Recently I did a event on my stream that I titled "Free Indie Game Dumpster Diving" and despite the word dumpster in the title, most of the games I played during that stream were actually really good. Here's a quite roundup of those games
1) Gun Devil
Gun Devil, avaliable for free on Steam, is a 2D side scrolling platformer. It starts with a story sequence about your characters wife being kidnapped and its full of semi-edgy early Newgrounds tier writing that's a little bit cringeworthy but once the game gets going its a rather enjoyable experience. It has tight controls, some very nice pixel art and despite being a quite a short game has some replay value after you are finished because you can get these giant coins at the end of each stage for doing it no hit and killing all the enemies. I would have happily paid a few bucks for this one but you can play it right now, for free.
2) The Backrooms: Lost and Found
The Backrooms are some creepy-pasta thing that I dont fully understand but there seems to be a lot of media surrounding it. This game involves navigating through the backrooms looking for wooden giraffes while you are on the hunt for an exit. Depending on how much you explore you can get one of SEVEN endings which I have to admit is quite a lot for a free game. However, the game has a really stupid stamina system that makes running around sort of tedious and after the first run I can't really see myself ever going back to see what those other 6 endings were. Not terrible by any means but you can do a lot better in terms of free indie horror
3) Freight Hopper
There was a game that came out a while ago on Steam that cost money called Clustertruck (I think) that involved free running across the tops of trucks as they sped down the stages. It's the kind of game that's made for speedrunning with its emphasis on clearly levels quickly and movement mechanics. Well this is just a free version of that. Not many levels and the controls are sort of floaty and weird but once I got used to them I had a pretty good time. If you liked Clustertruck and you need some more of it in your life, play this one I guess.
4) Workaholic
A first person shooter about shooting your co-workers in the face with finger guns. There isn't really much more to it than that, you just blast your way through 4 stages that have sort of random layouts and then your done. The art is cool and the gameplay is fast but its way too short and is just begging for some kind of endless mode which I don't think would have been too hard to implement given that the levels are procedurally generated anyway. There's a fairly impressive selection of weapons for you to find which is cool but picking up a life steal, super kick or dual weild powerup puts a weird filter over the graphics that make it borderline unplayble. Pretty good as long as you avoid those items, would play again .
5) Ghost Trap
Very basic precision platformer that doesn't go too crazy with the difficulty. My only real complaint is that there's a lot of waiting around for the games 2 bosses that make them quite annoying. Comes with a cool speedrun mode which lets you play all the levels back to back without having to go through the annoying menu every time.
6) Resonance of the Ocean
Some kind of art game about a person on a island trying to communicate with someone by copying strange noises that come from another nearby island. You have to go around picking up and combining items to make the right sound and then take them to a big megaphone to end the stage. Very basic, very easy and very much has its head shoved up its own ass. Nice art though
7) The Night that Speaks
When someone in my chat told me about this game they described it as "a game where you fight monsters by giving them the finger" which got me very excited. Upon playing it though it's just a bland and boring horror game and giving the baddie the finger to make it go away isn't awesome like I thought it would be and it isn't even really all that funny. Also the game was made to look like it was on Game Boy, which sounds cool but it just makes all the graphics murky and its hard to make anything out. I got it for free and felt ripped off
8) Self
A interesting platformer where instead of jumping you sort of expand a big rubber band and use it to flick yourself around the level. Not much more to it than that but its short, sweet and has some really good music. Comes with some bonus challenge levels that are actually really hard and its very satisfying to clear them after some practice
10) Grippy
A Pico-8 game where you play as a piece of chewing gum that has to grab its way around a bunch of stages. Its interesting because you play it by using the arrow keys to direct your fists and then you have to hold and release either Z or X for each hand in order to swing around. Takes a while to get used to but really fun once you get the hang of it. Also has multiple routes through each section with the harder ones being shorter so the more skilled player can get a faster clear time, which is a nice touch. Will probably play again some time to get my time down.
11) 13 Gates
A very basic first person platforming game. You play the 13 levels, have a sort of good time and then never play it again
12) Guardian Sphere
The game I chose for this posts header image because it was EASILY the best one I played in the entire 14 hour stream. A top down shooter that has the cool gimmick of your life points also being your shot power AND a form of currency. There are 5 stages and each stage has a couple of shops in them where you can spend your HP for various upgrades creating a sort of risk/reward system that can be really satisfying when you gamble all your HP for a sick upgrade and then survive long enough to collect a few more hit points again. The game also has 8 playable characters to choose from each with there own shot type and 3 difficulty settings. I did a 1cc run of the game on my first try on normal but that's because I'm an actual shmup God rather than the game being overly easy, I think for your average player this game may be kind tough depending on how lucky you are with the RNG shops. You coulda put that on Steam for $10 and I woulda been happy but giving it away for free on Itch is just Godlike
13) Plead with the Mountain God
A PS1-like platforming game which rips off the story of Shadow of the Collossus almost enitirely. Only instead of having epic battles with giant monsters, you're very clunkily jumping up a tower. Gameplay gets very dull very fast, has no music and at once point I glitched through the floor but not an awful experience by any stretch. A forgettable game
14) Ashes 2063
A full, stand alone Doom conversion that I didnt finish during the marathon but happily added to my "now playing" list as it was a ton of fun. Adds a bunch of stuff that base Doom doesn't have like towns, dialouge and shopping. Quite challenging as well but there's a chance that I thought that because I was 12 hours deep when I started it. Will post more about it in the future
15) Mini-Doom
A Doom fan game that I played for about 20 minutes but that seems really good. A 2D platforming version of Doom that has a Mario 3 style world map and elements of a Metroidvania. Didn't play enough to form a proper opinion but at a glance it seems very interesting indeed
That was all the games I played during the marathon and overall I had a damn good time. If we get enough channel points via the stream at www.twitch.tv/taurinensis then we'll do another one!
