What are your favorite games from June's "Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality" from itch.io

[Bongo]

Months later this thing is still intimidatingly huge. Let's try to make sense of it.

In every post, name at least one game in the bundle which you know to be good (even if it's well-known), and tell us why a soul might like it, or at least vouch for and expand on somebody else's recommendation. For example:

Minit is a compact, lo-fi Zeld-'em-up based on the premise that your character is cursed to die and respawn every 60 seconds. So you've only got one minute (get it?) at a time to make it to the next checkpoint or find a power-up, as you explore the island to find the way to break the curse. Needless to say, this game doesn't waste your time, and I managed to beat it in a single sitting.

Now you do one.

If you're interested in this thread, you may also like the filtering and selection features from Random Bundle Game Dot Com.

 

[karzac]

Celeste is a brutally difficult but incredibly satisfying platformer that happens to also tell a great story with great art and music.

A Short Hike is maybe the perfect quarantine game - a tiny game about the joy of being outside and meeting new people. It packs a ton of discovery into an extremely tight package. It feels like somebody took Breath of the Wild and distilled it down to its essence.

Blades in the Dark a tabletop roleplaying game, and certainly the most influential one of the last five years. You play an upstart gang of scoundrels in a haunted industrial fantasy city. If you ever wanted to roleplay Thief, Dishonored, or The Wire, this is the game for you. It's got rules for building the game, exploring the enemy factions of the city, and resolving all sorts of conflicts, from battles to chases to negotiations to supernatural seances. It's the RPG I've played the most of (played in one long campaign, GM'd a long one and two short ones, as well as several one shots) and I keep coming back for more. It's also got some really great essays about what roleplaying fundamentally is that are well worth reading if you're a fan of the hobby, even if you don't get a chance to play it.

Pyre is quite possibly my favourite video game of all time. It's NBA Jam crossed with a party-based RPG, set in a fantasy wasteland, chronicling a group of convicts trying to gain their freedom and overthrow a tyrannical regime. It's got gorgeous art, a great soundtrack, memorable characters and an incredible gameplay hook. It's perfect.

 

[FelixSH]

First, I found a website where some guy plays through the games in this bundle and writes short reviews for them. I mainly choose games by looking through the site and finding stuff there that seems interesting.

Here is what I have played, up to now:

Night in the Woods is a Walking Simulator, where you come back to your small home town, after dropping out of college. It's very atmospheric and deals with heavy themes. The dialogue is very well written, and you can interact with the people in the town mainly how much as you like.

Super Win the Game is Zelda 2, without fighting. There are monsters, but you have no way of defending yourself, you can only dodge. There is an overworld and towns, which look very much like Zelda 2, plus dungeons, which look very Metroid-y. You are tasked with finding a bunch of mcguffins, plus a few ability upgrades. It includes a randomizer, which I haven't tested, but it seems to be a game for something like that. Had a lot of fun with this one.

Hidden Folks is a Where is Waldo type game. There are black/white pictures with a ton of people and stuff on them, and you are tasked with finding a handful specific people or items, each containing a vague clue. Clicking on stuff will result in small reactions and cute sounds. Very enjoyable and calming.

WitchWay is a short puzzle plattformer, where you play a witch who can manipulate specific blocks to traverse a castle. The puzzles are pretty clever, and there are bonus things to find, which also use the hardest puzzles in the game.

Micro Mages is a game that was made with the NES limitations in mind - as I understand it, it's basically an NES game. It also looks and plays like one. You are a tiny mage (or one of four, if you play with other people), and are tasked with climbing a tower. You can cling to walls and hold onto rope. You have a shooting attack, and can find fairies, which give you a second hit, as well as feathers, which let you glid down slowly. The main game is, fittingly for an NES game, pretty short, I think five stages with a boss at the end of each one. I also found it pretty easy, but I didn't play the hard mode, which I had unlocked after beating the game.

Newfound Courage is a story-driven game with a handful of easy puzzles, where you are in a town where, soon after arriving there, strange things begin to happen. The PC is also gay, which comes into play during the story. I wasn't quite satisfied, but there seem to be a lot of people who really liked it, and it's not like I disliked it. Also, like the other games, pretty short. I guess 2 or 3 hours.

