Exploring The Itch.io Collection #1

In my 2024 Retrospective at the start of the year, I stated that I had been meaning to explore the massive collection of stuff I had gathered on my itch.io account. Twice in the past, I contributed to causes by purchasing two large bundles of indie items on the platform. The result? Oh, last I counted, I had something like 2,500 items on there.

No, I didn't stutter. I know. That’s a ton.

Want to track my progress? I make sure to update the list
of tested games as I play them. You can view it here.

Itch.io is a space specifically dedicated to indie games, and plenty are on the short end. I have a bit of overlap between that collection and everything I currently own, or have owned, on Steam; when I checked, I had 23 repeats, some of which are still waiting in the Steam backlog. These bundles also included: Loads and loads of physical/board games (a category in which we can find solo journaling games and other stuff like that), tools/resources, books/novels/comics, and even a handful of apps. With the sheer number of items I had, it was tough to sort it all into categories that would make it easier for me to find stuff.

Late in 2024, I decided I’d do the exercise I do for my Steam collection, and organized the games I could find with recorded times on HowLongToBeat into a single list. I only really found, oh, 50% maybe? The end list was still something like 830 games, which means I have roughly double that to check out. Welp, I’m nowhere near done! Though what helps is that, compared to what remains of my main collection, a sizeable chunk of those games (around 350) will take me under an hour to finish. Hell, I've got plenty that can be finished in under twenty minutes.

This is only a tiny portion of what I have yet to cover. This
specific personally-curated collection, at time of posting,
still has over 300 games. Even at 20 minutes a pop,
that's 100 hours.

At some point eventually, I might trade out the Quick Reviews of Steam games for Quick Reviews of itch.io games instead, where I could very easily cover short games for several months. (I might also have segments like that for games on the Nintendo Switch Online, but I’ll see about those later.)

For the sake of completionism, I figured I would give every game its moment. What to do with games that can be finished in 1 to 10 minutes? Well, just one paragraph should do, right? Down here is my first list of games from itch.io, all of which are so short they can be finished faster than it takes to listen to the radio edit of an average song. How many am I covering? Well… in this article alone, there’s 29.

To make it a little easier on myself and everyone, I decided to split these games into categories to cover them here. Some register more like experiences than proper games, some exist to encourage self-care, some are inspired by a social situation and/or try to discuss something important, and some are just plain fun.

Experiences

Look out for scattered boxes.

Guide of the Butterfly: An atmospheric black and grey game about a butterfly reaching the end while an EKG beeps and peters out, signaling death. Meant to be powerful, but felt too short for the message.

He Plays the Piano: Keep pressing keys to keep the music going. Ambient, not quite a game. Nice but not too noteworthy.

Hope’s Peak: A Western story delivered 5 paragraphs at a time, with playthroughs randomized based on the words you can choose on each screen. If you want the full story, find all the words. However, you don’t have a way to know whether you’re making progress.

Still not sure how bringing random items to it appeases
the ghost. Especially stuff that could have hurt it.

Peace of Mind: Your new house is haunted! The start screen tells you what the ghost likes. Bring it three items representing what it likes, picked around the house, and… that’s all. To grab items, they must be at the center of the screen, and you have no cursor to help you there, so it's a bit user-unfriendly. Only a concept, at best.

Wave to the people: Hold down the mouse button to wave to people and see their reaction. Nothing more. Barely a game, but it’s cute.

Monad: Create dots of black and white over a black background. Those will get larger and larger before disappearing. The result is a tapestry of circles meshing for fun visuals. You can control the speed at which the circles disappear. That’s about it for this more meditative entry.

Are we sure the snacks the mayor gave us didn't
contain any psychotropes? ...No? ...Have we checked?

Mr mayor tells your fortune recounts a story and offers you snacks: The talk screens, the drawn cards, the story beats and the “snack” are randomized, so you never know what Mr mayor is going to say or do. It’s a zany “game” without a goal, but its sheer absurdity makes it endearing. The “story” never makes sense. Thanks for the fortune!

The Spark of One: Based on a Martin Luther King speech, the idea here is all about the strength in numbers. Move around, attract one type of particles by holding down Space; carry them all to the exit, and you get zapped; on round 2, all the particles will be attracted to your square, and it’s only then that you can go through. …That’s all.

