... have you ever enjoyed the kind of narrative that traps two people with heavily contrasting motives and personalities together in an unbreakable contract? do you like stories of absolute devotion?

i could look at this shot forever ngl

... are you compelled by immersive speculative fantasy worlds where the use and study of magic heavily influences the rhythm of people's day-to-day lives?

(really intriguing magical linguistics system going on here)

... do you ever promise too much of yourself to others, sometimes, even when it's a bad idea?

... if it was possible -- if you could -- would you abandon your humanity for the power to change your world forever?

and, whatever you may feel in your heart about the above...

do you want to see behind the eyes of a hot trans girl as she bullshits her way into a truly volatile level of power and influence and gets everything she wants?

(+ her pet dilf lovely assistant)

if even one of these elicited a "yes," i think you'll love this story.

i'll go out of a limb:

i think, if you open up your heart, you'll find yourself falling for both of the leads. It's a game that really wants you to look at it from every angle, take it apart, and ask questions about loïc, ysmé, their stories, and what they believe to be true about the world and one another. subtext -- especially the charged subtext this story throws at you and hopes you'll piece together -- is a beautiful thing.

the number of talksprites in this demo is kind of staggering

the jrpg-inspired world of the mosaic and its surroundings is as vibrant as it is profoundly lonely, color folded into every facet of its character as you move through it. appropriately, it's really invested in a lot of questions that arise not just from high fantasy as a genre, but from the modern fantasy sensibilities of jrpgs and the interrogation of what divinity even means in a world where the gods are forces you can interact with and draw power from, however indirectly.

what can i even say? that gg and toby fox's collab score for the prelude is downright heavenly and made it onto my work playlist right alongside the deltarune ost the day it came out on bandcamp? that gg's art, especially their use of light, conveys every scene with vivid beauty?

i wouldn't be posting so much of it if i didn't want to eat every CG. oh my god. he's so pretty. it's not even fair

beyond all of that, i think the game's main resonance point with people is that gg's writing is genuinely thoughtful. they use art detail and deft character writing to convey everything about the leads, using the limited time you get with it to paint layers and layers of information on who these people are and why they make the decisions they do. soulsov's roughly an-hour-and-change of text, expressive talksprites, and lush CGs is infused with so much heart and so much horror and so much intrigue that it leaves you feeling like you're a part of this world, carried along for the ride right alongside the two leads. gg clearly really adores these two, and that level of passion makes everything loïc and ysmé do shine even brighter. in spite of (or perhaps because of) all their friction and flaws, they're easy to love.

(it's really fun to read aloud as a script, too! ysmé's a hoot.)

i hope you experience it with high expectations and an open heart. i don't think it will disappoint. it is, perhaps, just a little bit magical.

i hope you see it through to the end!

[ebi-hime]

Posting this goofy tiktok I made a couple of days ago cause it amused me...

What negative Steam reviews tend to look like on VNs, feat. the gravedigger from It gets so lonely here 🙏

[gwen-dev-64e50]

Just finished playing @vanripper's "Awaria", lovely short game with a great art-style and a killer soundtrack!

From the maker of "Helltaker", your heart will race with all the time-sensitive puzzles and cute ghosts... and it's free, so go on and try it!

[goblincow]

GREEN MILK | #008 | save vs despair — mörk borg: a holistic retrospective

:// A little over a month & 14,000 edited & well-considered words later, SAVE VS DESPAIR is complete to read in its entirety.

If you have any interest in TTRPGs or ever wondered what Mörk Borg's whole deal is – this is for you.

I approached it as a writing exercise & design analysis to understand what's so special about this game and art object, and I'm really proud of both this piece and what I learned for my own practice.

If you're invested in the TTRPG scene I'd appreciate it if you shared this with anyone who might enjoy it.

Our artform deserves as much high-quality analysis as we can cultivate, and the fact that I stumbled into writing what is currently the most thorough analysis I could find (which still has huge gaps in its perspective & approach) of one of the most successful games to emerge from the scene in recent years indicates that there is a need to encourage more writing like this.

In a perpetually collapsing digital infrastructure where so much of our design writing is ephemeral and lost to time (I've heard ancient tales of The Forge & Google+ eras, Discord is an unreferencable void & I really hope someone wiser than me is archiving all these podcasts) I hope that longer form writing might represent an opportunity for the ideas we have now to still be accessible (in one form or another) in years to come.

