The Pixel Prophet #17
Experience the cozy world of indie games with a focus on driving titles that break the mold, while also diving into the latest updates and news in this edition. (Summary was AI generated)
Dearest readers,
Apologies for the delay, I just couldn’t find the time between my job and all my other projects to finish this issue on Monday as usual.
Sometimes it happens that even in our cozy little indie bubble there are games, whose release overshadows everything else, see the News & Updates section. This is why I want to double down on showcasing the small, the overlooked, and the niche.
Further, a theme organically emerged in this issue (something that happens surprisingly often). This time around it’s an uncanny prevalence of driving games that aren’t anywhere close to your dad’s nuts-and-bolts-accurate racing simulators.
As always, I want to thank all the generous individuals who pitched in once again for another month of keeping the Pixel Prophet afloat!
— Phil, unicorn-in-chief
You can support the Pixel Prophet at ko-fi, or donate via PayPal to ensure its sustainability. It also helps to tell others about the Prophet who share your great taste in newsletters.
News & Updates
- Supergiant’s Hades II launched into early access last week to “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews on Steam and shadow-sniped any other indie who released that week.
- Photographer Jingna Zhang finally gets justice after painter Jeff Dieschburg blatantly plagiarized her work. The second instance ruling states, rightfully, that plagiarism can happen independent of the medium used, the Luxembourger Tageblatt reports (in German and French).
- Microsoft closes Arkane Austin after 18 years among other studios. On May 7th, Microsoft issued a WARN notice that they would lay off all 96 employees of the the studio that gave us the excellent Prey (2017), the overlooked Deathloop (2021), and the disappointingly bland Redfall (2023) as Austin American-Statesman knows; also Arkane Studios tweeted a solemn JPEG that day. Sacking an entire well-established team and obliterating years of experience and an entire culture is something often overlooked when management is only concerned with short-term shareholder appeasement and will hurt Microsoft games in the long run.
- Inscryption (2021) designer Daniel Mullins wins Ludum Dare #55 game jam with his game Voir Dire made in 48 hours.
- Game designer Roberta Williams (Mystery House, 1980) celebrates 40 years of King’s Quest in a 35-minute-long conversational video on Twitter where she talks about the game’s and her own past (and another old adventure’s future?). Towards the end of the video, there’s even an unintended cameo of Roberta’s husband and Sierra co-founder, Ken Williams, accidentally flipping the camera for a second.
Games
Big and small, old, and new, indie and very indie
Szrot
IN DEVELOPMENT • Yugo-jank
If you just can’t get enough of PS1-style graphics and/or driving Eastern European cars, Hjalte Tagmose’s and Gustaw Mackay’s charming narrative driving game ►Szrot will satisfy. The name translates to what you’d call a crappy jalopy (and is similar in meaning and pronunciation to the German Schrott) which instantly sets the tone.
Instead of racing Lamborghinis along the Côte d’Azur, in Szrot you steer a janky Yugo through the bleakest of Yugoslavian concretia (I just coined that term, you’re welcome), and meet quirky characters along the way. Can’t wait to get behind the wheel!
Saviorless
RELEASED • Savior Game
Right off the bat: ►Saviorless is a narrative-driven platformer that looks just gorgeous with its “exquisite hand-drawn artwork and animations”. It was PC Gamer’s Joshua Wolens’ article that caught my attention as Saviorless is “Cuba’s ‘first major indie game’“ that’s even “‘indie’ three times over: developed without a studio, without the government, and, mostly, without internet.“ (source)
The initial complaints about the rather steep difficulty curve were quickly addressed by the developers. It’s a very strong first release, especially under the circumstances.
BEWARE
IN DEVELOPMENT • Drive to Survive
I enjoy just cruising and exploring the backwoods of Upper Austria at night—the less-traveled roads, past the forgotten farms, taking the unlikely shortcuts. More than once I’ve had strange encounters. I remember that time when an estival thunderstorm loomed unseen in the distance, my car cutting through the damp forest air, and no matter where I’d turn, those headlights in the rearview mirror kept following.
Czech animator and solo developer Ondřej Švadlena has been working for many years on something that seems to evoke similar emotions, the open-world driving survival experience ►BEWARE. Chances are you also came across it in one form or another (I was entranced by gameplay snippets on Twitter), and already in 2016, The Guardian published a very good article on the game and its creator. The game puts you at the wheel of a small, beat-up car in the communist Czechoslovakia with the secret police hunting you relentlessly.
BEWARE hits a certain nerve with some weird people (hello!) and while its release is still to be announced, I for certain am looking very much forward to experiencing it. There’s already a demo on indieDB, but it doesn’t seem to reflect the current state of development anymore.
Rogue Voltage
RELEASED • Current Events
Electricity is a huge mystery to me. Sure, I’ve heard all about it in school, electrons and stuff, but am still amazed how something like that does exist and that we learned to beat it into shape, to manipulate it to do our bidding, until videogames became possible.
Maybe I should have played Luca’s game, ►Rogue Voltage for physics class back then. The game prides itself on being an “engineering roguelike” in which you construct and connect modules to “zap the monsters and trigger satisfying chain reactions.“ After years of development, Rogue Voltage hit Early Access last week and you can still get it at 10% off. Also worth noting is that it “has Native Linux support that works perfectly on Kubuntu 24.04, and the developer said the build has been optimized for the Steam Deck.“ (via Liam Dawe/GamingOnLinux)
It’s a very clever puzzle game that has the potential (ha!) to hook its crocodile clamps into you. The presentation is pleasantly pixely and polished, everything fizzles and sparks as electrons stroll through your contraptions. I think that’s what electrons are known for.
Nightmare Kart
IN DEVELOPMENT • We are born of the kart
You might know “everyone’s favorite PSX yeag girl”, developer Lilith Walther, a.k.a PSX Bunlith, from her stunning Bloodborne PSX demake. Her latest creation retains the dark setting but adds an unlikely element into the mix—kart racing, of all things!
►Nightmare Kart (previously known as Bloodborne Kart) is a fast-paced fun-racer where the “fun” part seems to be borrowed from “funeral”. The dark and steampunky tracks look strangely familiar and delightfully ghoulish, and on-board weapons are sure to sweeten the deal. Nightmare Kart is planned to be released by the end of May. Just in time for Halloween!
Vaporwave Pinball
IN DEVELOPMENT • Piniball Spaces
I loved early computer graphics: Those checkerboard floors, the extruded geometric shapes with wild cameras, the occasional Doric order column, a shiny Utah teapot, and character designs to haunt you in your nightmares.
Jamie D’s latest game is almost the opposite of his previous game, Hellscreen, a super fast Quake-like with a rearview mirror.
No, ►Vaporwave Pinball is a trippy blend of virtual liminal spaces borrowing its aesthetic from the era of VHS machines and saturated pinks. The game attempts to be a chill, lo-fi pinball experience and is “designed to [be played] for a few minutes at a time or to lose several hours to.“
Vaporwave Pinball is planned to be out later this year for five quid; there’s also a demo available on Steam.
Dread Delusion
EARLY ACCESS • Delusions of Grandeur (in the best sense!)
James Wragg’s ►Dread Delusion looks like yet another PS1-era micro game but underneath its imaginative and pixely veneer is an open world RPG whose world-building reminded me of the likes of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002) instantly.
Since the game’s release into Early Access it found its fanbase and with its retro gameplay and bold, colorful art style is completed enough to become a one-point-oh. They grow up so fast!
Heading Out
RELEASED • White Line Fever
The last featured driving game in this issue is the minimalist-looking ►Heading Out by developer Serious Sim (not to be confused with Croteam’s horde-shooter Serious Sam, 2001).
The fifteen developers from Poland created a stylized driving game “inspired by classic road movies” with a strong narrative focus. Because of it, the actual driving part takes the backseat. As always with road movies, “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.“
You might also enjoy Bahnsen Knights (2023), the latest game in LCB Game Studios’ “Pixel Pulps” series. It also features cars, a cult, a captivating story, and a striking art style. See issue 07.
Programming & Game Dev
Tools, resources, wisdom, humor.
BOOK • How and Why We Make Games — Veteran Polish game designers Marta Fijak and Artur Ganszyniec collaborated on a book titled “►How and Why We Make Games — The Creative Confusion” that promises a “more humanistic perspective on games,“ and “why we should put politics in our games, and how hyperrealism may be a trap.“ From the bona fides of the authors alone, it’s safe to recommend this book. Published by Routledge it’s to release on August 1st.
