$3.99The Basement Collection Nine weird games, one basement
Play through nine strange little games from Edmund McMillen, each revamped with new art, music and secrets to dig up.
Is The Basement Collection worth it?
The Basement Collection is worth it if…
- you grew up on browser games and want to see where this style of indie began
- you like Super Meat Boy or The Binding of Isaac and want to trace their roots
- you enjoy short, strange games that each try something different
- you care about development sketches, comics and interviews as much as the games themselves
Screenshots
Nine games, nine different ideas
This is not one game with a theme. It is a box of experiments, and each one plays by its own rules. You float through space in Aether, an exploration adventure about a boy and his planet-eating pet. Time Fcuk drops you into a dark puzzle game with a twist. Spewer is a physics platformer where the solution is usually gross. Meat Boy here is the prototype that started it all, and it is already as mean as its famous successor. Grey Matter is an anti shooter, Coil is an experimental story you have to interpret yourself, and Triachnid is a physics sim about being a spider. You will not love all nine equally. You will almost certainly love one.
The stuff behind the games
The collection is also a small museum. Finish the games and you unlock two secret ones, comics, sketchbooks and footage from Indie Game: The Movie, including 15 minutes never seen before. There is a soundtrack with over 30 full length tracks, more than 30 minutes of audio interviews, and over 15 pages of development sketches and character designs. If you have ever wondered where the monsters and posters in The Binding of Isaac came from, the answers are here, drawn by hand years earlier. The extras reward curiosity more than skill, and they make the whole thing feel like a collector's edition that happens to contain nine games.
How hard is it, really?
Is there anything to unlock besides the games?
Plenty. Two secret games sit behind completing others, and finishing the collection unlocks comics, sketchbooks, videos and bonus tracks. The Chest, unlocked late, hides even more games as surprises inside it. The unlockables are a big part of why people finish everything, and some of them take real effort to reach.
Can you play it in short sessions?
Yes. Most of the games here are short, and several are closer to ideas than full campaigns, so a single sitting gets you somewhere. The collection suits quick visits: try one game, unlock a comic, come back later. A few titles run longer and demand more, but nothing forces you to marathon the whole box at once.
