#fen plays the itchio bundle

[tlbodine]

Work is slow today, so you know what that means...

....it’s time to sample-and-organize more Itchio games!

Download here: https://bumpy-trail-games.itch.io/without-escape

Without Escape harkens back to first-person graphic adventures of the early ‘90s, which relied on pre-rendered backgrounds and full-motion video to tell interactive stories. Explore the confines of your own home as you flip between a mundane existence and a horrifying otherworld. Can you escape the nightmare and find the answers you’re looking for?

Well, heck, this sounds spectacular. Let’s scope it out, shall we? 

Oh good. It’s time for some home-alone hijinks. 

Naturally, you hear a strange noise at night and have to go investigate. (or you can do like I do, which is hunker down in bed and wait for the sweet embrace of death). Ahem. Anyway, the music + point-and-click adventure interface has got me seriously flashing back to Stories Untold, which was so good, so that’s making me very excited for this one. 

That....seems bad. I’m just saying. If I woke up and found that on my night stand I would flip the fuck out. (gosh now I’m sad I no longer have roommates)

EXCUSE YOU WHAT NO

it just prompted me to save my game when I clicked on it, eheheh I’m in danger

I have acquired my first item! Surely I will now be able to conquer the world!

brb gonna go see what that key fits into and whether it plunges me into hell as this creepy-ass music suggests it might.

[tlbodine]

Download here: https://contortionist-games.itch.io/your-future-self

You wake up. A disembodied voice tells you that you have been trapped in a time loop with your future self. They have committed a terrible crime in the near future, and - according to this voice - the only way you can escape the loop is to convince your future self of the wrongness of their actions.

It seems you have no choice but to follow their instructions, but that doesn't mean you should believe everything they say. As you progress in your conversation with your future self, it becomes very apparent that something is amiss. Someone is lying to you. The question is: who? And why? If you want to be free, make sure you figure out the truth. Think carefully. Think strategically. ...and good luck.

OK? That sounds? Amazing? Of COURSE I had to dig into that one right away.

Well, damn, we’re just gonna come for me like that.

But OK. After the talking-TV-light gives me the run-down on what I’m doing and why, we’re off to the races. And by races I mean time loop bubble.

Just look at all those stats to track! 

I am a little concerned that my murderous future self has more empathy and rationality than I do. Oh no.

But ok. So my future self informs me that I (they? we?) have no regrets, so bring it on. I don’t get to know what I’ll say before I say it, only which type of response I’m choosing. Oof. 

ummmm well if we’re going by stats I guess I’ll go with assertiveness since their stat is only one off mine. 

Aw, damn, I don’t get to see my response here either do I. Hmmm.

On the bright side, I guess my attempt was successful, and now I have gained insight! woo! 

I will be back to report whether I’ve actually won my future self over and whether I figure out any of the story or not :)

[tlbodine]

Corinne Cross’s Dead & Breakfast

I kind of accidentally murdered myself by way of ghosts in that last game, which seemed like as good a reason as any to quit and start the next one. 

This one is a “side-scrolling adventure game” that is notably not a horror despite the ghosts. It actually looks super cute from the description and apparently involves some farming? 

Pick it up here: https://badchalk.itch.io/corinne-crosss-dead-and-breakfast

So after the loss of her son(?) a lady who owns a B&B has to go to the hospital and you’ve been volunteered to watch the place for her. 

You’ve got an energy bar and money, so I’m assuming this will be some kind of resource management type sim. 

You’re a writer -- neat! -- which is probably the perfect profession for somebody watching a possibly haunted former B&B. Wht could go wrong? (this game seems sweet, so maybe nothing)

There’s a helpful former mortician who likes to give cryptic gardening advice and manages a cemetery nearby, though, so that’s....helpful? 

I’m going to play more of this, but it seems like a very sweet little adventure game that’s maybe about grief and healing by way of ghosts and gardening metaphors? Anyway, it’s well-made and loely to look at, this seems like a nice way to spend some time. 

[tlbodine]

OK no this is genius...

