| Game Engine: Unreal 
This game is heavily compared to the likes of Postal 2 and for not unfair reasons - it even shares a publisher with the makers of Postal: Brain Damaged, but 77p egg: Eggwife can best be described as being trapped inside a 2005 era Newgrounds flash cartoon. It is immensely puerile in subject matter, but make no mistake, the crew behind 77p Studios spared no expense to make this game a wonderful experience. Over 10 weapons, immense interactivity from being able to electrocute yourself urinating on a wall plug-in to burning down your house by leaving the oven on, a sense of humor that plays peek-a-boo with your expectations...I had a great time with this game, and I believe you will too!
Steam || Xbox || Nintendo E-shop
| Steam Net Revenue: $21,402.72 21k | Part of the Existential Dilogy (2nd of 2)
While very different from the other work by Yeo, this is an important milestone not only for the amount of influence it would have on games like Fading Afternoon but for helping establish what kind of work he's capable of outside of The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa's mold. You play an unknown mercernary in France getting contracts to kill people. You don't know their names, or locations. All you know of your player character is they're an expert marksman and they have insomnia. Beyond that, their life is depressingly sparse and bleak in sharp contrast to the dull, brutal beauty around them.
Steam || Epic Games Store || Nintendo e-Shop || Playstation || Xbox
| Steam Net Revenue: $529,160.19 529k
In the post-apocalypse, someone has to be the one to tend the fields. In this game, that someone is you! Grow your plants and keep them big and happy while staving off the threat of gun-toting rabbits and other hungry pests. You can spend your days tending the farm while occasionally exploring to get better supplies and increase your crop yield. But beware, as you're far from immortal and being careful is the the only way to survive. Can you make it through the years to keep the homestead fed?
Steam | Nintendo e-Shop | Playstation | Xbox
| Game Engine: LÖVE 
There's been a lot of talk about this game encouraging a lot of young people to gamble, which is amusing not only because of how many game devs had to get their start working for casinos and other gambling companies and how that informs their work, but also because of the nature of this game itself. This is not poker, this is the Calvinball version of poker. The concept is you have a selection of blinds to play through, with a set number of hands and discards to beat the blind with, and a standard 52 card deck to do it with. You earn chips based on the type of cards played, all basic stuff, right? Then you get the Joker cards which affect every hand you play in unique ways, and you have Tarot cards that alter your deck, Planet cards that alter the levels and multipliers of hands played, you have vouchers, foil cards, holographic, polychrome, celestial cards and they all alter the game to the point where Balatro becomes not a gambling simulator but an exercise in strategy and lateral thinking. You can absolutely play the game like standard poker and it works to a degree, but once you reach a point where a two pair is getting you more chips than a straight flush, you really do start to feel like a joker. I really cannot recommend this one enough, it's one of the first games to really scratch that itch that Zachtronics solitaire did.
| Game Engine: GameMaker Studio 
Developed by Wishes Unlimited and published by Klei Publishers, the demo for Beastieball is really cute and sweet and funny - really, I don't have a lot of notes about the core concept of this game, or it's execution. You're out to save your hometown's natural habitat from getting bulldozed for a coliseum that the Beastieball league almost certainly doesn't need, and to get the league's attention, you need to get to the top 50, which means coaching like you've never coached before. In short, I had a really great time with this one, both as a concept of being a coach to your not-Pokemon and the concept of winning a game by virtue of playing well and out-maneuver instead of worrying about hit points. I can also relate to it as an old fella whose gotten burned out on so many things like Pokemon and similar because it all feels like a mad rush to develop the most devestating meta to crush your opponents - "Beastieball used to be fun." I have to say, I'm really looking forward to this coming out next year.
Call it a consequence of getting older if you like, but after a certain point this month after seeing several game announcements come and go, i realized that what I really want out of gaming is the baseline stuff that's been there the whole time - solitaire. While there is a fancy Microsoft solitaire that comes pre-installed on Windows 10, Big Klondike has a signifigant advantage of not making you have to look at ads for predatory gambling apps unless you pay for a subscription to a solitaire game. No thanks. This game has a choice between 'draw 1' and 'draw 3' styles, as well as regular and Vegas style Klondike. The cards make a very satisfying 'plap' as you turn them over, which is a small thing to note but it really does make a lot of difference on how good a card game feels to play. Actually, this game comes with a lot of small touches that feel really cozy, from a clock at the top right that lets you know how long you've spent on solitaire and help you keep time management in mind, to thoughtful little axioms that are included when you win a hand or exit the game. There was a point where I thought it wasn't actually possible to lose a game of solitaire, but Vegas style made a humble enby out of me. And, there's also paid DLC for spider solitare, freecell, pyramid, and tri-peaks. Overall, a delightful addition to anyone's game collection!