—

Too much patting myself on the back? Maybe.

But it's good writing and I think you'll get something out of it.

Personally I learned that cross posting on multiple platforms is exactly as fun as it sounds (I thought the whole point of starting a newsletter was to avoid this crap in the first place) and by the end of the month I just wasn't posting the illustrations I was making or sharing the last 2 (?) individual parts here as they went up after burning myself out on instagram.

So for the sake of my poor microwaved brain, if any of this interests you:

[fantasyfantasygames]

How To Win The Next Election

How To Win The Next Election, Full Court Marathon Games, 2024

Originally written in 2016, How To Win The Next Election (HTWTNE) was revised recently and reissued. Unlike a lot of RPGs, it's one with distinct winners and losers at the end. Your characters are people involved in the political process of a large nation, trying to ensure that your allies and land are protected.

Stats are focused on mental and social, and are also alphabetized: Artistry, Bravado, Charisma, Deviousness, and Earnings (a wealth score). The only physical stat is that there's a Fatigue score that can be improved if you get exercise (and other factors). Skills are fairly broad, and include Writing, Speaking, Design, Technology, Negotiation, etc. There are no official "playbooks", but there are a few templates you can use, like Organizer, Protester, Webmaster, The Face, etc. Stats are determined semi-randomly In general no one's going to be able to do it all themselves. Having your team work together is key, and even someone with really low stats can contribute. Connecting with other groups in-game is vital as well.

The game is designed explicitly for "campaign" play (ha). No one-shots here; the rules just don't work on a scale that small. Each session your team works on something specific: phone banking, flyering, fundraising, tough conversations, etc. In the long run, it's all about accumulating bonuses to your Turnout score. HTWTNE is unique in that allies from other play groups can also give you a bonus! Those bonuses fade over time at a somewhat random rate - some of them stick around for multiple sessions, helping you build momentum, but sometimes the game's randomized "news cycle" punts you off the public awareness. Your mid-game Turnout can also help you recruit new allies.

It's possible to put your team into a "walking dead" situation where you haven't taken advantage of the bonuses available early on, or haven't made enough alliances. Luckily there are a lot of "walkthroughs" online (weird for a niche TTRPG, I know) that can help you avoid that. There are even groups who play this game more or less continuously, though you'll probably want to dip in and out. Your Fatigue score recovers over the course of real time rather than game sessions.

HTWTNE can definitely feel unfair at times. I won my first playthrough and lost my second, and both were really down to the wire. Some of what I did mattered; some didn't. I can't say that I loved playing it, but I know I'll be playing again pretty soon.

Full Court Marathon Games (motto: It's Not A Race) doesn't put out a lot of products, but the ones they make are pretty compelling. I encourage you to try it out.

[blerdyotome]

Lost in Limbo Demo Sneak Peek Review - Seducing Seven Sexy Gods

Thanks to the awesome folks at @ravenstargames I had the chance to check out their upcoming dark fantasy romance visual novel, Lost in Limbo—and it is amazing! I streamed the entire demo over on my Twitch channel last week and I was impressed with the quality visuals, in depth storytelling, immersive fantasy world, and the endearing and fun characters.

[hpowellsmith]

Play Royal Affairs - Out Now!

Steam | Apple Store | Google Play Store | Browser | Amazon

As the middle child of the Queen of Westerlin, you’ve led a sheltered life in the palace, but now you must spread your wings and prepare for your royal responsibilities with a year at the exclusive Archambault Academy.

Everyone knows your name, everyone has an opinion on what you do, and everyone views you as the face of the new generation of royalty. Your every move is reported in the press, a word from you could make or break a teacher’s career–or the fate of the school itself. You’re being courted by every club and social group on campus; and there are countless students who would love to be in your orbit.

In luxurious armchairs behind ivy-covered walls, you and your fellow students debate political theory—but outside, real trouble simmers across the realm. There are activists fighting to open voting rights beyond the aristocracy, and you can use your influence to sway the government’s decision in either direction. Relations are growing increasingly uneasy with your country’s neighbors, and there are conspiracies around every corner. Why is your mother whispering behind closed doors with the Prime Minister? Have the leaders of the protests really disappeared? Which allies can you trust? There are some secrets that only your royal authority can uncover.

