Imagine my surprise when I came across a game on Itch.io that was right up my alley of silliness, only to find that there was no ‘.exe’ file. That’s because COMPUTER BUGS STOLE MY GRANDMA’S TAX FILES AND I GOTTA GO GET THEM BACK IN CYBERSPACE is a game that purely exists in .txt, .png, .gif, and .rar files.
COMPUTER BUGS (I have to shorten it down, I’m sorry) is an adventure/visual novel game created by Shane Hosea and Will Lewis where you play a poor guy who’s had his grandma’s taxes stolen by a local gang, and must delve through a series of compressed files to find them.
The game was made as part of the Portland Indie Game Squad’s Summer Slow Jams 2022 event, a game jam that used “Stealth” and “Critters” as the themes. In your adventure, you meet plenty of critters that you can talk to as you explore the Space Bar to find your grandma’s taxes.
It’s a short game, but it’s got a great cast of bugs, all with their own special personalities. The coolest part of it in my opinion though is just how the game takes advantage of its format.
Throughout COMPUTER BUGS, you can explore the bar through image files and talk to the folks there through text files. As you explore, you’ll happen upon clues and comments from the bugs you meet that’ll lead you forward. However, some files require a password to be accessed.
It’s through these conversations and explorations that you retrieve these passwords, which will then open up more doors. In the end, you find your grandma’s taxes and depending on what you decide to do with them, you’ll realise exactly why the .Rip Gang wanted them.
While not a lengthy experience, COMPUTER BUGS is one of those interesting gems to come out of a short-form game jam, and really turned the concept of what a game can be on its head for me. I loved it. If you’d like to check it out for yourself, it’s free to download here.
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