| Steam Net Revenue: $522,936.34 522k
One of, if not the most important and innovative of the games made on the Build engine. You play Caleb, member of a cult called The Cabal and faithful servant of Tchernobog...until now. Tchernobog has struck down all of the Chosen, including Caleb, but Caleb lives again and he's ready to wreck havoc on the Cabal. You use dynamite, napalm, Tesla cannons, and all manner of instruments made from human and eldritch hands alike to tear a bloody swath through Tchernobog's servants, witness the fate of the other Chosen, and confront your traitorous god.
Fansite Download (Original Freeware Ver.) | Steam (Nicalis Ver.) | Epic Games (Nicalis Ver.) | GOG (Nicalis Ver.) | Nintendo Switch (Nicalis Ver.)
| Steam Net Revenue: $671,479.45 671k
I might be waxing poetic here, but it's a bit hard to understand just how BIG Cave Story was for the indie game scene. Basically everything that came after this title owes at least a little of its existance to Pixel's hard work. For those of you that may not realize the original game is freeware, I highly recommend it, but as much as people have legitimate reason to not give Nicalis money, I cannot deny that Cave Story + it is a highly polished version of the original with several new game modes. Either way, this work stands as a testament to the history of video games after the millenium, and is well worth your time!
The 14th release from Joe Cassavaugh of his Clutter series, Clutter RefleXIVe is an absolutely titanic number of puzzle games, ranging from sedate to nerve-wracking, but always a lot of fun. Joe's spent a lot of time on this title, but the biggest piece of note is his 100-level long Story Mode in which he goes in depth about his life and how he came to make the Clutter series, along with where he plans to take it. Thoughtful, engaging, and challenging, I love this game!
Coming in three years after their last game Rym 9000, Sonoshee is back and with one of the most enticing stories of kinship, betrayal, and rebirth that I've seen in a while. While it would be crude to compare this game to something like World of Horror, the comparisions are unmistakable as you wrestle hopelessly against a tidalwave of eldritch horrors and seemingly inescapable fates. But beyond those obvious comparisions is how Sonoshee merges the stylings of Satoshi Kon with a magical realism similar to works like Achewood. You participate in five stories, represented by the 'critters for sale', as various people who all seem to be connected through a web of fate in which everyone and everything hang in the balance. This is a game you'll need to brace yourself for - the endings in these stories are not happy and frequently uncompromising, with one very happy exception that I won't reveal out of respect for the artist. Needless to say, this is one you'll be very happy to have picked up, and here's hoping that Sonoshee can deliver on more stories in this game's universe in the future.
| Net Revenue: $4,073.83 4k
From the mind of Anton Riot comes a world made entirely of plasticine to explore! You play as the newest recruit to get hazed out of a massive Megabomb to blow up the door leading to strange new worlds. The world you come from is strange enough, right? But there's plenty to explore and lots to do. Brew and drink compote, level up weapons, locate books on the other side of the dreaded doors...this is a real diamond in the rough, highly recommended!
One might call it unseemly to recommend a game where you get to break blocks by getting incredibly fat, but I'm a grown adult and I know what I'm about. The first game by Plubber/Plubsoft to be featured on Steam, Doughball Descent is yummy arcade rougelike fun where the goal is to eat a bunch of food in a descending dungeon grid full of sentient food and traps galore. You play a nondescript 'dough-cat' who changes shape the more pounds they rack up. You move through the level by either breaking the blocks underneath you by jumping, or by doing a 'belly bump' to your left or right. There are 5 dungeons with 3 levels apiece, with a random breather level where you can spend your weight to gain either new items, alter the dungeons' rules, or get a new power to make the game easier. I really have to give kudos to the sound design in this game, it makes the overall experience really delightful. I'm very excited to see what Plubsoft does next!
Note: This is an old Flash game that will require Ruffle or other Flash emulator to run.
