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✊🏽 Quick impressions - Racial Justice BundlePage 2

a collection by Toma · last updated 2023-11-10 02:59:04

Want to submit a game for impressions or see ratings by genre?
Youtube Channel | Steam Curator Page | indietiative.com

I am playing all the games in the bundle. Join me in my madness. List is sorted by rating, currently still in progress with ~427/1111 games commented, rated and added.

5 - You absolutely should play this.
4 - Very recommended game, relevant to everyones game library
3 - fun game or maybe a standout mechanic in a mediocre rest game
2 - Pretty flawed or not really my thing, might find a few connoisseurs
1 - Highly unlikely I will recommend this to anyone
0 - wasnt playable for one reason or another

If I am completely off on any given game, feel free to shoot me a message so I give it more time! Feel free to share the list. If you want to reach out, feel free write a message via Mail: indietiative@gmail.com

Thanks to the amazing community here on itch and @ ResetEra for the support in this endeavor:
https://bit.ly/2zEZTG4

Twentieth-century Cyberpunk
Adventure
Toma says

Unsurprisingly one of the best games in the bundle, Quadrilateral cowboy is a action hacking puzzle game, that actually makes you feel like a proper one man heist army. You have your trusty computer that you can use to programm commands into to deactivate the security measures of the scenes you break into, which usually has some form of caveat around you will need to find some creative solutions. The puzzles arent "hard", but challenging enough that they will definitely keep you on your toes as your execution to dance along with the rhythm of your hacks still needs a few tries occasionally. It can be a bit unforgiving, if you die in an unfortunate space and need to reload, but this game aces what it tries to do in style AND substance. 5/5

Not The Robots is this year’s most exciting Roguelike Stealth Furniture Eating Simulator.
Action
Toma says

Great stealth game with a very unique and interesting gameplay loop that requires you to "eat" the furniture in the level, allowing you and your opponents new paths and strategies. The items can be used to more efficiently sneak through a level, which increases your score, which in turn unlocks more features/game modes and extra levels. Incedibly polished package for a unique concept in a well known and beloved genre. 5/5 without question.

A conversation on the edge of a cliff.
Toma says

Beautiful, beautiful game that might mean a lot more or less to you based on your current life situation. Its is another text heavy story game, just keep that in mind. It is the usual exercise in slowing down, but it is also a very introspective look at our perspective, our priorities, shortcomings, loneliness, friends, nature, life goals... I could make this list endless, but for me it very closely resembles an experience and decision I recently made and has supported me in that decision for which I am very thankful. Thank you Laura, thank you Mr. Stag and even you, striped demon. 4,5/5

Explore steam-powered ancient Greece as Diona, Artemis' chosen bear warrior, on an epic quest of technology and magic.
Role Playing
Toma says

SRPG with heavy emphasis on puzzle like setups. Its a rather original take on the genre, with level ups being granted for accomplishing missions in each level (defeat enemies without taking damage, killing an enemy by pushing him off a cliff..), a unique setting (Steampunk Greece), generally very good level design, every unit having a unique set of skills and possibilities and branching story paths. The story can meander a bit, and some parts of the presentation are a bit off, but this is genuinely a great game and seems massively underrated. Would love to play this on my switch. 5/5

BEACON
$19.99
Mutate yourself to victory as you scavenge an uncharted alien planet in this stylish sci-fi action rogue-like.
Action
Toma says

Surprised to see the low attention this game apparently gets. Its a tactical twin stick shooter, meaning its not as frantic and visually overwhelming as some of its brethren and instead gives you a plethora of tools to control the flow of combat. It looks gorgeous, has some frankly insanely interesting ideas and themes (collecting DNA from killed enemies that you splice into random DNA mutations for progress), some very cool level progression/exploration mechanics and very good sound design. Easily one of the most underappreciated games I looked at so far. There are some small weirdnesses, like the frequent random fire storms and some camera angles if you need to move around tight corners, but this is good, real good. 4,5/5

Runner3
$19.99
The rhythm-music gameplay of BIT.TRIP RUNNER and Runner2 is back and better than ever!
Rhythm
Toma says

Runner 3 is a jump & run rhythm game series where the beat is the clue. I was completely oblivious to Runner 3 being in the bundle and just a few weeks ago, was wondering if I should ever bite on it, as I was really curious how it compared to its predecessors. Well I am happy to report that Commandervideo is still offering a more than decent challenge to a very nice variety of head bopping beats. It lost the simplicity of its predecessors, but its a treat to explore every level with its countless references and nailing the Runner challenges is every bit as satisfying as i has always been and now you have harder optional levels to test your skills in. Not everyone will like the changes, but every game Commandervideo is in is just a damn fine game. 5/5

