It's that time of year again--a time for turtledoves and mistletoe and endless Christmas songs played at the local grocery store. It's enough to make you puke. Thankfully, Itch.io understands that Christmas can be truly maddening for the un-holly jolly among us. That's why it's giving away 24 indie horror games to tide us over until the new year.

Madvent Calendar 3 is the best kind of advent calendar (and a thank you to Rock Paper Shotgun for pointing it out to us). Every day, a new indie horror game from the Haunted PS1 community unlocks in the Madvent Calendar 3 launcher. Every day, a new story of terror, tragedy, and despair. Every day, another reason to wake up and throw your Christmas tree out the window in favor of something more appropriate for your pagan disposition.

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Since we're already on the 21st (sorry, we got to this pretty late), that means there are already 21 games available to play. Titles include a first-person shooter where you hunt monsters in a snowy forest, an extreme snowboarding game where you murder your competitors, a classic RPG where you fight demons to retrieve your stolen Christmas gifts, a surreal pixilated puzzle game where you try to escape a wrapping monster, and a Myst-style adventure where you kill a haunted present in a cabin in the woods.

Each game is delightfully retro and usually pretty short, although some have a bit of replayability. And all are undeniably creepy.

You can download the Madvent Calendar 3 launcher over at Itch.io. It's a 1 GB download, but that's not bad considering it contains 24 games. You'll get automatic updates if you download it using the Itch.io app. And for those that missed the previous Madvent Calendars, those are still available to download too.

We're anticipating a bunch of indie games to come in 2023 that we're really excited about. We're so excited about Bomb Rush Cyberfunk that we actually listed it twice.

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