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It includes games like Celeste, Nuclear Throne, Pyre, Receiver, Cook Serve Delicious 2, Heavy Bullets, Minit, A Short Hike, Night in the Woods, Glittermitten Grove, Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, Paranautical Activity, Oxenfree, Pikuniku, 2064: Read Only Memories, Super Win the Game, Octodad: Dadliest Catch and They Bleed Pixels. Not saying that I played any of those ones specifically for this article, but they're in there. I already wrote about They Bleed Pixels a while back though, it's good. Minit too.
I've been meaning to write about some of the games you can find on itch.io for ages, so I'm glad this is finally motivating me to do something. Speaking of motivating people to finally do things, it's also raised $5,000,000 (so far) for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Community Bail Fund to help support the Black Lives Matter movement in their efforts to get things moving. So if I sound like I'm trying to advertise this bundle and persuade you to donate money to get it, that's because I am.
But that means I have to get this written and published while the bundle's still for sale, so I'm feeling a little bit rushed here! I did the maths, and it turns out I don't have time to download, play and review 900 or so games, so I've narrowed it down to 7. I don't have time to properly play and review them either to be honest, but I can definitely give you some hastily typed words about the 30 minutes I tried them for. Plus I've got a bonus review from a friend to show off an extra game and boost the word count a little, so you've got that to look forward to as well.
| Heavy Bullets | ||
 Heavy Bullets is a first person shooter, so I was predisposed to like it, but it's also a roguelite, and those wind me up. I don't want to fight through procedurally generated levels only to get kicked back to the start when I inevitably screw up! So it's a bit of a shame really (for me) that Heavy Bullets is all about trying to get just a little further on the next run... only to be poisoned to death by a little snakeworm hiding next to the health vending machine that I didn't even see!  The trick of the game is apparently to keep banking money over multiple runs until you have enough cash saved to afford everything you need for one final go, so it's not a complete reset each time. Still doesn't really appeal to me, but it seems like a decent version of what it is. I even kind of like the art style, even if the untextured pink and teal look reminds me of the old 16 bit shooter Behind the Iron Gate. | ||
| Mable & The Wood | ||
 The first thing that jumped into my brain when I started playing the first level of Mable & The Wood was that this might be that game I saw a while back, about a girl who can't swing her heavy sword, so she plants it in the ground, gets over to the other side of the enemies, and then summons it to her to kill everything in its path. I wanted to check the game out but I completely forgot what it was called. Turns out it actually is that game! So that's cool. It looks like a platformer, but Mable's not really up for jumping with that heavy sword. In fact she can't even run with it, she has to drag it slowly across the ground. Fortunately she can transform into a fairy and leave the blade behind while you fly around the screen for a bit. She can't fly for long, but when she touches the ground she gets her power recharged and the sword comes darting over. Handy for when you need to get all the way up onto a pillar and push it down to lift up the connected pillar blocking the path, like in the screenshot above!  Killing the boss got me something I really wasn't expecting: a spider form to replace my fairy form. Spider Mable can swing from the ceiling and fire web at enemies to kill them with no messing around, so I didn't have much need for Fairy Mable in the ten minutes or so I kept playing before turning it off. You can switch between forms with the flick of an analogue stick though, so Fairy Mable's always there in case you need that particular skill to get past an obstacle.  To be honest I'm still not sure about this one, especially as I haven't got the hang of the controls yet, but it's definitely interesting. In fact I've even started to regret skipping the intro because I'm curious now about how she ended up with a sword and fairy powers in the first place. (I don't have time to watch intros today, I've got a deadline! Also a lot of game designers should really think about starting their game with a hook to get players interested before asking them to sit through cutscenes and dialogue. The correct time to drop exposition on me is at the point when I'm ready to give a damn.) | ||
| Sky Rogue | ||
 You can basically just go read my article on Ace Combat 2 for this, because Sky Rogue is basically the same thing. Less polished, lower budget, slicker, but the same basic gameplay. Actually that's not fair, I haven't played this enough to know what it's going to turn into. Also I get the feeling it's called Sky Rogue because of the game's rogueish qualities rather than the pilot's: if you die, you lose all your upgrades and get kicked back to day one.  Though the game doesn't seem that bothered abut the fact that I rarely made it back to my helicarrier. It hasn't done my pilot's progression any favours, but I've still been unlocking new weapons and planes.  For one thing it's all procedurally generated, so there's zero plot and no radio chatter. No real world jet fighters either, and the weird sci-fi planes have to regenerate ammo after a few shots. On the plus side you do have countermeasures (if you add them as part of your loadout) and you can do a barrel roll to evade missiles, which is nice. I always whine about roguelites, but the dogfighting is so solid in this that I don't even care for once. I'm happy enough to turn it on for a bit, shoot down some planes, and then turn it off again without ever getting anywhere. | ||
| Guest Review by Jake Milner | ||
| KIDS | ||
 Is there a word for something that is simultaneously meditative and disturbing? Because that’s what KIDS is. Actually, I take that last statement back. I don’t *know* what KIDS is. There is probably some message buried in the shallows of its surreal button pushing experience about the nature of human interaction, but that message is secondary to the introspective anxiety of pushing crowds of blank-faced KIDS into a black hole. The canvas for interpretation is as blank as the faces of the characters you interact with, and as much as I found the experience strangely sad, your experience is likely to be very different. Not because you do different things in the game—in fact, it seems almost impossible to go against the grain—but because the game doesn’t actually say anything about itself. So, the only thing left is for us to say things about the game, and in doing so, ourselves.   It’s hard to say that KIDS is really about anything. Certainly not about the influence of crowds, behaviour, or autonomous decision making. Perhaps it is simply an experience for people who enjoy pushing little men into holes. | ||