OneShot is another story-driven game with light puzzle elements and items. You wake up in darkness and soon find a glowing ball, that you are supposed to bring to a certain place. The world-building is interesting and the dialogue well written. It also has some pretty cool, clever elements, that I don't want to spoil. Really good game, highly recommended.

 

[Becksworth]

PICO-8 is the fantasy console environment that’s been used to make a lot of little indie games (including the original version of Celeste). It has limitations on pixels, colors, sound, and file size to simulate a 8-bit console, but it also neglects to limit games on the CPU/RAM beyond the normal limitations of rendering in HTML5, which can lead to some interesting results well outside of what could be done on actual 8-bit consoles. The bundle version includes the tools to make your own games, and even a raspberry Pi build if you want to build your own PICO-8 console.

 

[q 3]

String Tyrant is a survival horror game that's like a hybrid of text adventure and turn-based RPG. It's well-written with an intriguing setting and has some interesting puzzles and battle mechanics. Has positive LGBT content. Probably 2 to 5 hours depending on how fast you read, how long it takes you to solve puzzles, and how much optional stuff you do. I feel obligated to note that's partly inspired by an inanimate object transformation fetish, but there's nothing too overt in the game.

 

[Shadax]

PICO-8 is the fantasy console environment that’s been used to make a lot of little indie games (including the original version of Celeste).

I didn’t even see that in there! I bought it right as quarantine hit because the in-built limitations and the relative ease of using Lua make it really easy to make Babby’s First Game without drowning yourself in scope creep. I didn’t get very far before life caught up but I highly recommend it if someone else wanting to take on a lockdown project.

 

[Ixo]

Sidewords is a neat puzzle game that I can best describe as "Anagram Sudoku"

Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is a turn based RPG I've heard several other Tyrants gush about, but I haven't gotten to yet.

Runner 3 is a bright n cartoony, solid entry in the Bit.Trip.[Whatever] series.

 

[Cadenza]

Seconding the recommendations for Minit, A Short Hike, and Night in the Woods! As for my own, here are my favorites so far:

HATCH - A first-person platformer where you have to climb to the top of a strange structure in the middle of a desert while avoiding lethal sunlight. You have big, floaty jumps, but your real advantage is being able to climb up any surface angled even slightly away from you. Gets pretty challenging towards the end, but I would say the cathartic payoff is worth it. (And remember that you can respawn at checkpoints at any time with the push of a button!)

Rex: Another Island - A cute open-world platformer where you play as an adorable little T-Rex exploring a small but well-detailed island. Has fast-travel and a whole bunch of coins to collect.

Speed Dating For Ghosts - A dating sim/visual novel about trying to find love in the afterlife. Sometimes it's pretty funny, but it also gets pretty real about death and its consequences, so be ready for that. Has a chill soundtrack.

Clam Man - A point-and-click adventure game about a clam man who has been fired from his job for dubious reasons and must unravel the conspiracy behind it. It's a silly game with emphasis on story over puzzles (although there are a few puzzles in the game); it's quite funny at times, and the soundtrack is pretty good (it's on Spotify and Apple Music if you're interested).

2064: Read Only Memories - Another adventure game, this one in the style of Snatcher; you play a journalist helping an artificial being named Turing trying to track down their missing creator, and things quickly escalate from there. A lot of care is put into both the aesthetics and writing, and it's hands down the queerest game I've ever played; I seriously cannot think of a single cis-het person in the main or supporting cast, and the game even lets you choose your own pronouns (or enter custom ones).

Lenna's Inception - An action-adventure game inspired by the Legend of Zelda series - particularly Link's Awakening - but with some procedural generation in the mix. Our very own Kalir ran a Let's Play that you should check out if you want to get an idea of how it plays.

 

[jpfriction]

A short hike, Lenna’s Inception and Pyre are the only ones I’ve put significant time into so far but all are excellent.