All right, I had to do some work for a bit but I am BACK with a NEW GAME and ahhhhh this is so clever

Download here: https://umbugames.itch.io/deaths-life

It's your job to help gather souls. Only thing is, you can't just go and kill people to get their souls, it has to look natural, like an accident! And you can make this job in a very fun way, using amazing powers to do things like flood places, turn machines on and off, create dangerous chemical reactions and much more. That means for example setting up bottles, knives, brooms, and other regular objects in such a way as to create deadly (as well as amusing) chain reactions.

The Death's Life features a series of challenging puzzle in different daily situations. To advance in the game you must find and interact with the objects in the scene to solve the puzzle, triggering a sequence of events and causing the "accidental" death of your victims.

Y’all.

Have you ever wanted to play a game from the POV of Death in Final Destination? WELL NOW YOU CAN. 

You start with a profile of your victim, like so

And then a handy tutorial for arranging deadly rube-goldberg traps

This first level it helps you out by showing you which items to manipulate, and lets you know how many you got right or wrong. Then, once you get the combination right, it runs a magnificent cut scene to show your results in action.

I cackled. I am a bad person. 

This game is a delight and y’all should go shell out the $3 to play it right now

[tlbodine]

It’s a quiet holiday....

...Which means it’s time for my favorite activity, “sneakily playing games while working!” 

Between phone calls at the day job today I’ll be sampling my way through more games on my Itchio account. Come along and join! As always, the tag to follow is “#fen plays the itchio bundle”

Sheep Dreams is a horror platformer about a man with a recurring nightmare of being a sheep and forced to run through a never-ending platform while confronting memories and trauma. 

That’s some heavy Catherine vibes right there, and I am SO here for this. 

Download here: https://minichimera.itch.io/sheep-dreams-are-made-of-this

After a very brief tutorial (you can low-jump or high-jump) we’re dropped right into the story. 

I am really, really loving the graphics here. It’s got such a neat “twisted storybook” kind of animation, vibes similar to American McGee’s Alice, kind of? Also I’m not super sure if I’m supposed to be collecting these boxes or not but I’m just smashing into them and it seems fine. I haven’t died yet, despite falling a lot -- it seems like when you fall you just, fall. Which is kind of nice for someone like me who finds platformers very punishing. 

Whoa sometimes the screen goes sideways, aparently. I think that counter in the corner is how many blocks I’ve smashed, so I assume that’s good? I’ll try to smash more blocks. 

So a few things I’ve discovered so far: 

The colored column things seem to teleport you to other parts of the map

There are different colored doors, but I’m not sure what difference they make

Sometimes you’ll see yourself running in the background when the map is twisted around, and if you base your jumps on that one it’ll navigate the twisted puzzle for you the same (helpful for the spatially challenged like myself) 

This sheep hates his job and it’s too late to start over. There’s a girl he likes but who “doesn’t need” him and he’s afraid of dying alone. He doesn’t have any friends. He’s been sober for seven years but misses drinking. So far, so good for common angst issues. 

The colored blocks and doors seem to match up to something, because the counter changes depending on the blocks. Sometimes I see doors with numbers on them like 11/40 or something. I wonder if I collect enough blocks of a certain color and run through the matching door if I get an ending? 

I will report back on my findings. 

[tlbodine]

The Dark

This one introduces itself with 8-bit text on the page, so I’m already excited. 

Download link: https://revenantkioku.itch.io/the-dark

Yes, please, I would like to begin my quest! 

So the gimmick is that I’ve been tasked with hunting monsters in a cave, but I’m blind and presumably will be navigating by touch (and by touch I mean the arrow keys). 

OK wow they weren’t kidding, it really is dark in here. This is not a loading screen. This is the game. This is going to be....maybe a difficult experience to blog about, lol. But let’s crunch forward and see what happens! 

omg the sound design on this is hilarious. OK. So you’re going to want headphones on so you can make sense of the sound input you get. I walked forward from “crunchy” to “thumpy”, bashed into what I assume is a wall, blindly attacked, stepped sideways, and then screamed a magnificent scream before getting the “you died” and back to the beginning. 

Gosh I sure hope this game isn’t roguelike because if memorizing how many steps and in what direction isn’t the mechanic for winning this, I’m never going to get through it...

[tlbodine]

Midnight Manor

OK, I got through a whole recursive iteration of Depressed Sheep Simulator and decided to put it aside for now so now it’s time to check out a different indie horror side-scrolling platformer. 

