Game-related ramblings.

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Scratching That Itch: Realm Of The Ghost King

This is the one hundred eighty-first entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our one hundred eighty-first random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has appeared with a whole menagerie of monsters. It’s Realm of the Ghost King, by Mantis-Eye Labs, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

A quick-play roguelike

Long-time readers will know that I’ve been writing about roguelikes since before they were cool.

Scratching That Itch: Super Dunkman

This is the one hundred eightieth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our one hundred eightieth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has just performed a righteous dunk. It’s Super Dunkman, by andrfw, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

A Local Multiplayer Action Basketball Platformer

If you can’t slam with the best, jam with the rest.

Scratching That Itch: BRKÖUT

This is the one hundred seventy-ninth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our one hundred seventy-ninth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has been discovered in an old game box. It’s BRKÖUT, by Fisher, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

Discover a terrible secret hidden inside your computer.

Honestly, if my computer is only hiding one terrible secret, I’ll be relieved.

Scratching That Itch: NOISE1

This is the one hundred seventy-eighth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our one hundred seventy-eighth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has remotely accessed our comms network, leaving a mysterious plea for help. It’s NOISE1, by ChevyRay (AKA Chevy Ray Johnston, creator of Ikenfell), and its tagline in the bundle reads:

A posthuman stealth/horror terminal-operated unicode space opera.

That, uh… yeah that pretty much sums it up.

History Lessons: Blaster Master

Other History Lessons posts can be found here. If you’re looking specifically for console games, those are here. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

My quest to play through early console role-playing games, action-role-playing hybrids, and Metroidvanias continues. I’ve got a nominal timeline, but I keep deviating from it as I add more games to the list. Now I’m finally catching up. The farthest I’ve reached is September 1988 with Spellcaster, before that was Exile in August, and before that was Blaster Master in June 1988 — a mere two weeks after our last entry, Cosmo Police Galivan. Since I’ve covered Exile already, Sunsoft’s Blaster Master is the last game on the list that predates Spellcaster; after this, I’ll be moving forward with the nominal timeline and entering the tail end of 1988.

I actually played Blaster Master as a kid. I never owned a copy, but a friend did, and we played it together on his NES. I don’t remember if we ever reached the end, but we did get pretty far. So it was a bit of a nostalgia blast (heh) to play it again now.

Scratching That Itch: An Anthology Of Cozy RPGs

This is the one hundred seventy-seventh entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our one hundred seventy-seventh random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has opened its trenchcoat, revealing that it is actually seven games standing on top of each other. It’s An Anthology of Cozy RPGs, by Ludipe (who, I am pleased to realize, is the same developer who made Tie Simulator 2020, a game about learning to tie a necktie that has players hold their keyboards against their chests like a tie), and its tagline in the bundle reads:

Seven tiny unconventional RPGs to enjoy with friends

Tiny and unconventional!? Whatever will they think of next?

Scratching That Itch: Love By The Quarter Mile

This is the one hundred seventy-sixth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our one hundred seventy-sixth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is ready to race… for family. It’s Love by the Quarter Mile, by Dice Monkey Games (credited to Mark Meredith, with special thanks to PK Sullivan), and its tagline in the bundle reads:

A one-page roleplaying game of fast, furious family.

Family is the only thing that could make a person get furious that fast.

Scratching That Itch: Warden: Melody Of The Undergrowth

This is the one hundred seventy-fifth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our one hundred seventy-fifth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is engaging in a bit of 3D action-adventure, like they used to make in the late ’90s. It’s Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth, by Cardboard Keep, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

3rd person action-adventure inspired by genre classics of the N64-era.

That’s right, we’re about to get into some genre classics.

Return Of The Obra Dinn As An Introduction To Games

As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

There’s not much I can say about Lucas Pope’s 2018 game Return of the Obra Dinn that hasn’t already been said. It’s a fantastic game, tasking players with solving the mystery of the titular ship when it drifts into harbor in 1807, with all 60 crew and passengers unaccounted for. Fortunately, our protagonist possesses a magical pocketwatch that allows them to see (and also, separately, to hear) someone’s moment of death. Examining these frozen moments in time, players must determine what transpired, figure out who else was there, and eventually assign faces to the ship’s roster and deduce what happened to all of them. The game is one big intertwined puzzle, absolutely fascinating to play and striking to look at with its retro-styled, two color dithered art. But you probably already knew all of that already, since Return of the Obra Dinn has received rave reviews everywhere.

But, I plucked it from my backlog under unusual circumstances: I was looking for a game to play together with my partner, who is much less well versed in games than I am. Return of the Obra Dinn turned out to be an excellent choice.

History Lessons: Cosmo Police Galivan

Other History Lessons posts can be found here. If you’re looking specifically for console games, those are here. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

For those just tuning in, I’ve been playing through early console role-playing games, action role-playing hybrids, and Metroidvanias, but since I keep adding more games to my list the timeline has gotten a bit muddled. The farthest I’ve reached is September 1988 with Spellcaster, but since then I’ve gone back to fill in some games I missed. Most recently that was The Battle of Olympus. If I’d done things in order, The Battle of Olympus would have been followed by Ys II and Lord of the Sword, before bringing us to this post about Cosmo Police Galivan, by Nihon Bussan.

Inspired by Japanese tokusatsu television series Space Sheriff Gavan and Space Sheriff Sharivan, Cosmo Police Galivan was originally a 1985 arcade action platformer game. On June 3, 1988, a Famicom port appeared with drastically different gameplay. While still focused on platforming action, it added role-playing mechanics and nonlinear environments reminiscent of Metroid, that require protagonist Galivan to seek out new weapons and abilities in order to open up new paths. It was never released outside of Japan, but fortunately there’s a fan-made translation patch allowing English speakers to play it via emulation (I used the Retroarch frontend and Mesen emulation core, as usual for Famicom/NES games). It sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a go.

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