ARTICLE • Exploiting Fear — What makes a good horror game? Instilling and shaping a player’s fear, of course. But that’s easier said than done. In an ►article on gamedeveloper.com, Jade Jacson, Steve Kirby, and Kelvin Moore break down on their approaches of doing just that—and more.
SECURITY • 1234 — Information visualist David McCandless ►posted on Mastodon a heatmap of 3.4m leaked PINs and it’s as bad as you would assume.
With only 10,000 possible combinations, the chances to guess someone’s PIN should be 9,999:1. In reality, it’s more like 9:1 as “nearly 11% of the [sampled] passwords are 1234”. (source)
NEWSLETTER • Community Development — Long-time luminary of building, developing, and managing communities is the ineffable Victoria Tran who also shares her knowledge in her monthly ►Community Dev Newsletter. Readers of the Pixel Prophet might enjoy it as well as it’s an entertaining and insightful blend of knowledge, links, and funny pics; just like Victoria’s Twitter.
VIDEO SERIES • Chronicling Virtual Worlds — Derek Murphy and Mitchell Zemil have been producing a series of videos titled ►Preserving Worlds, a “documentary travelogue through aging and beloved virtual worlds.“ At the time of writing, there are already 20 half-hour-long videos diving into ancient game worlds. You may know of Doom (1993) and Second Life (2003), but it’s the smaller, less known worlds that I find the most fascinating: The open sourced Myst Online; the attempted rebirth of LucasArts very first MMO in the form of NeoHabitat; or Tim Sweeney’s ZZT (1991).
PUBLISHING • The Kraken releases! — If you are an indie dev looking for a publisher, there’s a new player in town: Games marketer Jakub Racinowski founded ►Indie Kraken, a micro-publisher catering to the needs and circumstances of indies.
Indie Kraken (not to be confused with the Brazilian developer Studio Kraken) seeks to “[blend] agency services with game publishing” and provides “marketing, social media management, PR, and more in return for a developer-friendly revenue share.“ (source)
BLENDER • Getting started is hard easy — My journey of creating computer generated images started with CorelDREAM 3D. Not much later I continued with Kinetix’s 3D Studio MAX! 2.5 which I acquired from a CD-ROM of questionable repute; and was forced to transition over to Alias’s Maya 6 in college. I sneered at the early version of Blender I tried around 2011 as it lacked Maya’s rich features and BSOD’d my computer whenever I tried to render something. And that was that.
But alas, how times have changed. Blender has matured into a formidable powerhouse (and free!) while Maya’s development has slowed down and the annual subscription fee I pay is eye-watering. “Maybe I should transition over to Blender,“ I’ve been telling myself, but whenever I try it, I have no clue about its peculiarities and workflows. Maybe all I need is a decent guide?
UK-based illustrator Rub Turpin was in a similar predicament, and mercifully shared a link to a Udemy ►course by Chris Plush (cgmasters.com) that “completely changed [their] understanding of it.“ The course is divided into 65 lectures with a combined running time of 5.5 hours. The price tag of € 95.00 seems also fair. Maybe I’ll give it a try… in 2025. I already paid for another year of Maya, after all.
3D MODELING • Why you should hire an artist over an AI — While we’re on the topic of computer graphics and modeling, character artist and digital sculptor George Crudo posted an illustrated ►thread on Twitter that demonstrates how 3d modeling will remain a human domain for the time being.
Because of the ongoing shitshow that’s Twitter, I’ve put a screenshot of the thread incl. some replies on imgur. That process was much more convoluted than anticipated, by the way, as Twitter revels in being as uncooperative as possible.
ARCHIVING • Your Tweets for Generations — And since we’re on the topic of Twitter, the indispensable Internet Archive posted ►a guide on how to bulk-archive your past tweets. Even when Elon has finished burning that site to the ground, you’ll still be able to read your hottest zingers to your grandkids/grand kittens many years down the line.
STREAMING • Teleprompting — Staples of every broadcast station for years, teleprompters have seen wide adoption from presidents to singers to, of course, streamers. Because of their broadcast pedigree, these things have remained prohibitively expensive for decades. In the past years, however, I noticed new players on the market that offered cheaper alternatives. The downside with many amateur prompters was (and still is) that they are semi-DIY projects: Gernerally they are rickety, most require you to supply your own display in the form of a phone or tablet and run and operate a prompting app.
