Randel’s Quest is a Wordle-inspired roguelike where every guess becomes a tactical decision. Build words, trigger effects, manage rows, and defeat enemies in strategic letter-based combat. In the demo you can: • Upgrade your slot machine with new effects during each run • Use a W
Randel’s Quest is a Wordle-inspired roguelike where every guess becomes a tactical decision. Build words, trigger effects, manage rows, and defeat enemies in strategic letter-based combat.
In the demo you can:
• Upgrade your slot machine with new effects during each run • Use a Wordle-based economy where color hints become your currency • Hack your machine with Slotto to reroll, clone, delete, or upgrade effects • Shop with hints instead of gold, buying potions and strange items from Jack • Fight the Dragon boss
If you enjoy word games but want deeper strategy, meaningful build choices, and roguelike replayability, this one’s for you.
We would love to hear your feedback. Every comment helps us shape the final version of the game.
Our newest Pixel Pulp is finally OUT! And it's 20% OFF! It's the first one we self-publish, so please help us spread the word! And if you grab a copy, please leave a review. It helps a ton! Cheers and have a great end of the year, everyone! LCB Game Studio
Everyone, hi! We've just announced GRIZZLY MAN , our newest Pixel Pulp , a grisly game about an amnesiac man in black guiding a group of tourists in Alaska while a slasher starts killing them off one by one! Look, a teaser (and a BEARY good one!) So... Who's excited?! ːsteamthumb
Everyone, hi!
We've just announced GRIZZLY MAN, our newest Pixel Pulp, a grisly game about an amnesiac man in black guiding a group of tourists in Alaska while a slasher starts killing them off one by one!
There is something about the idea of ' accumulation ' in writing that has always appealed to me. It's not just about the day-to-day stubbornness of the craft—writing two or three pages a day—where, in a short time, you have a novel. Rather, it's the notion that accumulation can b
There is something about the idea of 'accumulation' in writing that has always appealed to me. It's not just about the day-to-day stubbornness of the craft—writing two or three pages a day—where, in a short time, you have a novel. Rather, it's the notion that accumulation can be used to justify anything.
I've never been attracted to the elegance of simplicity. Given a choice between minimalist industrial designs and complicated Goldberg machines, I don't hesitate for a second. Exacerbated complexity, redundancy, and gratuitousness are pillars of the kind of art I like the most.
In computer systems development, there is this concept of "refactoring," a procedure by which a developer optimizes code so that it does the same thing but in a more efficient way.
Faced with the idea of refactoring—which etymologically is nothing more than re-considering the elements of the code—I propose the idea of "accumulating." The code is not optimized; more code is written to keep the system doing the same thing.
This same principle guides the writing of our Pixel Pulps. When I was quite a bit younger, I read about the Finite Rules Paradox. Basically, this paradox posits that predicting the next element in a series is impossible because new rules can continually be added to justify any progression. For instance, 1-2-4-8-16... 32? But why not 999? There exists a rule—undoubtedly more complex—that can rationalize 999 or any other subsequent element.
Writing, then, is nothing more than adding rules to be able to narrate anything.
-- Bahnsen Knights is out now... You can even try out the demo if you would like a little taste before delving fully into the world of Pixel Pulps!
Nico's here. Yeah, it's my birthday. Yeah, I'm turning 40. But that's not the reason why we're here... Today is BAHNSEN KNIGHTS' release date! And to celebrate it, we're dropping a brand new trailer! BAHNSEN KNIGHTS is really important to us. We're so grateful to everyone who pla
Nico's here. Yeah, it's my birthday. Yeah, I'm turning 40. But that's not the reason why we're here... Today is BAHNSEN KNIGHTS' release date!
And to celebrate it, we're dropping a brand new trailer!
BAHNSEN KNIGHTS is really important to us. We're so grateful to everyone who played our previous games; the support so far has been amazing. As you may know from previous blog posts, things were... Tough. So we want to thank all of you. THANK YOU. IT MEANS A LOT TO US.
We'll be sharing new blog posts in the following days, addressing some curiosities from the game, some behind-the-scenes, and more. But we'll keep it short today...
For all of you who get the game, please leave a review. We cannot emphasize enough how much this helps indie developers.
So now go, get on your Sierra, play the game, and tell your friends and family about it.
