The itch.io refinery launches

This has been an insane week for game portals, in particular, Game Jolt and itch.io. The popular indie hotspot for selling games has launched a new portion to their site: the itch.io refinery.

The itch.io refinery is a special toolset for developers to launch their games into early access on the itch.io site. The model has grown to be a part of games culture, and itch.io wants to make sure developers are able to use it to its max.

Developers are able to decide which distribution model they want to use for their early access game. Some of the features itch.io has included are limited key quanitites, tiered purchases, private playtesting, community forums, and even digital rewards, so there's lots of combinations just waiting to be made.

Five games have already signed up to use the toolset. Finji's Overland, William Chyr's Manifold Garden, Team LeClue's Jenny LeClue, Drizzly Bear's Hackmud, and dittomat's GoNNER. That's an impressive list of games, and we're excited to know that some are already available to consume, while others aren't far from jumping on the platform.

To make things even better, command line tools have been released with "delta patching," allowing developers to upload new builds with ease that auto-patch on top of previous builds, making anyone using the itch desktop app to keep their local version of the game up to date with the latest updates.

Check out the itch.io refinery and the hot games within.