Digging into Itch.io’s mega-indie game bundle

It’s been hard to ignore what’s been happening over at Itch.io this past week or so. The indie game marketplace put together an astoundingly huge game and tool bundle — containing something like 1,700 titles — as part of a charity drive for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Community Bail Fund. For as little as a $5 donation, you can unlock all of these in your library and contribute to a couple of noteworthy causes. It’s been a smash success, raising over $7 million, and if you’re reading this on Monday, you still have time to take advantage of it.

Of course, once you do, then you’re faced with the prospect of sifting through 1,700 titles for ones you might actually want to use or play. I spent an evening doing so with the help of a few articles floating about there, and I have to say that (a) there are some great indie gems in here and (b) there’s a whole lot of forgettable vendor trash. I mean, someone put the effort into making them, but let’s be honest — these are indie titles and won’t have a broad universal appeal.

That said, I did grab a few games I haven’t played before and feel like I more than got my money’s worth. I already had a few of the headliners — Celeste, Overland, Night in the Woods, and Oxenfree — but I stocked away the following for a future afternoon in which boredom would drive me to trying something different out: