Ghoul Kazool is an alt-control experiment where players use either their keyboard or the custom “kazool” controller to make sounds and rack up “Ghoul Power” in an endless rave throughout looping days and nights. Something in the experience may be lost when it’s played in-browser, but we think it’s still worth a look for the charming art and sounds.
In programmer Nick Kalita’s world, Mavis Beacon teaches magic.
Wordlock, Kalita’s top-down, illustrated dungeon crawler, merges the word-based combat of Typing of the Dead with the frantic pace of Enter the Gungeon.
Loyalty is a difficult thing. Some have it for themselves, others for a leader, and others still for a place. Avitium, Studio MiK’s 2025 card battler, asks its audience to stand behind their ideals or die trying.
Cozy life simulation games have gained massive popularity since the early 2000s, with series like Animal Crossing and titles like Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe, 2016) taking over the gaming world. In a post-lockdown world, escapism is popular. Go figure.
However, the appeal of kind neighbors and mist-cloaked forests is lost entirely on Keith Thomas, developer of Dock King.
Ah, the switchboard. One of history’s most important and unsung political tools.
If legend is to be believed, total nuclear annihilation was narrowly avoided by a single telephone operator routing international calls.
Kill, loot, boss, repeat, return.
This is the gameplay loop of CARNiVORY, an upcoming roguelite shooter from Chicago-based studio Chowdahound.
SUPER PHANTASY FIGHTERS is a platform fighter developed by solo dev Andrew-P using visual assets and lore from Phantasy Star Online 2 (Sega, 2012).
That technically makes it a fangame, but that label doesn’t fully cover everything SPF has going on under the hood. Andrew-P made all the code in the game from scratch, from controls to the camera to the hitboxes, which he said he had to program twice just to get them right.
SUPER PHANTASY FIGHTERS Read More »
I made an exploration game, Tall Trails, and released it recently on Steam. So, I wanted to catalogue a list of some of the silly, not fully polished things that shipped in the game that no one has complained about so far!
Things no one complained about in Tall Trails (and some they did) Read More »
Summer means two things around here: hot dogs and AllStars.
Luckily for us here at Back Alley, one intrepid team of developers crafted an experience that marries those seasonal pillars with the threat of carpal tunnel and a healthy dose of Wii-era shovelware nostalgia.
Hotdog Heaven: Chicago Read More »
To the average person, a flute is perhaps one of the least intimidating instruments in the orchestra. To marching band survivors flashing back to piccolos trilling at full volume, it’s a bad memory. To players of Miki Straus’s Pan, it’s something else entirely. A weapon.
