Dragon Warrior (1986) What a lovely time. I've already played the GameBoy Color version and other remakes, so I knew I loved classic Dragon Quest . It was just time to prove to myself I could enjoy it even in its oldest and most cantankerous form. And I did! Effortlessly! I've played a number of classic western PC RPGs at this point, and an odd thing about them is how decentralized the "fight…
Meteos (2005) This game consumed my heart and mind and soul for a week... Cleared all modes, got all the unlocks and endings, including the True Meteos ending. Took about twenty hours, which is by far the most time I've ever sunk into a game like this. It's just a perfect little jewel of an arcade falling block puzzler. Launching full screens of blocks feels amazing. Holding L to fast drop blocks…
Breath of Fire (1993) Breath of Fire's so goddam fiddly . There's always some shit you're missing because you didn't note down all 817 locked doors you're supposed to come back to once you've unlocked one of the 39 different powerups/keys. There's so much layered-on Videogame Bullshit, all their attempts to complicate the (extremely basic) formula just get on my nerves. It's very funny that your…
Episode Art by Sayara T. It's been a while since the last proper wrap-up post ! Let's do a little run-down of what I've been up to over the last few years. Rhete, Polly, and I restarted the Sockscast after a couple of years off. Between equipment updates and a much tighter episode run-time, I think we're making better radio than ever. The 2025 GOTY episodes are a great place to jump in! Launched a…
pixie forest by peb I still can't believe this one is happening. After being lightly bullied into it by some gamedev friends, I pulled the trigger on a game jam idea I've had in my back-pocket. I made a handful of maps in RPGMaker 2003, and challenged friends to make a complete game using only the maps I made. You can read the complete jam rules here. The response has been insane! This is the…
I participated in my fourth Vextro anthology ! The 2025 theme was "Vextro Unplugged," which everyone interpreted in different ways. This was a smaller one with just four entries, but I think they're all bangers. My entry was Distant Times . It's a collection of flash fiction I've written with my local writing group . At the time I got this together, I had about twenty pieces. I picked eight of…
Since late 2024, I've shared five little games on Glorious Trainwrecks, a site I've adored for a long time. The intent was to embrace "sketch gamedev," to slam out tiny games in a few hours a-piece. I've enjoyed many games made in this mode by others. I thought posting on the site, which is all about this spirit of playful experimentation , would help me enter it myself. (Glorious Trainwrecks is…
Etrian Odyssey (2007) I loved this! Pure joy from start to finish, just a precisely tuned machine for generating happy brain chemicals. Loved the art, the music, the crunchy sound design, the battle tactics, the varied and distinct map layouts, the minimal restrained storytelling. I especially loved the FOEs; those are Etrian Odyssey's "big idea" and they explore them beautifully. One interesting…
Pokémon Odyssey (2025) I haven't played a mainline Pokémon game to the end in over ten years. My last ones were X/Y and OR/AS which left me feeling very cold. I've also never played a Pokémon ROM hack or fangame before. I think it speaks to Pokémon Odyssey 's considered construction that I both finished it and had a good time throughout despite not being in its target audience even a little bit.…
Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II (1990) Played the Super Famicom version, which is good because the Famicom original definitely would’ve killed me. I’ve played 80s Final Fantasy , Dragon Quest , SaGa , Ys , Phantasy Star . Of all those classic console RPG series, only classic MegaTen feels like something made exclusively for true 80s PC RPG freaks. You know what I (lovingly) mean: the kind of…
Ex Astris (2024) ( iOS , Android ) I really liked Ex Astris and I have absolutely no idea how to sell folks on it. From the outside it looks like a standard anime RPG. So, let’s look at the story and fighting, since those are two main pillars folks connect with these games on. The story is mostly episodic and in the background. It’s divided into roughly three acts, without many cutscenes. What big…
Death of a Wish (2024, PC) ( Itch.io , Steam , Switch ) Lucah: Born of a Dream was the first character action game I got really obsessed with. I got the true end twice, and I played all the post-release material (including the murderous gauntlet mode update). Apparently the secret to getting me into beat-em-ups was to occasionally cut the action with some really good queer text games. I was…
I wrote about Lockirby2's challenge runs last year. In short, his videos have been a huge source of delight for me in the years since I started watching, and his Facets playthrough blew me away with its exquisite play and attention to detail. His latest videos have focused on commentated damageless tutorials of Mega Man Powered Up stages. Give 'em a look ! I'm writing a follow-up because of his…
