itch.io Recommends: Experiences for the week of 9/7
I think one of the best parts of itch.io is the diversity in not only our community, but our content. Y’all have created all kinds of rad things. Everyone knows we host games, but we also have soundtracks, art books, fan games, and things that defy classification. This makes recommending games for y’all an exciting hunt each and every week. Go ahead and check out this week’s fresh crop of awesome projects and let everyone else know what you’ve discovered this week in the comments below.
Where the Goats Are
Farming games have always been popular. Harvest Moon came out in 1997 and has had 58 sequels according to its wiki. Stardew Valley is one of the most popular releases of the past few years. Folks love coming back for tales of the value of hardwork and perseverance out on the ranch. Where the Goats Are is not one of those games.
Where the Goats Are is a meditation on the daily routines of Tikvah and her goats. There are plenty of activities to keep Tikvah’s tiny farm running, but this isn’t a game where you’re rewarded for maximizing your knowledge of the mechanics. The adventure lasts less than an hour and has more in common with poetry than it does film so I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Morph Girl
Ahh FMV. That relic of the past that people have grown to love 25 years down the line. We’re getting a Night Trap re-release, Zoe Quinn’s next game is a FMV sex-romp, and Her Story won roughly 1 billion awards when it came out in 2015. With FMV set to make its comeback Morph Girl has arrived on the scene to bring us 90s horror realness.
Morph Girl is a game that knows what it is. It doesn’t stray outside of established FMV conventions, but really doubles down on what makes the genre unique. There’s a great sense of style here that presents the work as a lost VHS tape that somehow got unstuck from time and it really works for the game. That said, the horror elements are pretty par for the course but the love story woven throughout adds a really satisfying human element.
Alas for the Awful Sea
Alright gang, I’m going to make a really weird recommendation. This is a tabletop ruleset and it’s one I’ve never played. With that in mind, this ruleset looks cool as hell. Alas for the Awful Sea is both a ruleset and a setting about exploring coastal towns in the remote parts of 19th-century British Isles. The game asks for murder, mystery, and overwhelming poverty amongst people who can do little else but fish and die.
Technically the game appears to be based on the popular Powered By the Apocalypse system which runs the entire game with only 6 sided die. Obviously I can’t wholeheartedly recommend the game as I have yet to play it, but I’m excited to start writing a one-shot campaign for my friends to play through.