Will you honor centuries of royal tradition and follow the path that your mother the Queen has laid out for you? Or will you be a force of change, leading your country in a new direction as you break free of a lifetime of expectations?

Oh, and speaking of expectations—there’s also the foreign royal that your mother wants you to marry. Who is in your class. And who happens to hate you.

Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, or bisexual; monogamous or polyamorous; asexual and/or aromantic.

Find love and/or friendship with your free-spirited childhood companion, a firebrand radical, a dreamy dancer, a financier haunted by tragedy, your devoted bodyguard, or a rival foreign royal.

Cuddle and train your pet: a horse, dog, or bird of prey.

Put on a lavish play, become a sports star, or run Student Council; and represent Archambault Academy against its rival Gallatin.

Become your classmates’ confidante and help them solve their problems—or make those problems worse.

Embrace your royal responsibility and carry on your mother’s tradition—and perhaps even take your sister’s place as heir to the throne.

Forge a path to the future by supporting revolutionaries’ calls for change, or stamp out the movement with scheming and deceit.

When this tumultuous year ends, will you be Archambault Academy’s crowning glory?

Steam | Apple Store | Google Play Store | Browser | Amazon

[hardcore-gaming-101]

World of Horror

It’s been six years since WORLD OF HORROR first showed up on itchio. It eventually got picked up by a publisher and entered early access in 2020, where it was worked on here and there by panstasz while he was doing IRL dentist work, well off the original planned schedule. The wait was well worth it, though, as the complete 1.0 version is now done and the game has left early access, showing a ton of polish compared to the 2020 version, and is almost unrecognizable to the 2017 early build from way back when.

Read more...

[tlbodine]

Ratshaker Review & Analysis

Ratshaker is an indie horror game released by Sunscorched Studios on October 31. Like many small indie horror games, it's earned a small bit of virality thanks to Markiplier and other let's players. The central mechanic coupled with the short play time, unsettling story, and mysterious atmosphere makes it catnip for streamers, which is probably a necessity for survival in the modern gaming ecosystem.

Anyway, Ratshaker came to me courtesy of @comicreliefmorlock, who heard about it and instantly realized it would be up my alley. And it certainly is.

I'm going to walk through and provide commentary and analysis in this post, but if you've got a spare $3, go throw it at the creator on Steam. They deserve a couple bucks for an entertaining hour or so of thought-provoking gameplay!

Now....let's go shake some rats.

You awaken in an endless field, rat in hand. You cannot move. But you can shake the rat by holding down the left mouse button and shaking, and doing so fills up the "ratshaker meter" up above, so it's pretty clear what you're supposed to do.

These first few minutes of the game, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a Cookie Clicker novelty. The rat screams in the most ridiculous fashion when shaken. The pitch and tenor changes, and maybe you experiment -- shake faster, shake slower, stop and start again, just to see what happens. We're all having fun here.

And then the voice starts up in the background. A low, rasping growl that instructs you: shake the rat. With ratshaking, you are in control. Feel the satisfaction....

So you shake the rat some more. The rat laughs hysterically. The growling voice continues to encourage you, with increasing intensity, to shake, shake, shake the rat.

The shake meter fills. A music cue makes it clear that something has changed. Letters appear, instructing you to keep going even as the meter drains. The voice in the back of your mind has become a litany, a chant. Shake the rat, shake it, shake it....keep. shaking.

You may or may not notice that the environment is changing around you. A building has appeared on the horizon. Ashes are fluttering up around you. The field continues to sway. You keep shaking the rat.

And then, once more, something changes. You stop. The voice in your head has turned accusatory. Listen to the rat, it instructs you. It's because of what you DID.

The rat speaks to you. The voice in your head becomes louder, more insistent, more accusatory. The things that appear should be obvious to you. You know what you did.

You shake, shake, shake the rat, and then you are instructed to squeeze, and instead of his laughter and screams the rat makes gagging, choking sounds and for the first time you think, maybe, the cruelty simulator is a little much, maybe this isn't as funny as it seemed to be.

But then the rat yields, and promises that the answers you seek are just over the hill, in the newly uncovered farmhouse on the horizon, and of course you're going to go and explore that, of COURSE you are.

