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Demo Disk

A show about video games in progress.

  • ABOUT THE SHOW
  • LATEST EPISODE
  • ARCHIVES
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  • STEAM CURATOR
  • ITCH.IO COLLECTION
  • SEGMENT VIDEOS
  • PATREON
  • ABOUT THE SHOW
  • LATEST EPISODE
  • ARCHIVES
  • Plain Text
  • STEAM CURATOR
  • ITCH.IO COLLECTION
  • SEGMENT VIDEOS
  • PATREON
    • First impressions on first impressions.

      Every week, I play through video game demos, prototypes, betas, jam games, and so on. They can be any genre, from anywhere in the world, at any point in their development. They're as new to me as they are to you. The Demo Disk Podcast is a quick wrap-up of that week's games—what's interesting, what's engaging, and what's terrible.

       

      New episodes go up every Wednesday. You can see all of the full segments, including ones from past weeks, on YouTube. Or you can catch the stream live, Saturdays at 1pm Pacific.

    • LATEST EPISODE

      Available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, and more.

    • archives

      Episode 32: Rinse and Repeat

      We end Season 1 with just another day at the office: functional programming, illogical animals, and really needing to take a nap.

       

      Games featured:

      • Yet Another Exhausting Day
      • Operation E.C.H.O.
      • (Composition)
      • Glitch Pets
      • Orange Island
      • Slime Research

      Episode 31: This Old Space

      This episode focuses on older games. As in "already out". Look, always talking about upcoming games messes with your sense of time.

       

      Games featured:

      • Ascent: Crash Landing
      • The Subject
      • In Space No-one Can Hear You Jump
      • Gorescript
      • Lemma
      • Wand Wars

      Episode 30: The Bends

      "The bends" occurs when you quickly go from extremes of elevation. And with underwater exploration and mountaintop adventure, this episode certainly qualifies.

       

      Games featured:

      • Verlet Swing
      • Emergence
      • Izel's Observatory
      • Ribbiting Saga
      • Skybolt Zack
      • The Mystery of Woolley Mountain

      Episode 29: Benefits of Language

      Words are good. I use them a lot. So here are some games that are about words and communication, and some games that very much aren't.

       

      Games featured:

      • The Word is Not the Thing
      • Lab Assistant
      • Bird By Example
      • Small Saga
      • Spiralagon
      • Judged For Crime

      Episode 28: The Deep Blue Sea

      Is there anything more important than water, in all its forms? Maybe air. Hard to say. Water's definitely in the top two, though.

       

      Games featured:

      • Water's Fine
      • Mibibli's Quest
      • WaveCrash!!
      • Ada
      • Overflow
      • Mist Hunter

      Episode 27: Magical Thinking

      Is magic real? That question is not addressed at all in this episode. But we do address things that are close to magic, and that's close enough.

       

      Games featured:

      • Critters for Sale
      • Out of the Hat
      • Brownie Cove Cancelled
      • Cavern of Illusions
      • Gray Dawn
      • Alchemist's Mountain

      Episode 26: Dig & Build

      For this episode, we're going underground. And then above the ground. And then on the ground, but that ground's above other ground... it's all confusing.

       

      Games featured:

      • Mineralph
      • Down the Well
      • Timothy and the Tower of Mu
      • Phaeria's Mine
      • Unbound: Worlds Apart
      • Some Assembly Required

      Episode 25: The Narrative Episode

      Naturally, a good game requires good gameplay. But the best games also offer interesting and compelling narrative experiences.

       

      Games featured:

      • How Do You Know Mr. Blue?
      • Tennis Story
      • Genesis Noir
      • Fumiko!
      • Silent Night
      • Heaven's Vault

      Episode 24: Ludum Dare 44 Edition

      Ludum Dare is one of the world's largest game jams. In this episode, we look at six games from Ludum Dare 44: Your Life is Currency.

       

      Games featured:

      • 99 Hearts
      • Hydrate and Annihilate
      • Batclash
      • Bloodletter
      • Drytown
      • Escape from Hell

      Episode 23: Portions for Foxes

      Who needs human protagonists, anyway? We've got foxes and raccoons and... okay maybe one or two humans is fine too, whatever.