Emptiness, and then one low-effort jumpscare. Meh?

Eizoku: A very short horror game put on hiatus by its creator. A low-poly environmental narrative game with just one scare at the very end, and lots of walking on bridges. There’s probably more surprises to it than I’ve seen, if the screenshots are any indication, but I was left with the impression that the current product was bland.

The Alabaster Donut Farm: In this environmental narrative game, you visit a “donut farm” in the middle of a desert. Interacting with numbered items leads to unconnected freeform poems. Hard to tell whether there even is a plot here, though the game does end after you find what looks like a spaceship in the distance. This one didn’t leave much of an impression on me.

Self-care

Thanks Borb!

Borb the Birb: Self-care, one advice screen at a time, with a funny round bird mascot. Not quite a game, but could be useful to some.

Kintsugi: A game about embracing imperfections, inspired by the traditional Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics using gold. Soothing music, Japanese proverbs, a short but relaxing experience.

A Lullaby of Colors: Move around an endless land of colors, while enjoying relaxing music. You can often crash into bouncing balls, which will change the layout of the land and the patterns of colors on the ground. Made for both PC and VR, this game doesn’t offer much of interest.

Social reach (Heavy topics ahead)

Not if you keep saying gibberish, I'm afraid.

I Hurt Myself – Postjam Edition: A rough game about suicidal ideation. You move around, grab a knife, and metaphorically end it. Oof. I hope the maker of this one is doing better.

Just one, must choose: Pick one of the five colors. Only one. Then, the game tells you to think about the ones you didn’t choose, using them as a metaphor for any other thing in life that is “not chosen”, and thus ignored. I get it, but eh.

Life: The Game of Chance: A game about how much about life is up to luck, from where you’re born to the chances presented to you. The are no happy endings to be found in this game, to emphasize that everyone else has it rough too, and you should empathize with the life stories of even complete strangers. (Not gonna lie, after the past few years, that lesson feels sour, considering how often people make choices specifically to make the lives of others more difficult.)

Saving You from Yourself: A quick visual novel-style game about being a therapist for transgender people. Though you don’t frequently have options to pick from, you do get to see what your questions and comments have as an impact on the trans woman your character discusses with. Thoughtful and important.

Lacrymo Tennis 2016/18: During a massive protest in France, you’re a tennis player tossing tear gas canisters back at the riot squads… at least until your lungs give up. Move with the mouse, click to swing back. Try to let as many protesters as possible through. Funny, maybe, but that's the only joke here.

Masks: Inspired by the 2019 Hong Kong protests, this text adventure is about a courier trapped in a lab as chaos erupts. Their only choice for survival may be what is found in the package they carried. Playthroughs change a little based on choices, but the more interesting part is how some text changes when you click a clickable word to highlight the gravity of the situation (ex. the word changes to something more dire).

Just plain games

Oh, and the track shape is randomized.

Hair Dash: Use two buttons to attack left or right, fend the waves of enemies. Looks nice, but is very short.

Bouncy Cars: The track is too narrow, hitting the “walls” hurts the car, and the cars turn way too fast. Hard pass.

Bear-ly There: It’s summer, time for Barris the Bear to eat a lot of fish and be full in time for the next winter! Would be fun, if Barris did move with WASD – but instead, he only ever moved when I jumped! And he moved like a ragdoll! Good thing this was short, because it was so annoying I didn’t want to play it any longer. Oh, there’s also a “poop” button.

It's not anywhere near as fun as it looks.

More bunnies in one picture means more points!

I’m Bored, Let’s Explore (Mall): Low-pixel short adventure of two friends exploring a deserted mall. Some funny comments. Not a ton to do, but it’s alright.

#hasicontent: Take pictures of bunnies in a field! Your pictures get Likes, and at every 100 Likes, you get carrots to attract more bunnies. That’s all there is to this cute game; no goal otherwise, though it’s fun to see bunnies get more and more frequent over time.

Hi-Score Boi: A gamer practicing high scores in his living room. Two modes: Endless, or go for the highest score in one minute. What’s gameplay? Pressing Space to score 1,000 points. That’s it. Sparks fly from the screen, even more if you button-mash fast, 1,000 points, that’s all. Looks nice, but it’s just bleh.

