I have published my "What You May Have Missed" list discussing some of my favourite video games and interactive fiction released in 2025. I hope you find at least one new game on this list that catches your interest!

Developers include @bagenzo, @JuliaMinamata and more!

https://www.autisticobservations.com/2026/01/30/2025-missed-video-games/

#MyWriting #VideoGames #InteractiveFiction #LGBTQGames

Tonight in the Think Tank: We continue Celeste and see how I long I go before I go mad!

Live at 10PM UK time at https://twitch.tv/ph4ntombr4in

#celeste #celestegame #lgbtqgames #happypride #pcgaming #twitchstreamer #twitchaffiliate #SmallStreamersConnect #smallstreamer

Solace State is launching this week on Sept 14 on Steam and Xbox!! And oh wait, I didn't mention it here yet!

Part of me is just now realizing how weird this is. But since this weekend, our game Solace State has been on Popular Upcoming. I'm getting surreality jitters like on a 48hr time delay here.

It's a game I started on a dream and hope 8 years ago and grew and grew to a really lovely team of LGBTQ+ majority folks. I'm so proud of us for bringing this together! Sometimes it's terrifying because I'm the only one funding and fundraising for it. But I really hope folks like it!

#cyberpunk #SteamGame #visualnovel #writing #narrative #lgbtq #lgbtqgames #solacestate #releasedate

Haunted Owlbear's Halloween Games, 2022/10/16 - Marginalia (2017, Connor Sherlock & Cameron Kunzelman)

Set deep in the woods of the US state of New England, Marginalia is an elegant walking simulator that really does make you feel like you're lost in a forest.

At first, red lampposts mark out a forest trail, each conjuring a new, fully voiced, narrative snippet. As you start piecing together the nature of the forest and memories that you're exploring, both the glowing markers that guide you through the dark and the story of the narrator's missing boyfriend begin to take on a stranger, more otherworldly tenor with shades of cosmic horror.

There are no jump scares, and the mood is one of ominous mystery, rather than full-on terror as you explore the vast forest. The ambient soundtrack is excellent and, for me, brought to mind Cult of Luna's more synth-driven moments.

Marginalia takes just over half an hour to complete, and there are no alternate endings (unless, like me, you fall off a big cliff and end up accidentally exploring a ravine instead of the mountain peak that everything's leading to).

Either way, the story is the same. The narrative is static. Interaction and emergent gameplay elements here are all about how you explore the deep woods. I managed to get myself turned around in the darkness, a familiar experience to anyone who's taken a half-familiar road too late in the day.

Marginalia a one-shot with no saves and no restarts, bar Steam Deck's suspend. However, you'll probably want to play this one straight through without too many distractions.

I had a fun time with it on the Steam Deck while keeping someone else company, but it's much more absorbing on a big ultrawide display, or at least in a dimly lit room, all alone.

Buy it on itchio for $6: https://connor-sherlock.itch.io/marginalia (includes the fantastic OST and a Steam key, get this one!) If you bought the Bundle For Ukraine in March 2022, you already have a copy (sans Steam key).

Alternatively, buy it on Steam for 4.99€: https://store.steampowered.com/app/889280/Marginalia/

Housekeeping note: Review dates are now going to match publication date, rather than game-played date. I'm going to stop playing catch-up and put any currently-incomplete reviews on the forthcoming Haunted Games blog.

#Spooktober #HalloweenGames #Halloween #October #LinuxGaming #HorrorGames #WalkingSimulators #SteamDeck #LGBTQgames #ShortGames #HauntedGames

Haunted Owlbear's Halloween Games, 2022/10/08 - Hir Corruption / Sa Corruption (2018, Mia Blais-Côté)

Hir Corruption is an extremely short bilingual (fr/en) interactive story written in visual novel engine Ren'py, although it's not a VN in the strict sense.

You are disturbed by a mental connection from another world, where the game's protagonist has found themselves in a dire situation in a famously haunted hotel. If you answer hir plea, it becomes your job to monitor hir vital signs and guide hir to safety. There are seven distinct endings, most of them going from bad to worse, and one of which I got unexpectedly by tapping in the wrong place.

The writing's enjoyable in both languages, particularly on some of the bad endings and on the stairway sequence. However, getting the good ending was surprisingly hard, because one of the choices it hinges on really doesn't signpost the fact that it's any "better" thatn its alternative in terms of in-game logic. Fortunately, the meat of the story is in your less wholesome decisions.

Rather than offering a language selection screen, Quebecois author Mia Blais-Côté has opted to display both French and English text on-screen. I liked this approach more than I expected to, although I ended up playing the game mostly using the French text, as it's at the top of the screen, with English at the bottom.

The game is runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and can be played with a mouse, controller, or the Steam Deck's touch screen. I used the latter, which was comfy but not as accurate about on-screen button presses as either of the alternatives.

No content warnings are supplied, but prepare yourself for some light body horror, a description of a dead child, reality warping, and a couple of claustrophobia triggers.

Download Hir Corruption free from itchio: https://miaqc.itch.io/hir-corruption

Hir Corruption is no longer available to buy on Steam, but if you previously bought it, you'll find it in your library. Its community page includes some notes and guides: https://steamcommunity.com/app/982770#scrollTop=0

If you fancy spending zero money and perhaps ten to twenty minutes on a tiny, incidentally queer, interactive horror story about reality gone bad, it's a fine choice.

#Spooktober #HalloweenGames #Halloween #October #IndieGames #LinuxGaming #NativeLinux #SteamDeck #HorrorGames #CasualGames #VisualNovels #LGBTQgames #HirCorruption #InteractiveFiction