Francis Ponge is a French poet who among many other things wrote a book I read twenty years ago: Le Parti pris des choses (translated into English as Partisan of Things ). His procedure is simple: Ponge looks for the extraordinary in the ordinary. He's not interested in exhaustin
Francis Ponge is a French poet who among many other things wrote a book I read twenty years ago: Le Parti pris des choses (translated into English as Partisan of Things). His procedure is simple: Ponge looks for the extraordinary in the ordinary. He's not interested in exhausting the object in language, he doesn't seek definition by extension. For Ponge the "cigarette" is not a cylindrical roll of paper filled with shredded tobacco, designed to be lit at one end for smoking, but "a small torch much less luminous than aromatic". Ponge does not define an object, he seems to search for something more like an incantation!
While developing Bahnsen Knights, Francis Ponge never crossed my mind. However, upon reviewing my notes, his writing procedure came to mind. Something about pulp fiction has always intrigued me. In this narrative style, character building rarely involves a comprehensive study of a particular personality. There isn't sufficient time for in-depth exploration, and character development is likely to be 'flat'.
Many criticize this in pulp fiction. But this flatness tends to be boring if the definition of a character is based merely on clichés. If it is based on the uncommon, the result can be quite different. All our characters are flat, but of a singular flatness!
Take Kevin, for example, the owner of Danny's Bar in Bahnsen Knights. Kevin inherited the bar, and if he works there it's because he feels he owes it to his father—Danny, after whom the bar is named. Kevin, when he was a young boy waiting tables, met a customer who gave him a copy of Scientific American where he could read a column by Martin Gardner. He became obsessed with that column and his father paid for a subscription. After that subscription, others would follow—most notably, one for a writing workshop.
Who is Kevin then? He isn't just the big guy bartender who gets into an occasional fight with the more violent patrons at a dive bar, Kevin is passionate about math and writing thanks to the mail subscription services of certain publications.
When someone criticizes any narrative work by arguing that a character's development lacks depth, I smile. Rather than depth, rather than exhaustion, I prefer this flatness, the definition on a plane of the uncommon: two singular points can define a unique straight line.
Hi Everyone, For the launch of Bahnsen Knights we will be recording a brand new developer walkthrough and we would love to answer any questions you may have for us. So, if you have any questions about the game, the Pixel Pulps series or even just Indie Development in general, ple
Hi Everyone,
For the launch of Bahnsen Knights we will be recording a brand new developer walkthrough and we would love to answer any questions you may have for us.
So, if you have any questions about the game, the Pixel Pulps series or even just Indie Development in general, please drop your questions in the comments and we'll do our utmost to answer them in the video...
Are you familiar with the "Marvel Method" , a process in which Stan Lee would define a synopsis, receive pencilled artwork from the artist and add words over it? Stan Lee by Fer. Really cool piece, right? Pixel Pulps writing is somehow similar to the Marvel Method: from a story o
Are you familiar with the "Marvel Method", a process in which Stan Lee would define a synopsis, receive pencilled artwork from the artist and add words over it?
Stan Lee by Fer. Really cool piece, right?
Pixel Pulps writing is somehow similar to the Marvel Method: from a story outline I write, Fer puts together a storyboard in pencil and then I write over it. The iterative aspect is there. But there are at least two fundamental differences in our own process, two things that although they are not interrelated by definition, they do so by our own work logic: Stretching and Wildcards.
In the Marvel Method, Stan Lee cannot stretch ad infinitum the text of a panel. Space is finite. But we? We can! We can keep a single image on screen and render as much text as we want. This process, which I call Stretching, allows us several things from a narrative point of view: to manage the reading pace, to build expectations, etc... But, more importantly, Stretching allows us to let players see Fer's work on screen for longer!
Since the first Pixel Pulps, Stretching has been a resource that I sought to exploit to do justice to the art direction of our games. Now, to keep each scene interesting, text in a stretched scene has to generate something, it can't just be filler.
And this is where Wildcards come into play. In the writing of the outline, I usually add details in order to create a certain atmosphere or define some aspect of a character. The details, in themselves, are not important yet, they are usually superficial, and they add sense to the narrative by simple accumulation.
Once I receive Fer's storyboard, that's when things get interesting. The detail appears as an unavoidable presence, and many times I wonder why I chose what I chose, or why Fer chose what he chose. Wildcards is letting go of the steering wheel for a while and then pick it up and straighten the car.
Let's take as an example chapter VI of Bahnsen Knights, a scene where Vincent spits on the floor after talking to Boulder, the character players embody. In the outline I wrote:
"Vincent and Boulder are standing each against a car hood, waiting on the side of the road. They are waiting for the truck to come. Vincent kicks a rock or spits. You try not to look at him."
"Kicks a rock or spits." Fer chose the action of spitting, and the way it was represented on screen looked great. How could I then stretch the scene to give prominence to a detail that could have been something else?
Building on this, I wrote the following scene, where Vincent tells Boulder about the healing powers of saliva and his relationship with his stepdad.