You approach the house and see the floating ash...or are they flies? Or are they -- look closer -- little rats with angel wings? It's hard to say for sure, just a trick of your eyes. But the rat instructs that this is where it happened. That you must go inside and "find it."

Abandon hope, ye who enter here -- well. It's clear enough then that we're taking a tour of a private hell, and the rat is our Virgil, guiding us through. (Because of what you did, the voice in our head reminds us.)

You must squeeze the rat to interact with objects in the game. You must shake the rat to fill the meter so that you can squeeze. There is no way to proceed without continuing to be complicit in the cruelty. But then, you already knew that.

When you first enter the house, it's move-in day. You can tell by the boxes piled up in the corners, the unfinished furniture. But you step inside and explore and familiarize yourself with the layout of the house. You'll be looping through it a lot, so you'd best remember all the doors.

Yes, I said looping. Yes, this is another PT clone. Let's just get that out of the way now. Like PT, Ratshaker is built on an endless loop of domestic scenery that becomes more unsettling with each iteration, environmental storytelling that builds up to a narrative. It's not the first game to copy this technique and it won't be the last, but at least you've got a rat with you to keep you company.

You turn on the TV in the living room and are treated to an infomercial. Are you tired of pesky pests that just won't leave you alone? Ratshaking is for you!

After the video finishes, there's a scrap of photograph to collect, and it becomes clear what the on-screen directive to FIND IT was all about.

All the rules of the game are clear now. You shake the rat and squeeze the rat to interact with the world, and you interact in order to uncover pieces of the photograph, and once the photograph is complete then you'll get to go through the locked door. Got all that? Great.

So just to reiterate, what you want to do is go down into the basement through the door with the blood stain and the unmarked VHS tape and the box of rat poison. That is where you want to go, and never mind how much you don't want to go down there. We have a hell loop to work through.

Oh yeah, by the way. Interacting with the wrong things can kill you. Then you'll have to start the loop over from the beginning. You won't realize that at first and you'll waste a lot of time unable to proceed because you didn't think to backtrack and repeat your actions from the last loop. You're welcome.

(by the way, the game is designed to play in one sitting, so there is no save feature as far as I can tell. Proceed accordingly).

Anyway, when you revisit the home, there's now a quantity of beer bottles on the table. The cozy fire has been put out and the disarray of pillows suggest that you've probably been sleeping out here. You also stepped over a quantity of newspapers on your way here. The natural assumption is an old cliche that persists because it's often true: you've lost your job, started drinking, and your wife has rejected you as a result. We're all thinking that, right?

You can't go through the door to the basement without another photo piece so you turn down the hall and, ah yes, a glowing red room, and the echoing, insistent cry of a baby. You know this is going to be bad before you even step inside.

Here we are, then. A crib, with an unsettling massive stain beneath. Rats pour in from overhead, teeming over the crib and running through the room, and all the while the crying just keeps on an endless loop.

But you know how to make it stop.

You shake the rat. You squeeze the rat.

You get your photo piece, and the screaming is done. Never mind the red haze that floats up in front of you. Never mind the rats still pouring from the ceiling. It's all okay.

The basement door is open again.

You walk through the basement and hear an awful wet choking sound. You see a strange, misshapen red figure on the stairs, no bigger than a child, but when you approach it dissolves into a spray of red mist. You keep walking, down a hallway of rat traps and beer bottles that shatter on your approach, and find now a room of static and fuzz and the floating detritus of your ruined life, and ahead of you is a door and a directive: FIND HER.

Just walk past the floating naked corpses. Pretend you don't see them. It's fine. Everything is fine.

At this point, do we suppose that the child died of neglect, screaming in his crib while his father drank himself into a stupor? Do we think the rats got him? Or do we suspect that the father shook the baby (shake the rat, squeeze the rat)? Either way, I think it's pretty clear that the father directly or indirectly contributed to the death of the child, and his marriage and his life have fallen apart as a result. We can agree on that, yeah?

But there are three corpses in the hallway. What are we to make of those?

That infernal, blazing, broken television and a whole mess of unmarked VHS tapes scattered over the floor might give us a clue.

You wander down the hall and find that it's overgrown with flesh, big pulsing gobbets of meat and long stringy tendrils and you think, what the hell, I didn't know this was also an Amnesia knock-off.

