i get most of my freeware from terry cavanagh and weird fucking games
flickgame toy. cute. a bundle game. don't think it worked properly through the itch app tho
hypertext game. from a bundle. divorce and magic gemstones. i liked the abstract minimal visuals - just basic shapes and colours - that revealed their meaning along with the words
i learned how to type
html remake of one of the first flash ~Artgames~. i think i missed this one during that era, but it seemed familiar... a cute 5min thing, very culturally important, doesn't make much of an impact nowadays
short scary game! it's nice, i like the papers-please-y approach.
though i continue to feel a bit weird about ~ ps1/vhs ~ aesthetic used with modern...eh...engines? mechanics? it's still obviously A Unity Game, just with a nostalgic coat of paint, even if the coat of paint works in its favor to obscure visuals for a better horror atmosphere.
in the era it's borrowing from there's a lot of...mechanical diversity, which i don't see represented much. it was still a transitional period to 3d, so there hadn't really been any genre conventions cemented yet in the way that, say, any late-ps2-onwards fps games all play and display information similarly? because they'd settled on a.... universal language?
but now every 'ps1' game plays the same because they're all default baby's first-first person unity games? i generally like this as a practice and don't begrudge the creators - i love to see what people make in the tools accessible to them - catamites of space funeral fame had a great paragraph about form and imagery and authenticity in Game Construction Sets that i resonate with - but i think i just want a 'ps1' game that truly embraces more than just the resolution, that embraces the jank of learning to speak in 3d. maybe that means playing back in 1995.
absolutely normal puzzle game. ludum dare winner. very charming i had a big smile on my face throughout
mmo baby simulator. collaborative arcane creepypasta arg-style puzzler themed after a dead mmo. genuinely thought this game was going to fry my laptop.
thought about it again on 02/03 and after poking at it a few more times i watched a walkthrough so i could beat it or else it wasnt going to leave my brain. *projects my baby aura at you*
# a little arts performance at school. love the art, the inputs, the punchline is very good, i highly recommend this
same author as prev game. think they have a thing about nightmarish school performances. having to memorise a flute solo performance in the 10 seconds you go on stage because you forgot to practice... it's charming and funny but there's an inherent true evil...
same author as above - part of a weekly? jam they're doing i think. 1 minute thing - 'self care' via the dice rolls of a dnd character creation sheet.
same author! you try to navigate a line down a pit using jetpack booster type physics. not hugely inspired. i did not care this
^^. it's a short, 2min thing about doing an abstract ritual (mechanically, just 4 arrow keys) enough times that you do it by habit. really liked this one!
oh my god a new droqen??? a 2d narrative platformer with puzzle influence about online identity when everything is online - there are definitely some Thoughts on the metaverse concept? it's really cute, very thoughtful. a little blunt, but droqen admits he's bad at Writing and this is like his first attempt at a Game with Writing. i liked it a lot, but i accidentally spent too long on the ending instead of realising it was deliberately unfinishable (< -- telling myself this to stop me going back and trying again)
droqen again. very very short game made of photographs of a field outside a wedding reception. invites you to have a think about curiosity and timewasting and socialising and gamification
RPGMaker 95! need to play more of this. the colour palette...it's ugly beyond belief in a way i adore. really appreciate the 'standard jrpg of the era but all the characters are awkwardly drawn 90s anime boys in revealing clothing, in like, a gay teenager's saint seiya fanart in his school book margins kind of way' aesthetic.
2d-3d "horror" narrative game about the link between memories and identity in a teenage fatal disease ward. felt like it was about the pathologization of autism a bit too - possibly accidentally? unfinishably buggy, but very impressive. the twist was inspired, really great execution. would recommend playing it until it breaks (for me, that was instantly, as one of the characters' walkcycles got caught on something and her footstep sfx went turbomode. my fucking ears.) and then watching a playthrough.
(16/04 - looks like there's been a bugfix for this? maybe it's better now)