The blurb says: 

Midnight Manor is a short narrative-driven "pick-em-up" platformer inspired by games like Bible Adventures, Super Mario Bros 2, and Lakeview Cabin Collection.

It follows the story of a man down on his luck, who happens to find himself at the doorstep of a luxurious manor as a terrible storm surges outside. Greeted by a generous, but lonely, old man - he's offered shelter in exchange for completing some simple tasks during his stay.

Pick it up here: https://travm.itch.io/midnight-manor

Let’s begin by taking a moment to appreciate my truly spectacular haircut. 

So on a dark and stormy night, I do some light breaking-and-entering into this big spooky manor, where a jovial old man helpfully welcomes me and offers to let me stay if I do some simple tasks for him. Such as....collecting bones....and putting them in a cauldron “for disposal.”

Sure. Yeah. That seems totally legitimate and not at all bad. 

Also, a big warning not to go to the basement, so we know where I’ll try to go as soon as possible :D

Navigating the manor is mostly an issue of jumping on furniture, grabbing comically oversized keys, and opening doors. There appear to be way more doors than keys, so you can choose your own routes. I definitely wish I were playing with a controller though because the keyboard controls are...not great. Or that’s what I’m going to tell myself because I’m very bad at platforming. 

Once you get the hang of it though (and stop throwing bones against the wall because you missed the cauldron) it’s actually quite fun and puzzle-y. You have to move boxes around to set up certain jumps, have to prioritize which items to carry and where to drop them strategically, and so forth. So it’s not pure jumping and timing. 

Once you chuck bones into the cauldron, the house kind of shrieks and trembles, which can’t mean anything good. But the old guy cheerfully recruits you to the next task: Venturing upstairs to find items of special significance to some ghosts that seem to have taken up residence up there. Surely burning their belongings will make them rest easier? 

(spoiler alert: it pisses them off)

This is delightful and apparently short and with multiple endings, so I’m just gonna go zoom around and see where this takes me. I’d recommend this one as a fun little puzzly platformer if that’s your jam, it’s quite nice. 

[tlbodine]

Inner

A game about wandering your subconscious while under hypnosis, in search of dark memories. Hell yeah, that’s my kind of jam. 

Downlad here: https://darkstonedigital.itch.io/inner

Oh! Oh this is beautiful. 

So I’m on a guided tour through my mind, by way of hypnosis. And my mind, apparently, looks like a creepy abandoned storage unit. That tracks. 

So you wander around in the dark, navigating the maze of buildings with only your flashlight to guide you. Every so often you’ll see a glowing icon, and if you click you’ll get a little tidbit of memory or history -- like how you didn’t have many friends growing up, or you feel you’ve wasted your life on comics and games. 

And then sometimes for no reason I have yet to detect, some horrifying shrieking thing zooms out of the darkness and you die. 

uhhh. OK. This is going to take some experimentation, but I am really digging the overall look and feel. Now if I can just figure out how to not die, that’d be neat. 

[tlbodine]

Moving on...

Stage Fright is a single player rhythm and horror game where you take the role of a piano prodigy who is overwhelmed by musical performance anxiety. This anxiety manifests itself as a supernatural ghost girl, the mysterious HANNAH, who haunts your concerts to strain your ability and sanity.

The game is played a Guitar-Hero-style beatmatching mechanic that will coax you to perform at your best! But BEWARE - you will unravel horrific past trauma...

Jump scares, unsettling visual elements, and even UI breakdowns are in store as the  the game itself tries to prevent you from succeeding!

Download: https://broangames.itch.io/stage-fright

I do love both rhythm games and horror game anxiety simulators, so, sign me up! 

So, it’s a typing game - sdf and jkl keys have to be struck in rhythm, and sometimes you have to use both hands at the same time. When you miss notes, the screen goes blurry. 

When you alt-tab to post screenshots :( ok hang on lemme play this for real brb.

ok ok I’m back. Phew. It is HARD hitting the notes on both keys simultaneously, typing brain is very good at hitting ONE key at a time, but getting both hands to coordinate button pressing at the same time is very challenging. yeesh. But anyway, this time before I died the screen distorted and I saw someone ghostlike sitting in the front row of the audience. I wonder who she could be! 