Why did the tree cross the neighborhood?

OddyTree: You are a tree seeking greener pastures, but a town was built between your forest and the one up North. It's gonna be a trip across homes and fences. You move with WASD and must rebalance yourself with the arrow keys. If you fall completely to the ground, you lose and must restart. This is the basis of quite a few mini-games I’ve played before, and here, it’s done well.

PizzaBoy: You deliver pizzas to people. You move with WASD, jump with Space, and throw your pizza slices with the left- and right-click buttons. You can often discover new toppings by meeting specific NPCs. Hard to tell whether there really is a goal here; it seems to go on forever with no indication of progress. It’s just a silly, wacky thing for the Heck of it. Which is fine sometimes.

Find the cat in every room! He hides very cleverly.

[SIBERIA]: A text adventure mimicking CRT screens, in which you play a character who has crash-landed in Siberia and must survive the elements. With some luck and clever use of what you find, you can make your way to safety. I liked this one, it’s very short, but it’s enjoyable and has a bit of self-awareness.

Where is Cat?: One of my favorite discoveries today, in this game for children you have to find numerous animals and items in seven rooms of a house. First a cat; then tiny plates, tiny glasses, tiny cupcakes, and finally, mice that will eat the cupcakes. All of this is done in an adorable art style. It’s not super difficult, which is understandable, and like everything else here it’s short, but it’s clever and well-made.

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That was a lot, wasn’t it? Yeah, that’s a lot of games in very little time. Keep in mind that I also had to remove each of these from my collections on itch.io, keeping track of what I’ve covered and what I haven’t. It’s long work! This one article represented barely 1% of all the products I have on there, and yet I haven’t even played for two hours total. I hope to do more of these in the future. I might cut down more and more on the number of games I cover within one article, as the games get longer, and I have more to say about each.

Well then, I guess I’ll be seeing you in the next article like this. There’s a reason I called it #1 – it’s not the last.

Super Mario Odyssey (Part 3)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Time to end this!

Land on the Moon

... ...I'm speechless. It's beautiful.

Mario and Cappy, with the Odyssey at full power, depart for the moon, with Cappy dressing Mario up in a white tux. The final showdown at Honeylune Ridge, Moon Kingdom. For a land up there, it’s got a lot of activity. Including a giant chapel in the distance. Low gravity, allowing Mario to make huge jumps around. The planet, giant and visible from this spot, truly magnificent. Makes one feel minuscule in the universe.

If you fall in the lava, might as well kiss that health
goodbye, you won't jump high enough to return to safe land.

There’s plenty of Power Moons to be found here as well, but it’s not exactly the focus now, is it? We have a nonconsensual wedding to crash. To get to the chapel, Mario passes by an underground cave… actually a long stretch of platforming over lava, with enemies to take over. That section felt more like a “Bowser’s Castle” area than Bowser’s actual castle! And it’s a tough part, too. I remember a portion where I had to capture a Chargin’ Chuck and run through on a tight stretch of platform. The underground ends with a rematch against Madame Broode.

Looks warm and welcoming. And yet, ominous.

Kind of incredible that for the wedding, Bowser even
bothered to get his messy red hair combed.

This leads us to the plateau, and into the Chapel where we find Bowser and Peach alongside a whole crowd of people seemingly kidnapped to attend. Even the audience is non-consenting! Bowser, you gotta learn to accept a “No”. What kind of example are you setting for Jr.? No means no! At the sight of his forever enemy, the dragon isn’t happy. A trapdoor opens and the plumber falls to an arena under the chapel. Final boss! This fight is very similar to the one in Cloud Kingdom; same gimmicks, stealing Bowser’s top hat and punching him repeatedly with it to send him flying into electrified barriers. Bowser’s pattern is a lot trickier than before, but aside from that? Yeah, pretty much the same fight. It’s kinda disappointing, really.

Movie Review: Drop

The second film I went to see in theaters this past Monday.

