# The Humble Indie Bundle (5 indie games, technically free) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 14, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141 "2010-12-14T17:50:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/1 "2010-12-14T17:50:01Z")
Check it out: > **[Humble Bundle](https://www.humblebundle.com/?live)** > > Pay what you want. Support charity. Get awesome games. Five games: - Braid - Cortex Command - Machinarium - Osmos - Revenge of the Titans All free. The catch? No catch whatsoever. If you like the games and want to pay for them then go for it. You can pay any amount you want, or none at all. If you do pay you can specify money to go towards the game or to the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Child’s Play Charity. Hard to beat that deal! Some neat games there and a neat way to support indie developers. ---
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/2 "2010-12-14T18:52:51Z")
Thanks for the heads up. I picked up the first Indie Bundle and it was very much worth it. The first one recently emailed a Steam activation code, so now all games are integrated with my Steam account as a nice little bonus well after the purchase. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/3 "2010-12-14T19:09:28Z")
Wow. Braid is an amazing game, too. I haven’t played the others. What are they like? ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/4 "2010-12-14T19:10:30Z")
Oh, Machinarium. I played that too. Wow, these are great games! ---
**Author:** ![MindWanderer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@MindWanderer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MindWanderer)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/5 "2010-12-15T01:51:59Z")
I bought the bundle earlier this afternoon and I still haven’t received an email with the download link four hours later. I suppose their servers are probably swamped, but I will have to try to contact someone over there if I receive nothing by tommorrow. I think I will try Braid first. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/6 "2010-12-15T05:37:49Z")
> [@MindWanderer](#): > > I bought the bundle earlier this afternoon and I still haven’t received an email with the download link four hours later. I suppose their servers are probably swamped, but I will have to try to contact someone over there if I receive nothing by tommorrow. > > I think I will try Braid first. Weird. I paid and got my e-mail link in seconds after paying. FWIW I used the PayPal link for the purchase. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/7 "2010-12-15T07:10:42Z")
I just picked the bundle up. Braid alone was easily worth the purchase price. And Osmosis looks gorgeous. ---
**Author:** ![MindWanderer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@MindWanderer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MindWanderer)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/8 "2010-12-15T11:52:01Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Weird. > > I paid and got my e-mail link in seconds after paying. > > FWIW I used the PayPal link for the purchase. I finally got an email with the download link from them this morning. Can’t wait to start trying out Braid, and some of the other games. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/9 "2010-12-15T12:14:59Z")
If you actually try to enter $0, you get a funny picture. And at least two of the payment methods don’t work. (I only have accounts on Amazon and paypal, and I’m not risking putting my credit card information into Google for just a test.) ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/10 "2010-12-15T14:42:27Z")
I’m not sure if you actually can get the game for free, but come on people, this all goes to a combination of a few guys trying to make creative games in their basements and charity. They released stats about how many people paid what after the last sale, and like 30% of the people paid a cent. Their processor charges them $.31 per transaction, so these tens of thousands of asshats who were like YAY I RIPPED OFF INDIE DEVELOPERS AND CHARITY HAHHAHAHA I RULE were actually costing them money. So please, FFS, if you’re going to do this, give at least like $10. Braid, Osmos, and Machinarium are all worth that much alone - I haven’t played the other two. ---
**Author:** ![MindWanderer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@MindWanderer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MindWanderer)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/11 "2010-12-16T01:14:33Z")
Osmos is actually my favorite so far, which surprises me. I had heard of Braid before, but when I tried that, it quickly got so bizarre that I ended up spending 10 minutes on a part of a level, trying to cross a gap in the third world (techincally world 3 which was the 2nd I entered), and I took a break from that. Cortex command could be fun, but so far it was just brutal. So many enemies, and so little structure to the game. Your guys die so quick, and if you can’t get to another weapon, it seems like you are toast, but I’m sure I’m missing something. Machinarium sounds like one of those flash clickie games so I haven’t tried it at all. But I love the simple mechanics and darwinian flavor of Osmos. It reminds me of a web game I loved where you grow until you are this huge mega fish, always avoiding the big fish and eating the smaller ones. But in this game, they make being big have its drawbacks in that you move slowly and emit fairly large other blobs when you move. Every move to try to take an enemy risks shrinking you too much. Chasing the enemy that was fleeing me was the hardest one so far, I ended up realized I needed to build up momentum and then bounce around so fast so that the biophobe couldn’t escape, but I didn’t have to accelerate either. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/12 "2010-12-19T14:57:45Z")
They hit over $1 million in sales/raised money and now they’re giving you a cd key to unlock your games on steam if you prefer. ---
**Author:** ![TheFifthYear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@TheFifthYear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFifthYear)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/13 "2010-12-19T15:21:21Z")
How do you get the Steam key? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/14 "2010-12-19T15:22:05Z")
If it’s like the first one, they’ll e-mail it to you. ---
**Author:** ![TheFifthYear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@TheFifthYear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFifthYear)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/15 "2010-12-19T15:25:53Z")
I figured it out…if you go to the download page from the email you got when you made the purchase there is now a button to get the Steam code. Worked perfectly. Only three of the games (Braid, Machinarium, and Osmos) are currently on Steam, but they said the other two would automatically activate as soon as they are on Steam. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/16 "2010-12-19T15:36:21Z")
I ordered and got a confirmation email but I don’t see any Steam info - lil help? ---
**Author:** ![TheFifthYear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@TheFifthYear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFifthYear)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/17 "2010-12-19T15:52:23Z")
Click on the link in the email (the one that is [Humble Bundle | game bundles, book bundles, software bundles, and more](http://www.humblebundle.com/?key=)…) and then on that page there is a section that says “You can now redeem your Humble Indie Bundle #2 games on Steam and Desura!” Click the “Steam” button and it will give you a code which you can enter into Steam. ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/18 "2010-12-20T12:14:38Z")
I grabbed this last week - I’ve played a few demos of the games and I figured it’d be worth it just for Osmos and Machinarium. Cortex Command is _hard_ - the tutorial took me five goes ☹ ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-humble-indie-bundle-5-indie-games-technically-free/564141/19 "2010-12-20T15:51:25Z")
> [@TheFifthYear](#): > > Click on the link in the email (the one that is [Humble Bundle | game bundles, book bundles, software bundles, and more](http://www.humblebundle.com/?key=)…) and then on that page there is a section that says “You can now redeem your Humble Indie Bundle #2 games on Steam and Desura!” Click the “Steam” button and it will give you a code which you can enter into Steam. Got it - thanks!