You know what I appreciate about this game? Even swhen you spectacularly fail, you can still go on to the next story section. Also, um, heads up, there are jump scares, the screen distorts and glitches and faces pop up and I was too alarmed and focused on hitting my keys to get a screenshot but that is a thing that happens. 

[tlbodine]

Stars Die

We’re starting here. 

Stars Die is billed as “ a nonlinear real time scifi mystery game with branching dialogues” which sounds pretty excellent already. The description references a giant cathedral of flesh on a dying world, so...yeah, all right, that sounds appropriately creepy. Let’s scope it out.

Download here: https://yorkeegj.itch.io/stars-die

Awakening here on this spaceship(?) and, huh. “I’ve already failed and I’m so tired” is big mood. 

But apparently our pal here committed a crime and is here to show us why, so let’s get buckled in.

A speedboat journey through the universe(?) has landed me on this bizarre-looking island, so I guess that’s where my quest begins. 

Don’t mind me, just roaming aimlessly through these fleshy tunnels of mysterious growths. 

I’m supposed to be looking for someone but I think I missed my turn so now I’m just cruising around mystery island until I figure out where to go. The ambiance is nice, though. Love what you’ve done with the place. 

Ah-HAH! I found it! I am...bizarrely charmed by this travel trailer parked out among the fleshy landscape of this weird and desolate island. These are, truly, my kinfolk. 

OK I spoke too soon, it wasn’t a travel trailer after all but some kind of big research station. But hey, I found the person I was looking for! And got volunteered for science! Which is...probably not good, actually. 

But, okay. I wander around some more, meet some more people, receive some maddeningly opaque answers, and then finally discover...

Excuse me what about a pangolin? 

[tlbodine]

Last one for the morning...

This one looks slick. 

Download: https://glitchgames.itch.io/forever-lost-episode-2

Congratulations! You managed to escape from that … what was it? A hospital, a lunatic asylum? No it was something else, was it ... staged? Who built it? Who put you there?

None of that matters right now, you must keep moving! No time to catch your breath, you just have to keep going! Have you won your freedom or are you just in another cage? Were you ever free before this whole … whatever this is ... started?

Explore what awaits in front of you and learn all you can about what you left behind.

Oh hey! This starts off with a recap of the first game, which I probably should have played first oops. Although actually that recap seems very familiar so maybe I already did.

Anyway, this is a point-and-click adventure: 

And every good point-and-click adventure needs some puzzles! In this case, some of them literally! (by the way, this game has really lovely music, which is good because you’re going to have to be listening to it for a while as you explore and work things out). 

Yeah, this game is very fun. If you like escape room-style puzzles and a nice spooky atmosphere, this is a winner. I especially like that you can take photos, both to remember clues and just to save the spooky stuff for posterity. Go play this, point-and-click fans. (this is also available on mobile and would be such a lovely game to play while chilling in bed)

[tlbodine]

More forays into indie games...

...I’ve got about an hour of free time before I have to resume living hell work for the day, let’s spend it scoping out another game from the Itchio bundle for BLM Equality (which I bought a year ago and haven’t even come close to exploring all of). 

Better To Upload 2 Souls: https://tokaint.itch.io/better-to-upload-2

Described as “a Youtuber themed, 2.5D horror game about creators being cloned for content farming.” 

Well that sounds fun and horrifying, let’s scope it out! 

Well, those are all very sensible warnings. But...hey wait a second what was that last one?

OK, so new game, select the option for the opening cut scene, and let’s gooooo

This is going to be a cynical good time, I can already tell.

But okay. So we’re introduced to a group of content creators, the first ones officially selected to be cloned for this innovative new program, but something seems fishy about it so we’re going to investigate further. That’s probably wise. 

Side-scrolling adventure time!

Bribing some security guards with pizza and enjoying some meta-commentary. Setting the tone for the rest of the game. 

Wait, what? Oh no....so the rest of this was like a prologue....hmmm. 

OK, so we’re introduced to some new game mechanics....unfortunately the game now looks like this:

It’s fine, I didn’t need to see anything anyway....

