Shouting Out for Patreons One More Time

Ah, esteemed reader, how are things? How's the family? Played anything interesting lately? Did you perhaps notice just how drastically my output of indie gaming focused words increased? Should I once again remind you of the existence of my Patreon or should I just thank you one more time for your crucial support?

I know; I'll give another shout out to the three lovely entities who've generously joined the ranks of my supporters instead:

Eclectically geeky indie dev Melissa Avery-Weir (@averymd) of Future Proof Games and (creepy, satirical, unique, brilliant) Ossuary fame.

Author Tony Scavone whose book Dardenfall: West of the Earthvein I still can't buy and read due to those blasted capital controls, but will do so as soon as its allowed.

Infamous Quests: the amazing adventure game developers who have already given us excellent point and clicker Quest for Infamy and are working on three new games. 

The Watchful Indie Watch #25.9

Quite a week this one. Quite an incredibly irritating and not particularly happy week to be precise, but at least one with some rather interesting fresh new indie things. You know, like these:

House of Wire released Trawl (Windows, Mac, Linux) over on itch.io and it's one of the few games that effortlessly combine ships and typewriters in an impressively atmospheric whole. Highly recommended and I'll soon be writing more on it.

For a more frantic experience, my esteemed trigger happy reader will be happy to know that Fistful of Gun is available on GOG, Steam and the Humble Store. It comes complete with 9 psychotic gunslingers determined to cancel the railway's expansion from the Wild West to Hell.

I have been waiting for else Heart.Break() for quite some time now and it can finally be played. Still looks clever, lovely and unique, which is very nice, though I still haven't grabbed my copy yet. Will be fixing that momentarily.

Right after playing a little bit more with the freeware Fire Dance With Me, to be honest. The only game ever that dared introduce Twin Peaks to Dance Dance Revolution.

Sigma Theory. It's enigmatic, it is.

Available as Early Access via Steam, 20XX is an action platformer that looks brilliantly 16-bit and has so far impressed me. Despite being a rogue-like, that is.

Then again, if you want to play something really good and refreshingly non-casual on your iOS device, the excellent Blackwell Deception has hit the App Store. Here's my review of the PC version of said indie-adventuring classic.

Feeling the need to kickstart something intriguing? Well, Surface definitely does look interesting. Intriguing even .Especially if you are looking to investigate pixel art things while undercover.

Oh, and as you must have heard SOMA has been launched. And, yes, it's a truly scary horror game. Very scary. Very scary indeed.

Reminder: I could really use your support via Patreon in order to survive long enough to make more indie gaming (and gaming in general) words and, of course, actual games and things. Thanks! 

Workers In Progress Special Edition: Progress Harder

Workers In Progress despite being rushed to completion and never truly achieving version 1.0, is a texty little political simulation I'm very fond of and one that has miraculously proven almost popular. It has also made me immensely proud by getting itself a few kind reviews and a couple of lovely translations into Turkish and Spanish and, one has to admit, it's a game that really does deserve better.

So, WIP is indeed going to get all the attention it should have required, as I've finally decided to start working on its fresh, new Special Edition which --at the very least-- will come with polished texts, fixed typos, translations in Spanish and Turkish, an aesthetic overhaul and a few more changes here and there. 

That's not all though. I will try to find the time and go the extra mile: translate the game into Greek, add more content and new branches, see whether a soundtrack can be arranged, make sure it gets a few illustrations and hunt around for more translations in order to craft the best Workers In Progress possible. 

If you think you would like to help, either with contributing further translations, graphics, music (or insight on how to incorporate a soundtrack into Twine) or by doing something clever with the game's stylesheet then, by all means, please do drop me a line. I'd love to work with you on this little project.

Oh, and everyone else, do not worry. Earthling Priorities is progressing slowly but nicely and above all surely. Should be ready before anyone of us dies.

Reminder: I could really use your support via Patreon in order to survive long enough to make more indie gaming (and gaming in general) words and, of course, actual games and things. Thanks! 

The Watchful Indie Watch #18.9

And just like that, The Watchful Indie Watch returns and hopes to stay around a little bit longer (wink, wink) in order to entertain its lovable reader with the indie-est of tales in a gaming world that's gone impressively indie indeed.

So, let's kick things off with a Kickstarter, shall we? Of course we shall, for this is the House Of Many Doors crowdfunder I'm talking about and it's bound to be an excellently worded and text heavy RPG complete with procedural poetry and FTL-inspired battles. I've already interviewed its soul, a Mr. Harry Tuffs, here.

The special edition of Death Ray Manta has been unleashed upon an unsuspecting audience by a certain wonderful Rob. It is the aptly named Death Ray Manta SE, it's got lasers and flashing lights and trippy tunes and costs less than any cocktail anywhere in the world. Apparently DRM is also part of the latest Humble Weekly Bundle too!

Adventure gamers and people who love people (also, hugs) must play Dropsy. Dropsy loves you. Dropsy cares for you. Dropsy is one of the best adventure games ever. I reviewed it here. Keep in mind, that Dropsy is also a clown who cannot read.

And here's another brilliant point-and-clicker that's bound to become a classic: STASIS. This one's a less heart-warming and more terrifying sci-fi horror affair, obviously inspired by Alien and Event Horizon. Great puzzles, great atmosphere.  

Sticking to adventures, you'll be happy to know that Blackwell Legacy is currently free for them iOS devices in anticipation of the release of Blackwell Deception on the platform. Blackwell Unbound and Convergence are on a 50% sale for the same reason.

And if you can stop playing for a moment, you'll be pleased to know that there's still time to submit your game/interactive story to the 2015 Interactive Fiction Competition. All entries are due by September 28.

Had enough text and graphic adventuring already? Lucky you. Here's a charming and rather surreal RPG that will remember everything you ever do to it and its world: Undertale. It's all about a human trapped in place filled with monsters and, apparently, friendship.

Vince Twelve's Prophetica -- A Graphic Novel

Remember Vince Twelve? Why, he's the dashing young man responsible for sci-fi adventure gaming masterpiece Resonance and was the plucky lad I interviewed ages ago for this very blog. See? You really should remember Vince. He's great, he is.

Oh, and apparently and with the help of such excellent artists as Tim Mayer, Jason Wordie and Chris Wolfgang he just released Prophetica; a truly brilliant and exclusively digital graphic novel. A wonderfully and uniquely illustrated story (also in widescreen!) with some highly intriguing things to say about the dialectics of tradition and oppression. About people and odd fantasy worlds. About religion and horror.

Prophetica can be bought and downloaded as .pdf, .cbr and .cbz for the price of your choice, though, of course, you can always wait and read it page-by-page over at its site. New pages will be released every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but do please keep in mind that the downloadable version is indeed lovely and artists do need all the support they can get.