📰 2024 July-August Zine Issue and Wrap-Up!

Written by Renkon

2024年 9月 02日

Long time no see, huh? I hope you had a restful summer vacation! My shoulder is still acting up quite a bit, but I've been taking it easy and things are getting a little better every day. Starting from September, I am going to try to get back into the groove of regular issues every month rather than every other month. Fingers crossed!

But that's enough excuses. Let's get to the インディー通信 Indie Tsushin 2024 July-August zine issue!

インディー通信 Indie Tsushin 2024 July-August Issue
Get it on itch.io Get it on Ko-Fi

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 July-August インディー通信 Indie Tsushin Zine Issue

🎮 Magic Story 2

Title screen of Magic Story 2 by Frequen Modulation

Daikon explores the dungeons of Magic Story 2 by Frequen Modulation! Swap between separate parties to solve puzzles, battle monsters, and reunite in this cute and charming first-person dungeon crawler!

🎮 YOUNG TEAM SOUNDS

Title screen of YOUNG TEAM SOUNDS by POST COMMERCIALS: ALLIANCE

Daikon plays through YOUNG TEAM SOUNDS, an upcoming zine-like adventure game by POST COMMERCIALS: ALLIANCE that explores the dark side of creating music.

🎮 春待ちトロイダル (Toroidal: Awaiting the Spring)

Title screen of Toroidal: Awaiting the Spring

Daikon relives his final days before high school graduation in the narrative-driven deckbuilding roguelike, 春待ちトロイダル (Toroidal: Awaiting the Spring) by SameSameSummation!

🎤 Interview with Rukaka

A small pink creature with long blue ponytails and wearing a huge backpack telling the player, 'Yes yes, you've done well'

We spoke with Rukaka of Frequen Modulation, the doujin circle making the Magic Story series! We talk about its Madou Monogatari inspirations, working with SmileBASIC's Puchikon, and then with Hot Soup Processor for the in-development Magic Story 2!

🎤 Interview with Hajime Kasai

Close-up of the protagonist of YOUNG TEAM SOUNDS, Kubota, sitting upright and with one eye twitching

We had the opportunity to speak with Hajime Kasai of the creative group POST COMMERCIALS: ALLIANCE about their experiences writing about games and other media, and how that has informed the game design of their upcoming visual novel, YOUNG TEAM SOUNDS!

🎤 Interview with samesamekun

Muscular jock Hacchi staring down the player with wide eyes, with the sound effect of being glared at

We were delighted to speak with samesamekun of SameSameSummation, the group behind the charming and mysterious card-battling roguelike counting down the final days before high school graduation, Toroidal: Awaiting the Spring!

Announcements

☕ Zine issues now also available on Ko-Fi!

I've added back issues of the zine to our Ko-Fi shop in order to make it easier to tip in currencies besides USD! You can get your downloads there, or you can continue to view issues in browser and pay what you want on itch.

ICYMI

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Daikon & Renkon Play

We've started streaming full run-throughs of some games over Obon! Check out our full playlist for more videos!

🎙️ Renkon Plays

I've moved my VOD archives over from my personal channel to the Nice Gear Games channel, and am planning to stream more stuff during the day while Daikon is at work (hehe). Check out the full playlist for more videos!

📰 2024 May-June issue

インディー通信 Indie Tsushin 2024 May-June

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

🍸 Happy Hour!

Nice Gear Games presents 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.

Support Indie Tsushin on Ko-Fi!

🙏 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!

Thanks for reading Indie Tsushin!

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