Weekly Overview of the Bundle For Ukraine | Gaming
Weekly Overview of the Bundle For Ukraine 22: Childlike Innocence and Infinite Choices
All of the choices are here now, and a mild update about this series
Overview
We seem to be smoothing out some of the trends here, and making things a bit more obvious as we do. This page was a bit lighter on the games, with a 12/18 split — relatively common split actually — but we’re again seeing a lack of duplicates. This shouldn’t be surprising, with how page 21 had a ‘technical’ duplicate involved, but I would be lying if I didn’t think that there wouldn’t be more. The Racial Justice and Equality bundle is still the largest to date, so I can be forgiven for assuming that we would have a strong duplicate presence regardless of how deep we go.
I would like to mention that as the bundle goes farther, entries per game will more than likely get shorter, especially as duplicates appear to disappear. Keeping a weekly schedule is hard when there are 15+ games in a week, and the last thing I want to do is not give a game a fair shake so I cut down on the text each entry gets. Of course this won’t always be consistent, as you may have noticed some weeks I decided to go all out and describe everything. It’ll continue to be touch and go as we make our way to the end of the year.
Nevertheless, we’re here to look at a bunch of games that I cannot really find a singular theme for, so let’s dive in!
Video Games
Strife of Cosmos
Strife of Cosmos is a turn-based battle RPG game created by MythAtelier, an indie studio that creates assets and plugins for 2D games while also building their own. Case in point, this game involves a trio of heroes on a mission to save the universe from the Void Tyrant before it can consume everything.
Gameplay is actually in a ‘dungeon/run’ style, as you’ll go into numerous rounds to fight enemies in combat to reach the end of the region and fight a boss. In between fights are decisions to make, such as narrative choices that can get you into brutal fights, award items, gain turns, and more. Other choices involve what ‘room’ you wish to fight in next between two options: taking more waves or difficult enemies, or a combination of the two. You can opt to instead fully recover, but these are limited per boss section; run out, and you could take on the boss with a possibly dead companion.
The majority of the game will be within the combat encounters, with your three companions of Caster, Rogue, and Fighter. Each of the three have a distinct moveset and playstyle, such as the Caster’s that involves gaining and using charges for greater effects. What makes them even more interesting is that they can switch their ‘style’ between Light and Dark.
All three of your units can switch between their two forms on their turn to better compliment the style you need for that turn. For example, Fighter branches into Paladin and Berserker; Paladin’s basic ability is to shield an ally for a turn, whereas Berserker attacks wildly and randomly.
This constant switching can give you an advantage or cover up a weakness as you continue your fight, and gives a layer of complexity to keep things interesting. Couple that with the fact that leveling up allows you to pick a new ability for either of the two ‘sides’ of a companion, and you’ve got a deeper connection with your run than you may have thought possible.
I’ll be honest, I thought this was a Bullet Hell at first; the title, the art, everything checked the boxes that my brain deemed ‘space shooter’. Instead I got a fantastic approach to dungeon crawlers mixed with RPGs and explosions. Even dying doesn’t feel that bad, because fights don’t bog down long enough for you to get worried about it. If you like games that have you dying and trying again with a new twist, then you might want to give this a try.
Lydia
Lydia is a narrative game created by Platonic Partnership Ltd, a 4-man indie studio in Finland featuring the works of artist Henri Tervapuro and composer Juhana Lehtiniemi. Within this tale, we’ll be stepping into the shoes of the young Lydia who is having trouble sleeping. Unfortunately, the grown-ups downstairs are rowdy and loud for unknown reasons, so she is awakened numerous times. What follows is her fantastical adventures in the hopes of getting rid of the Monster in her room.
As told through the eyes of a child, you’ll be embarking on a surreal journey through worlds that don’t exist. The game follows a point-and-click style, as players need to select where Lydia goes and what she interacts with. Each interaction can trigger dialogue, which can further push the story forward, have her remark on something simple, or just walk around the painted world. Each ‘chapter’ features a puzzle that requires you to think about how the story needs to move and what the ‘unsaid’ parts of the tale are.
