Games of the Month: February 2020

What the report says

Games of the Month: February 2020Follow itch.ioFollowing itch.ioUnfollow itch.ioFollow itch.ioFollowing itch.ioUnfollow itch.ioHey itch.io fans, it’s been a while hasn’t it? We didn’t want to leave you high and dry without any games to play (I mean you could also check out our Youtube channel or our email digest) so we’re back with a new format we’re tentatively calling games of the month. This first one is a bit out of sync with the end of the month but I hope you’ll like it all the same. 
 
 World of Horror
 World of Horror has been a long time coming, but kind of like the monster in It Follows it’s continually moving towards us.

Also like the monster in It Follows it’s sort of here and sort of not. While this month’s update isn’t 1.0 (whatever that means these days), it’s a significant enough expansion that I feel comfortable recommending this as a jumping on point for anyone who’s interested in experiencing this unique brand of procedural dread. 
 For those who aren’t already on the World of Horror hype train, let me get you up to speed via a bunch of buzzwords: Scary Junji Ito-esque cosmic horror in an Apple 2 1-bit color palette. There’s a bunch of weird stuff going on in your town and you’re going to investigate it while trying to maintain your sanity through a variety of old school adventure mechanics that change each time you play the game.

This randomness is also one of the biggest selling points for the game and makes it one of the few horror games you can play repeatedly with brand new scares. 
 There are a pair of pre-rolled adventures for you in World of Horror but you can also design your own campaigns or tempt fate with completely random stories with modifiers you can set in advance. Theoretically you could play this game forever. To really crank up the fun, there’s also the promise of mod support in a future update. 
 World of Horror is tense, stylish, and will only get better with time.

Key details

This one is an easy recommendation. 
 
 Wide Ocean Big Jacket
 In the past few years we’ve seen the rise of what I’ve been calling tone-pieces: games that are less interested in explorations of mechanics or the finer details of their plots and instead build a specific tone or sense of setting. In these games there’s a danger of sliding into navel-gazing collections of distractions, but Wide Ocean Big Jacket has set the new high water mark for everything that the genre can be. 
 Nominally the story of an aunt, uncle, and a couple of teens on a vacation in the woods, Wide Ocean Big Jacket is a game that absolutely nails the feeling of a camping trip.

Each beat of this game is a carefully constructed vignette that hints at a wider narrative that exists without you but one that you’re respectful enough to avoid interrogating. Of course this is all set against the backdrop of the necessities of camping like setting up a tent (or finding the perfect bush to pee in. Yes, really) which drives home the sense of being in nature. WOBJ only takes an hour or so to complete -- and the dev compares it to watching a movie on its game page-- and keeps you as the invisible cameraman around just long enough to fall in love with this ragtag group of dorks and not a second longer. 
 I love Wide Ocean Big Jacket and I hope everyone plays it. 
 
 Desktop Goose
 This one is less of a game and more of a toy.

Do you hate your desktop? Do you wish your computer was slightly less usable? Well look no further because Desktop is here to infect your favorite computing machine with the most hateful kind of avian. While this has no affiliation with another popular waterfowl, if you’re familiar with the goose zeitgeist you already know what to expect here. This nasty avian prowls your desktop and wreaks havoc on your mouse, desktop, and other things you need to go about your business. Yes it’s cute, but it’s also a nightmare. Just like real geese. 
 If you’re the kind of masochist this appeals to, you can get Desktop Goose right now for free. 
 
 Haunted PS1 Demo Disc
 It’s time to come clean: I’m a bit of a coward.

More from the announcement

Something about scary games just gets under my skin and just destroys me. So who better to recommend a collection of horror games than me?