A platformer developed for the NES. Now available on PC! ROM included. Play solo or with up to 4 players simultaneously.
Platformer
Toma says

So, this is... uhm... genuinely great. Its not only a throwback to NES games, its an actual NES game made with the limitations of the 40k cartridge in mind. And despite that has a ton of varied environments that incrementally challenge your seemingly simple navigation possibilities further, cool boss fights/animations, simple, but very, very smart level design and cool features for a coop adventure that elevates its excellent single player content even further. Add some coop specific power ups, cool nostalgic callbacks and a hard mode on top of the perfectly snappy controls and you have a winner. 5/5

FLAMBERGE is a turn-based tactics RPG featuring free movement and simultaneous turns.
Role Playing
Toma says

Genuinely one of the most exciting games in the bundle. Its a simultaneous tactical game, where you plan the actions of your squad and then watch the mayhem unfold as your enemies actions will be executed at the same time. The basic premise is simple, drag and drop units and hit attack, but the smaller variations of weapons and attack patterns make this a very rewarding strategic puzzle. The game progression is similar to Fire Emblem, in that you progress your characters to the next level, getting them new equipment, level ups and skills. The campaign is unfortunately not yet finished, but you'll still get a solid 3-4 hours out of the content atm. Add your own custom maps and a versus multiplayer on top that you can experiment with, and there is quite a bit of fun to be had. Cant wait for the full release. 4,5/5

Escape to a carefree and colorful village where the monsters are your friends.
Simulation
Toma says

How... is this game so good without anyone knowing about it? Its a very relaxed town "sim", that plays like a mix of Animal Crossings laid back charme, Undertales characters and Harvest Moons mechanics. What really gets me is how much effort and thought the developer put into ever single of these characters, making this a very wholesome and relaxing experience that you want to go back to. You are the last human and live among Monsters, fishing, hunting, farming, spelunking, digging for treasure, searching for the secrets of the world and getting to know an immeasurably adorable and likable cast of characters. Still not fully finished, but great stuff. 4,5/5

Steam Key + DRM Free Android, Windows, Mac, Linux.
Puzzle
Toma says

Deceptively simple looking puzzle game that I was legit addicted to for months, playing it on my phone whenever I had some downtime outside. It has a many handcrafted levels, an infinite amount of randomly generated levels, pleasing sound design and the color skin unlocks are just a very easy but engrossing way to reward players with. It is easily among the best "connect dots" puzzle games. While it does get more complex, it could use some more different mechanics to keep things fresh, but it doesnt really need more. Lyne is just very, very good at what it does - being a damn good line puzzle game. 4,5/5

After a night of fun, passion, and one too many drinks, you awake the next morning to find a stranger lying beside you.
Visual Novel
Toma says

Well, next surprise on my hand. Its technically a visual novel, but it actually has a super interesting premise that is almost like a puzzle game that works with your real life experiences and intuition. You wake up in a bed with a girl you never met before and try to figure out in 10-15 minute runs what has happened last night. The rotoscoping animations are adorable, the little mini snippets about her and your story are intriguing really make you want to figure this out. Definitely try this, even if VNs might not be your favourite genre. 4,5/5

golf + cards + puzzles
Puzzle
Toma says

Fantastic little puzzle game with a unique theme and a simple premise. You have several movement cards to choose from and need to direct the ball into the goal. Sounds easy? It gets deviously tricky in the later levels and I had a blast playing through them. The introduced mechanics keep you on your toes and will require you to rethink new challenges and its very mesmerizing to pull off a carefully planned solution and watch your ball glide into the hole. Soothing, fun and highly recommended for puzzle game lovers. 4,5/5

In this interactive sci-fi adventure novel, you are the AI pilot of Earth's last interstellar ship.
Interactive Fiction
Toma says

I absolutely love this. This interactive fiction adventure tries to mix a very text heavy sci fi story that is seriously well written and has me hooked with a bit of crew management and risk/reward mechanics for exploration/progression. You are the last known ship of humanity (literally, because you are the AI of the ship), trying to find a new home. You choose a band of survivors or create your own and venture out into the unknown. The clear highlights are the well written scenarios. I dont want to spoil anything here, but they do a great job introducing interesting setups, allowing you to make some tough choices and even giving you some challenges to replay it based on what your "AI goal" might be. It could do with more event randomization as they are relatively static if you come in with the same group on a future playthrough, but this is a great text based adventure and original concept.  4,5/5

You need to install https://openal.org/downloads/oalinst.zip to run it.

MidBoss
$14.99
A possession based traditional roguelike with turn-based gameplay.
Role Playing
Toma says

This one caught me a bit off guard. Challenging roguelike with a very cool and unique mechanic of possessing other monsters, which drastically changes up your moves/abilities as you move along the floors and it even throws you some bones with the death cards, that save your previous run as a character card that you can pick one item from for the next run, making for constant progression. The UI is a bit weird sometimes, but the Disgaea style humor/feeling and the deep tactical gameplay actually hit me quite hard. I really want to get back to this game and dive deeper into it when I get the chance. Really nice first impression. 4.5/5

Award-winning adventure where you control the news and its impact on society, your friends and career.
Adventure
Toma says

I expected a Papers Please style bureaucratic news article simulator and instead got a story based adventure game with quite a few friends and stories I get to explore along the way while I steer the public opinion into a certain direction with my chosen news articles. The game does a great job of showing how different choices can all lead to positive and negative outcomes in some way or another, while it wraps itself in its core message of how media coverage and the news we consume can ultimately shape an entire nation. Endearing character art, great replay value if you want to see how this game ticks and an important game to play in 2020. 4,5/5

A hand-drawn, interactive searching game
Toma says

Very likely the best Where's Waldo game out there. You are tasked to search an item and get a contextual clue to find it. A sizeable variety of different scenarios, adorable animations, hidden interactions and cute audio cues make it the perfect zen package to waste several minutes... or hours looking for that banana. 4,5/5

Overland
$19.99
A squad-based survival strategy game with procedurally generated levels set in post-apocalyptic North America.
Strategy
Toma says

Another game about travelling through the USA, trying to survive while fending off monsters. People seem to complain a lot about the difficulty of the game and I can see why. Its really unforgiving and requires you to use your tactical options to your fullest potential to have a chance of surviving. I really enjoyed my first hour with it though. Its tough as nails and you will lose, but there is also a surprising amount of tactical depth here and the tension kept me on my seat the whole time. I really didnt mind restarting as the levels were substantially different enough to feel intriguing again. Curious what other surprises this game holds. 4,5/5

a deadly game of hide and seek
Toma says

Local 2 player splitscreen stealth arena and... holy crap this is good. Lets start with the fact that its a stealth game where you see the opponents screen. These madmen actually found a way to make that work and incorporate that aspects into game mechanics that can be used to subtly confuse you or be obfuscated if you want to change what your opponent is seeing. Rustling grass and walking too quickly gives your position away, but you also need to keep track of landmarks and thorns to plan your route to your opponent. The game also has 4 different characters with different movement, kill and special abilities and 2 different modes that shake up how you play. Easy to pickup, hard to master, the game really could use a decent tutorial for a new pair of players, but this is a beautiful and surprisingly complex stealth death match. 4,5/5

Turn-based tactical fire fighting
Strategy
Toma says

Its a turn based strategy game, where you arent fighting marines or aliens, but fires. Its apparently an adaptation of a boardgame and the basic design ideas show that pretty clearly. This game is very, very good and offers enough tactical decisions with different characters, abilities and many different type of hazards that need to be reevaluated every turn to account for their current level of danger. There are some issues with the clunky UI and sometimes you could use a better overview, but with many different maps, different tasks/achievements per map and a good playtime for each level (around 30-40 minutes), this packs a lot of strategic content with a very high challenge level if that is what you want. Even the easiest difficulty is a good challenge and then there are quite a few levels above that. Very fun strategy game. 4,5/5

A story driven vertical shmup.
Shooter
Toma says

Challenging Shmup with a relatively simple structure that absolutely excels at what its trying to achieve by focussing and refining those very same elements. You are among the last survivors of humanity and one of your tasks is to clean up space around your space station so danger stays low. I initially was a bit taken aback by how most of the enemies are just space rock and not the usual space garden variety of enemy ships, but its actually incredibly smart and refreshing to need to navigate space debris while avoiding your own defense turrets/structures and then turning that into a highscore madness by rewarding the player with stronger weapon upgrades the more efficient at space clean up he becomes. Add another few layers on top with some rewarding progression systems and interesting story bits in between and this is a winner. Only downside is that the bundle version has no leaderboards, which is unfortunate, but I decided not to take off points for that as the game is very strong without it. 4,5/5

The highest selling and most intense restaurant sim ever made is back!
Action
Toma says

Chef simulator, in which you can serve a variety of dishes in kitchens with different challenges, by clicking/choosing the right ingredients for every customer. The gameplay is snappy as you quickly get used to navigating the menues via mouse or buttons, the presentation is very engaging as the preparation for every dish has nice graphics and the multitude of different restaurants holds different challenges that you can gradually unlock. A ton of content, great coop entertainment, easy to pick up and rather challenging to really get the hang of serving everyone on time with perfectly timed food. Fast and fun. 4,5/5

An epic quest, inspired by point & click adventure classics, Far-East legends & beat em up games of the 80's!
Adventure
Toma says