You step inside the bathroom and, because you've played PT, you brace yourself for a squalling fetus in the sink, but no, there's just a frying pan, and an...excuse me, is that a corpse in the bathtub?

(You can also explode the toilet and make turds fly out, which is...probably not necessary, but is kind of funny, and you need some levity right about now. The only humor left to you is the cheerful voice of your ever-present, long-suffering rat guide. Let's give him a little reassuring squeeze. Just a little shake, for old time's sake.)

Hey, there used to be a bedroom here, didn't there? It's empty now, abandoned. You go where the closet had been and find another corridor of meat, and at the end is another television, this one playing what certainly seems to be a snuff film.

Like...it's kind of hard to tell because it's all grainy and pixelated and keeps jumping from frame to frame, but that certainly seems to be a black-and-white image of a woman who's naked and bound in a dingy location, right? It's not just me seeing this? Maybe I've watched Videodrome too many times, but that sure seems like what we're seeing here.

If you interact with the television at this stage, it explodes, stabbing your rat with a glass shard, and the voice in your head chides you: you killed the rat. you killed it, and now it's dead.

Alternatively, you can back away and go to the kitchen. When you interact with the stove, it catches fire and explodes. Just before you die, the game instructs you to stop running.

(that would certainly explain all the falling ash in the game. Perhaps you are in hell now because you've killed yourself with the oven? Suicide by gas leak? or maybe that was an accident.)

Anyway, if you duck around the corner before the snuff TV explodes, you can instead find your way to this doorway at the opposite end of that hall:

Follow the very long path down into the basement and now you'll emerge to find that your house has become a prison, with cage bars erected to create a maze. It's also nearly impossible to see anything right now, especially if you're playing this in the middle of the day like I am, oop.

In the cages, you find bathtubs and big barrels of...poison? Acid?

This really is starting to look like some kind of body disposal factory, isn't it?

Stained mattress on the floor and overflowing bucket giving off real Barbarian vibes...

Well. The good news is we found the way out and our next photo piece. The bad news is to get it we need to pluck it out of the slimy, globby hand of the horrifying fleshy aberration growing out of the wall.

But hey, at least the rat works as a glowstick!

One photo piece left. I think it's pretty clear what this picture is turning out to be, but let's enter the flesh door and see this through to the end.

(I should mention here that, intermittently, you keep seeing visions of the raw, red, disfigured meat child. If you bump into him, your rat will begin to choke, and you'll need to shake him vigorously to keep him alive. Also, this entire time, there's a hellish soundscape of screaming and groaning and a baby crying. Just. To keep that in mind.)

Anyway. We emerge into another maze, this one a series of concentric cages. Like Theseus and the Minotaur, we must enter the center of the labyrinth to find our salvation.

Just kidding that's not salvation. That's a bed covered in plastic sheeting that someone has been strapped into and imprisoned! My mistake.

You make it through the maze and enter a corridor lined with all the paintings you've seen elsewhere in the house at various times. This is my favorite touch in the game. They're pixelated, so they're hard to identify, but if you pay attention you can spot Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, Saturn Devouring His Son, and several other religious works on the theme. I can't identify all of them (and some of them I recognize but can't place) but they certainly suggest a story about parents killing their children and regretting it, among other things.

If anybody has a lead on identifying all of these paintings, hit me up in the comments. I'd love a complete list.

Anyway! Onward!

There's one last door to open, so you'd better gear up to shake the rat one last time. Then give him a good, hard squeeze.

The rat tells you there's no going back. It's time to face the truth. He also speculates whether she knew what was happening under her own floor boards (the basement?)

Collect your final photo from the corpse on the floor and then head back into the basement.

Down in the basement, now we have endless rows of racks and storage tubs, and a fridge that explodes into a blinding fire, demanding, Face Us.

Back away from that and keep searching. There's more maze to navigate down here.

At last, you find it. The rat tells you to look at what you've done.

"What started with vows of love ended wrapped in plastic, becoming food for the rats. You are the wife-shaker," he intones, and a wrapped corpse rises from the floor and approaches with the game's only real jump-scare, which is also the spoiler you see in the thumbnail of about a million YouTube play-throughs.

Credits roll. The game resets to the beginning. The loop of your eternal torment begins once more.