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: Flash 
When I was much, much younger and had a frankly irresponsible amount of time on the early Internet, I spent a lot of time playing Flash games. One fateful day, I come across Dream: The Game by Glen Rhodes, and it blew my tiny mind. This game has so much presentation in a period of time when everything coming out of Flash 4 looked sickly and it made a profound impression on me - the way the early 3D is implemented, the core concept of the game, the music (oh my God, the music!) - everything about this cemented a lot of stylistic choices and became a core memory for me, but more than that, it's also one of the absolute best games to have come out of that early period of Flash, and one of my personal favorites. I highly recommend it!
Steam (Enhanced Ver.) | Humble Store (Enhanced Ver.)
| Steam Net Revenue: $54,053.68 54k
An absolute classic! Originally freeware, developed by Guilherme S. Tows and published by his company Zaratustra Productions (not to be confused with Zarathustra), Eversion is a simple looking platformer that, unless you pay attention to the H.P Lovecraft quote at the opening of the game, will take you completely by surprise. Collect all the gems, and save the princess!
I'm absolutely enamored with the worlds that Yeo creates, and Fading Afternoon is no exception. The best way I can describe it is as a thematic bookend to their previous work, The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa. You play as Seiji Maruyama, a yakuza fresh out of jail. From the outset, the player prompts themselves to think of this as a mythic Kiryu Kazama character as they speak with their aniki, Azuma-san. But you learn very quickly that the story of what family controls what part of the city is not, in fact, what the game is about. Without getting into spoilers, Fading Afternoon is about how a person acts when the end is upon them. It's not something anyone talks about, but the way Yeo carefully used game mechanics to make you feel the immense weight on Seiji's shoulders - the way you walk through all these familiar areas of town without any run button, watching strangers living their lives, seeing couples at the disco embracing in a slow trance, the slow comprehension that the most human relationships Seiji has are all transactional...this is a truly beautiful work, and I can't recommend it enough.
| Game Engine: RPG Maker 
Translating literally to 'Upland' and generally referring to Upper Hungary, Felvidek is a fascinating entry in the world of RPG Maker games not only in it's art direction but writing as well. Created by Vlado Ganaj and Jozef Pavelka, with the English translation by Stanislav Kužila, Felvidek is the story of an alcoholic knight named Pavol who, at odds with the lord of his manor and his wife, finds himself embroiled in strange and eldritch doings in 15th century Slovakia. The dialogue is deliciously in line with the tone of the story and it's hard to not get invested in the plight of this manor and the calamity beset upon them.
This is easily one of the highest end 2D live steel combat games on the market. You will feel like a badass samurai cutting people down, and more importantly, the game mechanics have been honed to such great effect that every play session introduces a new concept you'd never even considered. You can use the blood from your blade to blind your enemies, you can kick up fire in some situations, blocking and dodging gives new opportunities for strikes - there's never a dull moment with this game.
Steam || Xbox || Nintendo E-shop
| Steam Net Revenue: $297,055.63 297k | Part of the Existential Dilogy (1st of 2)
We owe an immense debt to The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa's meteoric success for giving us the immense body of work from Yeo and their team. You play Ringo Ishikawa, a listless delinquent in their last semester of senior year. All of his friends appear to be moving on, but what is Ringo to do now that school will be a thing of the past? You spend two months worth of time trying to find that answer, the answer only you can find. A truly moving work!
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: Multimedia Fusion 2 
| Part of the Game With A Kitty Series (1st of 8)
Back when my time was regularly spent on Indiegames.com and scoping out new stuff to play, there were several that still occupy my memories to this day, and such is the case with A Game With A Kitty. Developed by a fellow who goes only by Bernie and originally published under Fallen Angel Industries, who brought us such freeware classic games as the first Noitu Love, this game is a real charmer. The Kirby influence is unmistakable as you play as Kittey, a jovial Chowder-looking kitty sent to investigate a tower that recently rose up along the edge of town. What could be inside? Only one way to find out! As of 2022, this game is also on Steam as freeware along with it's sequel Darkside Adventures and the first Treasure Hunter Man by the same developer. Give it a look!
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: Multimedia Fusion 2 | Part of the Game With A Kitty Series (2nd of 8)
The followup to A Game With A Kitty takes us to a more cosmic setting as the arch-chancellor of the Imp King gets ordered to recover his king's girlfriend's missing crown! It's a long trek to the castle, and the game features a lot of physics based puzzle solving as the latest addition to the series. The Kirby influence is stronger still then it was in 1, while the grabbing mechanics are a strong relation to the same mechanics in Super Mario World 2. Very cute, very funny, very fun!
