This series is intended to highlight some of the free games that I enjoy and would recommend. Specifically, the focus will be on games that are permanently free (not free-to-play with microtransactions and not temporarily free) and that are available through the likes of Steam, Itch.io, GOG, or Epic Games. Any recommendations of such games are welcome as well!

Game: Babbdi

Platform: Steam, Itch.io

Release Date: December 22, 2022

Developer: Lemaitre Bros

Genre: Exploration

Length: 1 – 2 hours

Trailer:

The objective of Babbdi is simple – find a ticket, take the next train out of the city. That’s it. If you know where you’re going, you can complete these tasks in very little time. There’s even an achievement (that it seems a not insignificant number of players have received) for completing the main story in less than four minutes. And I would argue that running through the game that fast is a perfectly fine way to challenge yourself on a repeat playthrough. But doing so your first time through would rob you of experiencing much of what Babbdi has to offer.

The titular city of Babbdi is a Brutalist nightmare, a seemingly ex-Soviet-style neighborhood consisting of looming concrete buildings and gloomy labyrinthine streets. Everywhere you turn there is a new path to take – a stairway leading up into a building, a narrow alley, a bridge, a canal, even possibly an underground tunnel. Yet despite the city’s size (which is surprisingly big for a free game like this) there are very few people to encounter. Those you do run into have faces that are lumpy and potato-like, and they generally seem unhappy or discontent about their lot in life. Very few of them move at all, outside of their heads constantly turning to follow you. When you first start playing, this all adds up to create a very strange and oppressive atmosphere that gives you no illusions as to why the unnamed protagonist wants to get out of Babbdi.

But the more you explore Babbdi, the more the city shifts from intimidating to intriguing. The game gives you free rein to search every nook and cranny of the city to your heart’s content and provides a number of tools to help you in your progress. A motorcycle allows you to zoom around the streets at ridiculous speeds, for example, while a pick axe grants you the ability to climb straight up vertical surfaces. These items, combined with the lack of any combat or fall damage whatsoever, gives the whole game a fun sandbox-like feel. And there are so many little hidden secrets to discover, beyond the twenty-something objects one of the achievements tasks you with finding. (I only managed to find a handful of those.) There’s a room strung up with cheerful string lights, an apartment occupied by identical life-sized dolls, and even a strange dance party in the sewers, just to name a few of the unusual things I stumbled upon. There’s always something else to see, and I loved that.

The game isn’t without issues. It did not seem to be as optimized as it could be, at least from what I could tell; I didn’t encounter major performance issues like stuttering, but playing for just a short amount of time caused my computer to heat up as much as the significantly larger and more complex A Hat in Time, even on the lowest graphical setting. It’s also very easy to get lost in Babbdi’s streets. There is a map you can find, but I didn’t think it was very helpful. At least you can find your bearings better by seeking out a higher location, though.

All in all, Babbdi is a strange and disorienting yet, at least in my view, worthwhile experience.

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Generally I will only be covering one game per column, but occasionally I will find a game so short that it would be hard to justify giving it a column of its own; in such a case, I will usually include it as a bonus with another game.

Game: The Children of Clay

Platform: Steam, Itch.io

Release Date: March 7, 2025

Developer: Balazs Ronyai

Genre: Point-and-Click, Horror

Length: ~15 minutes

Trailer:

The Children of Clay is a stop-motion point-and-click horror game created by Hungarian developer Balazs Ronyai. You play as an archaeologist who has received a recently uncovered statue from a friend who was exploring the Ural Mountains and are tasked with uncovering its purpose. Using a magnifying glass, a few tools, and some reference books you can use to research terms, you get to work…and it soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary clay statue.

The game is incredibly short, but that actually works in its favor. From a gameplay perspective, there is just enough substance to fill out the game’s diminutive length without it feeling stretched out or too compressed. It’s pretty much perfectly paced. The game’s small size also helps it to sustain its unsettling atmosphere without resorting to jump scares, and it’s the atmosphere where The Children of Clay excels the most. I’ve long been a fan of stop motion, in part because how easily its uncanny valley effects – such as the combination of realistic textures and jerky movements – can be harnessed to enhance a work’s creepiness or eeriness. The Children of Clay makes excellent use of all that, and it honestly makes me wish that there were more horror games willing to use stop motion in this manner. The use of lighting, darkness, and shadow, as well as the minimalist score and some great sound design, further help to give the game a unique and disturbing vibe.

I don’t know that I’ve ever played a game quite like The Children of Clay. I was very impressed by it and found it to be a real treat – a bite-sized treat, but a treat all the same.

Images courtesy of the games’ Steam pages