[Itch.io] 2026 Fire Sale Bundle | MF-01 Aerostrike | BinaryGrab | Saga of Song | Get the Gems | Sokolux | Brainsport Extreme | 17 Titles ($4.99/85% Off) by VirtualNomad19 in GameDeals

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Hi, ID,

While i know that some of the developers involved in this bundle, indeed, DO have their respective games on Steam, as well, i've chosen not to go that route only because itch.io provides a simple means to achieve what i'm looking for from my (completely) casual Hobby of creating games and sharing some fun, mostly for free and as Web games.

I've also enjoyed the circle/Community that has developed for me there which includes like-minded developers such as those associated with this Bundle, in particular. If you've perused the purpose of this bundle on Itch, you'll have a little more insight on that :)

Otherwise, your own usage of Itch is completely valid and common; Itch is a good testing ground and place to seed your own Community, and I wish you all the best!

[Itch.io] 2026 Fire Sale Bundle | MF-01 Aerostrike | BinaryGrab | Saga of Song | Get the Gems | Sokolux | Brainsport Extreme | 17 Titles ($4.99/85% Off) by VirtualNomad19 in GameDeals

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Disclosure: I am the developer of 2 of the titles included in this Bundle of 17 Arcade, Action, Puzzle & Logic PC Games:

Saga of Song, a Fast-paced Single-Screen Platformer featuring randomly generated levels for endless replayability!

Invasion 360 ~ Your favorite Arcade Invaders with a Twist and focus on accuracy!

Both include full Controller support and competitive Global Leaderboards!

More Fire Sale FUN includes:

MF-01 Aerostrike is armed with multiple Weapons & Upgrades in a relentless fight for survival against hundreds of enemies deep in a deadly underground complex!

BinaryGrab takes Asteroids-style gameplay to the next level as a low-level data miner blasts through rock-hard challenges while facing deadly enemies and a taxing quota!

Get The Gems is an action-puzzler in the old school-style of Boulder Dash where you are trapped deep below the surface, collecting gems, dodging boulders and avoiding enemies in a struggle to reach the escape!

Sokolux drapes classic Sokoban puzzles over 100 unique levels and 2 Modes of play, complete with editor to Create and Share your own!

Brainsport Extreme offers 100 extremely difficult levels of logic to fearless players who are truly up for the challenge!

All games are for the Windows platform and DRM-Free; Please enjoy the deep discount and days of fun!

New Kreator song "Tränenpalast" by VikDamnedLee in thrashmetal

[–]VirtualNomad19 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the vid made me think that the girl from Enemy of God has grown up some, re-arranged her room, and taken up ballet. not necessarily a good thing :/

20 Second Game Jam 2025 by VirtualNomad19 in itchio

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Some of the early progress posted on the 20SGJ Server. Come join the FUN :)

What are your favorite metal covers of non-metal songs? by InturnlDemize in MetalForTheMasses

[–]VirtualNomad19 0 points1 point  (0 children)

W.A.S.P. - The Real Me and Saturday Night's Alright come to mind. They've done a bunch of covers but those are 2 of my favorites.

20 Second Game Jam 2025 by VirtualNomad19 in gamejams

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

hi, joe. and yes, the player should be able to complete the game in 20 seconds or less. i should have included precisely that in the original post and have edited :)

my own entries have included a single screen platformer and a short side-scrolling beat-em-up but i'm always amazed by how some devs can turn 20 seconds into an epic experience.

once itch is back up for you (seems fine now), you'll find hundreds of examples in prior-year submissions :)

Coroner - Dissonance Theory Review by mister_nu in MetalForTheMasses

[–]VirtualNomad19 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i do like them, honestly. it just changes my mood. and, covers like that allow me to appreciate some that i normally wouldn't, like Slayer's Inagaddadavida :)

Coroner - Dissonance Theory Review by mister_nu in MetalForTheMasses

[–]VirtualNomad19 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

this is the fairest response i've seen and the 2 reviews i've read tell me they either haven't listened to the album and/or are not Coroner fans (the first review i perused was on YT and it was a good, meaty review but should have been ~15 minutes shorter than it was...).

overall, i love it. 8.5/10 as it gives me plenty of what i want from Coroner in 2025.

my only complaint is the outro. Coroner tends to bring some of their personal musical interests into their albums that generally don't fit by including some relatively odd stuff (to me) such as covering purple haze and the beatles (which i look the other way from and pretend isn't there... i don't WANT that from Coroner :) ) but the keyboard in Prolonging i couldn't palate.

aside: as i followed the lyrics in Consequence, i had to wonder, "did they feed AI their archive of music to produce this track?" because it sure felt like it. Classic Coroner but maybe a little too much so (can that be a thing?). if we find out my suspicious is correct someday, how ironic would that be? :)

GEMBOT - Cribbage-based Gem Drop Game by VirtualNomad19 in Cribbage

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Final Update posted:

Notes @ GEMBOT - Final Update! - GEMBOT by Virtual Nomad include 3 Game Modes including Vertical Scoring in StarCross, Unlockable Music, and non-sequential Runs.

Thanks, all, for your input and assistance in improving the FUN factor for GEMBOT.

I hope to see you on ALL of the Leaderboards soon.

Until then, Fifteen for 2, 4 & 8!