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: PICO-8 
A delightful example of the kind of work the Pico-8 engine is capable of, High Stakes is a fairly straightforward premise: you've had all but 20 mL of your blood stolen by vampires and must play card games to get the blood back. The gameplay loop is similar in card placement to Golf Card, but with the premise that each 9 card layout has eight numbered cards and one face card - the Vampire. Your goal is to turn over as many cards as possible without getting the Vampire per round, and the gameplay is about attempting to use the various tools at your disposal to figure out just where the Vampire is so that you can either avoid or stake them. Play your cards right and you'll be laughing all the way to the blood bank!
Steam | itch.io | Nintendo Switch | Xbox | Playstation
Look, let's just be straightforward here - if you managed to end up on a Neocities cite run by a furry, you probably have already played Hypnospace Outlaw and don't need me to tell you how great it is. Just in case you haven't, though, here's the rundown: You play the role of an Enforcer, a glorified hall monitor important member of the Merchantsoft™ family whose job it is to narc on innocent people maintain the integrity of Hypnospace. As your role on Htpnospace increases, you become embroiled in a cyber-noir that seemlessly blends the atmosphere of pre-Web 2.0 internet with corporate malefactions and the sorts of behaviors that only come from the truly desperate. The final act of the game's story is one of the most pleasing denounments I've had the pleasure of playing. Please do yourself a favor and check this one out if you haven't already!
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
I'll be plain about it and say that Daniel Remar is an indie dev I have a mammoth amount of respect for, and Iji is the core reason for that appraisal. You play Iji, a young lady whose life is thrown into bedlam as she has to survive against an alien threat by any means necessary. Along the way she is aided by her brother, who seems to be keeping secrets from you, and a powerful gun that can be augumented into all sorts of powerful devices. I really can't undersell this particular game, and that's not just a joke about it being freeware - the story is captivating, the gun upgrades allow you to persue any sorts of avenues of dealing with your situation, enemies leave beind PDAs that comment on your decisions level by level, the levels themselves are labyrinths that can be traversed any number of ways...simply put, this game is a labor of love, to say nothing of being an important piece of internet gaming history. You should check it out!
| Steam Net Revenue: $274,450.11 274k | Part of the Intravenous series (1st of 3)
As the sequel to this incredible game has been announced as of this writing (and it looks beautiful) I figured it was high time to put it on the list here. I still get chills playing this game, trying to figure out where precisely the enemy is coming from and how best to approach them. For all the allusions to the Hotline Miami games this style of gameplay may conjur up, Intravenous is a completely different animal. Stealth is the name of the game here, and the AI for your enemies are extrememly sophisticated. They'll perform safety sweeps, fall back, position themselves, work in groups...all things that make your decisions on how to progress carry more weight. The use of light in this game is wonderful, too - you can feel the sense of creeping dread as you hear footsteps of a patrol moving in and out - are they coming from the left or the right? - and all the while trying to find the best way to avoid detection. You want an intense action title? This is the one for you!
Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Part of the Intravenous series (2nd of 3)
Acting as both a prequel and a free demo for the upcoming Intravenous 2, Intravenous 2: Mercenarism is true to its name in brutal fashion. You play Gideon, a money-hungry merc whose out to get some real money in the world of Intravenous, and is making a few house calls in this game. There's only two levels here but make no mistake, this game's cooking with gas. AI has improved and introduced new security details like walkie talkies, making it so you can't just knock every threat out without arousing suspicion. You also have a new wrinkle in the gameplay in the form of needing keycards you can either find in the environment or on certain guards to progress past certain doors. Those things aside, you also get a hearty bounty of new toys to work with - you now have a stimulant system that grants roughly ten seconds of bullet time per use; vending machines that dispense cans that can be used as throwable distractions; an upgrade mechanic that allows you to modify your weapons to increase your odds of survival, etc. A short but vicious delight!
Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
"A puzzle game where the premise is a joke about the suicide rate in Japan? Really, Edmund?" I know, but this is Jesse Venbrux we're talking about, I promise it's good! In this particular iteration, you have 25 levels of switching between two salarymen and assisting each other with turning into gibs. Can you solve them all?
| Steam Net Revenue: $99,424.26 99k
I had put off getting this one for a long time because the concept of a desktop simulator that wasn't Hypnospace Outlaw wasn't grabbing me the way it is now that I've become more interested in Solitaire, but that was largely my own loss because this is a magnificant addition to anyone's game library. Not only does the desktop itself have a lot of character by itself, but you begin to learn more and more about the person/people involved with getting it into your hands, which is remarkably in line with what Melos Han-Tani has spoken about with regards to the concept of ludoancestry. As for the games themselves, well:
20th Century Food Court - A highly technical automated food simulator where you use node editing and pipe puzzle logic to construct a conveyer belt to fulfill the people's need for nachos and pretzels. I'm going to be really straightforward and say that while I'm not particularly good at any of these games, this is the one i literally do not understand on a basic level. I can tell it's a blast to play, especially for those looking for something close to the aesthetic of old Nitrome flash games, but it's not for me.
