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I’ve been on a weird one for Burger Time in recent months so some gorgeous spooky Burger Time inspired action is right up my street. Presenting Guardgrave. (Itch) (thanks for the tip off)
DooMZX is a top down Ansii/Ascii game based on Doom. Always love folk doing this sort of thing. (Itch)
The Trial Of Kharzoid, tasty looking adventuring + Arkanoid on the NES (Itch) (thanks)
Quick reminder that The Games For Gaza bundle has a week left. (Itch)
Cosmically spoopy C64 stuff courtesy of Darkland 2 (Itch)
An early Spectrum fave of mine gets a belated GBA port, Matthew Smith’s Styx. (Itch)
A work in progress remake of the much loved C64 game, Alley Cat. (Itch)
Bit of a maze themed week, this week. Next up, Wizard Of Wor remade. (Itch)
Continuing the theme! Rogueish, for the unexpanded Vic 20. The stuff people squeeze into the Vic always gets me. (Itch)
Related/unrelated. One of the other Rob’s on Super Monza GP2 for the Vic. What a thing to exist. Blimey. (YouTube)
Obligatory Bitsy game this week is the lovely, branching, The Time Capsule (Itch)
Tales From The Arabian Nights gets the Pico-8 treatment. Nice. (Itch)
And here’s Pixelmusement going through the original. (YouTube)
Berzerk Recharged is out next week and I’m hoping for the best, you know considering Berzerk is one of my favourite games. (Website)
And to wrap up this week’s digest, Terrahawks! (Twitter)
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(a second post this week and earlier than usual as I’m shifting from Sunday to Thursdays as it just kinda works out better for me)
There’s a few days left on the Itch Halloween sale and so much good stuff in there. (Itch)100 BASIC games converted to run on your PC. Doing the Lord’s work with this one. (Itch)
A weekend project and a nice one at that, Hyperbeam Brawl has some top down shape shooting action for you. (Itch)
Spacerace looks the business. Stylish monitorcore* Zero-G racing. (Steam)
Blast Arena for the Master System looks phenomenal. Some lovely colour work. (Twitter)
Nita is a very pretty platformer for the CPC. (Itch)
Back to the PC! Liberation filters I don’t know how much (more) UK science fiction into an Elite shaped hole. Top chonky pixel style too. (Steam)
I have a real soft spot for simple Space Invaders style games, put an octopus in and you’ve got me. Octattack got me. (Itch)
Endlight is amazing. Wild demoscene-esque smashing and crashing. A glorious eyeful. (Steam)
Find body parts in Friend Without A Face. B Movie Bitsy! (Itch)
Hauntsfield is a lovely micro-RPG for the Gameboy (also playable in your browser). Good stuff for the spoopy season. (Itch)
Armoured Arachnid, a work in progress arena shooter I’ll be keeping a beady eye on. (Itch)
Late to the party but I’ve just got round to playing El Paso, Elsewhere and yeah, that’ll do. (Itch)
One of my life goals is to get everyone to play Juno First, here’s another Rob discovering it. (YouTube)
From the vaults, Binary Zoo’s 1982 is still a cracking shooter. It’s proper free too. (Steam)
*if everyone else is naming aesthetics in 2023…
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Lovely one, this. Dialer.com is a virtual BBS recreating the experience of rummaging out games and stuff on them. You’ll need DOSBox to run it – or a machine with DOS, natch – but it’s worth the effort. (Itch)
Lots of remake action on a Pico-8 tip these here days, here’s Ian Gray’s “cram all the nods to other games in” platformer China Miner getting a nice rework (if still a wee bit on the “just because it rhymes with miner doesn’t mean you should…” side). (Itch)
The walls are closing in with super pretty top down shooter DE-LIMITED. Neon walls at that. (Itch)
Hermano from The Pat Morita Team is a smart little Gameboy platformer. (Itch)
Rogue Declan for the Amiga has just got a hefty update. Some fine twinstick dungeoneering. I’m a fan. (Link)
Everyone’s played Moonring by now, right? Free, gorgeous, Ultima-like (Steam) (Eurogamer piece)
Andrew Braybrook continues writing a retrospective of his career and a devlog for a new game. Always happy to see old hands getting stuck in. (Website)
Dudley Of Yesterzine looks at the final PC Gamer UK Coverdisk. Myself and chums had a lot of stuff on coverdisks in the mid 2000s and the folks compiling them gave more of a toss than you’d expect. Fond memories. (YouTube)
