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Stardew Valley Beginner’s Guide – Everything You Need to Know

Posted on by Dave Pizza
This article is my Stardew Valley Beginner’s Guide. Along with some quick beginner tips on the game, unravel the narrative a bit, and in the process, let me share some helpful lessons learned from playing the game. Whether you’re just starting out, or returning to the game, I’ll show you how life in Stardew Valley pans out from parsnips to stardrops. So, without further ado, buckle your overalls, because we’re headed to the… Read the rest

Kraino Origins Spins My Spooky Indie Wheels

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Here we go with Kraino Origins. Add this to your Halloween Indie Game countdowns, because it’s got enough spook for the whole community. This game feels like it was made from the plucking of my own seasonal heartstring, with its borderline creep-fest color scheme and environment. Slash your way through constant monsters, zombies, and ghouls in this 2D platformer that spans 8 bosses–now out on Steam! Kraino Origins – What Is This Magic?… Read the rest

Overboard! is A Visual Novel That Floats my Boat, With a Great Narrative

Posted on by Dave Pizza
This article about Overboard is in the June 2022 Issue 4 of ChoiceBeat: The Visual Novel and Interactive Fiction Zine.With eye-catching flat graphics and exciting period stylized environments, no one could say the game Overboard! doesn’t have class. (Also known as Overboard! Get Away With Murder.) Literary elements and composition create an intellectual environment on the fictional steamship SS Hook, where your task is to resolve speculation on a murder. It’s not just… Read the rest

Hayai is an Awesome Artistic Enemy Hell With Samurai Action

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Hayai is a pretty cool game. I played another game like it recently called Pizza Tactics, but only in the sense that the main mechanic is drawing a path with my mouse. Really though, Hayai is a full-feature game aimed at casual play. Control one of 5 Ronin, and clear hordes of enemies swarming from the sides of the map by dragging a line between the individual enemies in one long swipe. It… Read the rest

Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue is a Neat 2.5D French Firefighting Game

Posted on by Dave Pizza
The idea behind Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue is in the title, Firegirl. I find myself drawn to this game due to its slight quirk and frank concept. But the game deserves a little more credit than assuming the entire plot is based on a conjunction of the words “fire” and “girl.” Although you are exactly that in the game, Firegirl is the type of game that should have been made, conceptually, at… Read the rest

A Showcase of Vesper: Zero Light Edition (On Switch)

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Vesper: Zero Light Edition is out on Nintendo Switch and PC today! Players can find this new version, plus the big debut Switch release, on eShop and Steam. It’s an innovative platformer with arcane space vibes and shimmering, colorful environments. It also includes a compelling and innovative storyline told through holographic recordings and plentiful checkpoint diversions. I played the first twenty minutes on my Switch for you. I have to say it’s one… Read the rest

Rotund Zero is a Super Cheap Preview of the Rotund Franchise

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Back with another Indie Game Collective showcase for Rotund Zero. It’s a precision platformer with a Game Boy monochrome style that uses directional keys only to solve puzzle levels made of bouncing blocks. It’s only $1.99 on Steam at the moment and encourages problem-solving in timed runs. You have 5 minutes to complete as many levels as possible, and there are 26 levels, 1 for every letter of the alphabet! You’ll be on… Read the rest

Galacticon Really Plays Like an Old Arcade Cabinet Style Game

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Today, I’m taking a look at the soon-to-be-released, arcade-style title Galacticon from developer Radin Games. It’s similar in style to 1980s arcade games like Defender, Joust, and Jetpac. You might be familiar with some of these from the book Ready Player One; and maybe the film, but I can’t remember, although I know Joust featured prominently in the book. I sat down with the space-themed preview they provided and honestly got really into… Read the rest

Jaded – Another Game From My ItchIO Free Game Binge

Posted on by Dave Pizza
I love these platformer games that emerge from the woodwork every single day. Today, that game is Jaded by Shellsnore games, up on Steam. It’s a standard platformer with directional keys, jump, attack, and a special mechanic which is a time warp. Although the time warp mechanic is more of a cacoon slingshot kinda thing, it works pretty well. I was able to bind my controller to the basic keys with no problem.… Read the rest

Peglin and its Pachinko Goblins – Trying the Demo

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Peglin is a great game where you complete levels by dropping a ball into a destructible pattern of mechanic-activating orbs. You can activate critical strike boosts, or replenish the board. And, before I gloss over too quickly, the purpose of this strategy is to rack up points that can then be used to attack mob health points, in effect winning the level and moving on. I was lucky enough to find the demo… Read the rest

Labyrinth City – A Fun Where’s Waldo? Type Game

Posted on by Dave Pizza
It’s been some time since a game like this has been featured on MrDavePizza. Labyrinth City: Pierre the Maze Detective absolutely belongs. As a game that originated in a book series, the game takes many cues from the visual classics of growing up for me. Incidentally, I was a big fan of books like Where’s Waldo? and Eye Spy, which are similar in scope and content as Pierre the Maze Detective–perhaps you remember… Read the rest

Recommendation: Ducksoup Dungeon

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Let’s jump right into Ducksoup Dungeon. It’s a free web browser playable rogue-lite on Itch.io by developer Richard Lems, also known as Blastmode Games. You might have heard of Lems’ work on the game Mighty Goose. In the game I’m discussing here, Ducksoup Dungeon, you choose one of four heroes. It is playable in a web browser or can be downloaded. Starting with “Slashchicken,” the first hero is a chicken. Gameplay With amazing… Read the rest

Dogurai – Heck Yeah, a Doggo Samurai!