Stretching and Wildcards. The first is a resource of the dimension of pragmatism: to show Fer's art as long as possible on screen. The second, a challenge, a puzzle, a gamble, something to keep interesting all stages of production of our Pixel Pulps.
Hi Everyone, Fer and I took some time to sit down and play through the brand new demo for Bahnsen Knights and also answer some questions that you sent in for this Next Fest video. We hope you enjoy watching and finding out a little more about Bahnsen Knights and the Pixel Pulps a
Hi Everyone,
Fer and I took some time to sit down and play through the brand new demo for Bahnsen Knights and also answer some questions that you sent in for this Next Fest video. We hope you enjoy watching and finding out a little more about Bahnsen Knights and the Pixel Pulps adventures.
Don't forget to play the demo and, if you like what you see and play, wishlist and follow the game!
Hi Everyone, Fer and I took some time to sit down and play through the brand new demo for Bahnsen Knights and also answer some questions that you sent in, in this video. We hope you enjoy watching and finding out a little more about Bahnsen Knights and the Pixel Pulps adventures.
Hi Everyone,
Fer and I took some time to sit down and play through the brand new demo for Bahnsen Knights and also answer some questions that you sent in, in this video. We hope you enjoy watching and finding out a little more about Bahnsen Knights and the Pixel Pulps adventures.
Don't forget to play the demo and, if you like what you see and play, wishlist and follow the game!
Hi Everyone, Today is the beginning of the latest Next Fest and we are very happy that we are able to include our brand new Pixel Pulps adventure, Bahnsen Knights , in this edition. As part of the Next Fest activities we have made a new, expanded demo available for you to try. We
Hi Everyone,
Today is the beginning of the latest Next Fest and we are very happy that we are able to include our brand new Pixel Pulps adventure, Bahnsen Knights, in this edition.
As part of the Next Fest activities we have made a new, expanded demo available for you to try. We will also release our first developer walkthrough for the game where we take a look at the demo and also answer some of the questions you sent in.
We are also announcing a new release date today for the game. Owing to a recent bereavement for the team we have moved the release date back to 14th December 2023. My friend and colleague Fer, has a few words to say regarding this: ____________________
Hi, Fer here, one half of LCB.
I'd like to talk about the reason why we had to change the release date for Bahnsen Knights.
My older sister, Mariana, passed away at the age of 44. She was in the world before me and taught me how to navigate it.
I will miss her. And I will always need her.
I share this with you to honor her, to let off steam, but above all, to be honest with those who accompanied and supported the Pixel Pulps from the beginning.
Being a studio of only two people implies many things, one of them is that when something so personal hits us, we make a pause because we can't pretend nothing happened. We take a breath, reflect, and as we gather our strength, we continue.
I'm very lucky to work with a friend like Nico (the other half of LCB).
Mary, although not a gamer, was a horror fan and was proud of what we’re doing.
We’re grateful to the community. And with Chorus Worldwide, our friends on this journey.
Thank you, Fer ____________________
As you will appreciate, it has been a difficult time for the team recently. We are a small studio, we are good friends, so tragedy has an impact. We wanted to be candid as to why the game has been delayed and we hope that any of you who have experienced or are experiencing loss, are doing ok.
Hi Everybody, We just wanted to let you know that we have just released an expanded version of the Bahnsen Knights demo ahead of Next Fest, which begins on the 9th October. In this expanded demo you will be able to get more of a taste of the danger that awaits Boulder as he attem
Hi Everybody,
We just wanted to let you know that we have just released an expanded version of the Bahnsen Knights demo ahead of Next Fest, which begins on the 9th October.
In this expanded demo you will be able to get more of a taste of the danger that awaits Boulder as he attempts to discover what happened to his friend and fellow agent Cupra. What do the Bahnsen Knights and their enigmatic leader, Toni, know about his disappearance?
Play the demo now and if you like what you see don't forget to wishlist and followBahnsen Knights!
Hello Everyone, We will be recording a new developer walkthrough for Bahnsen Knights for the upcoming Steam Next Fest, which begins on the 9th October... so soon! We will be taking a deeper look at the game but we would also love to answer your questions too. If you have any ques
Hello Everyone,
We will be recording a new developer walkthrough for Bahnsen Knights for the upcoming Steam Next Fest, which begins on the 9th October... so soon! We will be taking a deeper look at the game but we would also love to answer your questions too.
If you have any questions you would like to ask about Bahnsen Knights, the Pixel Pulps series, or even where the best food can be found in Buenos Aires, just leave your questions below in the comments.