In 1988, personal computers were built for word processing and spreadsheets. Relatively affordable IBM-compatible PCs were still a new thing, and the home PC market was split across many brands and architectures. There was a thriving ecosystem of games for these machines. But outside more niche options like the Commodore Amiga, the games worked against the limitations of hardware not designed for…
Tales of Berseria (2016) I'm at war with myself on this one. I just slammed out several paragraphs of impassioned complaints (the god-awful fighting, the void of a soundtrack, the interminable length). But, reading it over, it doesn't feel representative of my experience with the game. I was irked constantly playing Tales of Berseria , but the fact is: they got me. I loved the characters. The size…
Lunar: Silver Star Story (1996) Games like Lunar: Silver Star Story consistently knock me on my ass with their modest precision. I adore how Funbil put it in their review : "A quiet, unassuming first act gingerly constructs an expertly-arranged cavalcade of narrative dominos which cascades forward with an unrelenting momentum all the way to the end of the game." That's exactly it — Lunar takes its…
New game! It's a Puzzlescript release called Kit's Cookies . I got inspired last week and slammed it out, then spent a few days polishing it. Thanks to Narf, Zeloz, and Rhete for playtesting; I really appreciate it! My last Puzzlescript game blew up; this one's a lot easier, so I'm not expecting it to resonate with genre enthusiasts to the same extent. I'm certain you can make complex puzzles with…
It's the end of another year (or it was like two weeks ago), which means it's time for a new Vextro release: Tunnels of Vextro ! This one's another chain game like Gardens , meaning the games were made sequentially, with each game responding to all previous entries. Give it a play — my Vextro friends brought their A-game as always, and the player responses so far have been really warm and nice. My…
New game! It's an itty bitty sub-1000 word linear text game. It's also a horror game — I've been making lots of cute nice stuff lately, so making something that's a big ol' bummer felt refreshing. I used the Videotome engine, the first in a series of homebrew text game engines by Freya . I love Freya's games to bits, so when she hosted a game jam based around using using her nifty tools, I jumped…
For the first time since 2017, I made a little game in ZZT! It's part of the upcoming 2024 Vextro anthology release, so I'll be publishing it in December as always. I was honestly surprised by how much of a delight ZZT was to work with; thanks to advances in tooling and my own knowledge of the scene, I had a better time with it than I did the first go around. I wanted to share a little primer on…
Lockirby2 is one of my favorite youtubers I've kept up with over the last few years. I first found the channel through their excellent and instructive walkthrough of the original Kaizo Mario World . But the real fun has been keeping up with the Final Fantasy challenge run videos. I got a lot of joy from watching and reading along with the two most recent series, the FF6 0 EXP Solo Rotating…
Live A Live (1994, SNES) Played the fan-translated Super Famicom version, natch. Live A Live is as good as it gets. Square at the top of their game making an anthology of experimental micro-rpgs. Every one of them's a banger. If it was just the seven chapters on their own, it'd still be essential playing, but then the last two chapters tie everything together pristinely. It's just a perfect little…
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004, GameCube) “Wait for it to start doing its spin attack. Switch to Morph Ball. Boost Ball into it while it's spinning to stun it. While it's stunned, roll between its legs, and lay a bomb on its flashing weak point. When the body is destroyed, the head flies off and starts attacking. The head will have a light or dark shield; switch to the opposite colored beam to…
SeaBed (2017, PC) ( Itch.io , Steam ) In terms of the intensity and depth of the emotional response it engendered in me, SeaBed compares neatly with The House in Fata Morgana . It takes a completely different, much quieter and subtler path to get there, obviously. Fata Morgana gets there with the most hard hitting melodrama possible. SeaBed gets there through countless quiet moments, all working…
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure (2011/2013, PC) Cleared on Hard, finished all side-quests. Finished it a while ago, but it's still stuck in my craw, so I feel like writing a review. I'm not going to spoil anything directly, but I'm definitely giving impressions of the whole game, so if you're particularly sensitive to spoilers maybe dip now. This was obviously lovely in a lot of ways, but I…