Jaelights

Slooping dupes over here

Succinct transbien musician behind Lorelei and the Ghost.
Bring me your finest Yuris!





Music Links:
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@Jaelights
SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/jaelights
BandCamp:
https://jaelights.bandcamp.com/



Writing:
https://www.wattpad.com/user/Jaelights



Business Email if you want music:
loreleiandtheghost@gmail.com



Profile Pic by @nomnomnami


nomnomnami
@nomnomnami

are you an enjoyer of the types of small indie games found on itch.io? have you ever tried searching for good games to play but didn't know how to sort through the massive amount of stuff on there?? i have advice for you!!!!!

make an itch.io account and follow developers of games you like

listen, i know it sounds obvious, BUT. the number one place i find new games to try out is from my feed. and i don't mean new releases from the devs i'm following--i mean the ones they recommend! whenever you rate a game on itch.io, that rating will show up in your followers' feed. i follow a few developers who actively try out games and leave ratings on the ones that they like. usually our tastes align, because they tend to enjoy things similar to the games that they've made themselves! of course, this assumes you have already found games/developers you like on itch.io... if that's not the case, read on!!


check out game jams (past and present)

this one was an easy habit for me to develop because my first release on itch.io was for a game jam. i've participated in yuri game jam and nanoreno for many years! these are both long-running jams with lots of submissions themed around things i like (yuri and visual novels). you probably like different things, so please visit the jam directory and check out some of the pages for current or upcoming jams! there's gotta be something in there that appeals to you... seriously, there's so many going on at the time of writing this that i stopped counting at 50.

once you find a jam that sounds interesting (or if you can't find one, visit the ones i linked above so you can see what i'm talking about)--on the jam page, there's a "submissions" tab where you can look at all the projects submitted to the jam. you can sort them by popularity, or randomly, or by submission order, and you can filter by platform. click on whichever ones seem appealing and read through their game page! web-based games are easiest to dive into, but it's fun to download a bunch at once and try them all in a row.

a lot of jams are less of a competition (many have no prizes or rankings) and more of an excuse for people to finish making a game they'll like... quality will vary a lot, which makes it fun too! open your heart and you'll have a good time, i promise.

try the bundle browser

you know those hugely popular charity bundles filled with hundreds of games that raise like a million dollars? in case you weren't aware, people have made tools to easily sort through those! it seems like randombundlegame.com is the main one (although you can also filter games in the bundle page on itch.io itself). i feel like i saw a site that shows you one game totally at random from these mega-bundles, but it might've evolved into the bundle browser site i just linked... pls leave a comment if you know other resources because i'd love to plug them.

if you donated to any of the chairty bundles in the past, you already own the games in them, so it's a shame if you never give them a chance...! if you're ever bored one night and feel like playing something, just pick one from a bundle and GO!!

search tags!

this one can be tricky because i think it takes the most effort to sift through. i personally have a problem when it comes to searching tags--my account has nsfw projects on it, which means i am not able to toggle nsfw games out of my searches. so when i search anything, it's like, a smattering of porn games i'm not interested in and would've preferred not to see. my workaround for this is to straight up log out of my account when i want to browse for games (lol) but if you're a regular itch.io user (and not in my unfortunate position), you can just toggle nsfw content off! unless of course you are looking for nsfw games. there are lots of tags specifically catered to that too :)

when you go to itch.io's browse page, the "popular" tab (default) usually shows a bunch of horror games, i think because they get streamed a lot and therefore get lots of traffic. "new and popular" tends to be more mixed genre, and "top rated" is kinda the greatest hits of the site (meaning this list does not change much). there's a row of popular tags underneath these tabs, which you can use to narrow things down!

if you don't know what tags to search, try checking the page of a game you already like and seeing what its tags are. you can find these by visiting any game page, and opening up the "More information" bit right above the purchase/download section.

BONUS: advice for people who have trouble actually playing all the games they download

keep the files somewhere you'll notice them. sometimes i leave games in my downloads folder, and sometimes i scatter them across my desktop. either way, i will see them and remember i wanted to play them at some point. once i finish a game, i'm finally allowed to put it away in my (messy) archive of games so it doesn't take up space anymore.

i honestly have had mixed success with this method (there are still a few games on my desktop i haven't had the energy to dive into), but i used to keep ALL my games in that archive folder and then there was NO chance of me ever remembering to play them. i think it can be stressful being reminded of the thing you're not doing that you should've been doing, so please try a different method if this one makes you feel bad.

good luck!

i wrote this post on a whim so i don't think it's really comprehensive or anything. it's mostly just things that people might not have known because they didn't think too hard about it, or haven't been on itch.io that much.

my goal is to help people get into playing more small indie games, because it's a hobby i enjoy myself (obviously) and because i think more people would be happy to do it if they had the tools to explore for themselves and not just find games through their favorite streamers or something. maybe your game of the year can be something that like 80 other people played but it touched your heart in a way no other game ever had! who knows!!


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