       

      Games featured:

      • Foxhunt
      • Zissi's Island
      • Backbone
      • Supraland
      • Mute
      • The World Begins With You

      Episode 22: Friends in High Places

      Look, all I'm going to say is: the session where I played through these games was on April 20th. Take that as you will.

       

      Games featured:

      • Stone
      • Cinnamon's Cooking Quest
      • Knuckle Sandwich
      • The Low Road
      • Pieces Between Us
      • Compass Rose

      Episode 21: Global Game Jam 2019 Edition

      The 2019 Global Game Jam asked teams: what does "home" mean to you? In this episode, we look at six of those answers.

       

      Games featured:

      • Trash Splash
      • Yellow Door
      • Cons & Truct
      • Heart of My Exploration
      • Billed to Order (it's a bird pun!)
      • Werewolves

      Episode 20: A New Life

      A new life can mean many things. Maybe a new body, maybe a new chapter in your life. Or, just good old-fashioned zombies.

       

      Games featured:

      • Inked
      • M.A.S.S. Builder
      • Tiaki
      • Reincarnation 3D
      • Maze of Adventures
      • Mind Crosser

      PAX East Special

      I spent four days in Boston this past weekend, checking out dozens of indie games at PAX East. This episode has my raw thoughts and recommendations.

       

      Games featured:

      • What the Golf?
      • Unannounced Title
      • Feral Frontier
      • Pacer
      • AvariaVS
      • Super Crush KO

      Episode 19: All-Natural and Organic

      Sometimes it's worth taking a step back and trying to be one with nature. Though, maybe not as much as some of these games. They go a little far.

       

      Games featured:

      • Symbiosis
      • Foxlight Journey
      • Paw Paw Paw
      • Yucatan
      • Project Hedra
      • How to Be a Tree

      Episode 18: IGF 2019 Finalists

      The annual Independent Games Festival looks to celebrate interesting, quality independent games. For this episode, we look at six of this year's finalists.

       

      Games featured:

      • Nth Dimensional Hiking
      • Forgotton Anne
      • Black Room
      • Sole
      • Circle0
      • It's Paper Guy!

      Episode 17: Super Untitled Episode

      Look, naming things is hard. Especially when you cover a whole lot of different genres in one episode.

       

      Games featured:

      • The Maze of Mezzlarus
      • Super Untitled Game
      • Exorder
      • Dusk Child
      • Super Animal Royale
      • Dungeon Drafters

      Episode 16: Cool as Ice

      What's cooler than punks or gun-toting cats? Ice, usually. Ice is fairly cold. Especially dry ice, that stuff is dangerous.

       

      Games featured:

      • Black Ice
      • Devil Engine
      • Cool Kid Cody's Totally Unreal Radical Quest for Godhood
      • Chester One
      • Born Punk
      • Gun-Toting Cats

      Episode 15: Fasten Your Seatbelts

      How do we really define a vehicle, anyway? Can a swivel chair be a vehicle? Are our legs not vehicles? No. No they're not. That's silly.

       

      Games featured:

      • Last Man Kicking
      • Hovership Havoc
      • Road to Your City
      • Atlas: Groundbreaking Adventures
      • Musical Chairs with Bulldozers
      • Wavey the Rocket

      Episode 14: <3

      Games are great for friendships! So of course games about friendships can be great too. But games can also be terrible for your friendships too, if they want to be.

       

      Games featured:

      • Arrow and Zary
      • Gumgem
      • Evan's Remains
      • Fling to the Finish
      • Marie's Room
      • Tower Princess

      Episode 13: The Sidescroller Episode

      It's hard to overstate how important it was when video games started scrolling the screen. My, how far we've come.

       

      Games featured:

      • Dreamscape
      • Forsaken Castle
      • Rubi: The Wayward Mira
      • Magical Monster Land
      • Powerglove Reloaded
      • Charlie II

      Episode 12: Gotta Go Fast

      An obligation, a compulsion, a competition. Sometimes you just have to be quick.

       

      Games featured:

      • Spaceport Babel
      • Kyle & Lucy Wonderworld
      • Horizon Chase Turbo
      • Plaque
      • Tunche
      • ΔV: Rings of Saturn

      Episode 11: Ludum Dare 43 Edition

      Ludum Dare is one of the world's largest game jams. In this episode, we look at six games from Ludum Dare 43: Sacrifices Must Be Made.

