Six Games From ITCH.IO You Should Play
If you're on the hunt for unique and underrated games, itch.io is a treasure trove of hidden gems. The platform is home to countless indie creations that often push the boundaries of storytelling, gameplay, and artistic expression. Whether you're looking for a short but impactful experience or a game that challenges conventions, there's something worth playing.
In these reviews by Pyroclastic_Snow, we'll dive into a few standout titles that deserve your attention.
Article One: Chonkers
“Adopt the cutest fur balls and watch them ramp up the chonk scale as you play with them. Find them a new family. They’ll pay A LOT for your hefty chonker!”
As someone whose day job involves working with animals, pet health is important to me. Anyone who knows me personally knows I don’t mind giving my two cents on pet diet and treat information—after all, I just want to help. This game challenges that a bit.
Chonkers is an idle game I found on Steam, and the goal is to collect all the cat types. You can get toys to play with the cats and level them up (can someone please explain why it costs $250 to go from a dirty sock to a clean one? Since when does it cost that much to wash clothes?), buy litterboxes for extra rewards, and buy food to increase your “chonker chance.” There are four categories to collect in, with four special types of cats to collect (cats, “chonkers,” space cats, and space “chonkers”), plus two collection categories to help fill out what you’ve missed in your cat pulls.
The cats you hold onto (or sell) earn you in-game money, which you can use to pull from different cat categories, symbolized by film rolls with different patterns and names. You choose one from three kitten options and gain experience by playing with them until they’re full-grown, earning you more income. The most important thing to remember is that this is a game designed to be left and returned to after a brief check-in, so those who need collection satisfaction fast might not enjoy this unless they can overlook that need for instant closure.
Overall, I did and continue to enjoy this game. It offers nice ambient lo-fi music to enjoy while playing and relaxing scenery. The game costs $4.99, but there are a couple of bundles that include Chonkers, one of which I find similarly delightful and tend to keep on while I work during the day. I plan to give this game a good review, as I recommend you do if you found the experience as enjoyable as I did!
Article Two: Elevator Hitch
“The story of two co-workers suddenly finding themselves stuck together in a ‘Perfectly Normal’ 70s office elevator.”
Surreal-style horror games can be so much fun, and Elevator Hitch is certainly no exception. This 2.5D visual novel surreal horror game, found on Itch.io and made by racheldrawthis, plays like an escape room game, accumulating items to use in different locations to reach a destination. It really is a lot of fun.
The story begins with your character entering a building for an interview, only to be ignored by the reception staff. Left with no guidance, he steps into a random elevator, soon joined by a tall blonde coworker (who introduces himself inconsistently as Bryce Stryker and Clayton Cox). Unfortunately, the lights flicker, and the top floor—your destination—becomes inaccessible, as does the first floor. Now, you must navigate different floors of the building, solving puzzles in these bizarre liminal spaces while dealing with an unhelpful companion who is more interested in bragging than assisting. To make matters worse, some floors are dangerous if you aren’t careful or properly equipped. And at the end of all this nonsense, you still have an interview to pass!
This game has a wonderful, bizarre nature, an awesome art style, and engaging in-game mechanics. Plus, with 15 endings to experience, there is plenty of replayability. The game is free, but if you enjoy it, consider donating to the developer. I am looking forward to playing their other games soon!
Article Three: Exhibit of Sorrows
“You arrive at a curious circus-themed exhibit. Music is playing faintly in the background. The exhibits are interactive. Explore, enjoy, and do not upset the clown.”
I don’t like clowns. I used to be equally scared of people in mascot costumes, thanks to that one Dexter’s Lab episode where he gets snatched by a children’s play place mascot. However, Exhibit of Sorrows, a short horror game found on Itch.io made by adayofjoy, made me feel bad for the clowns.
The game opens with a simple black screen with a white square outline reading “BEGIN.” Not exactly the colorful introduction I expected. After a moment of unease, a brightly lit marquee welcomes you to the Exhibit of Smiles (wait, that’s not what this game is called…). A creepy music box plays “Entry of the Gladiators,” setting the tone for what’s to come.
