Andrew

Games are often inspired by the limitations, design ethos, or general feeling of games on older consoles. And withe right tools, games can be made for most any console that's existed. This month's Indiepocalypse Roundup puts the focus on five game made for a variety of older consoles. (and in one case an older console's accessory)

8 Bitty Games by Patchwork Games - Game Boy
Created with Game Boy Development Kit, as opposed to the now more commonly used GB Studio, 8 Bitty Games is a collection of (technically 7) mini-games. Spread across a wide variety of genres, 8 Bitty Games feels akin to a style of demo cart the Game Boy (to the best of my knowledge) never had. Puzzle, sports, and rhythm games are represented, but more abstractly there is also a music making toy and an NES game starting simulation. The final game, is a narrative choice game played in conjunction with the Game Boy printer, where the responses to your choices is relayed solely through printed messages representing the computer your talking to in game.

The Shaking... Demo Reel by Gabriel Walter - ZX Spectrum
Fashioned after old adventure serials, The Shaking... Demo Reel is a branching story told across a series of tapes. At the end of each scene you are presented with an option of what action to take with a corresponding number for the tape to insert. Now granted, in playing the game on a modern computer there are no "tapes", but you do need to load a new .tap file into your emulator to load each scene. This gives the game the same physicality of switching a tape or flipping the pages of a book, exploring a personal linearity in a work that is ultimately open and wholly accessible from the start.

neMULEsis by John Vanderhoef - NES
neMULEsis is the fifth entry in the MULEniverse series, a collection of homebrew NES games that work equally as an homage to NES era design and (as the intercap implies) the seminal 1983 business sim M.U.L.E.. This particular entry takes inspiration from the run-and-gun games of the era and arguably lives among them as a peer. It's conflicting power-ups, widely varied settings, and backgrounds-as-bosses are all elements of the of early run-and-gun genre more than nods and throwbacks. And importantly, neMULEsis understands this and uses those elements well.

Paddles of Nuclear Gunnery by Donstathemonsta - Sega Genesis
If you take some one of the primordial elements of game design ("what if we made table tennis (ping-Pong if you will) but in a computer") and cranked it up to its extreme, you would have Paddles of Nuclear Gunnery. No longer are you confined to strictly one axis of movement. You aren't even restricted to your side of field. Instead you are are given a free range of movement and with it,points are no longer the main goal, but fuel for your titular gunnery that you must use to destroy the other paddle. Relentlessly fast-paced, and one of lesser seen multiplayer video games within the Indiepocalypse library.

Graveyard Dude by Rani Baker - NES
Box (or box-adjacent object) pushing is an essential part of gaming language. It places us in the space of the game and in puzzling out how navigate it, familiarizes us with it. Graveyard Dude is not about putting objects in their place so much as is about getting them out of your way. Within the ever-shifting goals, filling an impassable hole with a coffin is sometimes a means to an end (such as collecting more skulls) and sometimes it is the end. What you need to do to solve each screen feels familiar but with a fresh new approach. A new perspective is gained each time you set forth to clean up a new graveyard.

8 Bitty Games was featured in Indiepocalypse #1
The Shaking... Demo Reel was featured in Indiepocalypse #19
neMULEsis was featured in Indiepocalypse #21
Paddles of Nuclear Gunnery was featured in Indiepocalypse #32
Graveyard Dude was featured in Indiepocalypse #28

The initial batch of post office bound tapes for this month's issue! Available at http://indiepocalypse.com/tapes or on each issue's itch page.

Tapes are print-on-demand and in nigh-infinite supply. Get yours! Lend 'em out! Trade 'em around! Set loose these games out into the world!

While looking for a way to sell Indiepocalypse at local art markets I was inspired by people storing Game Boy games in cassette cases and started making these as my physical edition. Each one is a usb stick with an issue of Indiepocalypse. (10 alternative indie games and a zine)

Cover by Sofía Dávila

Buy it! Subscribe and get it monthly or just the commissioned game for $5!

The latest edition of Indiepocalypse (the monthly alternative game anthology I run) is now out! If you don't know what Indiepocalypse is I wrote a starter guide!

The games in this month issue (as seen in the trailer) are

stand up by Rae White

‘stand up’ is an award-winning Bitsy poem-game which explores what it means to be trans. Because being trans isn’t just about one single thing. Being trans is about breathing, loving and being; and, in ‘stand up’, it’s about finding small joys and knowing you are loved.

Sunken Ships by Joe Renwick

Explore a little seaside coast of submerged ruins, sunken ships and lonely islands.

Take Your Meds Darling by Geckoo1337

TYMD is a short puzzle-game playing with gravity in non-euclidean rooms. Using procedural shaders ++

Learning to Love the Labyrinth by Gustavo Araujo Costa

a game about using staircases for their intended purpose.

ltltl is about trying to climb a staircase that occurred to me in a dream; about irresponsible metaphysics and celestial hooks; about overcoming the illusions of rationality and reaching reality itself; about being neither religious nor anti-religious, but a secret third thing; about people telling you that you don't exist and others telling you that you exist too much; about the possibility of being right and wrong at the same time; about the irresponsibility of being right-wrong about everything; about going up and down stairs, in different ways.

>devour by Henrique L. Alves

>devour is a text adventure and escape room game. It's also maybe a personal horror story that may or may not be based on real feelings.

The Farnese Hercules by Richard Sherriff

Take on the role of the famed sculptors of history as you gaze into your material and see your final work before you carve it and reveal it to the world. With 35 levels stretching from 40,000 BCE to 1950 CE

The main mechanic of The Farnese Hercules is simple, gaze into your material to reveal how many blocks need to be chipped totally away, and how many need to be carefully carved. One vantage point is not enough however, and the sculptor will have to regard their material from many angles before they can be sure exactly what needs to be removed!

Proverbs of Hell: Bloody Hell by Saifey Roth and Isidore Weis

Proverbs of Hell is a character-driven turn-based RPG set in a hyper-capitalist dystopia where enhanced blood gives you incredible power... if you can afford the upkeep.

A walk through the forest by Liana

🌸 Walk through the forest with me, discover flowers and identify them.

It is not at all a game about random ramblings of my brain. I promise 🤫

🍂 A walk through the forest is made with photos, videos and audio taken during a real-life walk through the forest 🍂

Elephant Hunter Hunter by Balmut

Elephants are being hunted to extinction by horrible hunters.

Play as as a Canadian dog on the International Space Station and do your duty to save the elephants from being hunted using a giant space laser!

As you progress in your defence of the kind-natured pachyderms unlock and upgrade five extra tools to help in your mammoth task. You'll need them as hunters never play fair!

And newly commissioned for Indiepocalypse!

The Elision Effect by @theia & @AkAvery

You might be the last one in this office building. Empty halls and locked doors, but you keep trying to find ways to progress. The place seems off. Like it shouldn't exist. It smells of old coffee stains, the fluorescent lights buzzles, and corporate jazz plays on crappy speakers. You long for fresh air. An exit must be near.

The Elision Effect is a short surreal puzzle game.