Surprise of the week. This looks like a crude project that wont have much weight to it and you'd be oh so wrong. The unique art style is adorably well animated , it has a never ending cast of intriguing characters in this world ruled by combat warriors, plenty of minigames to indulge in and is just a joy to explore. It has your typical adventure game tropes, but is surprisingly well written and the charm of the very unique art style grows on you almost immediately. The "combat" mechanics are a bit weird, but they dont detract too much. This is a 10 hour epic chinese warrior adventure RPG with a ton of heart and even more charm. Highly recommended if you want to play an original adventure game that focusses more on exploring a world than solving hard puzzles. 4,5/5

A space game about swinging trash into things and dying
Action
Toma says

Its a sling 'em up and hats off to the developer for successfully incorporating a unique movement/combat scheme for this type of game. This is really damn well done. At its core its a highscore game with 3 different modes, several unlockables ships and a killer soundtrack. What I really appreciate is the mission structure, easing the player into learning the different ways to navigate the space and how to increase the score multiplier. The only thing I would possibly still wish for are unlockable visual skins, but gameplay, modes, variety and content is top notch. Super fun, everybody who enjoys arcade games needs to check this out. 4,5/5

Plunge
$7.99
Turn-Based Dungeon Plunger!
Action
Toma says

Out of nowhere a game approaches with a unique genre blend that makes me fall in love with one of the oldest and uninspired puzzle game mechanics of all time: sliding. Hear me out though: This is a roguelite puzzle game where you descend into the dungeon and using sliding movements you need to figure out the most optimal way to fight through the monsters, while in between the levels you get potions, powerups, unlock new characters and whatnot. Very satisfying, super easy to pick up and overall incredibly snappy that you kinda dont want to stop playing, because it makes you feel so damn good. 4,5/5

reky
$5.99
Minimalistic logic challenges
Puzzle
Toma says

Very smart and relaxing minimalist puzzle game. After figuring out how the rules of these puzzles are set up, you have all information at your hand you need to solve the level, which is an incredibly soothing affair due to the very pleasing sound design. Great puzzle ideas, unique mechanics, fantastic art style and simply easy to fall in love with. 4.5/5

An anti-coin collectable platformer inspired by Japanese folktales.
Platformer
Toma says

Platformer that gives me strong Goemon vibes with its japanese folklore theme, in which you are supposed to avoid coins instead of collecting them. The gameplay mechanic seems a bit gimmicky at first, but once you understand that you can just do 2 runs for each level (one without coins, one with), the game becomes less cumbersome and more fun to explore. Add a variety of fun characters, great art style, good music and a ton of secrets. Initial gameplay confusion aside, this is very good stuff and reminds me a lot of classic SNES platformers. 4,5/5

Grab a cup of coffee and relax with a good puzzle
Puzzle
Toma says

Very smart word puzzle game, in which you need to combine letters to form words in a matrix to fill up each level. Its a very relaxed affair, as the game has no fail states or timers. Even after its main campaign is done, it offers daily puzzle challenges and an extra game mode, which fantastic in its own right, which makes it a perfect little brain exercise everyday. The presentation is clean and pleasant, the puzzles enjoyable, just all around great and well polished, fun puzzle game. One of the rare cases of a game, which I immediately bought on my phone after playing it on PC. 4,5/5

Solve turn-based puzzles on haunted city rooftops.
Puzzle
Toma says

Utterly fantastic puzzle game on a 5x5 grid. Almost 100 levels with different challenges and as expected in the genre genuine head scratchers. Its not quite among the best in the genre, as some levels feel a bit redundant, but its really damn close. It does well to constantly introduce new ideas, has more than enogh content if you decide to gold star every level (figure out the paths for minimum moves) and has genuine "oh shit, thats how this works" classic puzzle game moments. 4,5/5


When your loved one hurts you, what do you do? A classic love story about letting go.
Visual Novel
Toma says

Beautiful visual novel about a lesbian married couple that legit made me tear up a little. I guess what makes it hit harder than many of the other ones I played so far is how topical it is to our current live and how charming and believable the characters are presented. Also helps that the game allows you to quickly jump to a chapter where you left off, so you are very easily able to digest the whole story of your path instead of needing to replay the whole thing. Small, but precious and beautiful thing. If you wondered if you should check out a VN of the bundle, this is a great start. 4,5/5

Loving Father. Caring Husband. Secret Octopus.
Adventure
Toma says

Octodad is one of the very few examples, where the wackness of crazy physics movement and throwing everything over actually works for me. The humor is spot on and having his family as a reference point for Octodads adventure makes him relatable enough to be more than just a chaos machine. The controls are obviously intended for chaos, but they are still structured enough, that you can actually learn to navigate decently throughout the game. Fun mayhem, even if the second half of the game is a bit less interesting with less open ended fun. 4,5/5

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