As you explore the exhibit, you interact with charming clown characters, completing small tasks that play into their whimsical names. For example, Mr. Floaty has a pump so you can inflate him like a balloon. Each clown rewards you with a key. But one clown remains nameless, sitting in an ornate frame with a simple request: honk his nose.
Eventually, the game takes a sinister turn. The lights go out, and you must retrace your steps in darkness with only a flashlight, undoing the tasks you previously completed. Pay close attention—things start to change as you move back. Pictures shift when you aren’t looking. The environment grows more unsettling. When you finally turn the lights back on and prepare to leave, one clown urges you to go through the exhibit again. Perhaps he just wants you to honk his nose one more time...
This game is a masterclass in unsettling atmosphere, relying on dread rather than cheap jump scares. Despite playing it during my lunch break at work in a brightly lit room, I found myself leaning away from the screen, expecting something terrifying at any moment. If a 45-minute experience can make me that anxious, it’s doing something right.
Exhibit of Sorrows is free, but I highly recommend donating to the developer. I’d love to see more from them in the future!
Article Four: Placid Plastic Duck Simulator
Normally, I like to play games with a story. A game that basically becomes an interactive book, with crazy details and hidden meanings and contrived plots with crazy narration or controls and amazing sound design and music.
Today will not be normal.
Today, we will talk about ducks.
Placid Plastic Duck Simulator is a game I found on Steam and is made by
turbolento games and does not have any crazy controls or over the top stories. It is literally only about toy ducks. I had this game running for a whole day and was in absolute bliss. In this game, you choose a setting and (if you have any DLC purchased) the different duck packs.
Then, a duck spawns for you. When you click the mouse, the duck quacks. There are even some ducks that have different quacks or do different things. For instance, there’s a shark duck that will go under the water, only the shark fin visible, and when you click the duck quacks the Jaws theme. Theres one that looks like a member of the band, KISS, and plays guitar riffs. My favorite, however, is the twisted balloon duck that sounds like a balloon being rubbed together. You can name the ducks, as well, so there’s even a level of personalization to it.
The settings play a role in entertainment too. I started on a map that looked like it took place in space (because spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace) and there’s a couple of vacuum tubes and slides and there’s a zero-gravity tube that leads into a spaceship that then drops the ducks onto what looks like a pinball table.
I am aware that most people like a game where you do something, but I think every once in a while, you really should make a cup of hot tea, pull up a book, and watch some ducks float around. This game is perfect for just that. For $1.99 you can enjoy some fun little ducks (not including DLC) and relax in these crazy times.
Article Five: Teeth of Glass
“It begins with one cut.”
Point and clicks are among some of my personal favorite kinds of games. The perspectives, the settings, there aren’t many that I think don’t do well. Plus, you occasionally get some rather interesting mechanics added that show through. Teeth of Glass is a short game found on Itch.io and made by Beyond Booleans. They are authors to other games, but this was my introduction to their work. The game totes itself as a fever dream with two endings, and both statements are true. Bit of a bizarre trip start to finish, but for such a short experience this wasn’t to its detriment.
The game starts with text dialogue between several people working in an ER at a hospital going over a rather strange patient, described as “an elderly male, very underweight, unknown age” with a gunshot wound to his chest. The (presumably EMT’s or nurses, they never do say which) discover that the patient has no pulse but is still breathing. Despite not finding a pulse, they rush to connect the patient to a monitor and get him to an operating room. As the main character and surgeon, Dr. Hagstrom, begins the first incision to remove the bullet, you get your first look at this patient and find several odd things in his abdominal cavity (don’t worry if you get squeamish at the site of blood as one of the observations of note is that everything is “abnormally dry” for being inside the abdomen of a living person).
Just as your character removes the bullet, a strange black inky substance shoots out from the bullet hole (you’d be surprised how often fluids just come shooting out of living things when you work in the medical field, and they do somehow always go for the face every time, there is no escaping it). This fluid seeps into Dr. Hagstrom’s facial orifices and he blacks out. When he wakes up, he is alone in the OR and the operating table has what I can only call a black carcass, dripping a black sludge (it looks like the drips are going up instead of down, but with this game outwardly calling itself a fever dream and being that it’s pixelated in style, I don’t really know if its resolution, part of the fever dream, or a mistake). From here, it plays like an escape room game. You find various items and use them on items and parts of the environment to progress until you come to an important choice: knowledge or love.
While I enjoyed playing the game itself, it felt a little scattered to me. Nothing quite makes sense and, while the title doesn’t necessarily have to be literal or tied into the game itself, the only thing relating to the game name comes up after one of the choices as the very last image you see. I guess if you take into account something you can click on in the first interactive sequence of the game, it could tie into that a little bit, but I didn’t actually clock on that until I restarted the game solely to help me write this article so I could quote the game directly, and I only investigated to see if it was even something I could look at or if the game was going to force me to make the first incision given the fact that the patient was coming in for a gunshot and most surgeries have to be done with a certain expediency. There are also certain game elements that don’t tie together in a way that makes any sense. I guess that could be part of the “fever dream” aspect of the game’s story itself.
But this does not mean the game was not enjoyable. It was creepy and had me watching every corner to see what was creeping up behind me. Not every game needs the story spelled out plainly, and if the creator wants to leave the ending vague and mysterious, or it’s even entirely possible that there was something I missed during playing (which is entirely possible, though I do try to be thorough when I play games so that I don’t miss important story stuff). The credits do say “This is not the end” so I personally do hope they hold themselves to this promise as I would love to play more!
The experience as a whole only took about 30-45 minutes and was free, but please show the creator some appreciation if you enjoyed the experience as much as I did. I do plan to go through their other games so expect more from me!
Article Six: The Dark Queen of Mortholme
“You are the Dark Queen—the most powerful being of your entire universe. Your lair is breached by an aspiring hero—a pitiful thing, easily crushed.
Except they keep coming back.”
Role reversal tends to bring about new ways of thinking, challenging past beliefs in ways we don’t often consider. In a world where stories are often told and retold, a new perspective is a breath of fresh air. I personally love games that challenge thinking, fresh perspectives are what hold my attention.
The Dark Queen of Mortholme presents that new perspective, found on Itch.io and created by Mosu. This game is described as an anti-game, and it is true to that genre since in this game you play as the final boss standing in the way of the hero, whose goal is to defeat you and end your evil reign. The game starts as a henchman from your army warns you of a breach in the castle right before they die and fade away. Then, in bursts the hero, swearing to end your evil then and there. And then you obliterate them. Unfortunately, as you get back to your throne the hero bursts in again to challenge you again, and again, and again.
This would make the game sound incredibly boring, but this is where the unique story comes into play. Being that you play the final boss, your gameplay doesn’t really change. You get the same move sets, the same health amount, the same weaponry. However, your ever-persistent hero adapts. They come back with new weaponry, additional health, and even new knowledge on how to get around your attacks. The hero adapts to your move sets and adjusts to how you play.
Sure, the game sounds challenging, but where does the story come into play? Well, in between each fight the hero and the Queen banter and converse. Through this banter, we learn new things about the Queen and her surroundings, as you can only go back and forth in her throne room. The two adversaries through the game start to go from enemies to rivals as they each challenge each other’s thinking. The Queen even begins to relent on her idea that fighting the nature of things results in failure, and she begins to consider that maybe change can be a good thing.
This pixelated-style game has a wonderful story idea that’s executed flawlessly with beautiful art style and great music. I believe this game is worth the play, especially since it comes at no cost to the player. If you enjoy it as much as I did, though, I recommend going back and giving the creator a donation in appreciation so that they can make more mind-bending games like this, I firmly believe that there can never be enough games that challenge thought in this way.
Each of these games offers something unique, whether it’s idle cat collecting, surreal elevator horror, or clown-induced anxiety.
If any of these games sound interesting, check them out, support the developers, and most importantly—have fun!
Get the Games from ITCH.IO:
Get the Games from ITCH.IO:
Article Author: Pyroclastic_Snow
