Currently going through this list by @Erato_Heti because I am interested in what the users on this website have created and to find motivation for my own efforts while also getting my little itch game fix.

Turns out the first game I chose to play was made by @gomit and a couple other folks who all went together to my old school in the Video Game design class. Earth is the size of a wallnut it seems.

"A favor" is a narrative-driven horror walking sim that is worth checking out for its well executed tension, atmosphere and good pacing helped by its short playtime.
I liked "A favor" but I think there are two troubles one could experience, the obvious student project aura and the obvious narrative.
I personally couldn't care less about the former, like when there exists some jank here and there, a bit of a lack in a unique visual identity, but it should be adressed, because it could bog down the experience for some. The trajectory not matching up with the crosshair, some not so hidden short cuts in presentation or even the fucking bin only catching the trash when you aim slighty above it, are all endearing to me and part of the honesty in workmanship why I keep coming back to free itch games instead of cleaning out my huge backlog of games I've paid for or the ones I started with subscriptions services.

As for the story and primarily the Twist. The "He actually was that Tyler Durden dude the whole time!!"-moment.
The chef's kiss student project Gütesiegel, which reminded me of my own old classmate's approach towards the idea of interesting narrative writing. That conclusion should already be obvious to the player on the first or second in-game day.
In my own experience with the (what feels like it got used here) borderline misguided storytelling technique,
which feels like coming up with a mindfuck-ending first and then a tasteful enough framework around it, this actually got me kinda impressed with its strength in narrative-flow and the suspense build-up through its horror elements. (I am not posturing that you can't come up with an ending first. I merely wanna point out that the intention for a plot-twist often seems to be the focal one in these kinds of stories)

I fully want to echo that other review on here and say that despite having a predictable plot built on a honestly trite narrative trope, it still kinda pulls it off anyway. Kinda.

Kinda, cause fucke me, mental illness as a narrative device seems like a thing we should have left behind last decade.
Not only for it's reduction of real, difficult issues into a contextual reasoning for scary and weird shit happening in a story, but maybe just because it is too expected.
Just let that sink in for a moment, mental illness and the discussion of and around it got used so many times as merely a mechanical crutch for lazy writing that I can feel confident in accusing its focal use in a story as such of being trite, of being tropey.
This apathetic perspective towards its thematisation is a direct result of the regular misuse of such a delicate topic.
Of its almost expected reduction into just a plot-twist device with maybe some obligatory hints towards a real message or statement on it.
I am not even aiming my criticism directly at "a favour", but at the broader ways of implementation in which mental illness gets handled in Pop-culture.
Hell, even my use of the word "implementation" for such a difficult topic feels apathetic, but that seems to be a more fitting description for the approach mainstream art festered around it.
Mental illness just isn't the thing most of these stories actually want to discuss, it's just the reveal of it's existence in them that wants to make you say "Damn" right as the credits start rolling.
It's like a slightly less trite, slightly more delicate and often actually well intended, version of the other student project classic, the theme of recreational drugs. I am more than guilty of exploiting that one as just a weird-shit-happening or plot-twist mechanic in my own student projects.
I can recall a teacher calling us students out on it's collective overuse, which is probably more difficult to do with a theme that has more weight and often actual sincerity to it.

"A favor" pulls it off in my opinion. Not the adequate discussion owed to this topic mind you, but the use of it as a plot-twist device. Simply the road towards that conclusion makes the fithteen minutes worthwhile, at least if you are able to shut off that ranting voice that made me type out that last paragraph in its timeframe.
Also, that the reveal got communicated through a simple, understandable phone unlock via face recognition was kinda neat.

The set-up already let my M. Night senses tingle, only communicating with the friend via the phone, finding pills and especially the Video Game book you can find on the first day accompanied by the inner monologue "I own the same book" on the player's screen was all I needed to know where this was going.


A interesting thing "a Favor" managed to achieve was to skirt around a niche indie genre I like to call "Wage Slave Horror", while also executing that style better than the ones I've played. Recently I made this list after binge playing a lot of itch games and recognising a fascinating pattern. Admittedly "a favor" only evades my very specific parameters because, even ignoring the twist for a sec, it's a favor the player does, not a real job.
But that said, having played a decent number of these, the design in this one around the medial tasks was excellent.
The position of the telephone in the corner with the player's back towards two hallways made me anxious each time I needed to answer the call machine, but was unable to check my backside.
Same with the position of the plants. The player can't keep an eye on the entrance to the room while watering them, they have to look towards the neighbouring building which also made me feel tense that something is gonna happen over there any moment or in my blind spots.
Same with the paper bin, the kitchen, the safe and the bathroom mirror.
There is always the possibility that something could creep up behind you without any notice.
Of courses after one playthrough this tension is gone, which now that I think about it seems maybe to be too contradictory towards the use of a re-contextualising ending.
"Fight club is better on the second viewing" because you can now see all the careful foreshadowing and attention to detail.
You watch a different film, or rather watch it differently.
Knowing the beats of a horror game and especially that loss of uncertainty towards it's potential but non-existent scares works directly against this built-in replay value.