Chipwizard™ Professional - This particular game is an edutainment title about how to properly construct components, disguised as a puzzle game, disguised as business software. The concept is to follow the specified parameters to make a piece of machinery that carries a charge in a specific way from an input to an output setting. I feel a sense of pride from doing something right in this game because it's a logic puzzle with real-world logic questions. I also just really love the aesthetic.
Dungeons & Diagrams - A D&D themed map-building puzzle game, the goal is to place walls inside a grid filled with monsters leading to a treasure chest. I'm not very good at it. You have a set amount of blocks you can put on each row and column of the dungeon, making the game a bit like a really nerdy Sudoku. It is a great slice of dungeon design that lets you really dig into the concept of making a dungeon out of scarce pieces.
HACK*MATCH - A matching game in the style of Puyo Pop, but with the wrinkle of shuffling a preset block layout as opposed to creating the layout with random blocks. You play as Hackmaster, a shounen hero commanding a small robot who can pick up one block at a time from the rapidly descending hoard of colorful blocks. This one has the added style of coming with it's own emulator, the JUiCEbox Arcade.
Kabufuda Solitaire - This version of solitaire really threw me for a loop at first, because I have zero familiarity with kabufuda, but is also a lot of fun. The concept is to arrange a deck of cards into sets of four in an empty space on the game board, with the caveat that you can only set like cards on top of one another and the top four shelves only take one card. The difficulity varies by how many slots are available at the top, but much like Sawayama Solitaire, it's entirely beatable if you just focus and stay strategic in your movements.
Sawayama Solitaire - As the name implies, this is the desktop's default solitaire program - at first sniff, it seems to be the basic straightforward Klondike solitaire, but with a highly inventive twist, where it's a 'draw 3' format, but with the wrinkle of having every card you draw stay on top of each other, with an extra space to lay a single card where the deck originally sat, similar to Freecell. Much like Freecell, I am also really, really bad at Sawayama solitaire, to the point where I thought the game was unwinnable in certain cases - the truth is that this is a solitaire clone that mainly just requires you to be strategic in a way that standard solitaire isn't. Because there is no 'undo' button, it makes the game a tough but fair challenge in comparision to the seemingly toothless 'draw 1' version I'm used to. It's a delightful version that really makes you feel accomplished when you finally win.
Steed Force Hobby Studio - This is the game that I associated Last Call BBS with the most before getting my hands on it. It's a fairly straightforward gunpla simulator that lets you build models from the fictional Steed Force anime, five in total. It is remarkably relaxing, and I quite frankly can't believe this isn't already a more common game type.
X'BPGH: The Forbidden Path - This is the game I vibed with the most, taking the commonplace puzzles up to this point and turning them into a grotesque gene splicing puzzle game. The goal is to fill a specified grid layout with a specific cellular growth of skin, bone, flesh, or metal. You have twelve slots to change the way the cells form inside the grid, but it will require logic to figure out which cell data is going to get the result you need.
Overall, this is a really in-depth, lovingly built game, where you can be playing this for hours and still not scratch the surface of what it's capable of. It even has a means of making your own websites in game by adding .js files! It's a lot to take in that this is to be the last game Zachtronics ever develops, I really feel like I missed out on something special by waiting so long to see this beautiful swan song.
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: Adventure Game Studio 
Who gets stuck with all the bad luck? Life of D.Duck 2 is an incredible game brought to us by Bjørnar B. and Arden M., in which D.Duck attempts to win the hand of Daisy but encounters misfortune after misfortune in his attempts. Can you help D.Duck get his uncle Jubalon out of his house and get Grandmother Duck her heart medicine?
; Argentina (cobcris) 
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: Flash
Don't you just hate a bland breakfast? It's the most important meal of the day, y'know? You wanna start it off right! Luckily there's Los Toatadores to save the day! You play a piece of toast riding in their trusty toaster steed, jumping by popping out of the mechanism and shooting outlaw beans with your six-gun. Clear out the cereal boxes and shoot the targets in your way so you can get the sugar rush you're looking for!
Note: This game is designed to run in GZDoom.
A truly incredible work of art, this one! Coming out in March of 2023, it very rapidly made a splash as it toyed with the conceptual 'first level modelled after a modder's house' and turned the concept into a discussion on grief, loss, and what we do when the only thing we have left is what our loved ones leave behind. The full game needs both the WAD and PK3 files to function as intended, but running the WAD by itself is an immensely disquieting experience as moving through MyHouse gunning down enemies produces a grotesque feeling of vouyerism in the player. The link to the game also includes a 'dev log' of the modder's life during the game's production which adds some truly delightful insight into the material. I won't spoil anything here, this is one that has to be experienced completely blind, but there's a reason this game won a 2023 Cacoward. Highly recommended!
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: RPG Maker 2003
A truly mystifying work of art, OFF is the culmination of hard work between Mortis Ghost and Alias Conrad Cornwood. You take control of the Batter, an entity that has been tasked with purifying the world. Whether you both succeed is up to fate. This game in particular has a committed fanbase long after its release in 2008, and upon playing it, it won't be hard to understand why!
You play as Cyl, the last line of defense for humanity against an undefinable threat posed by an enemy known as Picayune that will destroy human life as we know it. Created by the same people who made Underlevel (coded by Stepford, art by AndyL4nd and music by Milkypossum), Picayune Dreams is a remarkable blend of bullet hell and bullet heaven genres as Cyl is beset by strange and mystical enemies armed with an ever-growing arsenal of weapons and add-ons to their person, all displayed as additions to her code base. Each level is selected by the player in a movement-based segment where you pick both your level of agression to go against and the type of enemy you want to deal with for the rest of the run, and as opposed to a timer-based system you have a 'mortality rate' that produces a boss encounter every 5 percent. There's also the nice touch of the progress bar for your XP level being on all four corners of the screen instead of just one, with is such an ergonomic solution to the problem of losing track of the bar that i'm shocked it isn't standard practice. The story is a sad but impressive one, as we are forced to reckon with just who all these characters are and what they're doing in the void of space. It's good!
Steam (Original) | GOG (Original) | Android App (Original) | ModDB (Original) | Steam (Postal Redux) | Playstation (Postal Redux) | Nintendo e-Shop (Postal Redux)
| Steam Net Revenue (Redux): $372,538.77 372k Game Engine: RSPiX (Original); Unreal(Redux) | Part of the Postal series (1st of 4)
Now, Postal 2 is typically the one most people associate with the Postal series, and for very good reason. But, the original series entry absolutely deserves its roses. Made by a company of people so sick of having to do kids games and edutainment titles in the 90s that they set forward to making the most violent game they could. You're the Postal Dude, fighting back against a world gone mad and killing as many 'hostiles' as you can. Over 20 levels of carnage, and a plethora of weapons designed to make your enemies very, very miserable.
Steam | itch.io | Google Play Store
This is another fine solitaire game, albeit one with a lot more bells and whistles than most others. The game looks and sounds like it's running on early equipment, with a bitcrushed announcer saying the name of every card that's produced. This particular game is a random version of 'draw 3' Klondike but with a specific twist on the formula; instead of having to start over when you get deadlocked out of available moves, the game has the option of taking the currently selected card in the deck and 'getting Radical' with it, changing the game into a horizontal breakout clone where the ball hits against the card at the end of the stage and changes it to an available card on the playing field at random. It's a fascinating twist on an old classic, and is worth checking out just for the aesthetics.
As of February 26th, 2024, Die Gute Fabrik has halted production on all upcoming projects, so this entry is in memoriam as the last game from their studio.
From Die Gute Fabrik, the developers behind Where Is My Heart? and Mutiozone, Saltsea Chronicles is an incredible story of love and the things that complicate it. The post-apocylapse has come and gone, leaving the planet as a cluster of islands with the remainder of humanity living upon these islands in reverence of the sea, not unlike the setting of the Earthsea books. In this world, the motley crew of the De Kelpie have come together to locate their missing captian who seemed to have disappeared into thin air. You can really tell just how much work and polish went into the writing of this game, it feels like a cozy book you tuck into right before bedtime. I recommend everything on this page but this particular one is fantastic.
