This is the two hundred thirty-eighth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred thirty-eighth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is asking us to explore a bit of our past. It’s I’m Bored, Let’s Explore (Mall), by thatguynm, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

A short game about hanging out and wandering a mall

On the game’s itch.io page, there’s another tagline: “A game about revisiting the past with a friend”. Both descriptions are true.

I’m Bored, Let’s Explore (Mall) was made with bitsy, a simple editor for games or worlds, and it runs directly in a web browser. It features chunky pixel art with just a few (four?) colors, has no sound or music whatsoever, and will take players only a few minutes to experience. It’s pretty cool.

All that’s needed to play are the arrow keys to move around the tile-based environments, and the enter key to advance dialogue. Players control two friends, guiding them as a pair through a now-abandoned mall that they used to frequent in their youth. It’s an evocative place, even with the low pixel count. Grass is sprouting from cracks in the floor, rubble blocks off certain paths. The dark, lavender hues — recalling Escaped Chasm, one of my favorite picks from year five of Scratching That Itch — lend everything a spooky air. Yet there is also much that is familiar: old stalls and storefronts that remain largely intact.

As the friends explore, they reminisce. They remember that time they tried to sneak into the movie theater and got caught, or the specific spots where they used to hang out. Sometimes one will mention some historical tidbit about the mall, or ruminate on how malls are now things of the past. This may resonate most for players of a certain age, given that the heyday of the shopping mall was the 1980s and 1990s. Those who were not young during that time may not remember the experience of visiting these edifices to consumer culture, before the internet took over everything. Even so, they might still find I’m Bored, Let’s Explore (Mall) interesting. I enjoyed the dialogue a lot; it felt like the exact right tone, with some fond remembrances but not too much nostalgia. The friends have accepted that things have changed, but are still having fun taking a trip into their past.

I’m Bored, Let’s Explore (Mall) asks for very little of your time, and it’s offered completely free to all, whether you nabbed the bundle or not. So there’s really no reason not to try it, if it sounds intriguing. As the parenthetical part of its title implies, there are two other I’m Bored, Let’s Explore games from thatguynm, one of which is in the bundle and one of which isn’t. But since they’re also both free, it hardly matters which. It does mean, however, that another short exploration game will pop up at some point in Scratching That Itch. I look forward to it.

That’s 238 down, and only 1503 to go!