just finished #mashina. lovely game!

i woke up humming “julia, hope you’re happy in konya” from #mashina soundtrack after trying out latest updates to the game.

i backed #mashina by this duo, and it turned out to be such a fun game with an amazing soundtrack. i’m sure abide will be better. last few pounds to go! www.kickstarter.com/projects/637...

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ubq3oiw6j5ygux55vyxrhj47/post/3mfkefvvld22y

【Game Log: Post-July 2025】


Tried a lot of stuff out, with reasonable success.

Major Timesinks and Finished Games

Wheel World is the most recent game from Messhof. It's an open-world cyclic games where you ride around an island finding random bike parts and challenging riders to races. The cycling is immediately intuitive and great fun. But beyond the first tutorial area, everything about it becomes frustrating. The races are simultaneously unchallenging and annoying. There's a second area that ultimately requires need 100% of every side-objective to finish. And the bike-modifying mechanic is completely irrelevant because there's always a best option from beating boss races.

I got most of the way through Cipher Zero. The puzzle's difficulty ramps up in a reasonably satisfying way towards the end. But ultimately suffers from eternally being stuck on one puzzle with no other options.

Mashina is the latest game from the creators of Judero. It's a charming claymation game about the titular Mashina and her friends. Mashina digs through a 2D cave for minerals and fun items for her chums. There's no real story, but there's a lot of fun interactions between the characters. There's also a great soundtrack in the form of FM radio stations, which have their own associated host drama.

Strange Jigsaws is the follow up to 20 Small Mazes. It's a collection of wacky puzzles that vaguely resemble Jigsaws. There's a great sense of humour and originality to the puzzles and "story" of the game. It does suffer from the occasional obtuse puzzle, and frequently these are chokepoints in the game (unlike 20 Small Mazes). But there is also a provided walkthrough if you really get stuck. Despite its flaws I had a fantastic time.

Is This Seat Taken? is a Wholesome Games (tm) pty ltd LLC patent pending Donut Steal, puzzle game about arranging characters in seats based on their preferences. It's a fairly solid game, and frequently the puzzles are fairly satisfying. But there's also a lot of ambiguous language and ridiculous assumptions in the game that are just frustrating (Hungry and Thirsty are treated as synonyms, characters that "want to look out the window" will happily sit with their backs to it). Unlike with Strange Jigsaws, there's something about it that makes every minor bug intolerable.

Still playing a lot of OpenTTD. Changing the cargo distribution from "default" to "assymetric" makes the passengers in the game have a specific destination, rather than happily be distributed anywhere. It makes the game much more interesting, but much harder.

Tried Out, Revisited Briefly, or Viscerally Hated

The Necromancer's Tale is a stat-heavy CRPG with a loooong statbuilding intro, about the son of a military hero returning home to investigate his death. It is rough around the edges and held together by string. But I've enjoyed it a lot. I've put it down for the short-term due to near daily bugfix patches.

Complex 629 is a top-down adventure/mystery/puzzle game set in a haunted apartment complex in winter. It is highly weird, every conversation is deranged, and there's a giant grandfather crawling the halls. The protagonist has two mouse controlled limbs to pick up things and throw with. Looking forward to playing more.

Brigand: Oaxaca an ambitious and very low-fi FPS RPG mostly from a single developer. I built vagabond character who could charm and seduce characters into doing their will. Then I struck a gas tank with an axe and died.

July Game of the Month

The Drifter, one of the best Australian games ever, and a fantastic adventure game thriller.

All Games Played


OpenTTD: GREAT


Automobolista 2: Good


RAMP 2025: GREAT (Notable)


Cipher Zero: Good


The Necromancer's Tale: Good


Wheel World: OK


Complex 629: Good


Mashina: GREAT (Notable)


Strange Jigsaws: Good


Brigand - Oaxaca: Good


Is This Seat Taken?: OK

#mashina Svelata la data di lancio di Mashina Mashina uscirà il 31 luglio https://www.gamernews.it/notizie/2025/07/19/svelata-la-data-di-lancio-di-mashina-20206.php

Handmade stop-motion digging adventure Mashina arrives July 31 #Mashina #IndieGames #PCGaming #Gaming

Handmade stop-motion digging a...

Handmade stop-motion digging adventure Mashina arrives July 31 https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/07/handmade-stop-motion-digging-adventure-mashina-arrives-july-31/

#Mashina #IndieGames #PCGaming #Gaming

The Best #steamnextfest Indie Game Demos (Part 4)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Grz3FSqLsIA

This is part 4 of our demo coverage of February 2025 Steam next fest.

0:00 Intro00:14 Mashina1:06 Roots Devour2:57 Rift Riff4:22 Kill the Music5:29 W
https://setsideb.com/the-best-steamnextfest-indie-game-demos-part-4/
#indies #BadCheese #Cauldron #Centum #ConquestDark #indie #indiegameshowcase #KillTheMusic #MachineMind #Mashina #nextfest #Nordhold #RiftRiff #RootsDevour #steam #WildGrowth

Mashina, nuovo indie che fonde platform, strategia e stop-motion, finanziato su Kickstarter in 21 giorni! Creato da Talha e Jack Co. (Judero), vi mette nei panni di un robot minatore. Scavi 2D, mondo 3D, costruzione e colonna sonora "synth retrò". Atteso per il 2025. #GiochiPC #Notizievideogiochi #gamingnews #Videogiochi #Mashina

👉 https://www.absolutegamer.it/il-dev-dietro-al-piu-grande-rpg-del-2024-ha-un-nuovo-gioco-e-ha-superato-il-suo-obiettivo-di-finanziamento/

Mashina: New Stop-Motion Game From The Team Behind Judero Open For Funding On Kickstarter

Jack King-Spooner and Talha Kaya, the developers behind the critically-acclaimed Judero, are back with a brand-new stop motion game – Mashina – which is now looking for funding on Kickstarter.

Jack appeared on BBC Scotland recently to describe the game and his approach to game design and creation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_w86eG7GEM

Mashina is described as a ‘digging adventure’. Players take the role of Mashina, a friendly mining robot tasked with finding minerals to help mend, build and nurture her quirky robot community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVokmAGNdys

Since it launched, a little over 24 hours ago, the game is already over 80% funded, with over £11,000 of the initial target of £12,000 pledged.

https://twitter.com/taloketo/status/1882385520883580961

Gameplay

The Gameplay in Mashina is divided into two distinct sections; a deep, mysterious underground full of trinkets and minerals and a vibrant, fully explorable 3D overground.

Underground

A lot of the game will be spent exploring, discovering and reclaiming the underground world.

• Use your radar to scope out objects of interest
• Dig to excavate rare minerals
• Store the rare minerals safely in Mashina’s backpack
• Turn those minerals into cash
• Build helpful machines to aid your excavations
• Find robot pals, treasures, trinkets and more!

Overground

The overground is where your pals hang out. It is here where you will find ways to enhance Mashina’s digging and broaden her horizons.

• Meet the locals and get missions
• Upgrade your equipment
• Decorate your surroundings
• Explore and find collectables and secrets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUKif2AyG8M

Art Style

Everything in Mashina is handmade out of various materials and animated using traditional stop-motion techniques. The developer then turn the animations into textures and sprites they can use in game, adding normal maps which let them have dynamic lighting and shadows.

The art style follows on from Judero which is currently nominated for Excellence in Visual Arts in the 2025 IGF Awards. Jack and Talla are building on everything they learned in Judero and aim to make an even more visually compelling stop-motion game.

Music & Sound

Music is an important part of our work. For Mashina the developers are making the extensive soundtrack using retro synths to make a sublime soundscape to chill out and dig to. All of the sound effects are made using old synths too, in keeping with the score.

Mashina will feature an exciting voice cast. Jack will be returning after his confident work in Judero. Joining him will be some of the coolest people in games such as twitch streamers BlondePizza, Vinny Vinesauce, WretchedMorgan and TheOtherFrost plus gaming connoisseurs Mechagamezilla and Jonathan Holmes.

Pledges

Funding is open until Wednesday the 12th of February 2025. Pledges start from as little as one pound, with additional tiers opening up copies of the game, soundtrack and opportunities to have items in the game – or even own one of the Mashina robots.

If you’d like to support Jack and Talha, you can find and follow the Kickstarter campaign here.

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#funding #games #indie #JackKingSpooner #Judero #kickstarter #Mashina #scotland #TalhaKaya

Mashina is a chill stop-motion adventure with friendly robots from the Judero Team - https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/mashina-is-a-chill-stop-motion-adventure-with-friendly-robots-from-the-judero-team #JackKing-Spooner #Indiescovery #Exploration #Mashina #PC

Judero developer’s handcrafted follow-up, Mashina, digs into Kickstarter tomorrow

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.destructoid.com/judero-developers-handcrafted-follow-up-mashina-digs-into-kickstarter-tomorrow/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=judero-developers-handcrafted-follow-up-mashina-digs-into-kickstarter-tomorrow