[tlbodine]

Meeting in the Flesh

Starting off with this monster dating sim:

https://inkethic.itch.io/meetingintheflesh

The game is billed as being horror-themed but predominantly romantic in nature. There’s also a toggle for adult content as well as this handy consent page, which is nice: 

Like many a romance, this begins with waking up alone in my bed: 

It quickly gets weird, though, as we learn that our narrator is....also inhuman. At least, my morning rituals don’t usually involve wiping pus from my face and eating a block of salt. 

We head outside and establish that not only is our narrator inhuman, but the world they occupy is also strange -- three suns! -- and our neighbor is this adorable bug-person

After chatting with my neighbor about the upcoming eclipse -- an auspicious day when some folks choose to make important life changes -- I head to work at the salt refinery, where my boss badgers me about wearing my mask. Oh, how prescient. 

Oh, but wait, I don’t actually work at the refinery, I’m a delivery-person. So I pick up my salt and venture out to deliver it, meeting some more friendly monsters and learning more about my own weird monster body (I have hind-claws!) 

Ohhhh, I think this is one of my romance options! Chatting with him, it seems like he’s a kind-hearted, well-regarded and generous member of the community, which makes me feel instantly suspicious of him. 

A few deliveries later I encounter my next suitor. This guy works in my industry and seems like a fun dude. Also he’s all fluffy, so that’s a definite advantage in his column. Let’s be extra nice to him. 

HEY NOW. WHOA. WHOA NOW. 

I turn the corner and someone is being PUNISHED. That is a bit of an unexpected tonal shift! I hope it’s nobody I know :((

And now, at the bee store, my final possible suitor. He seems....squishy. 

I’ll get to know these guys more and report back with my findings in a bit!

[tlbodine]

Back to Bed

Download here: https://iloveyourface.itch.io/back-to-bed

A short game about waking up during a power outage and going back to bed. The preview images on the Itch page made me think this is probably an unsafe game for Angel to play because the creature/monster looks like something right out of her nightmares. 

Fun!

I have awoken....in the laundry room. Which seems like a bad place to find yourself awake. Unless it’s just that the game started here. Maybe the breaker box is in here somewhere. I don’t see it. What I do see is a lot of soap and some objectives. Well, objectives are neat! sure. 

Leaving the fire going in an abandoned house/while everyone is asleep is a fire and carbon monoxide hazard. Safety first, kids! 

Oh good, I found my pills, one objective down. I am however apparently having a psychotic episode(?) or something?? So that’s...probably not great. I definitely should go to bed. Except I cannot until I....explore the whole house and find a key of some sort, I think? hm. Hard to say.

I do appreciate that this house is actually laid out like a house, which is not true of most video games. I do not however appreciate that every time I enter a room the music gets VERY DRAMATIC for no reason. My nerves, game, come on! 

But, all right...now that I’ve explored every room, I have to go to bed, but I can’t because the door is locked. Which is...suspicious. Why is my bedroom door locked. Why was I in the laundry room. What is HAPPENING? Also where is the monster. I was promised a monster. 

[tlbodine]

Isolation Story

Is this an indie game that just-so-tragically released in year of our lord 2020 when every single day is already a life-sim experience of sickness and isolation? Or is it a rapidly developed exploration of those same themes written in response? 

It’s hard to tell, but I’ve downloaded it to find out! 

OK so to clarify -- yes, it is purposely referential of COVID-19. Your call whether that gimmick is a deal-breaker for you or if you’re intrigued. The premise: A vaccine of dubious origin has been released! You only need to continue isolating for seven more days, possibly! Very exciting. 

So you’ve got a few different stats you have to keep track of -- happiness, hunger, sickness, data usage. There are things you have to do each day to keep yourself happy and healthy, such as washing your hands and drinking water. 

....or you can accidentally talk to too many of your neighbors, fail at social distancing and die of sickness on your first day. OOPS. 

Ahem. I’ll report back once I’ve figured out how to survive this game. 

[tlbodine]

I’ve gotten further in Golden Treasure...

...I’ve finally gotten past a difficult hurdle that had killed me on several previous play-throughs, which has allowed me to advance a bit further, but let me tell you, of all the things I was expecting to run into in this game....

....a philosophical observation of an ocean sunfish teaching mathematics was not anywhere on my list. 

It is, however, fucking awesome.