Navigating the itch.io Bundle for Ukraine

Some recommendations for the itch.io Bundle for Ukraine.

EDIT March 9: added a few things at the bottom that I somehow glossed over after going through the bundle multiple times.

Oh boy there’s a lot in here. I’m going to do my best to highlight things that have caught my attention or that are particularly good (in my opinion). Going to skip over a lot of the bigger name things, though those still warrant checking out if you’ve not played them, like Celeste.

There are also a lot of asset packs and tools, whether these are tilesets, music, or scripts to make certain game elements easier to make. I’m going to skip over these as this isn’t really my area of knowledge, despite many sounding quite useful!

Things I have played and would recommend

• A Good Snowman is Hard to Build - One of my all-time faves, who knew building snowmen could be so fun to puzzle out. Also worth checking out from Draknek in this bundle: Cosmic Express, Sokobond
• A Short Hike
• Beglitched - Cyberpunk meets cute puzzling. This game rocks.
• Fatum Betula - Strong PS1 aesthetic adventure game. There’s a lot to discover here and I’ve yet to see it all. Not played but by the same dev, a fishing game: Mysteries Under Lake Ophelia
• Golf Peaks - Card-based puzzle golf. This one really hits the spot for difficulty curve imo. Another from the same dev that I’ve not played yet: inbento
• Hidden Folks
• Toree 3D - PSX style 3D platformer! The sequel is also on here!

Things I want to play

• Ganbare! Super Strikers - Turn based tactical RPG soccer: that description alone has my attention
• Hypnagogia 無限の夢 Boundless Dreams - Playstation/Dreamcast inspired visuals, first person exploration. I’m there.
• Lizzi Crossing - very neat looking mashup of minesweeper and nonograms. Appears to maybe be similar to Shiren's Minesweeper mode.
• Nauticrawl - I bought this a while ago based on the premise but haven’t played yet. You have stolen some sort of machine, and have to figure out how to use it to escape.
• Nebs ‘n Debs - new NES game? Why not!
• Shutter Stroll - just click through, you’ll see.

Tabletop Games

I haven’t played basically any of these, but here’s stuff that jumped out at me. I really like the idea of solo/journaling RPGs so there’ll be some here.

• .dungeon - this immediately jumped out at me. Just look at that cover. Then you have the premise of it being about exploring virtual worlds, with classes taking from the players’ physical selves. Very cool!
• DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game, RISE: A Game of Spreading Evil, UMBRA: A Solo Game of Final Frontiers - a trio of solo games that have you drawing a map and dealing with events as they come up.
• Hi NAME, I’m Dad! - It's a small and simple game that helps show you how to be a good dad or dad-friend. I dunno, this just strikes me as a neat thing, plus it fits on a business card!
• Kenzie’s Project is a perilous adventure of clever ambition and weird academia. Play as science weirdos and literature freaks, academics haunted by our knowledge — racing to complete our projects before the world catches up to us.
• Liminal Horror - Players act as investigators navigating a modern world full of terrible and unknowable things that hide in the spaces between, looking for a way in.
• Solo Roleplaying: A brief introduction - as solo RPGs are, at least to me, still pretty new, figured this would be a nice thing to highlight!
• Stories to Astonish the World - if you’ve played the board game Tokaido, this is seemingly an RPG in that vein. Go from place to place, and things happen, drawing inspiration from Chinese landscape painting and literary compilations of weird supernatural events that happen to hapless travelers.
• Sweaters by Hedgehog - You’re just a little hedgehog person trying to sell your little sweaters in your little village shop. This game is about recording a log of your most interesting customers.

Books!

• Magical Console Warriors - What if consoles were magical girls?!
• Paradise Killer Art Works
• Pleasant Dreams: The Welcoming Play of Kirby’s Dream Land - I like Kirby, and I like reading people talking about games
• Fallen Down: Heartache & Compassion in Undertale

Things I missed

• FroggieChat - Everyone who had a DS likely remembers PictoChat, well here it is remade for Windows and Android.
• Hell Holes - A golf dice game where you are dealing with different obstacles based on the Circle you are in, dealing with a Caddy trying to screw you over, and ultimately escaping Hell if you win!
• Spookware - This was added a few hours after I made this post. Fun looking Wario Ware-like following some skeletons through the afterlife.

As browsing the bundle can be a bit of a nightmare, here’s a nice tool that makes it easier to filter and search through.

Obviously this is far from an exhaustive list of things in the bundle, so definitely take a look, there’s loads of great stuff in it! Hope you find something you enjoy!