Free goodies week (and one suspiciously quiet monk)
Four new things and a free one that I have been waiting on for a month. Good week.
October 9, 2026
The Waves is out, and it’s free
Lake’s side story from Dawn Chorus, now a standalone VN.
It landed on itch this morning. I flagged this as due around today last week and for once something arrived exactly when it was supposed to.
The dev’s own description is the best pitch I could write: “a polyamory story, but not the one you’d expect. It’s also about the sea, feelings and whether it’s worth having those, millennial indie bands, and the state of Norwegian dorms.”
Free, and it stays free. The first three of seven chapters are up now. Patreon gets a chapter every two weeks and is already on Chapter 4; the complete public version arrives a month after all seven are done. Runs in your browser, or Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.
It’s a standalone with its own tone and style, deliberately not Dawn Chorus. Text-heavy, kinetic, about half an hour a sitting, and visually its own retro thing. It’s referenced heavily in Lake’s route in the main game, there are some cross-spoilers both ways, but it’s written so you can start with either.
The content note on the page is also the most charming one I have read all year: queer, sex between nonbinary characters, depictions of polyamory, “it’s adult but it’s not smut (not derogatory). None of the characters are simpable.”
🛒 Get it on itch.io 🎨 The dev’s itch page
October 8, 2026
Love is Everywhere is on Steam now, and it’s free
The Colombia earthquake charity VN, from the dev who just won an award.
One week after taking third at the Adult Game Awards, Xlyph put Love is Everywhere on Steam, free to play.
If you missed it the first time: you’re Santiago, you wake up to the earthquake, and you join a rescue team to get Simón and his dog Jovita out. It teaches you what to actually do in an emergency while the story happens around you, and the dev points people toward the real relief channels rather than just taking the credit.
Steam version has full controller support, Xbox and PlayStation, plus achievements. English and Latin American Spanish. Windows and Mac. 300 MB.
Also buried on the store page: a collab between Love is Everywhere and Wet Dreams Spa is coming. No details yet. I have questions.
October 5, 2026
Fappy Plane: A Gay Bara Dating Sim
You’re a charter pilot. Seven passengers, seven routes, seven reasons to take the scenic way home.
New, cheap, and a genuinely lovely hook. A firefighter heading home for the first time in months. A musician who writes you a song mid-flight. A quiet man who hasn’t looked at the sky the same way since his brother left him the family lighthouse.
Clear all seven routes and there’s an eighth flight that isn’t on any manifest.
The dev is clear it isn’t just a slideshow, you actually fly the routes. $3.99 with 20% off until October 19. No reviews yet, so you’d be going in blind, but at four dollars that’s a small bet.
October 9, 2026
Alpha Impact
Match-3 puzzle combat where winning unlocks a roster of bara furry heroes.
Out today. Match three or more orbs, trigger elemental combos, beat monsters, and unlock characters, skins and gallery art as rewards. 21-ish heroes, each with their own skills.
$4.79 with 20% off until October 23. English, Japanese and both Chinese scripts, all with full audio, which is unusually thorough for a game this size.
Worth noting the store page states all the mature content is strictly consensual, which, after a couple of recent releases here where that wasn’t the case, is a sentence I appreciated seeing written down.
October 5, 2026
Dragon Riders Demo
Y Press’s next one, and the pitch is better than it has any right to be.
The demo got an update with new art this week, which is the first real sign of life since Monster Ops wrapped.
The elevator pitch: an ethical gacha with no in-app purchases, wrapped around a story-driven gay romance VN and a card battler. You bond with a sentient dragon and date another rider so that your dragon can find a mate. Human and human, human and dragon, dragon and dragon romance are all on the table.
21 gacha-unlockable characters, deck building, team management, controller support, and no generative AI, which Y Press has been consistent about across everything.
Heads up that the main game page is currently locked while they distribute Patreon rewards through itch. The demo is the way in for now.
👀 On the radar
Canticle is late, and this one actually matters. The first half of the big revision was due to patrons in early October and it has not appeared. Nothing on Bluesky or the itch devlog since 0.4.7 on September 14, which is now 24 days of quiet. The whole plan was two revision drops across October feeding an early November public release, the first public build since December. One slipped half still leaves room; two would not. Not alarmed, but this is the thing I am watching.
Twin Coves … I owed this a proper look and did one. Still 78%, still no itch devlog since April 27, which is now five and a half months. Kickstarter remains the only channel the dev actually posts to.
Riverwood … re-checked, January 2027 still holding on Steam. No change, which is its own kind of good news.
Hypermancer … still 0.1.2, next build expected late October.
Those NPC’s Love Stories … unchanged, Steam still says “to be announced.”
💸 On sale right now
Short section this week, and that’s the news. The big Steam promotion I posted last week ended on the 8th, so all those Y Press discounts, Robin Morningwood, Wet Dreams Spa and the whole cheap tier are back to full price. If you were sitting on that list, it has gone.
What’s left is just the two new launches running intro pricing:
・Fappy Plane 20% off, $3.99, ends October 19 ・Alpha Impact 20% off, $4.79, ends October 23
Lesson learned on my end: when I say a sale ends on a date, it really does.
📺 Catch me live
I stream every week, usually Sundays around 3PM EST. Bara and gay story driven games, plus whatever horror indie catches my eye.
Newest video: Flirting My Way Through a Forest Full of Handsome Diplomats 🦊🐺🐻 | Crown Of The Forest Folk
See you Sunday 🐹