The story

Violet Gates (Meghann Fahy), a therapist living in Chicago, helps women who have freed themselves from toxic, abusive relationships. She does it from a place of understanding and compassion, as she has suffered in the past from such a relationship with the father of her child. But she's finally getting back into the dating scene, ready to meet someone new. She leaves her 5yo son Toby to be babysat by her younger sister Jen (Violett Beane), and she leaves for her date.

The location? The Palate, a fancy restaurant located on a high floor of a building. The date? A charming photographer by the name of Henry Campbell (Brandon Sklenar). Several more people are introduced, like Matt the waiter, Cara the bartender, Phil the sleazy in-house pianist, and some of the fellow patrons in the establishment that night. Henry is only a few minutes late.

The date begins well, but Violet receives drops on her Digi-Drop app of multiple custom memes telling her she's going to have a bad night. These get increasingly threatening, and she shows them to her date until she's contacted by a mysterious Let's_Play who tells her not to tell anybody, and especially not Henry, about what's going on.

Movie Review: A Minecraft Movie

On Easter Monday, I had time to go see two films in theaters; this one, and Drop (that review will be posted tomorrow). Funny Barbenheimer-style double feature, I'm growing to enjoy those.

Directed by Jared Hess, A Minecraft Movie had been in the plans for roughly ten years, no doubt due to the game's insane popularity. If it's huge, make a movie about it. The blocky graphics of the Mojang hit wouldn't have made for the most visually interesting thing on a silver screen, which is why the film instead went for more textured stuff in the Minecraft world... stuff that's still very blocky in design regardless, and that goes for both the cubes of items and all the animals and living/undead creatures living in it. There was a worry early on regarding the uncanny valley feel it could get, but the designs hold up relatively well after all. Anyway...

The story

When he was young, Steve (Jack Black) yearned for the mines; so when he became adult, he went down there and found two strange artefacts: A glowing cube-shaped orb, and the Crystal, a glass container for the cube with markings all over it. Putting one in the other opens a portal to the Minecraft universe's Overworld, where Steve, a creative mind bored by the real world, could live the rest of his days without a worry. ...well, aside from the threats every night. He has even made a friend, a dog-like wolf he named Dennis!

However, he hasn't only made friends in that world; he has antagonized the Piglins of the Nether, and their leader Malgosha the witch. They need the orb in order to invade the Overworld and destroy it. To ensure they cannot do so, a captured Steve sends his wolf to the real world with the orb and crystal, and it hides them in Steve's old home.

Super Mario Odyssey (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Gonna run through several kingdoms in one go.

Lands of Themes

Put a coat on that man, he's freezing!

From the Cascade Kingdom, Mario and Cappy travel to the Sand Kingdom, the location of Tostarena, inhabited by Dia de Los Muertos-style skeleton people. And yet, the first thing the heroes do upon landing… is shiver. The desert is overtaken by ice. Well, that’s a new twist on an idea! We’ve seen plenty of video game worlds that were a mix of lava and ice, rarely one where part of the plot involves one taking over the other – and generally, it’d be the opposite, like fire burning a frozen land. Several worlds in Super Mario Odyssey play on the concept of contrast, and as a result many have two coexisting themes, which is more interesting than just having classic video game world themes to walk around in. (Not the first game to do this, but those are rare. The only other example I can think, off the top of my head, is Rayman Origins.)

2D or not 2D, that is the question!

The fancy bunny gal with the explosive temper. (Fun fact: I
added images to this article right on Easter day. So I'm only
a day late with all the bunnies!)

We investigate, going past the  town and into the ruins, where we find one Power Moon; this opens the way towards a floating island, in which we’re introduced to another concept: Collecting five Moon Shards to obtain a full Moon. That, in turn, opens the way to an inverted pyramid, with the Broodals’ ship hovering around its top. The bunnies up there boast that Bowser has stolen this land’s most prized treasure, the Binding Band, to put on Peach’s finger during their nonconsensual wedding. One of them, Hariet, comes down and fights Mario with an arsenal of explosives. Nothing we haven’t seen before. Following that, the inverted pyramid rises in the air, and Mario descends into the new chasm to fight this land’s deity, Knucklotec, protector of the ring and the true reason why the desert has frozen over.

When the occasion arises, Mario doesn't turn down a good ol'
mano a mano combat.