This Month’s Games
On Stream
Mainframes
I love a platformer. I especially love ones that feel like they’re in a unique space or tell a cute story. Mainframes hit all those boxes for me. You play as a lil floppy disk trying to make it way back to its computer. Along the way, you encounter the other programs that live in the computer. They’ve formed their own lil society in the computer’s files so that they can take breaks from always working. As the game progresses, you learn more about the folk who work on the computers that you’re inside, and the decisions that their company makes quickly start causing some issues for Floppy and the homies.
The platforming in this game is occasionally pretty brutal, but it has some solid accessibility features that you can quickly toggle on and off to help make your way through some of the more frustrating parts of the game.
Overall, it was a fun game to play through, but it definitely tested my patience a few times. I did also play on Switch. At the time of playing, there was no way to select specific levels, but it does look like that feature has been added on Steam. I might suggest picking up on that platform because going back to find some of the collectibles just isn’t possible without fully replaying the game on Switch right now.
Frogsong
I was excited to back this game on Kickstarter a few years ago because it’s such a cute lil game about a frog tryna find their way in the world. Yall. Why do I always set myself up to play sad-adjacent games? Frogsong follows the adventures of Chorus the nonbinary frog who’s trying to become a warrior and ends up fighting eldritch horrors to save the world.
I didn’t expect the story that this game walks players through, but I really enjoyed it. They explore what happens when someone grows into the person they want to be, how the people who knew the previous versions of them can react, and how to start over in a new community. I don’t want to get too much into the story of the game, because I really think folk should go and try it. It was a really good, kinda short game with a good story and a great soundtrack.
On My Own
A Short Hike
A Short Hike is a game that’s been on my backlog for a long time. My older sister played it a few years ago and fell in love. I’ve watched YouTube let’s plays of it, but had never taken the time to just explore the game on my own. It’s so worth it. This is one of the most charming games that I have ever played.
I became a stickball world champion, I collected seashells for a homie that didn’t even actually want them, and I helped a homie pay for their college tuition. There’s just something that feels good about helping folk in the area and getting to explore without feeling pressured to get to the next thing.
If you’re looking for a chill and comfy way to spend a day just running around and exploring, I highly recommend playing A Short Hike.
Graceful Explosion Machine
I’ve been looking for a game to just chill with before heading to bed that’s really easy to just play 1 or 2 rounds. I picked up Graceful Explosion Machine when it came out on Switch back in 2017 and I think I just never played it lol. I wasn’t usually big into the arcade shooters but I loved the colors in the game, so I wanted to check it out. Well, I finally loaded it up last month and it’s honestly super fun.
The core loop is honestly just an arcade spaceship shooter. You pilot your lil ship through increasing numbers of enemies doing your best to get style points and clearing the level as quickly as possible. There are a couple of different weapons to use and it’s a great game to pick up and play a couple of rounds when you need a lil break.
Cipher Zero
Okay, I’m starting this off with an apology to the friends I bothered with this game when I was playing it lol. This game took over my brain space for a couple of weeks as I tried to figure out what it wanted me to do. Cipher Zero is a logic / minesweeper puzzle game without any hints or written rules. It’s all up to you to figure out how to complete the puzzles.
I haven’t been so locked into a game as I was with this one in a long time lol. I loved slowly learning about how each new rule layered on top of the one that came before it (the rule with the star shapes still doesn’t really make sense to my brain).
The Rogue Prince of Persia
It was finally time to load Rogue Prince of Persia back up. The game dropped out of Early Access on August 20th, 2025. I wrote about my thoughts the last time I played through the game; you can read them here. The game does feel more fun to play, and there’s a bit more variety than the very early days.
I finally rolled credits and got the “true ending” of the game this past weekend. I really loved the mind map portion of the game and seeing the ways that each area changed in small ways as I rescued more characters. I feel like the game was a lil rushed towards the end, but I appreciate the way that they wrote the end of the story.
Given the studio’s experience with Dead Cells, I’m interested to see if they continue to add DLC or other content to the game after its release. Tbh, I’m not really sure where they could go next with how the story ended. The OST is excellent; if nothing else, I hope that you will take the time to listen to it. It’s one of my favorites from this year.
Content Creator Tips - Make it
As always, the world weighs heavily as I’m writing this. I continue to sit in the middle of two thoughts. - Does it even matter that I’m trying to make things? - It’s more important than ever to create things that feel important to me. But let me tell you, tryna make things when it feels like every single day the world manages to top the ways that it is terrible is not easy. It can feel like shouting into a void and not knowing if it mattered. What you made did matter. It might not be the thing that makes you take off as a creator or the thing that gets a bunch of folk to download and look at the game you made. But it matters. We never know the reach that we have or what something will mean to ourselves when we see the finished product.
Like I was talking about in the next newsletter, sometimes we gotta just remember that we’re making things for ourselves as much as it is for the audience we have. We gotta just trust that it’s worth it and keep putting things out there. I gotta just trust that. I’m excited for us, even though I know we’re in for an incredibly long marathon out of this. We’re still gonna make beautiful things.
My Content for this Month
Twitch Streams
September basically passed by without streams. My work schedule somehow got busier, so I didn’t have the energy to go live as often as I had wished. We’ll be back for some streams in October!
Updates to Big Adventures in Small Places
There’s a new Zine edition of Big Adventures in Small Places up on itch.io. I clarified some of the instructions that I thought were kind of confusing. I am currently working on a more accessible version that uses a standard font, so keep an out out for it!
You can download Big Adventures in Small Places here.
Coming Up
Might want to sign up for a free (or paid if you got a couple extra dollars) on my website for the next month or so. There might be some content that will release just for members first leading up to my birthday in October, so head over here to check it out and sign up: pizzayeti.com. Free and paid members will be able to take a look at all the content!
Ending
See yall next month.
Keep telling stories. Keep creating. You are important for the world that we want to create. I look forward to continuing to build a better world and better stories for us all. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I’ll see y’all around the Internet.
