The Queer Games Bundle 2021 is live now on Itch.io, giving you instant access to more than 200 games all for the price of a single AAA video game.
The new bundle will be available all throughout June in celebration of Pride 2021, with 236 entries from LGBTQIA+ creators all put together for $60 (another version of the bundle is available on a sliding scale from $10 to $20, though the curators encourage you to pick up the full-priced version if you currently have the means). With 236 games available all together, you'll save $559 off their standard price, and you'll help support a ton of independent LGBTQIA+ game makers.
The bundle includes a massive spread of games and other projects across genres: there are visual novels, RPGs, beat-em-ups, and even a nice spread of tabletop RPGs and similar story games if you're in the mood for something a little more analog. I've already come this close to picking up Glitter Hearts, an RPG about playing a team of magical-girl-inspired protagonists, and Underground Broadcast, a fast-playing game of countercultural graffiti punks inspired by Jet Set Radio, like a dozen times each, but clearly it was just fate telling me to wait for the bundle.
Massive, community driven bundles are getting to be a thing on Itch.io - a very cool thing - with the most prominent previous example being the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, which raised more than $8 million for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Community Bail Fund last year. That bundle ended up with a final count of 1,704 included games and projects.
As of this writing, the Queer Games Bundle 2021 bundle has raised just over $25,000, with the proceeds set to be divided evenly among all the participating creators (helping independent LGBTQIA+ creators pay their rent is also a worthy cause). The bundle is co-hosted by swampbabes.org, a queer art and games collective based out of Rochester, New York which aims to provide a "a platform for diverse voices and bodies outside the structures of the already-established 'art world.'"
If you're trying to keep track, here are some new indie games 2021 to check out.
