Games

I play a lot of walking sims. It’s probably one of my favorite type of game to play when I’m exploring alt-indie games on itch. I think they are interesting for how they explore what it means to be in a space, the relation of space to a player, and how their existence brings into question why you even need goals to be motivated to meaningfully interact with a space. To me walking sims represent a type of interaction I can’t really have in open world AAA games. They are about carving out a tiny moment, and giving attention to...

There’s this type of play experience that’s unique to freeware. It’s been part of the internet ever since Dial Up. That past time of finding weird things to download, from sites that you might more or less trust, and running them. Games, software, weird small things… It’s a pastime that I remember fondly when our modem “could do” 64 kbit/s. I used to spend hours on Downloads dot Com searching for DOS games. I found Chickens 2 that way, and still have the original copy on my machine. I never had the heart to delete it. PC Gamer used to...

Recently I posted a Twitter thread about OSX Catalina blocking all my games… An update for those of you that can't run my games anymore on OSX because of Catalina.I'm so sorry about this…I'll probably write a post about this, breaking it all down for you, but the situation is as follows.(from my point of view, and own experiences with Apple)[thread] pic.twitter.com/PY0y3o9gNF — Nathalie Lawhead (@alienmelon) November 7, 2019 …since I’ve been getting people asking me about that, and there doesn’t seem to be much anyone can do at this point other than throw their hands in the air and...

Sometime last week I released the breakfast tool update to the Electric Zine Maker! You can download it on itch: https://alienmelon.itch.io/electric-zine-maker Or on GameJolt: https://gamejolt.com/games/zine/426661 I also have a lengthy devlog about it on itch.io (here) so you can read that for a detailed breakdown of what’s new. Overall I feel like it’s a major update for all the cute tools it brings to the table (including a more elaborate ASCII art painter, which I can’t shut up about because it’s ASCII art) BUT ALSO because it clearly defines the tone of the overall program…more than before imo. So far...

Earlier this September I released the tool update for the Electric Zine Maker. Yay! You can download it here. You can read the devlog about it (a list of all the new tools) here. It’s not a complete tool update. I released it because I’m kind of in the middle of a lot of uncertainty about the future right now, so (to get around that), I’m changing the release schedule to be more frequent instead of what I planned. I originally wanted to release tools in larger chunks so that it stays interesting to people… You know, if you release...

To start off, I would like to thank all my friends, and supporters, who have reached out to me. I’m also sorry that I’ve been very bad at answering texts, emails, and DM’s. I’ve been trying to stay off social media and lay low. Thank you all for your support. As you can imagine I didn’t expect this. In a recent Twitter thread I said that I would do a follow up post hopefully clearing the air and dealing with some of the misconceptions, or less welcoming theories about my intentions, that have been coming my way. Before you go...

On November 4 2008 I was contacted by a studio in Vancouver to design and build an ARG for their new IP. I talked about my experiences of working with this company before. For example, in this post. What I didn’t share, when talking about my experiences, is that I was raped by Jeremy Soule while I was working there. I’m writing this post to honestly, and openly, explain what I have been through. I am sharing emails between myself and my bosses (and others that I worked with) to provide proof of the abuse that I went through. I...

I have been regularly sharing my itch.io income numbers on Twitter. This year I’ve been doing surprisingly well on itch (the snowballing is kind of blowing my mind). When I last looked at the account overview I noticed that (since starting on itch.io, in 2015, OVERALL)… The Gross Revenue of my games are: $7,276.70 The very touching part of this is that the *TIP* Revenue is $7,164.18. That’s Tip. So ok, queue me melting into a useless puddle of feelings. I shared that in this thread, with some thoughts about what itch.io and GameJolt mean to me. I asked if...

This last week or so I’ve been neck deep in building the website for the Electric Zine Maker. At this point in development it seemed like a good idea to make it because I need to write people about it, and sharing just the itch page seemed boring… so here it is. I think it worked out wonderfully. It’s very interesting! LINK: http://unicornycopia.com/ezm/ It’s part of the Unicornycopia webring :) Yes, I’m viewing it as that now. All my games have a website, and it’s kind of cute to think of it that way. With making these sites, especially this...

I did it! The update is out! This feels like a big deal because it’s a fairly substantial one. I’ve been meaning to make a more concise design writeup about it, and talk about influences and things that went into it, because I think that the design process that would be interesting…but I’m very exhausted so I’ll have to save that for another time. Download link: YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT HERE So ok… this new update to the Electric Zine Maker brings a bunch of new tools. These are interesting because they’ll add dimension to your art, or give you...

The other day I posted this thread about inspiration and the importance of crediting the sources of your inspiration… so that your success doesn’t lead to the erasure of the less advantaged artists that inspired you… I’m now making this a post because I feel like the issue is complicated, and deserves discussion. It’s a topic that ends up being on my mind a lot since people will tell me how much my work influenced them, inspired them, or led to them making their game, and when it becomes popular that’s not mentioned anywhere. The “what inspired them” reason behind...

Playdate, now Playdate Pop Up, is a game showcase meets miniature event that runs as part of the LA zine fest. It’s been around for a few years now. It’s one of my favorite because of how low-key it is, and how it consistently showcases personal, niche, strange, weird, and wonderful games from a wide spectrum of devs. The games featured are feminist, queer, weird, and wonderfully experimental. It’s a beautiful fit for the zine crowd who are equally as feminist, queer, and weird. It’s also an event run very resourcefully, and personally, since the organizers don’t make money from...

I finally posted the Electric Zine Maker public beta. It’s two days old! They grow up so fast!!!! You can download the beta here: https://alienmelon.itch.io/electric-zine-maker The Electric Zine Maker is a printshop and art tool for making zines. It includes a drawing interface. You can import images, size and place them, write text with any font that you have installed, smudge, paint, and a number of other options. It's out!The Electric Zine Maker (public beta)https://t.co/yOVfooYtCv?? Easily create, draw, write, and print zines!? Folding instructions included!!?? You can save them, and re-import them.?? Made with collaboration in mind.? Try it! It's...

So here it is. I’m finally announcing it in a blog post, proper! If you have been following me on Twitter, then you’ve probably seen me talk about it. I’m making a zine tool! This is called Electric Zine Maker. It’s an art tool for creating zines. It will allow you to paint, write, and edit zines. It’s specifically targeted at the 8-page fold ones, but I’m open to adding more templates as soon as I have the hard parts of this finished. This grew out of a spur of the moment thing. I was fairly burned out (jaded?) after...

Since it feels really important to me to make an effort to explain the internet portion that surrounds the desktop version of Tetrageddon Games, I’m doing that here. I never talked about that properly. You can download the game here: https://alienmelon.itch.io/tetrageddon This came about because of this. Since I know how these things play out, if I were ever to build on this, or make something surrounding the subject that I have been working with for 10+ years… I’ll likely be compared to, or told that I’m copying the ideas from the new hit game made by men (I apologize...

RUNONCE (remember_me) is an existential desktop pet that you can only run once, and then never again. You can download it here: https://alienmelon.itch.io/runonce What I think is interesting about this is that it presents you with a warning at the beginning explaining that running it will “break them” and if you do then the damage is permanent. I think this is an interesting commentary on death, and how we view death. Aside from the impending permanence of something we will all be, you’re very likely to say “OK! RUN IT!” and as you interact with it the friendship grows, and...