A long history of queer projects in Indiepocalypse
Hello! Today, let’s look at various queer projects and games throughout Indiepocalypse’s history. If you’re reading this around when it releases, then happy pride month! Let’s begin!
To start, we’ll begin with one of the very first queer games in any Indiepocalypse zine, with dinosaurily! Published in Indiepocalypse #2, this game was made by jellolin and Fentroid and is described as “a queer dinosaur game about found family and affection.” The game itself is pretty straightforward; you control a dinosaur with a flower on their back, and you can drag and drop stickers onto the ground. You can also put flowers all across the ground whenever you like, and you can walk around and get other dinosaurs to follow you and play as them if you’d like. The backdrop is made up of pictures taken of various buildings, arcades, and flowers. There is relaxing ambient music, there’s a somewhat nostalgic visual filter overlayed that reminds me of sitting in the car looking out the window while my parents drive through the city at night, and various affirming words and messages across the screen. It’s a very, very simple project in that there isn’t much story or mechanics or anything, but it feels like a cozy and short experience, and I think that was the goal.
dinosaurily
The game itself was made quite a while back; when this feature goes out, the game will be over seven years old. So, something I’d like to do here for these games is talk about what the developers have been up to since their project was featured and what they’ve been up to since, and there’s a good bit under jellolin’s portfolio. They released a colorful skating game called Magic Trick a few years ago with a whole team, and still released a few game jam projects since, with a lot of them being focused on queer topics like gender and sexuality and have been featured under New York Times under the Game Devs of Color Expo.
Next up, let’s jump into Yuki’s Palpitating, Passionate, Phenomenal, and quite frankly Proficient quest for a (hot) girlfriend!!! from Indiepocalypse #22! Also known as Yuki’s 4P for short! This is a visual novel by milkkylemon and described as “a useless lesbian tries to get a girlfriend.” And that’s pretty fitting… The game is where a girl named Yuki starts her year at high school and ends up wanting to try and get a girlfriend, and winds up with three different girls who are all interested in her. She goes on dates with all three and then must choose between them at the end. It’s a short and cute little story and took me a half hour to go through, and that’s also what makes it really nice. It’s a sweet little yuriful experience of watching a girl verbally keyboard mash while getting hit on, and with a lot of adorable artwork to accompany it.
Yuki’s Palpitating, Passionate, Phenomenal, and quite frankly Proficient quest for a (hot) girlfriend!!!
Something I think that’s worth noting is some more stuff from the developer! Digging through a bit deeper, I found that the game has a few extra little bonus content and stories that are worth checking out if you enjoy the first. There’s a sequel, a not-canon spinoff story, and additional short story that accompany this. It’s also just really neat seeing the growth; there’s a clear increase in quality with the artwork in the last entry, Winter Makes Me Lonely But At Least I Have You, compared to the original Yuki’s 4P and I think that’s really awesome to see milkkylemon kept at it.
Next up, let’s jump ahead to Indiepocalypse #57 and see the game Aquatic Grave by LiminAce with art and music by Locria. This game is an RPG Maker game submitted originally to RPG Horror Game Jam and was the developer’s first game project, which is impressive! We begin with Marissa having a vacation on a cruise ship, but the ship enters a storm and doesn’t make it out in one piece. The only reason Marissa survives is thanks to being saved by a mysterious woman named Cordelia, who takes her into her home that’s… underwater? This game is an hour-ish long experience and focuses on Marissa both spending time relaxing and falling in love with Cordelia, at the same time as wanting to try and leave and slowly realizing there’s something off about her savior from the sea.
Aquatic Grave
This game has quite a bit of contrast to the last one in that it’s a very different dynamic. Through the game, you get to see glimpses into Marissa’s past experiences in toxic and unhealthy relationships with other women she had dated and the constant blows to Marissa’s value and self worth. And while one of the possible endings of the game is staying with Cordelia and making a life there with her, it’s not entirely glorified; Cordelia’s far from innocent with having similarly manipulated Marissa and part of the point of the game is Marissa finding a way to break free and fight for herself instead of letting others walk all over her in a toxic form of “love.” It reminds me a bit of the idea and sense of “queer longing” that many LGBTQ+ people often experience, with both Cordelia and Marissa looking for and longing for a love they can throw themselves into, but the one displayed here is built on a massive lie and Marissa’s own insecurities are taken advantage of with it.
For a small jam game and first project, this game has a decent amount to it between having nearly 30 CGs, original music and art and multiple different endings. It was a nice experience, and fortunately, the developer didn’t just stop there. They’ve made several more projects (that do also include some more yuri) and have been hard at work since and are active on Bluesky posting about their projects.
Let’s take a detour to something a little different and very experimental, with a more recent issue over here with Indiepocalypse #70. This isn’t a game like the other projects but instead a map made for Doom II, called “Lavender Birth.” The map was created by Chariot Rider for the GAYhem 2024 Community Project. From looking over Chariot Rider’s Itch page, they’ve made a few small and short projects but also some more experimentation with Doom with creating an art museum and pride flag texture pack. For a full disclaimer, I’ve never actually played a single game in the Doom series; I just know my parents fought each other in one of the games before I was born. But I’ve got Doom II in my Steam family share, so I decided to give the map a try and look around it.
Lavender Birth
Once loaded into the map, there’s ambient music in the background and a star-filled skybox, alongside a path with candles every now and then. Along the path, I’d come across poems describing a lavender garden, and I’d find more parts of the passage the more I progressed. I believe the poem was written by the creator of the map, and it’s harrowing at points. According to the text file included with the map, it’s about the creator’s experiences coming out as bisexual, and both the beauty and struggle of it. I think the format also adds a level of surreal or dreamlike feeling with the aesthetic and use of being a fanmade map for a game made back in 1994. As for the game’s name, the word “lavender” is often used to symbolize queerness, and that “birth” I’d interpret as part of that realization of being bi. The map and poem are pieces of art you should see for yourself, it’s a unique way of using the medium to portray those thoughts and ideas.
There’s a massive amount of additional queer games and titles throughout Indiepocalypse, and plenty I missed and won’t be able to catch with this list. But I’d like to at least mention quickly a few other ones I played while diving through the various issues to at least give them some recognition. In #33 is Escape the Bullpen, which is a visual novel and platformer about a pregnant trans man in a dystopic world focused on breeding and reproduction as he tries to locate and save the one person who can help get him an abortion. There’s a project called Madotsuki’s Closet in #16 which discusses how theorization and interpretations of the protagonist of Yume Nikki possibly being transgender lead to author’s own self-discovery. There is the Game Boy Color homebrew game Yurivania 3: Circle of the Polycule in #51 about a polycule (of various non-human entities) trying to come together to meet in person and go on a date together during an eclipse, and where you deal with scheduling to make it work. And I’ve got my own queer game in #62 about a girl named Cass and enby named Afeil finding solace in each other while fishing at a lake!
Madotsuki’s Closet
That really is what I think makes part of all this special. Indiepocalypse is, at its core, a collection of all sorts of weird games by different people bundled together and made available to both support the developers and help bring visibility to such a huge variety of kinds of art. Sometimes it’s a happier story being told, and other times it’s much more bleak, but it’s always something somebody made from their heart and put into existence because it’s what they wanted to make. Personally, I wouldn’t know about these projects and games if I didn’t spend time going through a ton of Indiepocalypse, and there’s so many more games I haven’t experienced but want to once I have the time. It’s a celebration and showcase of art by so many people, and in that celebration is a lot of queer art as well. It’s something really beautiful, and I’m happy to have taken you on a little bit of a look into these works. Thank you for reading!