{"id":3668,"date":"2025-11-16T05:49:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T05:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/11\/16\/my-recently-played-itch-io-not-so-horror-games\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T05:49:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T05:49:13","slug":"my-recently-played-itch-io-not-so-horror-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/11\/16\/my-recently-played-itch-io-not-so-horror-games\/","title":{"rendered":"My recently played Itch.io not-so-horror games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Sometimes, I have 15 minutes between classes and eye strain that physically repels me from doing any more studying. To cope with my diminishing free time and ever-growing exam stress, I\u2019ve been scouring <a href=\"http:\/\/itch.io\">itch.io<\/a> for free short games that can actually run on my Mac \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@jeagar52\/how-to-enjoy-pc-gaming-on-your-mac-0724e101a753\">which famously doesn\u2019t run anything<\/a>. These are my handpicked recent standouts, tiny and strange as they may be.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Delivery Mystery<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a certain kind of horror game that exists purely to remind you that your nervous system still works. <a href=\"https:\/\/maximillium-studios.itch.io\/delivery-mystery\">Delivery Mystery<\/a> is that kind of game \u2014 simple, short and absolutely dedicated to the art of making you flinch. The premise couldn\u2019t be plainer: You\u2019re a burger delivery driver, alone at night, going from house to house, each holding their own uniquely horrible fate. From there, the game becomes a carousel of sudden noises and people jumping out at you.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not subtle, yet Delivery Mystery embraces its clich\u00e9s so completely that they loop back around into being charming. You\u2019ll predict every scare before it happens, and it\u2019ll still<em> <\/em>get you. The whole thing lasts maybe 10 minutes (more if you go for all five endings), and still I found myself simultaneously laughing and genuinely tense.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>The game even warns that people with heart conditions shouldn\u2019t play it, something I initially took as a joke until about halfway through, when I began penning my cardiologist an apology. Equally as disorienting, though not as intentional, there\u2019s a recurring bug that zooms the camera in too far, but it\u2019s easily fixed through the in-game menu. Otherwise, it runs cleanly and looks decent, executing its dark, simple and intentionally disorienting aesthetic well.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not groundbreaking, but it doesn\u2019t have to be. Delivery Mystery is the gaming equivalent of a cheap haunted house: predictable, sweaty, a little stupid and yet still a great time. Sometimes that\u2019s all you want \u2014 five minutes of heart-thumping chaos to remind you: Hey! You\u2019re alive.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You See A Monster Smoking in the Parking Lot<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The title alone should tell you everything: <a href=\"https:\/\/dancingengie.itch.io\/monster-smoking\">You See A Monster Smoking In The Parking Lot<\/a>. Imagine you\u2019ve finally finished a miserable shift, it\u2019s late and, after leaving a royally fouled date, you want a burger. Instead, you find a monster \u2014 hulking with exposed muscles and oozing tragedy \u2014 standing under a flickering streetlight with a cigarette. The restaurant is abandoned, the lot is silent and you\u2019re suddenly in one of the most oddly tender games I\u2019ve ever played.<\/p>\n<p>The game unfolds through short text prompts that guide you to interact with a handful of nearby objects: a cigarette, a van and the monster himself, among others. The prompt boxes appear over simple, pixelated backgrounds: a static parking lot, a shuttered building and the empty dark beyond. Our monster is the only character model we\u2019ll glimpse. You can talk to the monster, try to order your burger or drive away, but no matter what you do, the majority of the game\u2019s 33 endings finish the same way \u2014 with an explosion. The monster craves death and has rigged his van to explode in order to reach it.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>What starts as an absurd story soon becomes heartbreakingly human. The writing is sparse but emotionally loaded, and it\u2019s easy to project yourself into the stilted small talk about God, high school and burgers. You can feel the fatigue, the loneliness and the strange sympathy of two hurt people. Many of the game\u2019s endings had me feeling sad and small, but the true ending inverted all that.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s 10 minutes long, free and surprisingly beautiful \u2014 the kind of game you play on a whim and then think about for the rest of the week. You came for dinner; he came for closure; it\u2019s not the same thing, but it was close enough. <\/p>\n<p><strong>petsitting<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s something oddly comforting about <a href=\"https:\/\/goose-nest.itch.io\/petsitting\">petsitting<\/a>, a 15-minute game where your only job is to care for your friend\u2019s pet, which happens to be a large, carnivorous worm affectionately named Dog.<\/p>\n<p>While petsitting, you complete tasks that are as ordinary as they come: make dinner, feed Dog, give him a bath and tuck him into bed. The controls are simpler than simple: You click to move, click to interact and, once, click-and-hold to drag your ingredients into your stew. The game\u2019s strength is its subtle yet convincing atmosphere. The visuals are basic and blocky \u2014 almost MS Paint-level \u2014 but they hit that exact indie-cozy sweet spot, the kind that feels like a dream you\u2019re remembering halfway through.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>As your night unfolds, things get stranger \u2026 and softer. You make stew, feed Dog at the table like the polite gentleman he is and try not to think too hard when he bites you during bath time. Later, you wake up to find Dog speaking to you. He needs your help, and if you love him \u2014 <em>really <\/em>love him \u2014 you\u2019ll help him escape, even if it means watching him getting beamed away.<\/p>\n<p>Petsitting isn\u2019t just about horror or absurdity; it\u2019s about unexpected tenderness. It\u2019s about caring for something monstrous. It\u2019s my personal \u201cFrankenstein.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you love Dog, let him go.<\/p>\n<p><em>Daily Arts Writer Estlin Salah can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/digital-culture\/my-recently-played-itch-io-not-so-horror-games\/mailto:essalah@umich.edu\"><em>essalah@umich.edu<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes, I have 15 minutes between classes and eye strain that physically repels me from doing any more studying. To cope with my diminishing free time and ever-growing exam stress, I\u2019ve been scouring itch.io for free short games that can actually run on my Mac \u2014 which famously doesn\u2019t run anything. These are my handpicked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[308,3661,3662,3660],"class_list":{"0":"post-3668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-games","9":"tag-itch-io","10":"tag-notsohorror","11":"tag-played"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3670,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668\/revisions\/3670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}