After all, Lydia is an infant; she doesn’t understand nuance nor is she informed of what is going on in the world. The grown-ups hide it from her, which allows her mind to run rampant with made-up possibilities of the truth. She wants to find the ‘monster’ that keeps her from sleeping without having anyone to inform her of the truth, so her mind runs wild with possibilities of an actual villain. Even her trusted Teddy says that there is no monster, yet every time she tries to sleep something wakes her up and makes her scared.
What follows is a story that may be obvious to adults, but is a fantastic showcase of how the mind of a child lacking experience and information may perceive it. We cannot directly tell her the truth, and through this dark and unsettling world she has created in her mind she navigates her feelings and emotions. If you want a heart wrenching tale focused on building atmosphere, this is your game.
We go onwards:
FUTUREVOXIMAGINARIUMDOTEXEV1.1:DOGELOVEREDITION
After an unsuccessful foray with voxels and RealMoney, Ben Weatherall and Jason Bakker used their FUTUREVOX simulation technology to uncover the truth about currency. Dogecoin would win and replace everything, so it was time to recreate their title FUTUREVOXIMAGINARIUMDOTEXE to be more accurate to their new data.
This is, if it wasn’t obvious, a complete nonsensical and absurd plot idea created by the two above for their surrealist trippy game FUTUREVOXIMAGINARIUMDOTEXEV1.1:DOGELOVEREDITION. This overbearingly-titled game has you step into that very FUTUREVOX simulation and experience the trippiness for yourself. You’ll wander a world full of shifting colours and strange sounds, and all of it is in service of Doge. Sprinkle in the Avant Garde music of Martin Kvale and you have a truly strange experience.
Of course, I need to ensure that people are aware, this is a joke. The entire game is a parody on crypto itself by ripping on their own (now delisted) game that ‘underwhelmingly sold’ according to themselves. It’s full of false excitement and hype around dogecoin, or real hype if you bought into the entire ordeal. If you like massive parodies that make your eyes swim, you might enjoy this foray into the ‘world of crypto’.
Viral Reload
Oh hey, it’s the bullet hell I was expecting! Viral Reload — Classic is the original version of Viral Reload released by Retrocade Media, an indie developer, asset creator, and community resource provider. In this original version of the game, players will be going solo (or with friends) through ‘space’ shooting everything they possibly can infinitely.
As you might expect from the style, aesthetic, and everything else about it, Viral Reload is a classic bullet hell in about every way possible. You are Bimmy Fahers in 2063, blasting aliens with the alien companion Octo for as long as possible before he succumbs. There is a twist, naturally; you aren’t actually in space. Bimmy is on a microscopic level, and the alien is a virus evolving constantly with mechanical hybrids attempting to infect all of humanity. Clever naming scheme, no?
Where the game truly adds something unique is in its dash, which allows for players to phase through bullets. This is a double edged sword, as while you can now avoid all manners of dangers, the possible dangers a level poses skyrockets. Bullets fly everywhere, sometimes with little/no gaps to avoid unless the dash is used. It’s not often, and usually due to human error, but when it does occur it comes fast.
Everything else about Viral Reload keeps to the retro aesthetic as faithfully as possible, even including CRT screen bends for full immersion. It wants you to rewind the clock back to a simpler time, where lives were sparse and continues were plentiful if you didn’t need to worry about quarters. If that is something you’re interested in, give this game a spin.
A Sketchbook About Her Sun
A Sketchbook About Her Sun is a visual novel by Team SolEtude, an indie team in Italy we’ve seen previously in this bundle with Reminiscence in the Night and Homunculus Hotel. This time, players will be seeing the world through the eyes of Lucia who decides to leave her city and wander through a small town to the tune of Red Ribbon’s album “Planet X”.
While a visual novel, the game doesn’t necessarily play in ways that one might expect. Each section of the game is set to the tune of a song on the album, and involves you making decisions based on two words or phrases. They seemingly have no context as to what they are, but after each choice the picture will shift as Lucia continues her life. At the end of the chapter, a page will appear, and your decisions have written a poem detailing her thoughts and feelings.
