itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

[Gammagooey]

Democratic socialism simulator: Probably a lot like you'd expect except all the characters are Bojack Horsemen style animal people. You get a lot of Reigns-esque choices, need to manage budget+worker rights+environment bars along with a little grid of simplified 'groups' of voters that each care about two topics in a specific way to make sure you get re-elected and to try to improve your position in Congress to give you more options after mid-term elections. Lasts around an hour, I played through it twice and enjoyed it.

Death & Taxes: You're a grim reaper and you're given several profiles of people and decide which ones die! The story's decent for the first playthrough, but I don't think the right way the game wants you to "balance" defying your boss sometimes with completing optional objectives your boss gives you is very intuitive, and a second playthrough doesn't change much to make playing it again feel worthwhile. If it sounds up your alley I'd recommend either ignoring all the optional objectives entirely OR going for all of them, trying to go partway with both doesn't really work.

Overland: I thought I'd like this since X-com type games are my jam but it's got borderline no story and also does not explain how to play at all, which includes you finding items at all points in the game and having no idea how to use them (do I click on an enemy to throw a rock at it or click on the rock in my inventory? How far can I throw the rock? Can I throw it at the wall to make noise? What does this fire extinguisher do? None of that is explained, figure it out yourself) and whether you should bother carrying them at all in your limited inventory. Upside: you can have a dog as a party member. Probably don't play this unless you want to be frustrated for many hours until you figure enough things out to start actually making consistently good decisions.

Celeste: I didn't play it from the bundle, I already have it on Switch and it's great! The later levels are very challenging and I still haven't gone back to play the new extra level they added in earlier this year b/c the extra level is VERY difficult. The first 3 levels give a very good difficulty curve to get you started, and if you're willing to deal with trial and error until you get precise enough on the controls to complete some sections and you like platformers, definitely play it!

Night in the Woods: I watched a Let's Play of this for over 10 hours but never finished watching it. I might one day? The game has a great asthetic and an interesting story, it's just very long. There's some neat mini-games, but for the most part expect a visual novel where you run around town to talk to everyone.