Hi Everyone, I hope that you have had the chance to try the demo for Bahnsen Knights . If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? If you have, you’ll be pleased to hear we will have an updated demo soon with new content. This will be part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest that we ar
Hi Everyone,
I hope that you have had the chance to try the demo for Bahnsen Knights. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? If you have, you’ll be pleased to hear we will have an updated demo soon with new content. This will be part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest that we are incredibly excited to be taking part in!
[Insert Trailer]
In the meantime, I thought you would be interested to get an insight into why we make the games we do and what we think of the genre too. You may have seen some of this touched on in the lovely recent Eurogamer article about visual novels (see here), but we thought you might be interested to find out more!
Why create the ‘Pixel Pulps’ interactive fiction games?
Fernando Martínez Ruppel and I, Nico Saraintaris, come from a background of twenty years of storytelling (we are both 39 years old and will turn 40 this year… ancient!). We have experience writing novels, short stories, illustrated stories, comics, storyboards, and scripts. But we've also made lots of games in the past! In recent years we have created many games under another label, games in which exploring innovative mechanics was a key part of the designing process. Just to give you an example, we've made Moveless Chess, a variant of chess in which the player cannot move the pieces. So LCB's games are a combination of these two aspects, our passion for storytelling and our love of designing mechanics that generate new and interesting gameplay systems.
What do you think players enjoy about this genre of game?
I believe that what makes visual novel games so popular is their ability to ignite players' imagination by leaving things unseen. With their static images, transitions, and scene jumps, visual novels seem to create something similar to what a comic does, almost like a movie that skips frames and allows the audience to fill in the gaps. In this type of fiction, the player's imagination is enhanced as they fill in the blanks while being carried away by a narrative with a defined thread (beyond concepts such as branching or multi-threading). Additionally, there is no urgency in a visual novel. Like a book, each player can take as much time as they want to enjoy it.
Where do you think visual novels will go in the future?
I think that visual novels (and I would refer to them as interactive fiction) are more of a meta-genre than a genre, a framework that encompasses multiple gameplay systems. Just as there are infinite numbers between 1 and 2 (the principle of discrete infinity), there are infinite possibilities within the bounds of interactive fiction. In this sense, interactive fiction is pure potential, capable of incorporating elements of resource management, strategy, board gaming, RPG, roguelikes, etc. I believe that these elements (cleverly used within the context of each game's fictional universe) open up possibilities for a future - or rather, a present - full of exploration.
What do you like about this genre of games?
Visual novels (and interactive fiction, once again) have the potential to work as a trap. You are aware that you will be reading extensively, have control over your time, and can submerge yourself in a new world. The familiarity that it offers can be deceptive, as interactive fiction has the ability to surprise you from within, being both familiar in concept and surprising in execution.
I hope you have enjoyed finding out a little bit more about where we came from and why we have really enjoyed creating the Pixel Pulps adventures. Don’t forget to play the demo for Bahnsen Knights and wishlist the game!
Hi Everyone, We are really happy to share some exciting news with you today about Bahnsen Knights . We have a release date and a demo for the game! Bahnsen Knights will be released on October 26th, just in time for Halloween… What is a release date announcement without a trailer?
Hi Everyone,
We are really happy to share some exciting news with you today about Bahnsen Knights. We have a release date and a demo for the game! Bahnsen Knights will be released on October 26th, just in time for Halloween…
What is a release date announcement without a trailer?
If you want to get a taste for the darkness that awaits you can now play the demo too. You will get a flavour of the mystery and dangers that await Boulder, our grizzled undercover detective, as he attempts to uncover what happened to his old friend Cupra, who went missing while investigating the Bahnsen Knights.
We hope you like what you see and enjoy the demo. Make sure you wishlist and follow the game to keep up to date with the latest news!
Hello! We are Nico Saraintaris and Fernando Martinez Ruppel, co-creators of LCB Game Studio from Argentina. As we have Mothmen 1966 and Varney Lake in the Visual Novel Fest sale we thought this would be a good time to share with you this insight into how we approach creating our
Hello! We are Nico Saraintaris and Fernando Martinez Ruppel, co-creators of LCB Game Studio from Argentina. As we have Mothmen 1966 and Varney Lake in the Visual Novel Fest sale we thought this would be a good time to share with you this insight into how we approach creating our games.
We have now released two games that belong in to a subgenre that we call Pixel Pulps, Mothmen 1966 and Varney Lake, with a third title, Bahhsen Knights, coming soon. So, what are Pixel Pulps?
PIXEL PULPS Pixel Pulps are text adventure games in which we combine a type of narrative from the first half of the 20th century - the so-called 'Pulps', cheap paper magazines with large print runs that published stories in genres such as horror, crime, or science fiction - with home computer graphics and adventure game interface from the '80s.
