Weekly Overview of the Bundle For Ukraine | Gaming
Smol Game Time: Weekly Overview of the Bundle For Ukraine 32
Bite-sized fun
Overview
This week’s been so wild, almost like it’s actually been longer than a week! Who could’ve thought? : ^)
Time’s been a bit sparse over the past two weeks for me as I adjust, but I’m happy to say that we are on track to finish by the end of the year! Or at least, by the first week of 2024. Page 34 is a bite-sized page, so while 33 is a big one everything should wrap up nicely. Look forward to January’s data and the future of whatever this blog series is. :D
Anyway…
Page 32 is an interesting one, a sudden shift away from video game-centric pages to a software specific one. We only had 12 games on this page, which we haven’t seen since page 26. We also don’t get any duplicates again for this page.
What’s weird about this page is the consistent “size” of the games all being quite small. Every video game was an experience aimed to be understood and possibly finished within the hour, and the largest installation was barely over 300 MB. Usually I get pages that have a few games that are larger, or experiences that aim for numerous hours of content, but this was not the case. It’s a coincidence more than it is an attempt to curate a page like this, but I found it quite fun to notice.
Video Games
MENOS: PSI-SHATTER
Have you ever wanted to take out your frustrations on all of those cops in Hotline Miami for how challenging the game could get? MENOS: PSI-SHATTER is that game, a top-down tactical shooter by Jack Goddard, solo indie dev and game designer in the UK. Players follow an initially unidentified shooter with telekinetic powers, and it is up to you to use them to your fullest to throw enemies everywhere.
During the 30 levels, you’ll navigate through corridors full of guards ready to shoot our invader dead. A single bullet can immediately restart the entire level, but your telekinetic powers are the ace up your sleeve. They can be used over walls as long as you can see them and get the mouse on them, and then they can be flung around like ragdolls.
Of course this will alert some of them if they see it, so knowing when to throw them against a wall for a quick kill or into another guard is critical to success. If the guard is carrying a gun, you can even grab it from their body and use it against your enemies, but beware that you can only pick it up with telekinesis. If you need to throw a guard and pick up a gun, you’ll have to pick, and that indecision may kill you.
While the ability to throw people around is cathartic for all of the tactical shooters that have grinded me into dust, that doesn’t mean that MENOS is easy. On the contrary, while the guards may not be the smartest employees they’ve got hair-trigger fingers and lightning reflexes. If they have an angle on you, assume they are shooting you with prejudice, meaning that every move you make needs to be deliberate or else you’ll get caught in their laser sights.
This gets even harder as the game starts requiring planing and the usage of other items outside of just throwing guards at each other, so that catharsis is a bit short lived.
Nevertheless, it’s tons of fun to play even if it can be frustrating and short, so give it a shot to see for yourself.
Let’s keep going.
Grime House
Grime House is a horror adventure game by Skuttie, a solo indie dev. After being locked in a house thanks to poor judgement on our protagonist Thomas’ part, you attempt to break out and find your way back to your car. Only issue is that you aren’t alone in this house.
From the top-down perspective, you will navigate the rooms and solve puzzles that will open doors to find an escape. Each room has its own challenges to survive, usually in the form of enemies such as rats, zombies, and the like. The issue is that the more things he runs into that make no sense or worries Thomas, the more stressed out he gets. If either our health or stress get too extreme, he falls to the house.
Over time you’ll acquire items to assist against these issues, but the house will find new ways to make things weird. Regrettably you might be fighting the movement more than the house itself due to some strange locomotion and collision issues, but if you get a hang of it you’ll be finding a way for Thomas to get home in no time.
ROOM EXPLORER 2010: DELUXE LOVER’S PAQUE
Something that bounced between a video game and a piece of software in my database, Room Explorer 2010: Deluxe Lover’s Paque is both, for it has the game and a bunch of software included.
Unfortunately, the reason I kept bouncing between the two was because I couldn’t download it. The game is currently down for maintenance, according to the page. There are comments from ~1 year ago from people that have played it, so I assume this is a relatively recent event. Nevertheless, if I ever see that change I’ll update this if I can remember to.
Edit: We have update! As of 24 days ago (January 13th) the game is back up for your enjoyment. My thoughts on it are simple; it’s as if the bonus content of a game was made into a game itself. It’s a strange ‘simulator’, one that has you navigating your files just as much as you view the images available. It’s ‘out there’, so to speak, and if that sounds like you then give it a try.
Bunnies vs. Bunnies: Ukraine Edition
Bunnies vs. Bunnies: Ukraine Edition is a realtime strategy game by Jordan Magnuson, a solo indie developer, educator, and author in the USA. Originally a standalone game about rabbits existing within a fable and fighting for resources, it pivoted into a game using the plot as an allegory for the War in Ukraine to raise awareness and donate proceeds.
The core gameplay revolves around you as a lead bunny attempting to essentially outbreed the enemy and dominate the landscape by any means necessary. You place burrows near resources — carrots and water — to claim them and grow your forces before eventually turning to more violent methods to stop the invading rabbits. Fences can be erected, burrows can be placed on top of enemy burrows, and even active violence can occur against bunnies in order to ensure victory. Each level has its own “objective” highlighted as well, be it having double the population or a specific amount to win.
Self described as a heavy handed fable, Bunnies vs Bunnies is a simplistic way of viewing human expansionism as a cause for inevitable violence. The gameplay can take a bit to iron out some of the kinks, such as figuring out when and where you can place burrows and fences, but the loop is solid enough to keep you entertained as you watch your rabbits run around you.
The Furniture Of Self
The Furniture Of Self is a game I can’t really do justice, for it is a VR autobiography game created by skodone. In it, you explore the room of skodone, learn of their identity while exploring how your own notion of self is tied to the items you touch and bring with you.
While the game states that it has a “non-VR” mode, it also explains that playing it in this way will give a discounted version of the true experience. After trying it out, I have to agree — the game was made to be played as if you were in the room itself rather than interacting with a box to view it. It doesn’t control the best in a non-VR environment, so if you want to explore the room I highly recommend getting some VR equipment.
Partition Sector
Partition Sector is the strangest version of Bomberman I’ve ever seen. Created by arganoid, a solo indie dev in the UK, you enter the familiar landscape of the Bomberman games, but instead of the years of polish that you may expect you get stickmen zooming across the screen and bombs appearing out of thin air.
For those unaware of Bomberman, you attempt to destroy your opponent by placing bombs around the map and avoiding the explosions. You are separated by destructable walls, and underneath these walls are powerups that can assist in your attempts to reach your opponent and trap them in an explosive death.
At it’s core, this is Bomberman with worse graphics, but cranking up the zany possibilities to 11. Your max speed is almost too fast, you can shove blocks around with strength, and there’s even snakes? Yes, the power ups get utterly ridiculous as you go, and with the ability to gain currency you can even purchase them in “live auctions” that occur during rounds. It’s a game designed to take the strategy that thrives in traditional Bomberman and add absolute anarchy to the list of possibilities.
Tack on a bunch of different game modes to give you more ways to play — including a game mode that does EVERYTHING — and you’ve got a game worth busting out with friends just to see what happens.
Lunarrota
A curious text adventure, Lunarrota by Luis S is a game following a strange protagonist dubbed the ‘Castaway’ in their quest to… you’re not sure. The game awakens you after falling from the sky with only a single purpose: “Climb the Mountain. Kill the Goddess”.
On the surface, it is a text adventure of old, a game where you have typed commands that you must remember to input what you want to do. This means no arrow keys to walk and no clicking to talk. You must type the entire time in order to navigate the world. However, a text-based game means you focus on the story, which is where Lunarrota shines.
The game immediately opens up to an island for you to explore, with various possibilities and paths to choose. The people on the island are friendly enough, if a bit odd, but some may wish to simply bruteforce their way to the mountain. After all, you’re on a mission to kill a goddess. Who cares what happens to those who live on the same island as her?
It’s a massive departure from the last title we saw from Luis (The Crystal Golem) and one I enjoyed immensely. The game is extremely responsive to your prompts, and the characters you meet along the way open up conversations about what it means to be “you”. Not to mention you’ll be making those tough decisions to acquire upgrades in less savoury ways because if you fail to kill the goddess, what are you? That’s just the start of the existential spiral, have fun!
Toybox Aviation
Toybox Aviation is a simulation game created by Onerat Games, a solo indie studio in Australia seen previously with Elden: Path of the Forgotten. Doing a complete 180 in tone and gameplay, this is a sandbox in which you can fly free to dance the skies. Well, at least once you figure out how to fly.
With your little base ship, you’ll craft your toy aeroplane through the model pieces around you in a 3D space. This means all of the fun of trying to move pieces through a 3D space to ensure that everything is attached in the right location. Thankfully each piece has glowing nodes on it to “snap” into place when spacebar is pressed, with blue lines indicating where the piece will snap to. Once you’ve set it up the way you want, press the red button and see what happens with your ship. It’ll probably crash, and that’s OK: practice and try again, and see how far it’ll go next time.
Volatile
Volatile is a space adventure game created by Boaan, a solo indie dev and asset creator. You select one of 4 pilots that have been accidentally stranded in space after a terrible miscalculation, and must report for duty in the hopes of righting wrongs and fighting back against a mysterious foe.
Gameplay splits between two major sections: the narrative and the space exploration. Much of the game will be set inside of your ship, navigating the void of space from the top-down to perform missions in your customizable ship. You’ll be able to fire at enemies of all kinds, fly around, and even crash into civilians to cause inter galactic incidences.
On the flip side, entering bases will transition you into a point-and-click style, selecting who you wish to talk with or where you wish to go. This is where the stronger narrative elements kick in as you make choices on what you wish to say and how you handle the actions you did in space.
Unfortunately the game is in very early access, with many features still missing from the game. The campaign is focused currently on the main story, with the choices and ‘side’ missions currently missing. This is all expected, and even stated by the developer from the beginning. The last update according to itch.io was last year, so I’m not certain when the next update will be, but you might be interested in what is present now.
Harvest Hero Origins
Harvest the power of your hammer with Harvest Hero Origins by Gemdrop Games, an American indie studio. Players will decide what game mode they’ll hop into to defend their home from the terrifying Grooble army advancing onto your home.
In the story mode, our hero picks up a hammer to defeat waves of Groobles as they march towards your home of Fromvale. Thanks to the arcade aesthetic, movement is in the standard quad-direction, meaning that turning requires slight movement and the hammer only swings in the direction you’re facing. This can make it a bit tricky to land the hammer every time, but that’s nothing in comparison to what the army has in store for our hero if they reach their home. So you wack them all, gaining more points if you decide to increase their speed on the fly. If you reach the end of the wave, you’re treated to a new cutscene to explore farther what is going on.
If story isn’t your style, grab a friend and wack the Groobles together in an adorable romp of fun. There are even skins and characters to unlock to customize your hero even farther.
Hack FPS — Anniversary Edition
Created by r3sgame to celebrate its first anniversary, Hack FPS — Anniversary Edition is the special version of the fast paced first person shooter of the same name. You grind through dozens of levels, trying to find the end by blasting away at all your enemies and taking them over to navigate the map.
The core gameplay follows oldschool shooter logic of ‘infinite ammo but the need to reload’ as you jump from corridor to corridor. Enemies are all colour coded and fire on sight, but do not explode on death. Instead, they fall over for you to take over via the “hack” of your right click. The colour coding suddenly becomes important, because their colour dictates their special ability and their gun. For example, orange enemies are fast as heck, able to cause clipping at the worst of times and give you the speed to make ridiculous jumps at the best. Hacking is also the only way to heal, even if it is just a little, so you’ll be bouncing around your foes at lightning pace on your quest for the exit.
The anniversary edition gives you much more possibility to engage, such as the hardcore mode that gives you no breaks as you clear every level, or the map creator to try out new levels of your own mind. If you love minimalistic shooters that keep with the idea of go fast and shoot faster, this is the game for you.
Bunflower
An adorable game by SaturnSprout, and their first game to boot! Created in GB Studio to emulate that nostalgic look, Bunflower follows a little bunny that needs to stock up on food for the winter. Unfortunately for them, the food is all out in the wild, and they must solve various puzzles outside to find it.
Interact with the other bunnies as they mill out in the cold, many of them ready for winter but not making fun of your lack of preparation. Instead they’re just being cozy and adorable as you push blocks around in a Sokoban-esque fashion to reach carrots and free trapped bunnies. Sometimes you’ll find chests to fuel the bunny’s acrade gaming habits, but make sure to at least find all the food before letting them return to that state.
It’s just a comfy exploratory game that includes the ROM to allow for emulation, giving maximum nostalgia.
Software
Vampires of Neptune
We start our software section with a book by JYoungman, creator of the game Soldier of Fortune seen in the Racial Justice Bundle. This book focuses on two individuals named Tulsi and Dallas as they live a life of crime to spite the oligarchs of Mars.
Unfortunately, their journey in the novel begins with their survival against an attack by vampires, causing them to devise a plan to destroy them once and for all. If space fantasy is your jam, check this out.
From a Different Point of View: Victorian London
This is an unofficial supplement for ‘The Between’ by Jason Cordova, a TTRPG centred on monster hunters in the Victorian Era. This supplement gives new scenes to use during the day and night, focusing on themes and features that may have gone missed in the original. If you enjoyed The Between you may want to grab this to keep the fun going.
TITAN (ENG)
Created by Roll & PlayMedusa, TITAN is a tabletop game in which you and the other players are attempting to explore the surface of the moon Titan and mine it for valuable minerals. It involves navigating a hex grid while rolling dice to see what resources you have available to you so that you can mine.
It’s a much more elaborate experience than it may appear at first glance thanks to its crunchy gameplay, so you’ll have to dive in and see more about this futuristic space exploitation game.
Operator Overload OST
Operator Overload is a puzzle game by Benn Powell, and this is the soundtrack that accompanied it. While the game isn’t featured in the bundle, the soundtrack can give you the ability to listen to what we missed out on with 5 ambient tracks by ruby0x1.
Head AS Code OST
Seen back on page 16, Head AS Code was a fascinating visual novel about winning a dating game or dying in the attempt. Slaleky, seen numerous times in the bundle, was the one to create the OST for the game, and has gifted it to us for the bundle. Included are 19 tracks in WAV format, with two of them being bonus tracks for you to enjoy.
Safari Zone OST
Oh hey it’s Slaleky again — seriously they are a saint for donating so much to the bundle. Safari Zone is a game just recently seen in the bundle, a collectathon game in which you find all of the mutated animals and document them for science. Included in this OST are 19 tracks for you to listen to.
Changelings
I originally thought this was a duplicate of a visual novel, but this is actually a tabletop roleplaying game about changelings by kolekniewiary. Changelings are creatures from the fae realm that appear as humans in the human realm, and must control their conflicting nature while existing on the Earth. The game mechanics are a hack of Wights by Steffie de Vaan, included earlier in the bundle, with the rules based on Lasers & Feelings.
The Lemon King
Originally published in 2019, The Lemon King is a novel by A.E Ross, a Canadian author and writer. It’s protagonists are Clark and Julio, two teen boys living in Corona, a citrus industry town in California. Unfortunately for them, they are living in 1960, and they aren’t exactly straight. Navigating all of these feelings within their small town and catholic upbringings makes for a heartfelt tale that you might be very interested in.
Songs of the Northlanders
Songs of the Northlanders is a TTRPG created by WolfWyzard as an homage to all RPGs that came before it, from the classics to the indie revolution.
Requiring a minimum of 3 people, you’ll be setting off on massive adventures to seek gold and glory while the GM maps out the story and attempts to curb the difficulty to fit your needs. It aims for that primitive yet refined aesthetic, one reminiscent of the original titles while bringing in new mechanics.
Currently this is a revision of the original, and is in beta.
Green Things Grow From Cinders
A.E Ross is back again to deliver another novel, this time a reimagining of the traditional fairy tail Cinderella. Our protagonist, Ash Zermeno, is a horticulturist that is hoping to attend an upcoming wedding. Unfortunately, since ordering the dress, he’s realized he’s actually a trans man. With a little help from a fairy, he might just get things to work.
I never really thought about how the story of Cinderella works for so many different dilemmas in life, but that’s the magic of fairy tails.
8×8 Platformer Asset Pack with pico-8 palette
Another asset pack for 2D games, this package contains everything you need to create a platformer in the Pico-8 palette by Niall Chandler Games (seen earlier in this bundle with Snack Scoffer). It includes 21 different tilesets of various biomes, a fully animated player, and dozens of enemies and blocks to utilize.
If you’re not familiar with Pico-8 but have wanted to make a small game that can run anywhere, this is the perfect pack to get you started.
Gambler’s Heart
Gambling is an adrenaline-filled hobby that can destroy lives if left unchecked, but not for those of you in Gambler’s Heart by Dice Kapital, seen earlier with Frankenmonster Creaturestein. In this TTRPG, you play as Gamblers who won against a magical being in a game of cards, and now have powers beyond your wildest dreams.
The game revolves around gambling with your powers against the GM, hiding the patron you selected by masking your abilities and keeping that poker face strong. If the GM figures you out, however, they’ll pick you apart.
It’s a fast-paced game. It’s also the most blatant one-vs-all TTRPG I’ve seen as you work together to ensure that the GM never knows your next move.
The Jellicle Chance
If you’re familiar with Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber’s famous musical, you’re either groaning in pain or giddy with excitement based on the name of this entry alone.
The Jellicle Chance by segoli and co-written by Kit Pulliam is an improv-heavy TTRPG about sentient cats hoping to achieve ascension through death. It has heavy emphasis on creative expression, so bring whatever you want and use whatever’s available to bring out the best version of your ascension. It’ll be as gaudy and exquisite as you think it will be.
[MOOD] Pixel Art Font Set
Creator of Project SNAQE and other font packs BSL has given us another Pixel Font Pack, this one called [MOOD]. Inspired by the original DOOM (now the name just looks way too clever), it gives you a font pack full of retro-futuristic style that will fit into any of your pixel games that are looking to be in a sci-fi universe. It contains quite a few ‘special’ characters, so you’ll be able to use it for various languages as well.
The Warehouse
The Warehouse is a small TTRPG by Elise ‘Lachesis’ Pages centred around extremely capable yet desperate people. Players all work for ‘Clockwork Inc’, a company specializing in the extraction and protection of chaotic entities, from artefacts to places to people.
The game revolves around the three stages of Secure, Contain, and Protect, and you’ll be storing all of your victories within the titular warehouse. Good luck!
InBetween: Hungry Mouse
To explain what this solo adventure is, we’ll need to dive into the original, for InBetween: Hungry Mouse is actually a spin-off of InBetween by David Donachie. InBetween follows the Hylin, mice-like creatures that live in the walls of human houses and navigate their lives through these confines.
Hungry Mouse uses this game to tell its solo mini-game, as you are a tiny mouse looking for food in a particularly dangerous house (also known as the ‘Between’). The game revolves around creating a route to explore before returning with as much loot as possible, and hopefully surviving along the way.
Stepping into the Oblivion (single page version)
Stepping into the Oblivion is a dice-less, GM-full TTRPG by Dimitri, Dr. Givaca. By ‘GM-full’, you and every other player are GMs at the exact same time, for the game is about a reunion of friends that are hoping to share the memories they’ve made while fighting against the fact that time is eroding their previous memories.
The game uses dominoes to showcase the sequences, allowing for flowing information; until two dominoes don’t fit, implying the loss of those memories. With two modes — one present tense, one past tense — you can use this game as a way of exploring your friendships and your memories, and see how far they run.
Bark and Grass Materials
Odd way to end the software of the page, but this is a texture pack created in Substance Designer by kingdomfantasy6. It contains every file that you might need for the materials, allowing you to have the bark and grass textures you’ve always wanted.
Duplicates
Hm….
