The Itchroulette (well, that’s a bad name)
Itch.io is a gaming website, created by Leaf Corcoran in 2013, where you can buy or sell indie games. It is also a host to thousands of free games, developed by people around the world. That’s actually all you need to know about the Itch.io, except one thing… Probably the most overlooked feature not just on this website, but in the whole history of online services… The “random game” function. What it does is pick a , well, random game from the website, but you can also use some filters, if you know what type of game you want to play, but not the exact game. Today, using this feature, I am going to pick out 3 games to play and write a small review on. OK, I’ll start before you get to think about how weak that intro was.
Rise of Nosferacula
Rise of Nosferacula is a strategy(?) game developed by Vitor Lanna. Its rules are quite simple — at night, you can hypnotize people to make them into minions or drink their blood to level up and hypnotize faster, get to level 10 to win.
When day comes, you must use your minions to defend your castle from angry villagers. That’s all there is to it. Rise of Nosferatula is quite short, but that’s a good thing, because if it was any longer, I imagine the game getting tedious. It is a nice time killer, but nothing more than that.
Don’t spill your coffee
Don’t spill your coffee is developed by Jared Coliadis, and, according to this game, Jared Coliadis hates you.
You just have to get through 13 levels without spilling your coffee, sounds easy, right? Well, it ain’t, because of a catch — the game controls are inspired by QWOP. You control your legs with WASD, your upper body with the mouse, and your butt (juvenile, but original) with Shift. You will be surprized at how important the latter is: it’s so important, only the first two level are playable without using it. With those controls, you can clearly notice that it’s a rage game. But an actually fun one, not relying on trial-and-error.
DF-Valkyrie
DF-Valkyrie is a shoot-em-up (with a twist), developed by Mechabit. It’s pretty standard — you just fly around, lock on to enemies to shoot them and don’t get shot in return.
But why lock on, not click or press a button to shoot? And here comes the twist: you don’t need a controller or mouse/keyboard, since you play the game with your eyes — look around to move the ship and lock onto enemies, look to the edge of the screen to do a barrel roll (you’ll need eye-tracking software though). At first, it may sound a bit gimmicky, and it is, but the eye-tracking controls are actually implemented for a better cause: to let disabled people play. There’s a lot of software to let handicapped people use computers, but to play video games? That’s probably a first.
