Game-related ramblings.

Tag: Matt Makes Games

Year One Of Scratching That Itch

The Scratching That Itch series is where 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.

One year ago, I started Scratching That Itch as a way to simultaneously cover games from the massive itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, and keep the conversation about systemic racism and racial justice going. That conversation reached the international stage after the murder of George Floyd by (now former) police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The murder was captured on video for all to see, and spurred an unprecedented discussion of institutionalized racism against Black people and other people of color in America and around the world. A year later, Derek Chauvin has been convicted on all charges, and we’ve seen some progress towards police reform, as well as inevitable backlashes that only highlight how much work is still to be done.

I also randomly picked and wrote about 69 games (and other things) from the huge bundle, just under 4% of all the entries. I’ll be continuing the series for the forseeable future, but I decided to round up some of my favorite entries from year one here. Read on below.

Surprise! It’s Celeste Classic 2: Lani’s Trek

If you’ve been paying attention, you will know that I absolutely loved Celeste. That game began life as a much smaller, free retro-styled game made in just four days for the PICO-8 Fantasy Console which is now known as Celeste Classic (and is playable from within Celeste itself). This week, to celebrate the third anniversary of the full Celeste, developers Maddy Thorson, Noel Berry and Lena Raine released a sequel to the original classic version, this time made in just three days for the PICO-8. It’s Celeste Classic 2: Lani’s Trek, it’s free, and of course I played it.

Keeping Score: Celeste

This is Keeping Score, a series about games and their soundtracks. This particular post is also the honorary fifth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, because Celeste was added to the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality when I was nearly finished playing it. Don’t worry if you missed the bundle, 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.

Longtime readers may remember that I am a fan of Matt Thorson’s games, which I highlighted as part of a post celebrating super-hard platformers way back in 2012. Matt Thorson came to more prominence in 2013 with Towerfall (or rather, the multi-platform reissue Towerfall: Ascension in 2014), but I never played it as I’m not set up for local multiplayer. But Matt Thorson’s next game, developed with a larger team, had me quite excited: Celeste is a return to their earlier style of single-player, highly challenging platformers, but with much higher production values and finesse. Critics heaped it with praise, and I nabbed it soon after release, but as often happens I was distracted by many other games and didn’t get around to playing it until recently.

After I’d played for some time, and conquered all but its toughest challenges, Celeste was added to the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. I’ve been picking things at random from the bundle and writing about them in my Scratching That Itch series, but of course, my choice of Celeste was not random, and indeed was made before the bundle launched. Still, since Celeste is included in that absolutely massive bundle, consider this post — which I was fully intending to write anyway — an honorary entry in the series.

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