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Dogurai by HungryBear is a Game Boy-style indie Metroidvania. I know about it through, a couple of co-creators from Indie Game Collective. Thank you, Jaunty Adventures and Pursuing Pixels. Their taste is superb, as this turned out to be an exciting game. I’ve covered very few Game Boy titles here, aside from Lasagna Boy and… actually, that might be it. It’s a great genre if you want to get into indies. In summary,… Read the rest

Bumballon Strikes My SNES Nostalgia Chord HARD, Plus it’s a Great Game

Posted on by Dave Pizza
I’ve got a great video up for Bumballon on my YouTube channel because I found this game on a Steam sale for 89 cents! With some investigation, I narrowed down some impulse options for pixel art platformers in the likes of some recent faves like Grapple Dog (which hopefully I’ll get to) and PomPom. It’s a game with unique characters and a traditional SNES-type side-scroller game that puts me into an optimized chill… Read the rest

Village Monsters: A Pleasant Town Sim Borrowing From Made Up Myths

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Village Monsters is a solo dev project from Josh Bosser. It’s a pixel art town sim that departs from conventional titles with an alternative community of friendly monsters. The game plays on similar genre themes as Stardew Valley but the content goes into the outsider/quirk genre of games with its monster acceptance communicated in each character’s unconventional friendliness. It departs from too much comparison by offering a vast amount of exclusive unique story… Read the rest

Showcase: Pompom is A Challenging, Colorful Hamster Platformer

Posted on by Dave Pizza
The recently released pixel platformer Pompom: The Great Space Rescue ran across my desk as a showcase opportunity through my friends at Indie Game Collective. It’s a precision platformer, sort of, with a feature I’ve never seen before this involving time slowing AND improvised platform placement. You can play with a controller, or you can play it with a mouse (or hamster actually, since that is Pompom’s main character you play as.) The… Read the rest

Moonglow Bay Takes a Slice Out of Those Times I Went to Canada

Posted on by Dave Pizza
I’m a big fan of fishing in games, but even more so a good story involving it. Moonglow Bay has done it. It’s a story about a retired fisher getting back out there. It is also about settling a community’s superstitions and getting back to the foundation of their livelihood. The story takes place in a traditional Eastern Canadian seaboard fishing village in the 80s. It is otherwise perfectly afloat in its conventional… Read the rest

Pupperazzi. Am I The Only Who Loved This Or Something?

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Dogs dashing, catching, posing, and dogs riding scooters to surfboards throughout the whole game. Pupperazzi is a comedy game with a pretty clean content concept. In all honesty, I initially wasn’t too interested in the game, until I saw it was on Xbox Gamepass where I tried it for free. To my surprise, I found this game very funny, and it had enough achievement-based gameplay that it was actually quite fun. I know… Read the rest

Donut County is Definitely Immature and Has GREAT Dialogue

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Forgive, me, because we’re about to “dive into” some game material from the past. All the way back to the year 2018. Which isn’t really that long ago, making the sentiment of that sentence nearly arbitrary actually. Donut County is on its fourth year after release, and I’ve been meaning to play it for about half of that time. Why did I wait so long? I have no idea, but anything that was… Read the rest

Moonlighter is a Much Better Game Than I Thought

Posted on by Dave Pizza
The game Moonlighter is a combination of rogue-lite dungeon-crawler mixed with trade simulation and story-rich RPG elements. This timeless, beautifully rendered pixel top-down was released by Digital Sun in 2018, and the game is available on most platforms like PC & Nintendo Switch.Moonlighter is a story about hopeful adventurer Will, a shopkeeper in the small commercial town of Rynoka. Although his family’s shop offers stability and prosperity, it is sustained by the materials… Read the rest

Showcase: Inked: A Tale of Love Is a New Hand-Drawn Game (Nintendo Switch)

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Well, here I am, back to keep things fresh here with a showcase for Inked: A Tale of Love I have the privilege of receiving a review copy for what was originally a PC game, now out on Switch, Xbox, and Playstation. Today I tested out the Switch version on the handheld mode and made my way through the first couple of chapters to see how well the transition has been (plus promote… Read the rest

Mago is a Colorful SNES Style Platformer About a Sorcerer

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Let’s take a look at Mago: The Villain’s Burger. It’s filled with so many fun easy-to-learn but masterable abilities and unique mechanics that you just don’t find in every game. The best way to understand it is most likely visually, but today I’ll be talking about why Mago is a promising look at how its developers are creating something that is, possibly, capable of going big if they wish. So, let’s get started.… Read the rest

Indie Spotlight: Fayburrow – a Super Cozy Student Project

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Today, I plunged headfirst into the free games pile of new releases over on the Steam store. On my arrival, I discovered a cozy little visual novel among the listings called Fayburrow, and I decided to take a look at it. Fayburrow is a free game created by the self-named “Fayburrow Troupe” at VIA University College in Denmark. It just hit the Steam store today. What was first intrigue, turned into a fascination… Read the rest

Dadish 2 is an Amazing Radish-Themed Epic Adventure

Posted on by Dave Pizza
I’m spending time playing a lot of food games lately. While cooking sims are the most obvious manifestation of this, platformers like Dadish 2 are right on board too. Dadish 2 is a continuation of the original Dadish game and both are available on most platforms. You, Dadish, awake from a nap at work one day when your several radish children come to visit you for “bring your kids to work day.” They… Read the rest

Make The Burger is an Indie Hidden Gem

Posted on by Dave Pizza
Welcome to my post about Make the Burger. This game’s release date on Nintendo Switch occurred this week, although it has a presence on Steam and ItchIO as well. This is a casual food truck sim with catchy and fun pixel environments and a line-up of hungry and paying illustrated customers. Your entire success is dependent on your ability to remember ingredient symbols and who ordered them. Take orders from customers to cook… Read the rest