I could hardly not mention Cyber_Serpent, Snake/Blockade reimagined as a twin stick shooter. Yes. (Itch)
Same goes for Squid Shot. Squid with a gun! Lovely art too. (Itch)
Mentioned in #2, the great Bombjack-esque Jack Dragon is now out on Steam to buy. (Steam)
Tempest! For the 3DO. More than a hint of T2k, as is right and just. (GitHub) (YouTube)
Not sure how I missed Time Extension doing a news on Amp, an in progress heavily Rez-inspired rail shooter. I’m slacking. (Time Extension) (Steam)
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The Queer Halloween Stories Bundle has some time left to run still. $60 gets you a mound of interesting stuff to rummage through. It’s available until the end of the month. (Itch)
Pet Cats, Save The World. An old Twine fave and a perpetual mood these days. (Itch)
Fancy some cute eat the rich Bombjack action? Jack Dragon might just be the game for you. (Steam)
Fancy some cute eat the rich Bombjack action but on the ZX Spectrum? Jack Dragon might just be the game for you. (Itch)
Rocky And Co. The exceptionally talented Stu, Smila and Saul channeling Datasoft for this recent C64 release. A fine choice and as gorgeous a game as you’d expect. (Itch)
The Museum Of Sprites, it’s a Bitsy museum of Bitsy sprites! I love the whole museum concept that’s cropped up in recent years, I love Bitsy. More, please. (Itch) (Oh look, more)
Talking of museums, if you’ve not taken a look at Digital Eclipse’s Making Of Karateka yet, it’s highly recommended. I’m hopelessly addicted to the Death Bounce remake, twin stick stuff that’s right up my street. (Website)
If you need some convincing, here’s another wonderful Rob for you, talking about The Making Of Karateka. (YouTube)
Chinny on Jaws. I have absolutely no recollection of this existing. I have no idea how that happened, how do you even miss a Jaws videogame? (YouTube)
I’m always up for an Exile retrospective. (Eurogamer)
Indieretronews reporting on a Spectrum Next port of Saboteur. I still love the first two (you can get them on consoles and stuff now too, the future is magic) and this looks like a lovely interpretation. (Link)
Haven’t got round to playing it yet but I had to grab Redraptor on the Switch because it looks like a fab little shooter. Other formats are available. (Website)
Whilst I’m thinking about Switch games, I didn’t see Under Dungeon get nearly enough love when it came out and that’s a big shame because I really enjoyed it. Again, other formats are available. (Website)
GunDeck[100] is down for release this week. An arcadey arena shooter leaning into the whole 3 card thing that’s popular right now. It’s colourful! (Steam)
Sin over at RPS recommends Highway Rampage. Spyhunter-ish, but with 2023 bells and whistles. Bonus: Getting some wild mid to late 2000’s downloadable game vibes from the graphics. Looks great. (Steam) (RPS supporters only piece)
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I’m kinda disturbed by how authentic Corn Kidz 64 looks. I know 90’s console looking stuff is in vogue but this is a beautiful job of looking a very specific kind of rough. (Steam)
Diorama Dungeoncrawl has a console release now. I’m in love with the style Renegade Sector have been cultivating over the years and Diorama Dungeoncrawl is another great looking thing. (Deku link / Itch)
qrth-phyl is out on Switch and it’s still a fantastic game/documentary. Brilliant Snake/Blockade but knotty Minter-esque 3d game. (Deku link)
Pan Dimensional Conga Combat is out too and gosh, I love Pan Dimensional Conga Combat. Think Geometry Wars pacifist mode with conga mechanics and some glorious pixel art. (Deku link)
Saltsea Chronicles (Deku link) and Sub Par Pool (Deku link) are out this week. Got my eye on both.
I’m intrigued by the rework of Astrosmash (presumably an escapee from the Amico farce?), there’s been a couple of remakes in the past that have been pretty dear to me so fingers crossed it’s turned out well. (Deku Link)
This adaptation of Psychedelia is fabulous. (Web link)
Not much to see yet but Flavors Strike is off to a nice start. (Itch)
Haoken for the Speccy looks gorgeous. (Itch)
Love the look of this PETSCII side scrolling platformer Indieretronews reported on. (Link)
I put some words down on Jetboard Joust, the recent follow up to an olde Speccy game from a long, long time back now. (Link)
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