What is Project Menagerie?

Project Menagerie is a collection of assorted indie game cookies assembled by Priro.pro.

Do not eat them! Feed them to your computer's USB port for a much more delicious experience!

In my tireless quest to bring more indie games to physical form, I have begun to compile a hand-picked vault of physical indie games. Some will be singular games, others will be collections, and all are available for purchase in my web shop.

Creators featured in this collection are ones I believe in. They are creators and works that I have taken the time to get to know and love.

These USB wafers are not just plastic houses for indie games. Just like home-baked cookies, they are beautifully assembled treats that contain a piece of a creator's soul.

Precious keepsakes to keep in your pocket, pass to a friend, or throw in a drawer and forget for 10 years, only to come back and experience the fun all over again.

Who is Project Menagerie for?

Creators featured in Project Menagerie are indie developers creating video games, tabletop games, and digital entertainment experiences.

I don’t work with creators because I think their work is profitable or marketable. I work with them because I believe in them, I see their hard work, and I want to spread it throughout the world to the best of my abilities.

Project Menagerie creators and I work together to conceptualize, design, and manufacture physical games and game compilations to be sold and distributed online and in physical shops and markets.

If you have a game or library of games that you would like to feature in Project Menagerie, please contact Rosario at priroproduction@gmail.com. Introduce yourself and your project(s), link to your website/social media, and include the file size and estimated playtime duration of each project, if you are able.

If you generally work with an extremely low to non-existent budget, or make very, very short games, please do not hesitate to reach out regardless. I may be able to work your game into a variety collection with other games, or provide financial assistance with the limited budget Project Menagerie allows for.

What do you mean by "cookies?"

These “Indie game cookies” are USB drives featuring games from indie devs that just so happen to be a similar size, weight, and shape to cookies, and in my opinion, they're just as delicious!

I use a combination of handmade customization and outsourced manufacturing to create physical indie games, and I’m always open to attempt more experimental designs and concepts.

For more information on making physical games, if it’s something you’d like to attempt yourself, check out my free zine about it!

Where can I get Project Menagerie games?

You can buy these cookies in the Priroshop, or you can buy them in person from markets and conventions attended by Priro.pro or Society of Play.

One of the goals of Project Menagerie is to emphasize the importance of making space for physical games at in-person events, shops, and galleries.

To learn more about the importance of digital games in physical spaces, check out this free zine about it!

If you are a store that wants to stock Project Menagerie games in your space, please contact Rosario at priroproduction@gmail.com for more details.

Why make and distribute physical indie games?

Contrary to the popular saying, the internet is not forever. Physical media is important for media preservation in today’s digital-download-dominant culture, where many digital-only creative projects can easily be lost to time, and even to censorship.

With pressure from payment processors on online marketplaces such as Steam and Itch.io to suppress “controversial content,” it’s more important now more than ever for creators to have some sense of ownership over the means of distribution of their work. I’ve yet to meet a game dev who isn’t sick of trying to please an unseen social media algorithm just to get a few views on a project they spent hours and hours of life on.

The collaborative art of game creation shouldn’t be exiled to a dull, boring digital marketplace and social media. It should be celebrated among other art in places where art is celebrated. A physical game copy is a key to the physical world, allowing creators to bring their work to local markets and conventions, where creators can place their games in the hands of players and form a connection with their audience.

Buy Project Menagerie Games Here

Parfum Nostalgique

In Priro’s flagship visual novel, Parfum Nostalgique, slip into the platform boots of an already-too-tall 265-year-old therapist-by-day, dom-by-night vampire as he navigates the complexities of love, sex, friendship, the consequences of his actions, confronting his own mortality, the fragility of existence on a floating rock in the endless sea of space, and other lighthearted everyday challenges that come from centuries of life experience. A project full of all of the art, music, writing, and love I could possibly give to the world, my brainchildren, and myself over the 4 years of my one and only life it took to make. Best enjoyed with a cup of tea, a nice candle, and a soft heart.

Official Site

Data Sparrow: The Hypersports Collection

Data Sparrow is a remotely-operated art collective with an amazing library of tabletop games. Each game is crafted with simplicity, sincerity, and style in a completely original unified science-fiction setting. Whether you are an experienced or first-time player, you won’t be spending hours reading rules, mechanics, and lore before you play- unless you want to! Data Sparrow games are immediately approachable and easily understandable, yet highly customizable, immersive, and thoughtful. Accessibility and great player experience are perfectly balanced with effortlessly cool aesthetics and imaginative design in the awesome games Data Sparrow has bestowed upon Project Menagerie in this print-to-play collection.

Official Site

Ed Naarel's Anthology

Coming Soon

Ed Naarel is a queer interactive fiction writer from Poland who is absolutely, positively always making something. Blending the supernatural with ordinary life in what Naarel refers to as “casual magic,” his text-focused interactive fiction pieces need only a few minutes to read; a short amount of time for a whole lot of impact. If you like it when your indie art really feels like it’s made by a dude in a bedroom going through the vast spectrum of feelings that come with the human experience, you’ll be right in your element with this massive collection of his works.

Naarel's Itch.io

For more information about where you can find physical indie games, as well as how or why you would make them yourself independently from involvement with Project Menagerie, check out these great resources: