This is a spreadsheet containing all of the games from the Itch bundle, hopefully. I’m sure they’ll add more and I’ll just have to get the new version and import it while keeping all the notes but
Anyway
That’s an edit link. Play some games, add your notes, sort by the notes column to bring them to the top. I wanna see what people are playing! Let’s get through this entire list at some point!!
I played Nuclear throne for 15 minutes and it seems dope. Will add more tonight, maybe.
I added a few quick notes for the games I’ve tried so far but they didn’t move to the top as I couldn’t figure that part out, will possibly add some more detailed thoughts in here later.
Hm, I wonder if I can autosort. Lemme check
Welp, can’t figure it out in 2 minutes, just sort by the notes when you’re done editing using the dropdown at the top 
Thanks for putting this together, great idea! I threw in a few reviews of my own. Nothing has blown me away yet, but I did think Fortune 499 was worth a look.
The spreadsheet is a good, worthwhile resource but I also want to write a bit more/share screenshots, so this is as good a place as any.
A Kishoutenketsu in the countryside
A tiny puzzlescript game of probably less than a dozen screens and only a handful of puzzles (some of which aren’t really much of puzzles at all) yet I dug my time with the game just because I really enjoyed the person using the limited abilities of the puzzlescript engine and perhaps themselves artistically to craft a spring countryside. It is sub-8 bit and rather abstracted yet I found it warm. Takes maybe 15 minutes depending on how fast one can even find half of the puzzles.
I noticed on the page for that game the note ““A Kishoutenketsu in the countryside” is my second exploration of the chinese and japanese narrative structure called kishoutenketsu (起承転結)” and deduced that the earlier project while not in the bundle is also on itch and free, so…
My first Kishoutenketsu
It is another tiny puzzlescript game, this one about fishing. It is even more basic than the other one mechanically (of the three puzzles in the game I’d consider one half of one of them to even be okayish) but I’d be lying if I didn’t get a kick out of someone trying to make a fishing puzzlescript game, and I still like how it looks. Between the second third stage you have a mini-stage that consists entirely of walking off of the dock and getting a worm to fish with, and I love that it is there. Maybe a 7 minute game tops depending on how long it takes you to figure out the odd mechanic in the second stage.
It also struck me that I have no idea what exactly a Kishoutenketsu is, and the person linked to a blog explaining it. I shall quote here, I hope that they don’t mind.
So I learned what that is today. I am pondering the two games in that context and… maybe I can see it a little bit? Anyways I learned a new word and got to see a couple of things I thought were neat to look at for a few minutes, so I consider that a worthwhile experience.
Also I don’t know if it is a jerk move to ask people to try certain games out as I am unsure about them and likely won’t be able to get to them for a bit… but if anyone ones to take a shot at Noise1 to see if it is worthwhile I am curious about it.
I said so in the spreadsheet but A Short Hike while not revolutionary really surprised me by actually having some, you know, gameplay. I was really expecting something purely narrative.
I really wish the actual games in this bundle were alphabetized it would make life a lot easier
I changed the Recommended column to a dropdown going from 1-5 with a short description, can folks verify that I made the right pick to match your existing notes? Then I’ll delete the original.
I did that because I think Yes/No is a little limiting, but I didn’t want to say “it’s a 5 star game.” That way we can say “Yeah, sure, play this” OR “You gotta fucken play this dawg”. I think 5 is granular enough.
I’d been curious about Beglitched for a while. I almost picked it up a few times, but there are just too many games out there. I guess there have been a few mentions at SB but only in passing. This is what it looks like:
From what I’ve seen so far, I would recommend it.
The one thing I could never figure out about Beglitched was if when you “died” you had to restart the whole game over, or just the most recent level? The steam reviews seemed to not be in agreement on this and I just have little patience in me anymore for games that wipe all my progress upon death.
Also as of today it is up to 1,637 games including a couple name ones in the most recent batch (Pyre is probably the biggest, although I was glad to see Pulstario) so I’m unsure if the spreadsheet is up to date and if the page numbers have been mixed up yet again.
I listed almost every game I wrote up as a 3 “try if you are interested” as I think that’s how I feel about most good/bad/middling games, although I switched a couple to 2’s to try and be helpful.
I have “died” once in Beglitched, and it restarted the chapter. So I had to repeat a couple puzzles.
What I mean by chapter is what you see in my first screenshot. Those files.
I’ll update the spreadsheet tonight or tomorrow with the new batch, and all the games I played today, most of which I did not like lol
I forget what it was called but one game was described as “a match 3 game in six moves or less” and that sounded pretty cool but I don’t know where in the bundle it is now so I haven’t downloaded it yet to try it.
Edit-Is it Beglitched? There are a few match 3 type games in there I think.
Cuckoo Castle
So why did I choose to play this game this early as opposed to all the others?
Because as established in Random Game Names not only do I have a soft spot for the gameboy aesthetic, but I love neat looking trees and this tops that by having foreground trees that scroll as you walk by. Putting this in the gif you see when you hover over the game on the big list? Yeah, I’m clicking on that.
This is a micro Metrovania where villagers were captured and you must find them in the nearby castle to set them free. What makes this slightly different than normal is that some of these villagers you rescue can then be played as with different abilities than the main knight guy. It took me maybe a half hour to reach the final boss (it is who you think it is), which gives you access to another character to play as who can then reach a few other places in the castle and access to a cave packed full of monsters.
It is… mechanically rough, particularly combat. It works but is only functional and rather basic, and the level design is just kinda there. If based on just that it wouldn’t have been worth trying, yet…
The one aesthetic idea they had beyond just looking vaguely gameboy (it was apparently made for a gameboy-themed gamejam, hence being tiny and rough around the edges) was to do some things with trying to simulate light sources here and there, and the combination of it with the color scheme struck me as being neat with how it pulsates and shifts. For a game this small my bar is basically “did I get anything at all out of it” and I think that last bit qualified for me.
I did not 100% complete it because a villager only counts as rescued if you get to a savepoint afterwards, and the last hidden one (I think, not exactly a game with guides for it) is at the end of the cave packed with enemies in a place you can only reach with the character with the iffiest combat abilities.
Borb the Bird
I went to the last page (currently 55) and browsed backwards a bit as I figured it is less likely to get jumbled up than the earlier pages and clicked on the page for this to see what it was. It loaded instantly and is basically a crudely drawn thing that compliments you or offers you a different bit of advice every time you click on it. It seemed of questionable worth but then…
…So I’m cool with Borb. Borb seems to know the score.
Before seeing this thread, I just spent an hour opening top games in new tabs and noting down games that had an appealing aesthetic and which I haven’t played already. I realized eventually the most useful way to categorize them is probably by length. With this bundle it makes sense to queue up a bunch of 30-60 minute experiences and play them one after another over a weekend.
5+ hours?:
Haque
Highway Blossoms
Astrologaster
Fumiko
Silver Grapple
Wheels of Aurelia
Tamashii
Pyre
Short:
A Kishoutenketsu in the Countryside
Water’s Fine
Ungrounded
Mu Cartographer
One Night Stand
Speed Dating For Ghosts
Islands
Far From Noise
I Have Low Stats
The Space Between
Local multiplayer:
Lazer Grrl
Laza Knitez!
BOTOLO
Toto Temple Deluxe
I’ll post later if there’s some in there I play and am excited to talk about.
If anyone wants to play BOOM BOOM BOVINE and give me honest feedback (also how it looks and plays on your computer) I would appreciate it because I could only get my nice friends to test lol. I’ll give you a steam key for my newest game as payment!!
I just tried to run it fullscreen at max resolution on my computer and it crashed so hard task manager became unresponsive. I’ll tap it tomorrow to see if I can get it running.