THE S-BLADE HAS A HACKBLOOD CHARGE
| Steam Net Revenue: $69,968.22 69k
Zane Lofton, the 14 year old in charge of the best website on Hypnospace, is all grown up and made an incredible video game! Based off of a mod of Doom Kataklysm, this is a FPS in the classic 'boomer shooter' mold. You play as Zane, the X-Slayer setting off on a quest for vengeance against the Psyko Syndicate with the help of his friend and mentor Mikey Sykey, and the friendly rats that occupy the Steel Sewer. You fight sentient feces, weed smokers, werewolves, evil brains, and other unsavory purple threats in your hometown of Boise, Idaho. 10 levels of mayhem await you, X-Slayer!
After having bought this game on the promise of more solitaire than I could dream of, the fine people at TreeCardGames have more than delivered. There's an absolutely mind-boggling amount of solitaire and patience games to choose from here, not to mention a multitude of card types and playing mats, but all of the games involved use the basic French card deck setup, with exceptions for Forty Thieves style games or really any game involving 104 cards or more. Solitaire from all over the world is in this pack, and they all range from 'so easy it nearly plays itself' to 'so hard it makes you question the very nature of solitaire rules'. Among the bells and whistles in this collection is a random solitaire selection; a Solitaire of the Day that allows you to explore the sheer density of solitaire available layer by layer; a handy-dandy internal guide to the rules and origins of the solitaires you're playing; an autoplay feature that goes so fast that you can blink and the game's over if you're not paying attention; and, achievements that track both your win/loss ratio and little awards for beating solitares a certain number of times. I can think of no better endorsement than the fact that I've been playing this program's daily solitaire every day since I got it. You gotta try this one out!
The latest offering from Black Eyed Priest Games and Henry Hoare, and produced through Torture Star Video, Sniper Killer is the latest upcoming game set in the same universe as Bloodwash and Booty Creek Cheek Freak. In this demo, you play as the titular 'Sniper Killer' and two of his victims. Like Night at the Gates of Hell before it, you play as an oblivious person who gets the first taste of the horrors to come - in this particular case, a model named Pamela responds to a photo shoot from a fellow named Hans, played with scenery-chewing gusto by Ellis Knight. From there, you get your only exposure to what the Sniper Killer's life is like, and the grim possibility that his are not the works of a madman but the direct requests of the government - not very likely, given the general vibe of these games, but having just seen White House Plumbers earlier this month, I could lean one way or the other. From there, you go to a carnival (and might I say, walking past an empty shooting gallery right before entering the level was a very nice narrative touch) wherein the game takes inspiration from adventure game puzzles as you try to find a way around a guard blocking entry to a high vantage point. At this point, while I would have appreciated a picture of the shot I was meant to take before I had to restart the level, the game proceeds apace as you take on the role of Gail Jenkins, and up-and-coming journalist with her cameraman Clyde. From there, you talk to a few people before getting a phone call to the final scene of the level, in which you run for your life against the Sniper Killer, a very nice setpiece with a surprise ending. I'm very much looking forward to the full game coming out!
The simplest way to explain Sparkles & Gems is to take the games Breakout, Columns, and Puyo Pop - and then throw them all together into a cotton candy machine. An enchantingly weird offering from resnijars, the core gameplay loop involves hitting cascading gems with a ball and paddle, aiming to hit as many gems that have three or more of the same type grouped together to destroy them. Gems with sparkles cause multiple gems to explode. You play against an opponent trying to make your paddle hit against a gem or block to win, and just like in Puyo Pop, you can get multipliers on your score to cause the blocks on your opponent side to multiply. The gems respawn as though by magic and will take a quick wit to handle them all! There's a Story Mode in which you get to know the characters of the game, from OAT the ferret plushie to Sandway the business horse, and presents a fun tale similar to a fighting game storyline. Treasure Mode is a game mode where you play rounds of Sparkles & Gems against the PC to rack up stocks, battery power, and jam to help improve your future runs, and to gain treasure in the form of special items you can use to decorate your room in Treasure Mode. Naturally there's a two player mode as well. This game is CUTE, and really really fun! Try it out!
A yummy arcade shooter, this one! You play as a squid (not an octopus) trying to survive being beseiged by jerks. Honestly, nothing beats the writeup Robert D. Ferson himself gave in the above link. Give it a shot!