(note: if you go through the motions of once more shaking the rat into submission, but then approach the barn building instead of the house, you can get a hidden achievement. I won't spoil it for you but it's quite funny.)

So What Does It All Mean?

Okay so, first off - I believe Ratshaker was built during a 48-hour game jam, so it's entirely possible it's not that deep. But that's no fun. What we do around here is overthink things, so that's what we're gonna do ;)

Anyway. Textually, what we know for certain is that the player character killed his wife. That much is confirmed by the ending. The other pieces are a bit more speculative, but I'll do my best to piece it all together.

In the beginning, you're in a new home. Soon after, we see at least the suggestion of marital trouble - the late-night TV infomercials, the pillows on the couch, the collection of beer bottles. Then the horror in the nursery. Seems that the dad has either directly or indirectly caused the death of his infant (either by way or neglect or shaking him) and things fall further apart from there, ultimately culminating in his murder of his wife and, we assume, his own suicide, either in the bathtub or blowing up the house with gas (or potentially both). What we are playing is clearly the character re-living his crimes again and again in hell -- he can't undo what he's done.

Okay, so far so good, but what about the VHS tapes? What about the mattress in the basement and the cages and the glowing refrigerator? What was that the rat said about the wife knowing what was happening below the floorboards of her own house?

I think there are two possible explanations.

The first, more straightforward theory is that the player character is in fact a serial killer, and he's trying to have his cake and eat it too -- he has his wife and family upstairs, but his murder operation downstairs. In this hypothesis, he's the one producing the snuff film we view on the VHS (hence the TVs that keep exploding in hellfire). The quantity of bodies attracts vermin, who then kill his child, and he kills his wife soon after when she starts to realize what's happening. This explanation is quite similar to the films The Night House and Barbarian.

I think this explanation is supported by the text, but doesn't wholly jive with the amount of guilt the player character appears to be grappling with.

Alternative, more cerebral hypothesis is that the player character's child dies of neglect and/or accidental death by baby shaking (as supported by paintings like Ivan the Terrible, which depicts a father who kills his son and then immediately regrets it). The player character, who's already presumably experienced job loss and alcoholism and marital rejection, falls down a pornography addiction rabbit hole (all of those VHS tapes!) watching more and more extreme videos and fantasies. "Ratshaking" in this interpretation is both reference to the murders but also to masturbation. Ultimately, he kills his wife, either to enact the fantasy or accidentally when she confronts him, and hides her body down in the basement. But now the house is overrun with vermin, who repeatedly taunt him with his guilt, until he ultimately tries to dispose of the evidence and kill himself (hence the gas explosion). This is more similar to The Tell-Tale Heart and Stephen King's 1922.

I think there are other valid interpretations that exist somewhere between these options, or to either side of them, but overall I think that's roughly what the game is about.

In overall execution, Ratshaker is quite competent. It stands on the shoulders of plenty of other indie games before it, but the rat-shaking mechanic is new and, of course, the prime attraction. It's simultaneously funny and dark, and it's something that will get people talking about it.

I don't blame the game for being yet another "you killed your wife and now you feel guilty about it" story, but at the same time, I am fascinated and a little weary that this has become the stock plot of seemingly every indie horror game, from PT to Layers of Fear to Serena. How many stories about Very Troubled Men Facing Eternal Torment for Violently Destroying Their Families And Then Regretting It do we really need? Is that such a popular story framework because it's been done before and people are just copying those early successes, or does it say something deeper about the patriarchy?

I have written in the past about The Horrors of Disenfranchised Men and that one horror movie men can't seem to stop making. This is not quite that, but it lives in the same neighborhood, you know? Down the block and across the street.

I've also written before about the Horror History of Rats, and their tendency to be used as a trope for revealing hidden crimes. You may think you've gotten away with something, but the rats will always reveal the truth.

So, there you have it.

Your experience with Ratshaker may be a little different - you might experience things in a different order or find things I didn't - so let me know YOUR thoughts on this game!

[gamenburger]

Oops i got home yesterday today, actually. accept this bonus warm up sketch i did in a diner on the road instead of "9 days"

[nick-lives]

Some of our Steam reviews have a very… particular flavor 🥵

[blackblooms]

Anything to say about your experience? Any moment you found particularly memorable?