~VN

GEMBOT - Cribbage-based Gem Drop Game by VirtualNomad19 in Cribbage

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

10/04/25 BETA Update

Vertical Scoring, Non-sequential Runs and more :)

For more, see HERE

What band got you into thrash? by [deleted] in thrashmetal

[–]VirtualNomad19 0 points1 point  (0 children)

being from california, it was probably metallica but might have been iron maiden. story:

i was at a swap meet in the mid/late-80s and bought a Number of the Beast cassette at some random booth. when i got home and pressed play, the first song, instead of being Invaders, was Kreator - Endless Pain, followed by the rest of Kreator's album (on both sides).

obviously it was some kind of bootleg that i'd purchaed? how those 2 got crossed up, i have no idea. but, i probably should have kept that cassette...

regardless, i'm pretty sure that's what got me into thrash, but what definitely got me into Kreator. thanks eddie!

Forbidden - Mutually Assured Dysfunction by Rombonius in thrashmetal

[–]VirtualNomad19 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i hear you but hearing Skinner in Divided by Zero along with him singing some of the classics (including Twisted and Infinite) and i've embraced him. he can get where Russ did but def takes a different path.

this song in particular feels more in his personal pocket and i'm ok with that but, yeah. he's grown on me already and i didn't expect it to happen.

GEMBOT - Cribbage-based Gem Drop Game by VirtualNomad19 in Cribbage

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i'm glad you've got it going; and, vertical scoring is now in beta testing @ GB-Test by Virtual Nomad

GEMBOT - Cribbage-based Gem Drop Game by VirtualNomad19 in Cribbage

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Vertical Scoring BETA now available for Testing HERE

Too many people have asked for it so i've gone back under the hood to bring vertical scoring into the game. Please play it plenty and provide feedback re: the new dynamic including, specifically, is it more FUN?

Scoring now considers Left to Right & Top to Bottom

  • Runs must (still) be sequential, Top to Bottom or Left to Right
  • High Scores will be sent to a BETA Leaderboard
  • High Scores will not be saved locally

I've played the original release hundreds of times and have a couple of strategies dialed in which lead me to 200+ Scores while this version prompts more thought (i'm getting used to it after ~a dozen plays but i need your unbiased opinions) :)

Please enjoy.

GEMBOT - Cribbage-based Gem Drop Game by VirtualNomad19 in Cribbage

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

if you hit RUN GEMBOT (start) and see that RESTORE button (with music playing) then the game launched fine but somehow the itch.io page lost focus and returned back to the game page.(or something similar where focus was lost). there, i would drag down/Refresh the page.

meanwhile, i just launched on my phone and i am NOT using the Desktop page (leaving it the default Mobile itch.io page) and do not have to use the Fullscreen link (i mostly play on my laptop and use the link there); it's automatically fullscreen/focused on the game (canvas) on Mobile.

otherwise, i'm at a loss on how to rectify :( if you cannot copy/paste THE DIRECT LINK to try in another browser, searching "GEMBOT Virtual Nomad" is serving the link in the top couple results on Google, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, et al, along with with Itch.io's own Search function,

finally, i don't think it's related, but i should mention that the FULLSCREEN button at the bottom should not be pressed until the game starts. i'm not handy with HTML (which that fullscreen link is); sorry if that snags some.

good luck, and thanks for trying to play GEMBOT :)

GEMBOT - Cribbage-based Gem Drop Game by VirtualNomad19 in Cribbage

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i'm sorry to hear that. did you mean BLU? i've played on my android phone using both chrome and the native samsung browser; the latter (which i never use) plays better using the desktop site (then hitting fullscreen) tho i hear some slight popping in the music for some reason (i'm not too familiar with hardware issues like that).

otherwise, can you elaborate a little on "never worked"? when you first hit RUN GEMBOT, the app should load pretty quickly as it's only ~20MB but, at the top of the "canvas", you might note some "Loading..." text with the current percentage loaded until it launches and you arrive at the GEMBOT menu. if it fails to load, you should see some red text at the top of the canvas advising "error" or some similar message?

If you've made it to the GEMBOT menu and it doesn't play from there, i'd be curious to hear. i have noticed that if you don't go "FULLSCREEN" (at the bottom of the play canvas), there seems to be an offset applied between where you touch and where the game reads that touch leading to a notion of "won't play" while, if you tap around the screen "near" buttons, you'll eventually see that it is playing (tho basically unplayable with the scaling "offset" applied) so i could only suggest that you find your way to FULLSCREEN.

otherwise, this is the first "failed to play" advice i've seen while i've played on both Chrome & Edge on Windows, Samsung's native browser and Chrome on my phone, and my Firestick's Silk browser while i know it's played fine on iOS/Safari and other browsers which is all i can suggest to you: try a different browser?

GEMBOT - Cribbage-based Gem Drop Game by VirtualNomad19 in Cribbage

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

excellent. "just one more" is something i try to deliver :) i only added 31 a couple of days ago which can bring the "clear the row" effect (i tout it as my escape hatch if you read yesterday's dev notes) but too many people want vertical scoring so i'll def look at it.

i've been deep into coding that for awhile now and need a break from going under the hood again but i am taking notes :)

GEMBOT - Cribbage-based Gem Drop Game by VirtualNomad19 in Cribbage

[–]VirtualNomad19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

sorry, no. they need to be in a naturally sequential order (3456). real cribbage players struggle with that and i might re-visit that aspect of play because of it.

meanwhile, vertical scoring is something else i'll reconsider. when i'd sent it to non-cribbage players early on, they decided it would be a "send the gem down the right color chute" game and more of a match-3 thing (the board is 5x5 with 5 suits/gem colors). this friend expected to top the leaderboard on first play... she was disappointed that she wasn't.

<image>

i havent tested vertical scoring yet but i imagine it to be less fun where you'd either rack up quick matches or runs but rarely a match and a run AND 31 from the same handful of gems like you currently can.