 

[Fyonn]

Bongo asked me to share my opinion on the game here since I mentioned it elsewhere, so here it is:

Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is the best JRPG you've never played. What if Earthbound was also Final Fantasy 5 set in a dreamscape with loads of dungeons and towns and characters and just as much optional content exploring the eight year-old protagonist's fears and anxieties! The game also features a ton of almost Metroidvania-esque field abilities like ground-pounding and honk-dashing, the hands-down best stealing mechanics ever seen in a JRPG, and Punch Tanaka. You don't understand that last one yet, but it'd be very Punch Tanaka of you to give Jimmy a shot.

 

[Beowulf]

Lenna’s Inception (PC, Zelda-like) - Noted above, there's an LP, it's fantastic, you should play it.

Cuckoo Castle (PC, Metroidvania) – A Game Boy style short Metroidvania game with three characters, two bosses and a bunch of area to explore. (Maybe half an hour of material, total.) There are some issues with wonky hitboxes and there are at least 12/10 villagers to find, but overall it’s a lovely example of what it is.

Micro Mages (NES, Action - Platformer) – A retro game that they actually released in a NES-compatible rom format. You can tell it’s a modern game—the sprites are too small, the controls are too good, the art style is trying a little too hard, there’s some mini-gore—but I appreciate the effort. It’s also actually pleasant to play! You’re a tiny mage climbing a tower, and you can cling to walls and shoot tiny beams at the various monsters. You’re a classic one-hit-point wonder, but there are powerups that give you a second hit and that includes against falling off the bottom of the screen. I’ll likely pop this onto my emulator handhelds.

Dungeons and Lesbians (PC, Visual Novel) – A story about playing D&D with a group of affable gay weirdos. And it is ADORABLE. Each playthrough is short, maybe half an hour, and there are three girls in the gaming group. Just entertaining enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, this is what I generally want in a visual novel.

Myth Bearer (PC, adventure rpg/puzzle) – Nominally an rpg, but it’s really a puzzle game, because enemies don’t move and the amount of damage you can do and they can do it plain to see. So really, gaining levels by finding the enemies you can defeat opens up new enemies you can defeat and unlock areas. (It’s the purest distillation of beef gates I’ve ever seen.) The puzzle style is similar to Half-Minute Hero, just larger and without the time limit. I ended up spend a few hours on it and reaching the proper “ending”; I suspect it’s possible to win without dying at all but I’m not entirely sure how.

Shipwreck (PC, Zelda-like) – Inspired more closely by Link’s Awakening, your hero is shipwrecked on a mysterious island and tasked by the local villagers to gather four seals from various dungeons and defeat a ghost terrorizing the island. There are a couple of irritating design choices (you need to beat a 50 GP per try “sword training course” to get the crossbow that you seem to need to proceed; the heart containers are optional finds within the dungeons; there are several “blank spaces” in the inventory) but they had some fun with this. And so did I; it’s about two hours’ worth of game.

Brave Hero Yuusha EX (PC, Classic RPG) – A Dragon Quest pastiche/homage where the story gets jumbled by a mysterious puppetmaster and the hero ends up joining with the demon lord and the princess to try to piece their world back together. Also a story-within-a-story, as there are interquel chapters featuring a young boy reading a book about Yuusha and wanting to be like him. This ended up as one of my favorite rpgs from the bundle; the full game runs about 6 hours and it’s a well-done RPGMaker creation.

Vision Soft Reset (PC, Metroidvania) – As an Oracle, you can briefly rewind time and you can see bosses’ attacks in shadow before they happen. (Otherwise, it plays basically like Metroid.) This is an extraordinarily clever game, but I’m not actually very good at it. (The ability to rewind is the excuse to make it unforgiving, but my reflexes aren’t sufficient to make good use of the limited rewinding.) If you have good enough reflexes to play something like Celeste, play this too.

A Short Hike (PC, Adventure/Exploration) - The adventures of Professor Sidequesty McSidequest, though that’s not a bad thing. You’re a small penguin-like bird who is convinced to take “a short hike” up the local mountain. Taking said hike is only mildly complicated (climbing, jumping and flapping are involved), but there are lots of folks along the way who could use your help, and plenty of hidden tools, tricks and passages to find. Relatively short, even if you’re thorough, but very cute.