| Semblance | ||
 I can't get over just how much Semblance looks like it should've come out in 2009. They've nailed that late 2000s indie game aesthetic... or at least it's a close match to the hazy screenshots I've got filed away in my head. Anyway, you play as a blob and if they've got a name you're not told what it is, as the game's not really interested in dialogue or anything like that. A green blob jumped into a tree and made it green and crystally, and now the purple blob has to save the day, that's all I know. Not complaining. The game's a puzzle platformer and the goal is to figure out a way to collect things, like that red orb on the right up there for instance. Fortunately the blob is really good at slamming into the scenery and if that bit of the level is solid dark purple it can be deformed by the impact.  The blob might get even more terrain manipulating abilities later, I don't know, but so far this game has been pretty decent. It's not the most eye-catching or bizarre game in the bundle, but if you just want to chill out and figure out how to get orbs, it seems like this has you covered. I like it anyway. | ||
| The Curse of Trasmoz | ||
 I had to try this one, because it's a legit ZX Spectrum game! You have to actually run it in an emulator. I'm going to assume that Trasmoz is the castle, because the scrolling text on the menu screen explains that you've got to release it from its curse before the sun rises. But the game doesn't have a Prince of Persia-style time limit where you've got an hour to beat the whole game, no it wants every stage complete in a minute or so or else... you lose a life I guess. I never actually had a chance to run out of time, because everything else killed my dude first.  What you're meant to be doing is jumping around as the gold bloke with the sword and slaying green skeletons to steal their fire, so that you can light the blue torches with it.  The jumping isn't ideal either, but you do get some mid-air control at least; it's not Manic Miner. Plus the music is catchy and the gameplay is kind of fun too, for what it is. But there's no way I'm going to replay the first few stages over and over just to try to get a little further in it, that's not my thing. | ||
| Blitz Breaker | ||
 Blitz Breaker's pretty straightforward; you play as that tiny robot inside that tiny level that takes up a third of the screenshot, and you have to get over to the green wormhole without hitting anything dangerous. That means no spikes, no bullets and definitely no spinning saw blades. But the thing that separates this from games like Super Meat Boy is that you've only got a rubbish little jump and you can't walk. Instead you get around by firing yourself right across the screen, and you only get control back once you've slammed into a wall. Some walls, like that green one up there, can't take being slammed into and will just crumble under the pressure, which is good because this is a flick-screen game and it's blocking the path to the other half of the level.  The poster's saying 'Press A to jump' and it's a good suggestion, because if I press 'left' or 'up' I'm going into spikes, but if I can make it over that tiny gap to other conveyor belt it'll push me off the left side, giving me an opportunity to dash across into the coins (and the key) while falling. Then I have to do the same thing to get back out, because 'left' and 'up' will both lead to a spiky death again unless I'm underneath that spikeless bit of ledge. Death can come fast and often, but restarts are also fast (and infinite), and it suits the gameplay I reckon. This is a game all about dropping yourself into a pit of spikes and picking the right moment to dart between two moving blades to safety, and it gives you plenty of opportunities to feel smug about your incredible talent when you finally pull it off (before killing you off another dozen times on the next area.) The stripped down graphics suit it too and the music's pretty good as well, so I'm giving this a thumbs up. | ||
| OneShot | ||
 The first thing you have to do in OneShot is figure out how to get out of a dark bedroom. There's the bed you woke up in, a remote control on the floor, a bookcase you can't see in the dark, a window, and a PC locked with a password. I have to be honest, I couldn't figure it out! Turns out you have to bring the remote control up to the window so you can read the buttons on it, and that is actually the password. I've played it for an hour or so now and that has to be the worst puzzle I've come across so far, but it sets up what you have to do in the game: there's items and problems lying around everywhere and you need to use one to solve the other. The tricky part so far has been finding the items. Not because they're well hidden, the game plays fair and even gives them a bit of a gleam to make them stand out, but because it's easy to miss entire rooms and buildings as you're walking around in the murky openness.  One thing the game has plenty of is notes, as they're all over the place, giving you pieces of backstory for this miserable world that you and Niko are exploring. Fortunately she's pretty upbeat, and most of the people and robots I've ran into so far have been nice as well, so it's not as unrelentingly depressing as it really should be. Though it is shamelessly meta.   Though if I get into another situation where I need an item and I've already searched the whole bloody region looking for stuff, I'm going to have no shame in checking a walkthrough to find out where it is. I don't need a 'where did I leave my car keys?' simulator! | ||
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this bundle is full of so many games that even if you only like 1% of them it's still a bargain. It's finding those games that's the problem, as there's a lot to search through and itch.io doesn't really have ideal library management tools. Plus you have to add each of them to your library manually, and you don't get Steam keys... but on the other hand, they're all DRM free and that's a huge plus in my opinion.
My advice, if you've bought the bundle or you're thinking about buying it, go search for a list or a spreadsheet, or maybe visit https://randombundlegame.com/browse, so you can get a better handle on what's actually included in it. Because it'll be a lot faster than browsing through 55 pages.
Also, I might have mentioned this earlier, but it's for a good cause. Systematic racism and a police culture that turns cops into bastards are two things the US could really do without, but nothing will get fixed unless people can keep the pressure on, and they could probably use a bit of your support.
Also you can take a guess at what the next game's going to be if you want.
I really wish I was able to buy dollars right now.
ReplyDeleteThe next game is Brian the Lion.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely 100% correct.
DeleteI would have said something about the good cause itch.io bundle and the injustices it is fighting, but anything I would have said would have been trite.
Delete