I first stumbled across Eldritch, an FPS roguelike with a lo-fi aesthetic. It exists at an intersection of Wolfenstein 3-D, Minecraft, and Lovecraft. I immediately fell in love. I was then delighted to learn that the game was the work of a single developer, David Pittman – code, art, and music! The soundtrack is wonderful, ambient, spooky stuff and is a regular for me while working. Even better? David has made the game’s source code available – hopefully, I’ll have the opportunity to dig through it and write another modeling games post about it.
David’s currently working on a political thriller stealth game, Neon Struct, which sounds super interesting, and is pretty honest about its ups and downs on its blog. The title sequence gives a great vibe:
And JP LeBreton did a play through of a dev build:
Pittman is part of two-man team – twins, in fact – who form the studio Minor Key Games. His brother, J. Kyle Pittman, made two games that ooze with NES sentimentality. They so closely and cleverly evoke all my favorites from that period – Super Mario Bros. 2, Dragon Warrior, Metroid – that I swear he’s ripped tiles straight from the ROMs.
Continuing the retro goodness, Kyle is expanding the Super Win The Game engine for a new title, Gunmetal Arcadia, and is documenting the process!
Even more retro delight, a discontinued project called The Understory makes me wanna go and build a Wolfenstein 3-D engine and start dropping in lo-res, ZX Spectrum-esque artwork: