New survey! So far we've talked about card games, visual novels, roguelikes, hidden gems, and itch.io games. Folks have added great games in the shares and comments sections. Eventually, I'd love to start compiling some of these into some posts highlighting some lesser-known gems.

So, this time: What's your favorite Touhou Project game?

They can be official, they can be fanmade, they can be whatever you want!

While I've been aware of Touhou for many years, 2023 feels like the time I'm finally delving into it headfirst as a...."franchise"? "Subculture"? "Collection of ideas"?

I feel like it exists in a very interesting space, especially because it is treated as quasi-public domain by the creator, ZUN, who has been very generous about allowing indie creators to publish Touhou games themselves with very few restrictions. Because of that, there's been tons to choose from over the years, spanning across all sorts of genres.

So...which are your favorites? Let me know in the comments!

With INDIE INTERVIEWS, I talk to the game developers hanging here on Cohost to learn more about new games you might love.

I love when a developer gamifies a real-world activity. It still feels like there's so, so much untapped potential in the weird little careers, chores, and mechanisms we've had to work with in real life. When I spotted @ColdCalling here on my timeline, it immediately jumped out to me. Operating an old switchboard is such a neat idea, I wanted to learn more about it.

You can find a demo of Cold Calling on itch.io

Introduce yourself for everyone here on Cohost! Who are you?

Hi! I’m Thom, I’m a cat dad and game dev in Chicago. For my day job I’m an engineer at Iron Galaxy, and off the clock I spend a lot of time reading and working on my game. My cats Big Ed and Sonny Jim are my muses.

Is there a project you're working on currently? Tell us about it!

I’m the project lead, programmer, co-writer and composer on Cold Calling! It’s a game where you operate a telephone switchboard, routing calls with a bunch of click-and-drag wires and gadgets. The story is a satirical political comedy set during an alternate-history Cold War where caricatured 1960s world leaders call each other (and other historical figures using a time-traveling phone!) to prevent nuclear war. Hijinks ensue, et cetera.

With INDIE INTERVIEWS, I talk to the game developers hanging here on Cohost to learn more about new games you might love.

This happens to me all the time: I see a cool game out there, and I wish that there were beginner-friendly tools to make something like that. It was a thought I had specifically upon seeing Disco Elysium: "is there a way to make a game with a general layout like this?" Then, a few months into using Cohost, my wish was answered! I found Narrat, the new narrative game engine by @liananana. It looks like a great way to get started on narrative games that incorporate stats, skill checks, and inventory. I wanted to reach out to Liana to hear more about it.

You can get Narrat on the official website

You can get Infierno Rubi, one of the games shown above, on itch.io.

You can get Will This Bitter Night Bring Change? - Two Women in Trouble, one of the games shown above, on itch.io

You can join the Narrat Game Jam that's going on right now!

Introduce yourself for everyone here on Cohost: Who are you?

Hi I'm Liana, a trans woman from the UK. I've been making games, websites and other things for a bit more than a decade now. I used to work making web games, though these days my work is more typical non-game web development. And I've been working on narrat the last 2 years or so as my main side project

Tell me more about your game engine, Narrat. I've been very tempted to start learning it the past few weeks.

So Narrat is essentially a game engine for making narrative games with RPG mechanics. This is a relatively vague definition as the customisation and scripting system mean you could use it for a few different kinds of games, but fundamentally it's for making text-heavy games with branching dialogue, and (optional) RPG mechanics.

So early on, I was inspired by Disco Elysium and wanted that basic layout with visual stuff on the side and dialogue on the right in a vertical panel. I find that this layout is much easier to focus on that your typical visual novel layout where it's individual dialog boxes. Feels more like reading a page that you can scroll through for context. The whole characters and skills system was also inspired by that game.

With INDIE INTERVIEWS, I talk to the game developers hanging here on Cohost to learn more about new games you might love.

One of the best parts of playing indie games is seeing how everyone approaches it differently. Often, people come into it with completely different backgrounds and skillsets. They may have a strong experience with programming, or with art, or with music. You may already know of Lena Raine (@kuraine) for her music in Celeste, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, or recent Minecraft updates. Did you know that she also works on games of her own? I decided to have a quick chat with her to discuss her personal projects ESC and ANOTHEREAL.

You can find ESC on Steam and itch.io

You can follow ANOTHEREAL (codenamed Project Astray) on Cohost: @anothereal

Introduce yourself for everyone here on Cohost! Who are you?

Hey! I'm Lena Raine, and I'm most well known as a composer for indie games, notably Celeste, Minecraft & Chicory: A Colorful Tale. I've also written a kinetic novel called ESC, and done all sorts of support work for other projects like Steven Universe (I mixed the soundtrack for the movie!) and Deltarune (did some additional arrangement for a few tracks in chapter 2!). I have a pretty extensive list of things I've worked on over on my studio website https://radicaldream.land

Is there a project you're working on currently? Tell us about it!

I'm currently scoring two games in development: Earthblade, which is being made by EXOK (the creators of Celeste), as well as Beastieball by Wishes Unlimited (the Chicory team!). Both have been in development for a while now, so I've been keeping pace with development in my composition! They're both super different styles to write for, so I'm really enjoying the contrast of moody open world action VS turn based volleyball rpg with a pretty wacky vibe.I'm also working on my own solo game, Project Astray! It's my 2nd game project, and I'm learning a lot as I go, improving my coding & art skills while building things out for it.