itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality Game Reviews Part 2
This is the second part of my attempt to give each game in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality a quick review.
You can also check out the first part.
You're a cat person. You just dropped out of college and are back in your small hometown living at at your parent's, back with your old friends and neighbors. The game starts as a coming of age story and about what it means to be a grown up. But slowly a different mystery starts creeping in. I loved the game. I sucked at the guitar hero mini game, but luckily that doesn't matter. It's a story rich adventure game played out completely by dialogue (no inventory puzzles).
You're a fighter pilot shooting things. The graphics reminded me of Starfox but a tiny bit less shitty. Still polygon based. This is a very arcade feeling game, not a serious flight sim. It's fine but not really my genre.
You're a girl climbing a mountain. This is basically a jump'n'run. It promised to be narrative driven, but I suck too much at jump'n'runs to experience much of the story. There's an “assist mode” that is supposed to make the game easier, but I couldn't really figure out how it works.
You're author Henry David Thoreau trying to live a self-sufficient live at Walden Pond. It's basically a historical survival game. You have to keep your food and (fire) fuel levels in check while exploring the landscape, do tasks for the local populace etc. While you do so, you're bombarded with snippets and quotes from Thoreau's books, letters etc. At first that was a bit of a turn off, but the game grew on me. It's actually quite relaxing, though I only played to late summer. Winter might be harder.
You manage a bunch of settlers creating a colony. The premise seems like Rimworld but in a Fantasy World instead of outer space. However the execution is different. Graphics are blocky pixels. There's no zoom, instead you have to manage different height levels. Maybe it' closer to Dwarf Fortress than Rimworld? I found it too hard to keep track what's going on to enjoy it.
You're a weird blobby thing dying and respawning every 60 seconds. This game is a black and white zelda style top down view adventure puzzle game. It would be relatively unremarkable weren't it for the weird one minute time limit. Parts of the game world resets with you respawning, while other things remain. You always start at your home, but you will find other homes while exploring. So every 60 seconds you frantically try to learn enough about the surroundings to figure out the big whole to then solve a puzzle in another one minute run. Worth a look for sure.
You're an imp who's had enough to be bossed around by the other monsters in the dungeon. This is a traditional roguelike but you can disable the permadeath for a more casual approach. The unique twist is that you can possess the bodies of slain monsters to learn their abilities. I really enjoy this game and keep coming back to play a bit more. Graphics and animations are somewhat simple but better than Nethack 
You're a journalist who is woken up by his friend's robot. Turns out the friend has been kidnapped and the robot asks for your help. Once you're over the tiny screen estate and the tacky 80ies style, it is a very solid point and click adventure game. Puzzles are very easy, the focus is more on the story with dialogue choices being the most important mechanism to process. Additionally to the cyberpunk topics, the story also touches on things like gender identity and was probably the first game that ever asked me for my preferred pronouns. The game is nearly completely voiced, which surprised me. I really enjoyed this game.
You're a witch. You've fallen down a shaft? There isn't much back story here. It's a platform puzzler. Using your wand you can move boxes around, trigger switches etc. Often order does matter. A bit of a modern sokoban. There are jump'n'run elements but what I liked, is that when you die you respawn right next the thing that killed you – no need to restart the whole level. That is only required when you maneuvered yourself into a corner.
Continued in Part 3…