       

      Games featured:

      • Super Sellout
      • Jlim
      • Omelettes
      • Expendibots
      • Fixin' to Die
      • Total Party Kill

      Episode 10: Monsters in the Dark

      There are a lot of scary things out there. Dark forests. Mafia thugs. Late-stage capitalism. Stuff like that.

       

      Games featured:

      • Perfection
      • The Cursed Forest
      • Orphan Age
      • These Monsters
      • Eternal Home Floristry
      • Rainforest

      Episode 9: The Infinite Tomato

      It's a lot of tomatoes. A whole town of them. It seems to go on infinitely, looping around in the dark, unless someone steps forward and does something about it.

       

      Games featured:

      • Infinite: Beyond the Mind
      • OuroBound
      • One Step from Eden
      • Long Live the Axe
      • I'll Take You to Tomato Town
      • Blackout: The Darkest Night

      Episode 8: Dance 'Til You're Dead

      Sure, some of us have to work, but for many the new year means party time! Just be careful not to go too hard, or you'll meet all sorts of unusual or undead characters.

       

      Games featured:

      • Misshapen
      • Reaper Boy
      • Rock Robin
      • Double Kick Heroes
      • To Hell With Dave
      • Suits: Absolute Power

      Episode 7: Health and Safety Gone Mad

      Okay, I'd be mad too if "safety" meant super-fast driving or pushing around a backhoe. But you need to be careful when zombies rise, aliens invade, evolution goes awry, or you walk into a heavy metal album cover.

       

      Games featured:

      • Dead Pixels II
      • Stay Safe
      • Miscreation
      • Divenia Episode One
      • Valfaris
      • BH Trials

      Episode 6: T-R-I

      Sometimes, games are good for teaching you things, like history or geometry or robotics engineering. And sometimes you just doodle and dream about space adventures.

       

      Games featured:

      • Gravity Breakers
      • Super Bunny Kick
      • Triforce
      • Freja and the False Prophecy
      • Letters
      • Artificial Death

      Episode 5: Strictly Business

      We've all got our jobs to do. Maybe you're "filing" documents. Or curating a museum. Maybe you're delivering mail, or equipment, or cultists. But sometimes, you just need to go play in the streets.

       

      Games featured:

      • Neon Tail
      • Department of Truth Correction
      • Yoku's Island Express
      • God's Gift
      • After Hours
      • Museum of the Saved Image

      Episode 4: Duck Season! Rabbit Season!

      Duck season! Rabbit season! Penguin season! Rabbit season! Driving season! Tiny gardening alien season! Wait what?

       

      Games featured:

      • The Rabbit and the Owl
      • Fast Dust
      • Duck Jam
      • Heeey! Park-Boy
      • Pocket Penguin
      • Even the Rabbits

      Episode 3: Not Angery, Just Pupset

      This week, it's educational! We learn how dogs rap, hedgehogs think, and Swedes raise children. Valuable information to have when your world is beset by robots and bugs, or under attack from varied unworldly horrors.

       

      Games featured:

      • Fresh Pup
      • MindSeize
      • Bugs Must Die
      • Knåddskogen
      • Glitch Dog
      • As It Is
      • Lore Finder

      Episode 2: Tony Hawk's European Vacation

      After doing so much gardening and battling so many monsters and demons, we've earned a vacation! Grab your skateboard, come to Europe, and jump into a lizard's mouth!

       

      Games featured:

      • The Lesser Known Cities of Europe
      • Garden Paws
      • Lizard
      • Aeon's End
      • The Textorcist
      • SkateRide

      Episode 1: In and Out(er Space)

      What's scarier: a world full of monsters, a lifetime of damaged memories, or a broken fourth wall? Perhaps we need some minimalism and some unconventional weapons to chill out.

       

      Games featured:

      • IIN
      • Monster Sanctuary
      • The Four-Eyed Creature
      • Tape
      • Glitched
      • Deathroned
    • The Host

      Zoe Landon has been making content for and about video games for over 15 years. After a career in software engineering, she obtained a Masters in journalism and communications. She now lives in Portland, OR. You can find her on Twitter, or streaming various independent games on Twitch.

    Copyright Zoe Landon 2018

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