Are free games really free?
It's difficult to believe that something is free – especially games – because there's often a catch. For example, free-to-play means you're going to pay if you want to keep playing, or a free game could bombard you with advertising.
But some games are genuinely free with no catch. And you'll find many of them on Itch.io.
Game developers sometimes create games just for fun. They may release them to get feedback or just to share their creations.
On my profile page at itch.io you can find a link to the very first games I wrote. They're short – about 30 minutes game play and most of them won't save your progress. Their screen resolutions were the right resolution for monitors at that time – more than 10 years ago.
But some of my more recent games are free too. The catch? The games showcase my paid games. They're examples of the types of game I write, game features and software.
For example, I wrote Cloud Calming 2D to test out some features that were included in Pizzantropia.
We created the free Pizzantropia demo to help players decide which characters and scenes to unlock if they bought and played Pizzantropia. Pizzantropia demo is a small game in its own right – for PC and Android devices.
I wrote Cloud Calming 3D to learn how to program 3D games in Unity (game development software).
Petal Puzzler Shapes and Playful Cuddly Companions start off free. You can play the games and see if you like them. If you do, you can pay a onetime fee to unlock the rest of the levels, or just keep replaying the free levels.
These games are also free:
- The Ghoulish Ghosts Game – free hidden object game for Android devices and Windows PC.
- A Quick Spooky Quest – free Halloween-themed hybrid game for Android devices (hidden object and arcade mix). I wrote the game to test out features that are included in A Quick Festive Quest (a similar paid Christmas-themed game).
- Undersea Confusion – a free arcade game for Android devices that was a remake of one of the first games I made many years ago (Octi Octopus - still available on Itch.io).
Most recently I released Covert Dragons & Co for free. It's a tricky hidden-object game like Pivoting People but in 3D.
PS: All these browser games are completely free too - no catch.