A demoralized Bimbob's clerk stands over the contents of a busted trash bag, wet with rain and pig blood, and now her tears. Suddenly, a stranger with round glasses and a toothy grin approaches. Thus starts the story of the up-ad-coming street gang known as the Thornz. Star Fetchers is a game currently in production from LKsvavelstickan with a Kickstarter and the pilot available for free off of Steam and releasing in 'episodes'. True to this format, the game is heavily informed by anime with its choice of graphics and gameplay style. Similar in execution to Katana Zero, you use the mouse to swing a sword and defeat enemies, either fighting off sword-wielding gang members or cutting down bullets before they reach you. There's also a heavy undercurrent of the future of the world under AI and consumer culture informing the setting around you. An excellent work!
Steam | itch.io | Nintendo e-Shop
| Steam Net Revenue: $15,612.29 15k
This is a game that I am admittedly REALLY late to the party for, but this is a really staggering piece of post-Rareware art. Made by Marcus Horn and ported by Sebestian Kuepper, Super Kiwi 64 is a game where you play as a kiwi bird with a set of goggles and a backpack that can turn into several items. Gameplay-wise, you have a lot of options for mobility like a Ninja Gaiden-esque wall jump and a glide - the camera is really responsive to your movements as well, which is always well-appreciated in a platformer like this. You have little in the way of offensive manuevers but as you learn fairly quickly, you don't really need them. In a similar vein to 'creepypasta' games of this sort, the bright and cheery atmosphere is disguising a dark story of religious zealotry as the very first level presents you with a skeleton posed as though meditating inside the remains of an oak tree without any explanation. As you continue through the levels, you witness other pieces of the seemingly dead civilization that you're exploring, crawling out from the sewers that act like your hub world like some kind of Ninja Turtle, or possibly The Punisher. The graphics are a real stand-out feature of the game as it carefully nails the specific aesthetic of games like Banjo Kazooie and Jet Force Gemini (the ending scene even includes a nod to the ending of Star Fox 64) while also working in badass visuals that evoke imagery like Dark Souls, Evangelion and even Zardoz. I really can't recommend this game enough!
| Steam Net Revenue: $71,659.24 71k
A little over half a decade before Disco Elysium would come out of Estonia and blow everyone out of the water, a three-man team comprising of the brothers Johann and Mikeal Tael, and fellow programmer Edwin Adema, would make an intense top down roguelike. You're the last holdout on planet Medusa-1C as the corporation you work for has decided to not send a rescue party, and so it falls to yourself to make it to the major teleporter on the planet and make it back to Earth. Easier said than done, because the creators of this game aimed for an extreme level of difficulty in their game, and it comes out swinging. A generous use of negative space helps you maintain your sense of where you are in the world, which is crucial to surviving the number of zombies and mutants roaming the halls of your facility. Death is frequent and you'll find yourself having to really focus to get past the 10 levels to make it to the end. Will you truly escape from Medusa-1C?
Archive.org Link | Flixel Port
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: GameMaker 7 ; Ported to Flash in 2010
Brought to us by Justin Stander and Askiisoft, Tower of Heaven made a huge splash in the indie game scene for being a remarkably hard and poignant title. You play Eid, an otherwise nondescript who's hell-bent on climbing the Tower of Heaven against the wishes of God. The game is rendered in a classic Game Boy color palette that's carried to dizzying heights by the musical work of flashygoodness.
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
This one's a real treat! Performing a twist on the story formula not dissimilar to Moon RPG, you play as a horde of skeletons trying desperately to prevent a knight from becoming overlevelled by destroying treasure before they can reach it, and keeping your fellow undead out of harm's way. Stepford and AndyL4nd prove a formidable combo along with Dougle/Oklahome, JPabuga, and music by Milkypossum as their style of art and programming makes your skeleton pals at both points adorable and nerve wracking as you point your mouse to their destination and hope they don't trip or bump into walls. The knight tracking you down is also relatively easy to distract, but you're in a race against the clock and saving everyone is truly impossible. After several levels, you come to see if your efforts were enough to prevent the knight from killing your boss. All in all, a really terrific game to come out of Game Maker's Toolkit 2023 Jam!
| Steam Net Revenue: $41,671.29 41k
An absolutely delightful tale of absurdist dark humor from the dev behind Lethal Company, The Upturned is a physics based platformer in which you are the newest resident of The Upturned Inn. You're on a long and trecherous journey to make it to your room, with the companionship of the owner Ik your only constant. You'll be beset by all manner of pests and misfortune that you have to fight against using your wits and whatever self defense you can fling at your enemies. You'll have a blast with this!