Bundle Offers 28 ‘Shorter Games With Worse Graphics’ On Itchio

Featuring 28 different games from 25 independent developers and starting at $20, The Shorter Games With Worse Graphics Bundle on itch.io is a celebration of small games from small studios that refuse to be part of the increasingly troublesome AAA development culture.

The Shorter Games With Worst Graphics Bundle, running now through August 15 on itch.io, is actually the second round of a bundle that originally ran toward the end of 2020. Like the original, this new bundle is hosted by CannibalInteractive, aka. DeveloperDamien on Twitter, and inspired by a viral tweet posted last June by Fanbyte’s Jordan Mallory. The tweet, which currently has more than 100,000 likes, reads, “I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I’m not kidding.”

“Worse graphics” are subjective, of course. One person’s eyesore is another’s masterpiece. But the games in the new bundle are definitely all shorter experiences from smaller teams. Personally, I think Expresso Studio’s Cosmic Rain, the combination platformer/match-three puzzle game pictured below, looks utterly charming.

Narrative puzzle game The Machine’s Garden from developer Too Much Tomato doesn’t need photorealistic graphics to intrigue me. My interest is piqued by an animated GIF.

And let us not forget the image topping this post, which comes to us by way of the trailer for Space Pirate Captain McCallery Episode 2: Pilgrims in Purple Moss from “low-poly pulp” game maker Tales of the Renegade Sector. It’s a small survival adventure with purple and teal visuals that takes me back to my days of surfing the BBSes for the latest shareware releases.

The Shorter Games With Worst Graphics Bundle seems like a lovely way to expand your PC library by 28 quirky little titles that don’t need a massive publishing conglomerate to spread their particular brand of joy. Because yeah, I do want shorter games with worse graphics made by people paid more money to do less work.