THE PULPS The relationship of our games with the Pulps is not only thematic (mothman, cryptids, vampires, and cults, among many other themes and characters), but also productive: our production cycles are short, we work quickly and steadily, seeking to release one game after another. This particular philosophy is behind a slogan that we use almost like a battle cry: "We are the Pulps of interactive fiction!"
But while our stories are as agile and fast-paced as the Pulps, they also feature multi-dimensional characters, something that many Pulp stories lacked, relying on almost one-dimensional representations with very obvious narrative functions.
Another difference is the use of the unexpected. The Pulps were often formulaic. A savvy reader could guess more or less where each author was going with their stories. In our case, we seek to surprise the players, and we strive to make each of our Pixel Pulps a completely unexpected experience.
THE PIXELS As for the interactive adventures of the '80s, there are four very specific elements that we use to work on our games: the colour palette, the pixel art, the sound design and the choice-based input system.
One of the first aesthetic decisions that Fer made was to use a classic palette for retro gaming. Each of our games uses a subset of the 8 colours (and their brightness variations) from the ZX Spectrum colour palette, limiting colour choice even further per-game basis but developing a distinct identity that emphasises particular aspects of their respective stories: Mothmen 1966 is associated with green and Varney Lake with cyan.
What about pixel art? Fer's pixel art is not simply a tribute to the pixel art of the time, but a conscious reworking from our own present, where one can see his experience of over twenty-five years in the world of illustration, comics, and concept art.
The third element is the sound design. In our games, we make use of speaker sound - reminiscent of old-school ZX Spectrum games - as a key element in our process. This classic sound not only adds a touch of nostalgia, but it also serves practical purposes such as signalling in-game events and adding a unique audio texture to certain aspects of our Pixel Pulps.
The fourth element we want to highlight is the choice-based input system. This is another thing that we sought to work on from the beginning of the project, the idea of turning the entire interface between players and game modules into a system solely based on choices, that is, not only using choice selection for narrative sequences like any visual novel, but extending this concept and using this same input system for such dissimilar elements as solitaire card games, hopscotch with dice... and even a fishing game!
A SUBGENRE OF OUR OWN In conclusion, we like to think that this particular alchemy that we call 'Pixel Pulps' results in a subgenre of which we are the only exponents, an idea that allows us to take some risks and do things in a way that only we can do them, and that if we fail, we will fail better than anyone, always aiming to fail even better next time!
We hope you enjoyed finding out a bit more about our games. If you'd like to find out even more, Mothmen 1966 and Varney Lake are both on sale until the 14th August and you can wishlist Bahnsen Knights too...
Hello Everyone, We are really pleased to announce that Varney Lake, the next Pixel Pulps story, is out now! Want to find out a little more about the game? Then here's the trailer: Still want to know more? Well then, if you are a fan of storytelling, engaging puzzles, vampires and
Hello Everyone,
We are really pleased to announce that Varney Lake, the next Pixel Pulps story, is out now!
Want to find out a little more about the game? Then here's the trailer:
Still want to know more? Well then, if you are a fan of storytelling, engaging puzzles, vampires and mysteries, this is the game for you!
Varney Lake is the second Pixel Pulps story, following on from Mothmen 1966. The Pixel Pulps series is thematically inspired by 1950s pulp fiction magazines, with graphical inspiration from 1980s home computing. This combination leads to a very distinctive text adventure game... one we are sure will be quite different to anything you have played before (except Mothmen 1966).
The story unravels one mystery across two timelines. In 1954, you will meet Jimmy, Doug and Christine. Three kids enjoying their summer vacation at Varney Lake, inventing games, dodging bullies... and hanging out with a vampire. In 1981, Lou Hill, a paranormal investigator, is uncovering a dark and fantastic tale through conversations with the adult Jimmy and Christine. Will you find out what happened that summer? Will you find out what really happened to Doug?
We hope you really enjoy playing Varney Lake and let us know what you think in the reviews!
Varney Lake launches tomorrow and Listz can't wait to welcome you all to the next Pixel Pulps tale! Varney Lake is the second game in the 'Pixel Pulps' series and follows on from Mothmen 1966. In this new story you must unravel the truth of what happened THAT summer in Varney Lak
Varney Lake launches tomorrow and Listz can't wait to welcome you all to the next Pixel Pulps tale!
Varney Lake is the second game in the 'Pixel Pulps' series and follows on from Mothmen 1966. In this new story you must unravel the truth of what happened THAT summer in Varney Lake...