I would love to see another project by this team if they choose to keep working together. They showed their potential here and they got all the game design basics more than down especially for the subtle emotional strain needed in a good horror game.
Damn. This write up got way longer than I intended it to be. I hope my criticism was constructive, even that rant I couldn't hold back on. I think when something gets someone to write that much it speaks for the amount of thoughts that art made one engage in, which to me is at least the biggest compliment.

If you don't want any spoilers, give Decimate Drive ten minutes of your time and then come back.
It is well worth it if you are poor and seek an asynchronous micro- thrill and joy which is best experienced blind.

The slow set-up also proved utterly genius in such a short game, to let that single trick it pulls on the player carry more weight, while setting the intended mood for that otherwise admittedly goofy Idea.
I witnessed a constant emotinal flux inside of me, rushing from short burst of terror to dopamine high giggling, all predicated on the tension of a restless motor engine wanting to hurt me.
While I was running for my Player Character's life I felt some genuine frights, not horror mind you, rather a contemporary but primal fear to not get crushed by tonnes of fast-moving steel.
This was only made possible by its short length, the almost innate uncertainty we have all experienced while trying to cross a street and can't make out if a car, heading directly at one will hit the breaks in time and the game's promise to twist this uncertainty into vehicular manslaughter.
I believe if it was any longer with more scenarios then the routinised gaminess revealing itself would turn that fear of getting bulldozered by a faceless machine too much into a fear of not touching a hitbox, which sets you back to the start of the level.

That game you play with the cars you flee from is just an asymmetrical live or death version of "catch".
It could be boiled down to a couple things.
First of, just listening for the automobile or a driving bassline shouting from its stereo.
Breaking the open parallel from the player to it with a street pole to stop that vehicle aiming straight at you dead in its tracks.
At least for as long as the A.I. takes to reverse back out of it again.
Or a Corrida de Toros like dance in which the player utilises timed strafing, sudden directional changes and maybe even outplays the car by looking directly at it, while calculating its trajectory or they deliberatly bait it into a corner to win more time.

Moving around the Player Character will run, or rather jog, automatically.
One silly jank I found as I was playing is that the walk/run toggle button won't function a second time after you switched to walking.
The very indie game dev solution for this problem was to hit the jump button.
There was no other real use for the existence of this jump button, so after finding this kinda funny bug I choose to deduct that the dev only left the jump button in this game, aside from that little extra feel of "better movement options", or immersion or some shit, to reset the Player Character to their default running speed.
Why there was even the option to walk could be questioned, but I would claim it also aids the deception the game pulls on the player with its slow and deliberate, atmospheric start.
I also liked that the first few minutes subconsciously train the player to understand that their only goal is the red glowing door,
like if that wasn't obvious to them already, but still there is zero tutorialisation, only mood setting and tension building and I enjoyed that holistic approach.

Yea, this little itch project was pretty fascinating, if I hadn't played Homebody a couple days ago and would still care to think about that kind of stuff I might've called this my favourite horror game of the year.
(This might just be a sly attempt to shout-out Homebody lol, a game, horror and puzzle fans should def check out, although I probably wont write about it, cause @BeauTartep already did the definitive dissertation, but spoiler warning)
I mean, I have been writing this now for longer than it took me to play the game. That is the equivalent of an automatic recommendation in my book.

One minor nitpick I have is that I think the death screen and sounds leading into it could have hit harder, in a literal sense.
Shit could have been an ounce more visceral.

Itch.io Horror games are weird and I am kind of obssesed with them lately. There is so much good stuff to find behind all the jank and between the overstaturation of backroom games. lol
What I learned from this game is that it can be possible to find thrills and tension inside a concept that might just seem completly silly on paper, at least if you pace it with intention and restraint and know how to set the proper atmosphere for it.
And that vehicular manslaughter is kinda not based. Miss me w that shit pls.

Not a review. I just feel obligated to add to the meagre content warning for this shit because the Developer seemingly did not want to directly tell the people who might download this that there will be pop-up images of GORE that flash across the screen.
I mean legit live leak/rotten.com stuff.
My guess is that the Dev did not want to "reveal their cards" by giving a heads up for this,
like they didn't want to soften the impact of god-dam UNCENSORED IMAGES OF CORPSES by warning that they will randomly appear.