This strange way of telling a story is more in line with us observing Lucia and her struggles rather than directly altering her decision making. She’s living in a tormented world, one where she cannot process what is going on around her while attempting to sort out her feelings while we watch. She draws, walks down streets, stares out windows, and we can only nudge her in ways that reflect on her poetry. It’s a fascinating approach to a story, one that requires you to focus more on the song lyrics and the visuals rather than the actual ‘story’ itself in order to create the story.
It may not resonate with everyone, especially if the music isn’t to your tastes, but it is oddly powerful in its execution.
Bombing!!: A Graffiti Sandbox
Ever wanted to be a graffiti artist, but instead of doing it in real life you wanted to perform in a PSX world? Devon Wiersma has you covered with Bombing!!: A Graffiti Sandbox, a level-based grafitti simulator that lets you draw all sorts of things in a retro world.
Each level in Bombing!! gives the player a small place to wander around with a backpack. Once a spot has been found that seems just right, that backpack can be tossed on the ground and the paint can come out to start the great painting bonanza. You’ll have an assortment of colours to work with, along with the option of spray cans and rollers. From here, all that’s left to do is let your imagination run wild.
I’m not a great artist, generally speaking, but I love games that allow you to express yourself in easy ways. Bombing does just that over numerous levels, giving you all the mediums you could ever want to paint over. If you just need a chill game to vibe and paint to, this is your game.
Neon Depth
A puzzle platformer in which you are the puzzle and the platform, Neon Depth is by mikomoares, a Brazilian game dev. You are a square attempting to reach the red flag at the end of each level, only to realize that every flag shrinks you into the square controlled in the next level.
Trippy aesthetic aside, the true mechanic at work here is the life system at the bottom. If the square touches pink spikes, the square freezes and solidifies in place to become a foundation that can be jumped off of. This becomes imperative as levels become more tricky, as each ‘life’ used will be necessary to find the footing to reach the end. Red spikes, however, are an instant death sentence; they reset your lives back to their starting point and the entire stage to what it was like before you even entered. Finding a way to bypass them is crucial, especially as they start getting added in bizarre and terrifyingly close places.
It’s as much a precision platformer as it is a puzzle, which means I’m bad at it, but I adore the aesthetic choice it made. ‘Becoming’ the controlled object by shrinking after each level will never not make me smile while watching, and it helps get into the spirit of a platformer that wants you to think about squares a lot.
Dungeon Escape
Another precision platformer is Dungeon Escape by Ukrainian developer Roenko Games. Players are a cute little box attempting to escape the titular dungeon, and hopefully not die along the way.
Whomever set it up was nice enough to put a key in each room for your escape, and this is your lifeline out. Each level has a key somewhere, and to escape you need to grab it, bring it to the door, and unlock the next level. The only tools at your disposal are your ability to jump and double jump, and everything that looks deadly will instantly reset your progress. You can jump on top of enemies to ‘goomba-stomp’ them, which in turn can make the rest of the level much easier.
The only other incentive outside of completion is score, and the only way to increase that is through the optional coins floating about. These are out of the way and can easily lead to death if you’re not careful; but the reward of bigger numbers is always enticing. If you’re a fan of precision platformers and really like that Super Meat Boy square aesthetic, this might be a great game to sink into.
Dragons in Space
Sometimes you just need something simple to do, and The Voices Games has given us the best kind of simple; shooting dragons. This is Dragons in Space, a space-shooting title involving dragons, differing weapons per level, and a constant need for perfection.
The ship players pilot each level is always the same, and the goal is as well; reach the end without dying, destroy dragons, and collect pods. Each level equips the ship with a different weapon, however, to keep things spicy. For example, the very first level involves a boomerang, whereas the second is a lightsaber that swings around the ship in the same way every time. The core is that while you are doing the same ‘game loop’ every time, how you approach the loop varies greatly to give you a challenge.
I don’t really have much else to add. It’s a fun little game, with a fun little premise, and it’s just subtly insane enough to make it funny. Give it a whirl if you either love dragons, love space, or know about Voices Games and love their work.
Summoner’s Mess
Summoner’s Mess is a maze puzzle game created by Elendow, a solo indie developer in Spain. Players take on the role of a spurned cultist, wanting to take revenge against their fellow cultists for throwing them out by summoning the ultimate entity. Unfortunately, that means that they’re stuck in the same building as a beast from the depths.
The summoning goes off successfully, but unfortunately requires three sacred grimoires so everything doesn’t backfire horribly. These texts are hidden in the mansion, which is suddenly looking very mazelike and no longer cohesive. Probably the entity’s work, but you can’t say for certain.
What you do know is that your torch is running out, and the darkness will consume you. Thus the game of chicken begins as you run around the house, looking for context clues to uncover where these three grimoires may be while stealing candlelight to fuel your torch. Each interaction with a candle will cause it to go out, meaning that constantly retreading on old ground can be highly dangerous. The lower the torch charge, the darker the rooms get, which can make it even harder to find light sources to siphon. The idea is to constantly be on the move, figure out the puzzles to gain keys, and then realize that you can only carry three items at once; and there are more than 3 keys.
It’s a game that will have you running in circles looking for answers, thriving off the idea that it doesn’t take much to restart and go again with the prior knowledge retained. It’s not randomized after all, so you can start your run over again and make it more efficient. Then again, you might stumble your way through the entire game in a single sitting; it just happens. Regardless of how you get there, you’ll definitely enjoy it if you’re a fan of exploratory puzzles.
Little Burned Maiden
Little Burned Maiden follows the story of Arlasaire, known as ‘the Dog of House D’Magnia’ for her work as their personal assassin. Created by Amaiguri, an indie developer and designer for Serenity Forge, players will enter the world of Nouveau Thuille to explore the political unrest of the nation and quash it one assassination at a time.
Players will navigate the world to uncover each assassination target in a strangely hack-and-slash way. Rather than ‘assassinating’ in a traditional way through stealth, players will find their target and attempt to attack them when few can see, which triggers a battle arena. It’s honestly quite strange to think that we’re assassinating them in this fashion, yet pull the curtains back a bit and you see it’s true purpose; world building.
Nouveau Thuille is a medieval fantasy world best described by its political intrigue and depressing world state — I wouldn’t blame you for immediately thinking of Game Of Thrones. Each house is vying for power and will do anything to accomplish this, set up by the introduction where a man crowns himself ‘Sun King’ and attempts to gas the entire audience. Arlasaire is no stranger to this world, having been discarded due to her disfigurations, and through her investigations you too learn more about how deep the schemes go. You read letters highlighting plots, affairs, scandals, and more, which all assist in narrowing down your target’s ideal location to be attacked.
Admittedly ambitious and a bit janky, Little Burned Maiden was Amaiguri’s first game. For a game that looks suspiciously small and scales to be much larger than expected, it’s quite commendable how many layers can be found within the world. The juxtaposition between the combat and the narrative exploration may feel odd, but you can also consider that part of the charm. Give it a try and see what I mean.
Lost Potato
Lost Potato is a top-down roguelike created by Blobfish, a solo developer in Switzerland. Players will take on the role of the titular Lost Potato, and fight their way through the forest to ensure that they never get eaten.
Our little lost potato is trying their best to survive against all these man-eating entities, but unfortunately is never equipped with a legitimate weapon. They cannot kill anyone directly, which makes survival extremely difficult. There is a way, though; shoving. Players use their ‘twin-stick shooter’ part to shove in a direction, which comes into contact with any object to shove it around. This could mean pushing enemies into spikes, hitting a ball into enemies, smashing enemy projectiles back at them, and even throwing other enemy corpses into enemies.
It opens up a strange amount of strategy, knowing that you don’t have many lives to work with and your only defense is to hurl other items to hit people. Every completed level gives you the opportunity to alter the run, adding new items and powerups to aid the player in their pursuit of the infinite scoreline. With a soundtrack this good, you might be tempted to just let the game run in the background (I am right now), but I assure you that playing with it on is just as good.
Software
The Partisan: A Beam Saber Playbook
Weird how pages split up entries, because this is the third entry in a row by Lawson Coleman if pages didn’t exist. This is ‘The Partisan’ for Beam Saber (see the previous page for more info), a playbook focused on the internal politics of your faction. You’re a ‘ride or die’ kind of operative in the war, a solo fighter that is embroiled deep in your own factions shortcomings and loves looking at the morally ambiguous parts. It’s stylized in a way that encourages the GM to give you the hardest of decisions, from being a turncoat double agent or possibly too loyal for your own good.
It’s a harder subclass to pull off for both the player and the GM, but if you’re experienced or just want to fulfill that Solid Snake fantasy in a game of Beam Saber, this is the class for you.
International Waters
Moving on to new waters is International Waters by capybarbarian, a TTRPG for use within a game of ‘The Sprawl’. You and your friends are all part of a team set up to extract an artist from a corp-sponsored voyage. Unfortunately, she’s not really on a voyage, but stuck on a cargo ship in one of the containers. It’s aim as a scenario is to open up the strange world of international law, because now things are murky and confusing. It’s full of political intrigue and possible sketchy lawmaking, so if that sounds like your speed then give it a whirl.
You are 100 Goblins, Now Go Save the World
For a taste of the exact opposite you get ‘You are 100 Goblins, Now Go Save The World’ by NikyEllison, a developer we saw previously with Scramble Wizards. It’s a hilarious attempt at a TTRPG focused on controlling more than just an individual, as each player (and the GM) controls 100 of these little goblins. It’s simple, it’s clean, and it works out of the box to bring the chaos in a build-your-own-adventure kind of way.
Medusa in the Sleeping Garden
Another adventure set in the dungeon-crawling-madness of MÖRK BORG, Medusa in the Sleeping Garden by Therapueutic Blasphemy Games has you wash ashore to the deadly island of ‘Our Lady of Spite’. It keeps with the MÖRK BORG visual aesthetic and brutally uncompromising approach to gameplay, with just enough surrealism to keep things spicy. Can’t say much else, if you’re a fan of all things MÖRK BORG then you’ll get a kick out of this one.
The Selkie Envoy: An Ironsworn Adventure
The Selkie Envoy by chihuahuazero is a module for Shawn Tomkin’s TTRPG Ironsworn. Racial Bundle owners may remember this game from the massive expansion included in the bundle, but for everyone else it is a solo/co-op game set in the dark fantasy world of the Ironlands. The base ruleset is free to download, so this adventure is also able to be played.
The Selkie adventure itself is a tale about missing fisherman and the blame being thrusted upon the selkie people that live offshore. You and/or your colleagues will venture out to contact the selkie in their icy home, and hopefully survive long enough to find peace. It’s got a lot of themes involved, and works well as a one-shot about fantasy xenophobia. Then again, it could also be a stop in your Ironsworn campaign, so tweak it and see what works.
Spooky Raven Ren’py GUI Design
We leave TTRPGs for a hot minute to give you something many will never use: a GUI customization kit. Jaime Scribbles, a game developer and Ren’pi enthusiast, has released their GUI for the world to see built on her own experiences and development needs in games. It’s general aesthetic leans more towards stereotypical horror — it is called ‘Spooky Raven’ after all — so if you need something in black and red for your Visual Novel you know where to look.
FURIOUS ROADS — Minimal Post-Apocalypse
FURIOUS ROADS may look familiar thanks to its inclusion on page 17, and that is because of a slight error on my part. Both this and the previous version are ‘the same game’, so to speak, but utilize different engines to get their ideas and themes across. This time players will take inspiration from the minimald6 and run rampant in the dead world. It includes a small expansion called ‘Getting Weird’ to add more strange occurrences into the already surreal experience. It’s aimed to be played fast and loose, and best for those just wanting things to get chaotic.
Follower #1: Velox Comic Book PDF
A curious entry in our bundle is this initial entry of a long-running webcomic series by bugbyte & delade. This is the initial volume of the series, published originally back in 2016, and serves as a ‘physical’ copy of the comics origins. The comic itself is an alternate reality sci-fi with furries, centred around a military project involving chimeras and generic modifications. It started back in 2012 and still is running to this day, so while it may not be everyone’s cup of tea I can at least appreciate the dedication to the series.
Once Upon a Birthday
Returning to TTRPG land is Once Upon a Birthday by Lynne M. Meyer, a game in which you take on a roll of a fae to celebrate a birthday. Each of the six character options has special abilities that can assist in the birthday special, but this is a world where anything can happen. What wild ideas can you come up with, and what might end up crashing the party? Only one way to find out.
You are Me
If you’ve existed on this earth for a few years, you’ve definitely heard the phrase ‘put yourself in someone else’s shoes’. Well, Unnecessary Games decided to make that a 2 player short RPG. Within 5 minutes, you and your partner will ask questions and make choices to identify with the other player. It’s almost an icebreaker as much as it is a game, and it can be played as a serious game as well.
The Jewel of the Sea
A game created for a TTRPG Jam called ‘Up All Night Jam’, this is a game about embarking on a quest with your fellow players to find the titular ‘Jewel of the Sea’. The captain knows the truth of the original treasure that you are all hunting for, but as the game goes on you might find out what it is. Then again, what the jewel is may be different for everyone.
What REALLY Happened.
What REALLY Happened is a solo journaling game in which you take the role of a character ‘cut’ from your favourite novel. They are your OC, your original character, and they have been forgotten by the novel. The game explores what this character contributed, what they mean to the plot, and ultimately why they were ‘axed’ from the story. It’s the closest thing you’ll get to enabling fanfiction, trust me.
Hairic Minis — RPG Hero Pack 01
This feels weird, because technically Hairic Lilred’s first RPG Hero Pack is farther down the page list than the second, which was featured back on page 19. So! This is the first of Hairic Lilred’s asset packs, including 8 characters that can be printed out and stood up to be used as tokens. They’re super handy if you can’t get 3D models or want something that is easier to store.
Space Samurais
Space Samurais is a Honey Heist hack that turns all players into Force users — yes, that Force, the Star Wars Force. I’m not the most familiar with Honey Heist games, yet the parallels between the mechanics and the lore of Star Wars somehow works quite well. There is no scenario included, just the hack to add the lore inside, but sometimes that’s all you need.
pocket change
Pocket Change is a zine with four micro RPGs included, with the shared theme of coins. Each game requires coins to play, anywhere between a few to a handful. This is centred around the fact that it’s meant to be stored in your pocket, taken anywhere, and pulled out whenever you want to play a quick game with friends.
The Winding Journey
We explore a mystical world in The Winding Journey by ArcturusAsriv, an adventure in which you take on the role of the young man ‘Vyler’. Cosplaying himself as a druid thanks to the magic he discovers, Vyler is visited by a spirit named Eraina who looks to take Vyler on as an apprentice. The game picks up from here, as your journey as Vyler with Eraina begins.
The journey requires cards, dice, and a journal; after all, this is a solo journaling game. Document your trials and see what Eraina has in store for you.
Bumpy Ride at Bore IX
A oneshot for Mothership RPG, Bumpy Ride at Bore IX by Robin Fjarem has you and friends stuck on a frozen wasteland planet with a ‘simple’ task to complete. There are people living out here, crazy people perhaps, along with terrifying monsters and a murder mystery thrown into the mix. Perfect for those that want more Mothership RPGs out there, and ones that like games that derail immediately from their ‘premise’.
The Garden of the Spire Queen
Our final TTRPG is The Garden of the Spire Queen, a self-contained module for Mausritter. It comes complete with a small town, a major villain, and a bunch of plot hooks to dive into. If you like Mausritter but aren’t currently running a game, or perhaps you want to hack this into your current game, The Spire Queen awaits for you to find her.
Duplicates
Wait… Again?