Back in 2023 Elgato, the makers of a variety of gear for streamers, ►released The Prompter with an integrated display which you can feed more than just text; “[d]rag and drop any window or app onto Prompter’s display, just like a monitor”.
No, I am not getting paid for this plug (I know, I should!), I just think it’s pretty neat when recording scripted content, streaming, or video conferencing. For the record, to this day I rehearse and memorize all my monologues for my YouTube videos.
VIDEO • Where Do Skyrim’s Rivers Come From? — That’s the question that YouTuber Any Austin ►seeks to answer. It’s a wonderful, investigative lens employing real-world science (geology, geography, hydrology) through which to view virtual worlds. Big fan!
ADOBE ACROBAT’S AI • How to turn it off — Viewers of my streams know my disdain for Adobe despite my reliance on their faulty products, and that I am not the biggest fan of shoving AI into anything and everything either—including their PDF editor that likes to do summaries now.
Technical writer Wes Cowley noticed this “feature” and wrote a ►comprehensive guide on how and why to disable it.
PDF VIEWERS • …that aren’t from Adobe — Interesting, how the articles flow into each other in this issue. If you’re looking for an alternative PDF editor, you’re not alone. Pixel virtuoso Thomas Feichtmeir (cyangmou) asked the Twitter hive-mind for an Adobe Acrobat replacement that opens and prints PDFs, and allows for adding text and handwriting. Here are the suggestions from the replies:
- Microsoft Edge’s PDF Reader
- Firefox’s built-in PDF Editor
- Sumatra PDF (multiple mentions)
- Foxit Reader
- PDF24
- Okular
- Inkscape
- an older Acrobat version
- Ashampoo’s PDF Pro 3 (paid)
MANIFESTO • Against Software Development — Scholar Michael Arntzenius (rntz) wrote a short manifesto, ►Against software development back in 2018 and despite it being a little tongue-in-cheek it still holds.
“The basic Darwinian tragedy of software engineering is this: Beautiful code gets rewritten; ugly code survives.”
GAMEJAM • Fᵾȼk the system! — Currently there’s a game jam going on itch.io. Granted, there are always at least 40 game jams on itch.io any given minute but, in my humble opinion. this one is more noteworthy.
The ►Fᵾȼk Capitalism jam 2024 is for “you (and us!), who feel that things aren’t working, and those who know little or nothing about anti-capitalism but still want to provoke a change and learn in the process.“
The name is the theme, pretty much any form of art is admissible as long as it “include[s] a high dose of sharp criticism, hurtful satire, documented atrocities, pure rage, awesome alternatives and/or day-to-day tricks to fight against rampant capitalism in creative ways.“
The deadline is May 31st, 2024–also for capitalism, if at all convenient.
TABLE-TOP RGP • Just you and the road — To book-end a very driving-centric issue, I want to recommend Pencil’s ►Alone on the Road, a small table-top role-playing game, just for yourself and your imagination. All you need are two six-sided dice (we nerds denote that as “2d6”) and a set of ordinary playing cards. The game is free and the rules are just two pages.
Art & Inspiration
Art, science, and other inspirations that left an impression on me
The liminal architecture of the French Communist Party headquarters in Paris by Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012)
Sources: arch daily, Gestalten, Modernist Architecture, and lusso.
Pixel’s Mixed Bag
What I’ve been up to
◾ I started a little joke-game, whose title and gameplay is inspired by a botched German translation some Stasi spy made when he translated a ZX Spectrum game’s title, Full Throttle (1984), as “Bloated Thrush”. I am developing it with Game Maker but it is meant to look and play like an old game for the East German KC 85/4 computer. You play as a flappy bird trying to bring GDR consumer goods to the right consumers and the more bloated you become (by colliding with yet-to-be-implemented balloons) the more floaty the movement becomes. Just don’t pop!
◾ I’ve also been hired as a color consultant for an unannounced game by an Austrian solo dev. Since I never asked permission, I cannot disclose or share anything at this point for now… cue mysterious music
}
“Mathematicians throw shade like no others“
(Posted by Pustam on Mastodon)
You can support the Pixel Prophet at ko-fi, or donate via PayPal to ensure its sustainability. It also helps to tell others about the Prophet who share your great taste in newsletters.