One of the better things to have occurred in recent years is the rise of the Itch.io protest bundles. Millions of dollars have been raised for various vital causes through the generosity of developers throwing in games by their hundreds, in deals that have done incredible work to not only make money, but also generate noise about these issues. The latest, already at $40,000 after a day, is No ICE in California, where $10 will get you an astonishing 560 games, 427 of which are table-top RPGs.
Other recent Itch fundraisers have included 2020’s Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality which raised an extraordinary $8.1 million for Black Lives Matter-related charities, and 2022’s Bundle for Ukraine, that brought in over $6.3 million. The most recent high-profile example raised money for those affected by February’s Californian wildfires, and this week has seen the launch of the latest, No ICE in California, raising money for the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in LA and RAICES in Texas.
It’s worth noting that some of those other examples had the official backing of Itch, and that’s yet to happen here—instead this was launched by charity streamer Jes Wade, with the support of (so far) another 268 creators. Its modest goal is set at $50,000, which it’s already very close to reaching. Hopefully, as more attention is gained, and more developers throw in, that target can be absolutely smashed, not least because of the urgent need for help for LA immigrants facing ICE invasions.
What should I play in this bundle?
But what are you getting for ten bucks? Isn’t everything on Itch a scratchy PS1-style horror game set in the cells of an invasive bacteria, played using cutlery-based inputs? Pshah—get away with your needlessly cruel yet accurate parodying. Instead, here you have things like Periphery Synthetic, an “interactive musical experience” played in a procedurally generated planetary system. I set this up to be a joke, because yeah, the bundle is packed with bonkers esoteric gaming, but dammit this game looks amazing. You synthesize new abilities through exploration in this super-lo-fi experience which will eventually let you “command these worlds in every dimension.”
…
Er, sorry, you lost me there for a bit. I’ve been playing Periphery Synthetic, and I absolutely love it. I got wheels! And I just improved my climbing ability. And I’m obsessed with how you can have an open-world game with the fidelity of a Ghosts of Yotei, and yet here just a pattern of squares still manages to evoke an incredible sense of place.
There’s also Necrosoft’s delightfully bonkers Gunhouse, a weird take on a tile matching game, where your dragging rows to create blocks of four tiles, which turn into weapons and ammo used to survive attacks from encroaching enemies. It’s instantly hooky, with a very peculiar aesthetic.
But perhaps today is a day for Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance, Rocket Adrift’s dating sim about—no, actually, you’re wrong! It’s not about dating dinosaurs. It’s that, but also dating a fairy and a sasquatch. Also, there is a vengeful ghost. And that dino? That’s Robert, a velociraptor, and he wears his baseball cap backward. Yup, it’s the ‘90s, and you’re at a high school for cryptids, so get sharing mix tapes, staring at stars, and smooching the beasts.
There’s also (Val)iant, a game about being an 18-year-old non-binary teen with “a broken vag.” It’s a superb piece of fiction that immediately puts you in the position of being someone “struggling with their relationship to their body,” beginning in a doctor’s office as you try to explain your physical pain during sex, but are faced with a bombardment of assumptions about your gender, your self-perception, and your goals. It’s incredibly open and honest, straightforward about straightforward topics, and explores subjects that I’d never otherwise have to consider in my straight, male life. Just an incredible tool for empathy, as well as a fantastically written game.
Fill my table tops
However, the real focus of this particular bundle is table-top gaming. There are a whopping 96 games in there for your ten dollars, so no worries if that’s not your sort of thing, but the 427 TTRPGs should at least give you cause to investigate.
This isn’t my area of expertise either, but I can tell you what’s intriguing me.
Nighthawks is a 3-6 player game based on the painting by Edward Hopper. I mean, that’s interesting enough right there. What makes it even more fascinating is that this game which requires a group of people to be together is exploring loneliness. Each person takes on a person who might appear in the painting, deciding among yourselves what kind of place this diner is, what sorts of relationships you might have between you. The GM-free game leaves players exploring the topic of loneliness together, choosing whether they might succumb or battle against it. It sounds incredible.
Solo TTPRGs are an aspect of the genre that I constantly forget can be a thing. Helan is one such example, where you play as a person who spends their life accompanying those who visit the white sands of Helan in order to help them reach their destinations. It’s a road trip, one about relationships with strangers, and a world-building game where the conversations you choose define the world around you. Oh, and you have a hoverbike. The game comes with print-outs of a 16-page booklet that tells you how to play, and all the information you need, along with a two-page guide filled with 108 travelers you can accompany as you play.
God there are so many games about being a dad. But there are so damn few about being a mom. Mum Chums, however, is “a slice of life RPG about people who care for kids.” You don’t have to be a mom—any adult carer can be portrayed—but the game states it’s specifically written from a “white Scottish perspective.” The game begins when your kids are about to start school, with no winning or losing, but rather roleplaying a specific part of life. The game is still in development, but fully playable.
Be Seeing You is a 3-5 player (or “prisoner”) game about our dystopian surveillance culture. There’s no GM and no dice, but rather a Prisoner-inspired exploration of the infiltrating nature of capitalism. Outside of this bundle, you can buy the game for $13, or just download it for free because “Digital media should be freely available.” Developer Tanya Floaker then encourages people to upload and share the files with others as much as they wish.
Where is the money going?
The money raised is being split between two charities working with U.S. immigrants affected by the brutal and despicable actions of ICE. The first is the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a law firm created in 2015 by immigration lawyers, looking to defend people faced with deportation, but also to bring about systemic change to the grim system. Of course, the people ImmDef works with are rarely in a position to be able to pay for legal representation, so this non-profit provides always-free services and is sustained by donations. They also have merch!
RAICES also offers legal services for families looking to make the U.S. their home. It provides a broad range of services, either free or low-cost, in many parts of Texas, and again is reliant on donations to continue its work. And why a Texan organization given the Californian nature of this bundle? That’s because a lot of the people ICE targets in LA are then forcibly taken to Texas.
So, you know, even if you pay the $10 (or as much as you want to give) and then forget you ever did, you’ve made an important difference. But you’ve also got an enormous trove of games and table-top RPGs to explore for months to come.
.