A Normal Lost Phone (PC, Puzzle) – I’ve played a bunch of “found phone” games, and this is a decent example of the genre. This is the new phone Sam got in early December and you found it on January 31st, so the details are reasonably contained. Being familiar with LGBTQ stories and teen drama in general, I put together most of the story twists before I actually managed to unlock the various password-protected apps. Takes about an hour to play, and nicely done.

Pillars of Dust (PC, Classic RPG) - A retro-rpg by the folks who brought us Shadows of Adam; this one has a much more 8-bit feel and a big emphasis on poking every barrel, pot, bookcase and shrub looking for secrets. There are seven chapters total (and it tracks how many secrets you find in each one); three for each protagonist and then a final chapter. I played through three of the chapters obsessively checking every corner and crevice and getting intimately familiar with the “there’s nothing here” messages…and then I lost interest and left my save on my old laptop. My verdict is that this game calls for too much perfectionism for too little payoff. But I'm aware that other people don't let their weird perfectionist tendencies ruin games for them, so I wanted to call it out.

 

[muteKi]

Also something I didn't realize until just today when I tried to add my itch library to playnite: if you hit that red 'download' box in the bundle, it doesn't actually download anything, just gives you a link to the page where you can download stuff. So all it actually does is add that one specific game to your library.

 

[Kirin]

Yeah, that's how I've been essentially "bookmarking" which games in the bundle I might like to come back and actually download someday.

 

[Violentvixen]

Played and finished A Short Hike this weekend. The world and design are spectacular, but I found the climbing controls extremely difficult. I was using my keyboard rather than a controller, were the rest of you playing on controller? Holding Z and pressing in a direction was awkward, and the camera kept switching around so suddenly I'd just jump off a cliff for no reason.

The final couple climbs to the hot springs and further up took me at least 20 tries. My cursing at the game got so bad my spouse suggested I stopped playing.

 

[jpfriction]

Yes, definitely designed for a controller.

 

[SabreCat]

Before I got dragged back into several non-Justice-oriented games, I was playing things that looked interesting and reviewing them! So I'll give my snippet impressions here with links to where I blogged about 'em.

Task Force Kampas: A short, intense shmup. Very simple powerups, enemy patterns within stages are mostly stochastic spam, clever and unusual-looking bosses. Good snack food for fans of the genre!

Lenna's Inception: A love letter to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past with a cocktail of trendy indie video game conceits. It's nominally replayable with its procgen elements, but I felt the randomization watered things down more than it added interest.

Tamashii: Weird puzzle-platformer with jump scares and Satanist theology. The level and puzzle design is admirably tight, boss fights less so.

Switch 'N' Shoot: Lovable arcade-cabinet style shmup. The one-button control mechanic is actually a lot of fun!

Haque: Quick-playing Traditional Roguelike with amusing character archetypes and cute pixel art. I recommend turning off the vignette effect so you can actually see wtf is going on.

10S: Two games in one: a bullet hell game with tennis mechanics, followed by a short Zelda-esque world-exploration action-adventure. Extremely experimental and head-scratching, but a lot of fun once you get the hang of it!

Highway Blossoms: Sexy (ero scenes optional) unfurry visual novel about treasure hunting in the American Southwest. Very, ah, white in its perspective. But charming! I got a little choked up.

The Testimony of Trixie Glimmer Smith: Unsexy furry visual novel about Lovecraftian horror in a college town. Aggressively queer in a way I appreciate. Gains some depth on replay, as it hints at ways the narrator may not be reliable at times!

Sky Rogue: Run-based arcade flight sim with procedural level generation. You unlock a lot of cool weapons and aircraft, and building loadouts for the task at hand is a big part of your success or failure!

A Short Hike: Lots of folks have mentioned this one. I liked its balance of open exploration vs. a clear objective to pursue!

Long Gone Days: Incomplete linear JRPG of modern warfare. JRPG tropes in a non-fantastical context lead to some ludonarrative oddities. Artwork is gorgeous and the writing solid.

Dead Pixels: Zombie beat-em-up clearly inspired by River City Ransom. Provides several different scenarios with different rules and resource management, which adds variety!

Manual Intervention: Hard-as-nails Missile Command updated for a new generation. I recommend starting on Easy, it gets real chaotic!

 

[Violentvixen]

10S: Two games in one: a bullet hell game with tennis mechanics, followed by a short Zelda-esque world-exploration action-adventure. Extremely experimental and head-scratching, but a lot of fun once you get the hang of it!

I read this, your blog post and watched the trailer and still have no idea what is going on but am definitely going to play this now!

 

[SabreCat]

Rod, Reel, and Fist: Tabletop RPG about a scrappy crew of adventurers going out into the mysterious wilderness to save their village... but instead of stabbing orcs, they're landing fish! It's like the authors had the thought, "Lots of video game RPGs have fishing minigames or side quests. What if that was the main quest?" So your loot might be a spectacular piece of bait; you might level up by learning the "Falling Star Strike" fishing technique, where you slap the surface of the water to distract and fatigue the fish with vibrations.

The book has a very self-pub look, with wall-of-text layout and wildly varying artwork quality. The system is super clever, with a battle of endurance where you're trying not to be the first to falter, rather than a race-to-zero of hit point attrition. It is, however, very heavy on procedure and light on narration--you need to remember to bring your own fun during "Fish Combat" (or "Animal Combat" where you might punch a bear), or you'll roll a bunch of dice with only a vague idea of what that represents in the fiction of the game.

I ran a short game of it over Zoom, with Owlbear Rodeo for dice and whiteboard. We created characters in one session, dove into the system in a second session, and decided there that we'd rather wrap things up in session three with a fast-forward to the "Fish of Legend" battle than try to work our way through the entire scenario. The game is definitely a good time, but I'd recommend playing it with 1-2 angler players plus the Swamp Being running the game, rather than the D&D-sized five-person party we attempted.

 

[Violentvixen]

If there are any other Mac OS Catalina users, a couple tips:

If you're getting the error that "this app cannot be opened", try this tip from the devs of Long Gone Days, this same trick let me finally open Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass and Underhero:

!! Important note for MacOS Catalina users !!

Unfortunately there's no native support for Catalina BUT there's a workaround! The solution involves using a Terminal command. We know this isn't ideal, but it's the only solution we've found so far.

1. Right click on Long Gone Days and click "Show Package Contents".
2. Inside the Contents folder, you'll find one named "MacOS", and inside of it, a file named "Long Gone Days".
3. Open Terminal (you can do so by pressing command + space, typing in "terminal" and hitting enter).
4. Now that Terminal is open, type "chmod +x " and drag the "Long Gone Days" file into the window so that it will add the file path to that line you just typed. Your line should read something like "chmod +x /Users/...", there MUST be a space between "+x" and the file path.
5. Press enter in Terminal and you should now be able to start the game!

The other approach is if you get the error "this app is damaged and should be moved to the trash", which I had for Minit and Cook Serve Delicious 2, from this webpage:

Use xattr on the App Throwing the Damaged Error

This is sort of a last resort and is only recommended for advanced Mac users. Generally speaking if the app is still throwing a ‘damaged’ error message you might want to not use it. Use this at your own risk.

With the command line you can use xattr to view and remove extended attributes from a file on the Mac including the application throwing the “Appname.app is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.” error message.

Launch Terminal and then issue the following command:

xattr -cr /path/to/application.app

For example:

xattr -cr /Applications/Signal.app

The -c flag removes all attributes, whereas -r applies recursively for the entire targeted .app directory contents.

 

[Patrick]

Good to know, thanks!

 

[Violentvixen]

Fangamer released a shirt and pins from A Short Hike that are very cute!

 

[Patrick]

I've been playing a bit of Overland, and it's pretty neat. It's a turn based strategy survival game. It has a huge emphasis on scavenging supplies and trying to make the most of bad situations. I never got super far in it, but it's worth checking out.