Interesting games on itch.io: July 26

I’m a big fan of itch.io for the freedom and open platform that it allows for developers to be creative, experimental, and directly canvas the audience for feedback for games that are not yet ready for primetime on Steam and its ilk. In addition, itch.io allows you to be transgressive, subversive, and downright dangerous. It’s a true “art gallery” for game ideas and creative developers, and it should be celebrated for that.

What makes itch.io a little difficult at times is finding things that are interesting to play. Discovery is a real issue when great ideas are buried among high school projects and nasty little efforts to scam a quick buck from players. With that in mind, I thought what might be helpful to readers would be if I did a brief write-up of interesting games that I’ve come across on itch.io each week. In many cases these games will be unfinished or “in development,” but I’m highlighting them because they promise something special and are well worth keeping on the radar.

Note: I also haven’t played these games. I highlight them as interesting based on the itch.io description and concept. Where I find the time to do actual reviews or other coverage, I will compose separate articles on the game in question. These aren’t so much an endorsement (or piece of criticism) as they are a head’s up.

Naturally, if you want to pick up a couple of the Dee Dee visual novels while you’re there on itch.io to support our work here, I would be eternally grateful! There’s a new one that recently came out, Sade!

The Farm

In addition to the beautiful sinister art, this game checks off just about every content warning you could imagine: verbal and physical abuse, implications of child death, death in general, self-harm, suggestive discussions and imagery, NSFW implications, workplace sexual harassment, peril relating to NSFW/suggestive situations, body horror, exploration/denial of sexuality, and choking. It goes without saying that this is most definitely an adults-only game, but it looks like a serious, genuine one, doing something interesting and worthy with its transgressive themes.

Darkest Dungeon has a lot to answer for, but since so many of the games that are inspired by it have been so good, we’re not actually complaining about this. Draft of Darkness is a post-apocalyptic survival horror roguelike with card mechanics. Far from being a mesh of nonsense for the sake of having bullet points on the marketing list, but it does seem like every element of Draft of Darkness has been carefully considered.

Deep Down Me looks like it could be really powerful. The black-and-white aesthetic is immediately appealing but it’s the narrative concept that really caught my attention: However, her father wasn’t fulfilled, because he couldn’t have a male heir. His wife was ill, and couldn’t have any more children. Frustration and social pressure made the father toxic and stifling. That caused severe trauma to Helia. One day, Helia fell into a coma because of her violent father. In the game, you have to brave the darkness and use the light to save Helia’s life. 

I’ve cleaned the description up a touch – the game was clearly made by a French developer, working with limited translation capabilities, but it should be possible to follow what’s going on in it, and it really does looks like it could be an intense and artful horror experience. There’s a heavy emphasis on the use of light and darkness (a motif I always love), and as you can see from the surrealistic imagery, this one has a strong Euro-horror vibe. This one is also free to play, so no risk there!