Every week is huge when it comes to Screenshot Saturday. More people than can be believed are working on creating new games, and every Saturday Twitter comes alive with their output all bundled together under a single hashtag. The games are on display by the hundreds and this feature pulls roughly a dozen from the pile based on how good/entertaining/interesting the image is. One of the fun things about the posting is how many of these actually have a demo or other playable chunk of game available, ranging from alpha to full game, so there’s more to do than just look at all the pretty pictures. Whether you’re ready to download a demo or two or just see what’s new, there’s a huge amount to check out so without further interruption, here it is.

Junkyard Madness- Run & slash 2.5D action featuring cybernetic ladies who hopefully have multiple arm attachments. Spikes and blades are nice but only have limited use outside of tearing up robo-monsters and the bosses of their dungeons.

Dark Devotion- Dark Souls-inspired dungeon crawler with a strong difficulty curve and the tools to overcome it, if only you can put the moves together. Experiment with the weapons you find to create your own build, adjusting and tweaking them with runes until you’ve got the tools to survive the darkness of the lost Temple.

Unlanded- A little too early to say but the warp effect is what hyperspace is supposed to look like.

https://twitter.com/foundationgame/status/1000385398747648000

Foundation- Build an idyllic medieval city free of grids or any other bounding device, plunking buildings down wherever seems best while managing resources and the peasants’ needs to keep your city alive. It’s maybe just a hair idealized, but you get to create a lovely pastoral paradise when it all works out properly.

Khorian: Dark Space- Space exploration and combat in a roguelike universe, where each decision has the chance to go horribly wrong. While similar to FTL in basic concept, there’s a morality system that constantly dangles the possibility of turning evil to make life a little easier. In a universe where ships are designed like this one it’s hard to stay on the side of good.

Peace Island- Open-world adventure on an island where there used to be people but now are only cats. Play as one of nine cats trying to figure out what happened, switching from one to the other as the story needs. All the people are gone, but are cats really the ones who will make the decision to bring them back? Depends on the cat, honestly.

Skellboy- It would have been nice if the living could fix things, but instead a skeleton will have to pick up the slack and save the day. Zelda-ish action/RPG where everything looks a bit like a voxelish cardboard cutout.

At the Biscuits of Madness- The unknowable madness that screams outside the edge of perception is really just frustrated that it can’t have cookies. On the one hand, the whole point of Cthulhian mythology is that once you look outside the simple life you know everything is so alien that trying to understand it will shatter your mind. On the other hand, it’s awfully frustrating to live an un-cookie-ed existence.

Feed the Beat- The Ludum Dare game jam’s most recent theme was “combine two or more incompatible genres” so this is a fusion of rhythm, food, and time management. You’ve got 24 hours to rise to the top, and each recipe takes a set amount of time to create and needs its ingredients defeated to the beat. Available to play in your browser on itch.io.

New wave types are being added! Larger fleets in later levels and graphics improvements across the board 😀

Have a great Saturday everyone! #screenshotsaturday #gamedev #gameart pic.twitter.com/fTcwzP16oq — Tiny Leviathan (@Tiny_Leviathan) May 26, 2018

Nightstar Alliance- Not the first VR game to replace the gun with a spaceship but one of the better ones to do it. Your hands are cute little robots and the main ship follows whichever one you grab it with, leaving the other free to snag powerups and attach them where needed. Defend allied ships and they join you for as long as they can survive the level, and they also have hard-points to attach equipment to. The introductory chapter is pay-what-you-want on itch.io.

Sluggish Morss: Pattern Circus- Not much detail on the claymation monstrosity in the corner or the game it’s in, but whatever is you end up doing that needs access to slime has got to be pretty serious if the only way to get it is through Toothy McTentacleHead.

Galaxy Champions TV- Cute little Smash TV clone, complete with “sport of the future, only tv show anyone watches” setup. The coins enemies drop go straight to the level-up meter, and there’s a flying enemy that’s easy to miss until you know to look for it that drops the big laser gun when killed. This is currently free over at itch.io, so give it a play or two.

A snippet from my new book POSTMORTEMS, which should be up for preorder next week. Collected essays and tons of new material on UO, SWG, Privateer, Metaplace and more. Here's a bit from a newly written history of PKing in early UO: pic.twitter.com/xX6z3OP3Zl — Raph Koster (@raphkoster) May 26, 2018

Postmortems- A lot of things happen on the way to release and much of it is completely unexpected. The author worked on a number of games both listed in the tweet and not, and the new book goes over the development of them during his multiplayer-focused career starting at MUDs, Starwars Galaxy, and up through the Facebook era.

Year 2600- A murderous square terrorizes the inhabitants of an Atari 2600-inspired world, setting out on a rampage that leaves no survivors in its wake. There’s not much explanation available so this seems as likely a scenario as any.

Megasphere- Run & gun action that’s been coming along nicely in Early Access for a couple of years now. The lighting effects on its pixel art have always been fantastic and that’s not about to change any time soon.

Bonus Image

Unnamed- It’s a door and it opens. What more could you want?