Hello Friends! Welcome back to another installment of free games that you can find on Itch.io! There are some interesting games in this installment, so be sure to give them a play!
1. Other
Other is a short, retro style RPG created in a collaboration by Nathan
Addison(Skruffye), Michael Bohea(LeftRight92) and Kevin Sum(KNJ). Makoto is a 17-year-old
boy who lives in a village that requires a sacrifice every 10 years to keep the
village safe. This time, Makoto had his name drawn. Now Makoto has 3 days to
complete the proper rites, and say goodbye to family and friends. The choices
you make when speaking to the villagers will determine what happens after you
are gone.
I liked the retro appearance of the game. I thought that the character
sprites were cute, even though I was never sure if I was talking to a child or
an adult. I wished that there had been more to explore. Although all the
buildings have the appearance of open doors, you cannot enter any of them.
There are vines you can climb on the sides of the buildings with no apparent
purpose. More than anything I enjoyed the message of the game—even little words
of encouragement(or hate) can impact a person’s life for a long time to come.
The game is fairly short and can be completed in about 20 minutes to
half an hour. I would recommend giving it a play for yourself. You can find the
game free to download and play from their Itch.io page
*here*.
2. Lavender
Lavender is a short little puzzle game created by Clockwork Prince. The
story is very Rapunzel-esque. Lavender’s mother was traveling, and became
hungry. Being pregnant, she worried for the welfare of her child and happened
across a garden. This garden had abundant fruit, so the woman helped herself.
Little did she know, a witch owned this garden and had been watching her. The
witch scolds her and demands tribute. The woman has nothing of value to offer…
so the witch chooses to take her child. The child then grows up in a (normally)
locked tower.
It’s Lavender’s birthday, and her “mother” is telling her the story
about the witch and the pregnant woman. I gathered that the woman who Lavender
is calling her mother is the witch, but truly this is not really confirmed. The
woman leaves Lavender without giving her the ending of the story, saying she
will tell her another time(she never tells us), and gives Lavender a beautiful
comb for her birthday gift. Lavender is happy with this gift and, after her mother leaves, she
takes to brushing her hair, and drops the comb right out the window. Oops. We
have to get it back before mother returns!
It just so happens that mother didn’t lock the escape hatch. So we
traverse our way through the tower to get our comb back! Along the way we face
puzzles on each level of the tower. I found them challenging, but not
frustratingly so. I actually really enjoyed this game, despite it being so
short. A full playthrough took me about 25 minutes. If you like puzzle games as
I do, this would be worth your time. You can find Lavender free to download and
play on Itch.io
*here*.
3. Ada’s Room
Ada’s Room is a challenging platformer created by pixelstab. You play
as little Ada, who is going to bed at the beginning of the game. While she
sleeps, she suffers from nightmares and must face her fears and survive. I love
the idea of this game, facing your nightmares in an action platform style.
I’ll be honest though, I couldn’t beat this game. I couldn’t make it
past the first nightmare, so I can’t tell you much about what the game holds
after that(if anything). I can tell you that this game is a challenge. Your only controls
are the 4 arrow keys. Left, Right, Up to jump(Up Up to double jump) and down to
attack. You have to be both fast, and accurate, because if you miss, then
you’re dead, and you start over from the beginning. This game is unforgiving,
but it’s not bad. The movement of the characters are smooth, the pixel graphics
are attractive and the music is great.
My hands just simply cannot handle being scrunched up and having to
click those dang arrow buttons as much as is required without cramping up. Yay
for carpel tunnel. Anyhow, if you’re looking for a challenge, I would recommend
Ada’s Room, which can be downloaded and played for free from Itch.io
*here*.
4. Desolate Village
Source: Screen Capture from Game
Desolate Village is a short adventure horror game created by Choko-flan,
about a strange village and rumors of dark happenings. You play as Alex, and
you work to uncover the mystery of your missing memories, and how you got to be
where you are. These talking animals must be an illusion, or a dream. When one
of them gives you pills to take to “help restore your memories” you must decide
whether to take the pills, or not to take them. What are the consequences of
this action? Will you regret your choice…?
Overall, this game was alright. As a horror game, I didn’t find the
game particularly scary, or suspenseful. It may have been more effective, if
the game didn’t crash on me 8 times through the play of a half an hour long game.
Sometimes the game crashing would cause the other programs I had running(Skype,
Microsoft word for notes, and google chrome), to also crash and I would need to
restart my whole laptop. It was frustrating.
The game developer did say that they planned to remake/rebuild the game
in the future, which would be a great benefit to this game. With some fixes and
touch ups, this could be a game worth showing off. The main things I would like
to see are updated artwork(with higher quality, less sketchy perhaps), smoother
transitions(sometimes I would walk on to the next screen during night and it
would be day for a moment before it switched to night), the bugs(Crash crash),
and the grammar/spelling errors. If you want to check out the demo yourself,
you can download and play the game for free from Itch.io
*here*.
As always, if you play the games, be sure to leave comments for the creators with words of encouragement, or bugs/errors that you notice, to help the creators further develop their games and improve!
Happy Gaming!
Bell
See the Gaming in Pajamas Compendium
*HERE*
