Cal Michael is a developer who release a series of small games and zines on Itch.io – most of them cycle around a specific set of interwoven themes: The search for god, demons, (probably christian informed) mysticism, the sea, and especially sea urchins. I’m used to deal with strange media, but if the author hadn’t […]
Escape Guldur
Escape Guldur is a retro action RPG. A nameless character is channeling their way out of a prison cell and through a dark castle, filled with heavily armed, unrelenting, and – probably – undeath foes. Escape Guldur doesn’t bother with giving the player context (beside of the title, the vague graphics, and the weapon names), […]
Agentia
Agentia is a poetic 2D exploration game. You take control of something (that might be a human, animal, or even a plant or a thing) over some time of its existence. Depending on what you are, you have the ability to move around and interact with your surrounding world. In some cases you are a […]
I, The Living Flame
I, The Living Flame is a puzzle game developed for the GameBoy Color. The core game is a reinterpretation of the classic „Theseus and the Minotaur“ logic-game: The player controls a girl that has to find a way through a dungeon maze while collecting notes and evading an angry Minotaur that chases her. You have […]
Summer Vacation
I will go offline for the next two and a half weeks, and will return on 09/04/24. Have a nice summer, and thanks for reading the arcane cache!
Quantum Origination
Quantum Origination is a 3D exploration game, inspired by the developers dreams and the classic „LSD Simulator“ playstation game. Pouring dreams into media isn’t easy to do; dreams follow their own logic, and many of their aspects can’t be transferred by just retelling or recreating them, and creating a continuity needed for the audience to […]
Pocico
Pocico is a minimalist abstract puzzle game. Some games can’t be assigned to a certain time or era – they might have been developed in the early years of the medium or only recently, and still seem so futuristic that they could be easily used as a prop when a video game happens to be […]
ari against the bug blizzard
The great tree, long our home. This spring, weird bugs came. Ari Spider, pest controller! Help us! ari against the bug blizzard is a bullet hell/puzzle mashup. In an attempt to annihilate the robotic bugs that attack the aforementioned tree, you span up spider webs between (or on) the walls. Since the length of web […]
Tuuli
Tuuli is a text adventure game about life, death, fate, social roles, and black magic. You play a young witch apprentice, suddenly forced to replace her former teacher in performing a ritual to defend her home village against enclosing invaders. Will you succeed? And if so, for what cause and price? While the developers say […]
Kryftolike
Kryftolike is a minimalist dungeon crawler roguelike game. You control a tiny adventurer, roving through an infinite maze, collecting treasure. Points are awarded for gathering treasure and for exploring new tiles of the map. Monsters haunt the place, and will chase you once they become aware of you – you can’t fight back, only try […]