📰 2024 May-June Zine Issue and Wrap-Up!

Written by Renkon

Oof, it sure has been a while, hasn't it? These past couple of months have been as hectic as ever. I also managed to injure my shoulder pretty badly, and so that has slowed me down quite a bit. I'm sorry for the late issue release and slow updates in general. I think I'll be taking things easy for July and August as well, and combining those months again, in order to let my shoulder heal as much as possible. I'm very sorry for any inconvenience!

Anyway, enough talk! Time for the インディー通信 Indie Tsushin 2024 May-June zine issue!

The zine is viewable in browser on itch, and available for download in PDF, ePub, and MOBI formats on itch and Ko-Fi. We also have digital postcards (PDF and PNG) and the インタビュー特集 (Japanese interview edition) for download. Our zine is on a pay-what-you-want system so anyone can read it! We really hope that you will check it out!

Here's what's inside:

2024 May-June インディー通信 Indie Tsushin Zine Issue

👑 Pickup! Tokyo Game Dungeon 5

We looked at fifteen interesting games from Tokyo Game Dungeon 5 on May 4th!

🌟 Developer Spotlight: kazu and Shibo

Daikon dove into the colorful world of kazu and Shibo's large mini-game library! Solve mysteries, toy with puzzle boxes, and chase after high scores in this eclectic mix of creative games!

🎮 Witching Stone

Fall deep under the spell of roguelike deck-builder Witching Stone by Alexander Taylor! Take on enemies with the unique stone-connecting puzzle battle system, customize your loadout with different skill cards and modifier badges, and so much more!

🎮 Five Years Old Memories

We looked at the demo of Komitsu's upcoming interactive omnibus, Five Years Old Memories! It's a nostalgic peek into her friends' childhood memories, with warm illustrations and charming back-and-forth between Komitsu and the episode narrator. What stories do you have from when you were five years old?

🎮 Rumia Throws!

Daikon played through the demo of Rumia Throws, an upcoming action puzzle game from Tosa Laboratory! Play as Rumia from the Touhou Project universe and throw boxes, washbasins, fish, and other objects at enemies across dozens of compact and chaotic levels!

🎤 Interview with kazu and Shibo

We spoke with kazu and Shibo, the husband-and-wife duo making a staggering array of playful and fun pixel art games under tight one-week game jam deadlines!

🎤 Interview with Alexander Taylor

We talked with seasoned developer Alexander Taylor about Japanese life and indie roguelikes, as well as his work on the forthcoming deck-building puzzle game, Witching Stone!

🎤 Interview with Komitsu

We were delighted to be able to speak with Komitsu about developing hand-made personal experiences that draw from real life stories and memories, as well as digital picture books like the '90s Macintosh CD-ROM games that she streams on YouTube. And we of course talked about making Five Years Old Memories!

🎤 Interview with Tosa Laboratory

We spoke with Tosa Laboratory, the solo developer and major Touhou Project fan behind upcoming action platformer Rumia Throws!

Announcements

🩹 Taking it easy for July-August

As I mentioned above, I hurt my shoulder pretty badly and can't sit at my office desk for long stretches of time. I'll be taking it easy over July and August, and once again doing a combined issue released at the end of August. I've already got some stuff lined up that should go out soon, so please look forward to that.

🖥️ Website refresh

I spruced up the website a tad, specifically the main and zine pages! I am making plans for more changes later this month, so please stay tuned 👀

ICYMI

🏳️‍🌈 Indie Tsushin: Year 1 eBook in the Queer Games Bundle

The Indie Tsushin: Year 1 eBook is in this year's Queer Games Bundle! Be sure to grab it and hundreds of other games, zines, and other cool stuff before the bundle ends on July 12! Your bundle purchases will directly support queer creators in their future endeavors!

📋 Steam Curator page

Indie Tsushin now has a Steam curator page that lists all of the games we've showcased on our site that have Steam pages! If you are interested, please give us a follow and check out these games!

📰 2024 March-April issue

Check out the 2024 March-April issue and its games if you haven't yet. And be sure to look through our full catalog for more great stuff!

🍸 Happy Hour!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel and tune in every Thursday from 9PM UTC+9 for Happy Hour, a bilingual show introducing some indie games!

And now, a word from our sponsors

Just kidding! インディー通信 Indie Tsushin is ad-free, does not (and will never!) run sponsored content, and is mostly made by two people in their spare time. We write the articles, buy the games out of pocket, conduct and translate the interviews, lay out and edit the website and zines, pay for hosting and recording equipment, and so on. We do all this because we are gigantic nerds and hope that more people can play and appreciate Japanese indie games and their developers. We would gladly do it even if we never made a single yen from this.

BUT! If you enjoyed the zine, please consider buying our zines! Any amount would be more than enough, and would go a long way towards boosting our morale and keeping us going. Not only that, it lets us pay guest writers to appear in the zine! If you can't afford to donate, don't even worry about it! Indie Tsushin will always be available to read for free and will never go behind a paywall. You can help us a ton just by sharing our articles and videos, or rating and reviewing our zines on itch.io. Thank you so much for all of your kind support!

We also have a Ko-Fi where you can make a one-time donation or sign up for our ¥‎300/month tier.

🙏 Thanks for reading!

That's all for now, but be sure to check the インディー通信 Indie Tsushin blog for the latest articles, follow our Steam curator account, subscribe to the RSS feed, and sign up for our monthly e-mail digest so you don't miss anything! Hope you enjoy the issue and games!

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