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Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of 5 November 2023
Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!
Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”
Rules:
- No grey market sales
- No affiliate links
It is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the game/games are worthwhile.
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Humble is having a Handheld Friendly sale:
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/handheld-friendly-sale/
Notable sales: Dredge is currently near historical low, Monster Train, Monster Hunter World and Rise + Expansions (personal bias)
Reposting from last week. Previous discussion.
Humble Bundle: IGN Editors' Choice - The 9 and Above Club
Price: $16 USD
All games in the bundle have received a 9 or a 10 rating from IGN.
Steam is having a Bullet Hell (Heaven?) Sale:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41046058/sale/bulletheavenfest/
Brotato is a good game from here. Don't know too many of the others but I'm eyeing Chess Survivors and added Breakout Survivors and Call of Boba on my wishlist!
One thing I love about gaming is that entire new genres can pop up over
nightyears. Also, I'm not afraid to call Steam out: how can you have an entire bullet heaven sale but still not have that as a valid tag on your platform. Come on, Steam. Wholeyearsnights have passed. Give the people what they want.For anyone looking for something, here are my thoughts on the few that I've played:
Vampire Survivors: The OG classic (which feels hilarious to say for a game that's been out for maybe two years?). A good starting point for anyone. Weirdly enough: it's not part of this sale.
Nomad Survival: This is genre heresy, but I liked this better than VS. Without getting spoilery on VS, I feel like in that game you get locked in to specific builds and don't really have freedom to fully mix and match the actives and passives you choose. NS lets you go with whatever you like, so get you can get as ridiculous as you want. I got 50 hours out of it.
Nebula: This is a space-themed one. I'm currently playing this -- almost finished with the grind at about 15 hours in. It's a very by-the-numbers interpretation of the genre. This one lets you manually aim if you like, or you can turn that off and use the game's auto-aim.
Void Scrappers: This is similar to Nebula in that it's also a space-themed entry in the genre. I think Nebula is slightly more polished, but this one lets you make more ridiculous builds. I got 15 hours out of it.
Gunlocked: This one takes the genre in a different direction. It's harder and has greater depth of builds than other games. Consequently, it's also more frustrating and doesn't have that sort of default, mindless, smooth and satisfying feeling that many bullet heaven games do. That said, when your build actually does take off, it's immensely satisfying. I played this one for 5 hours.
Brotato: Take all the elements of a bullet heaven game and then mix them with the sort of random-loot, stat-driven meta of a game like Diablo, and you get Brotato. I put 51 hours into this, and I will end up playing it more. This game absorbed me -- I didn't want to stop playing it. I brought it to a meetup with friends and put it on the TV and we hotseatted it for a few rounds and then everyone bought their own copy and each put in their own 50 hours. My favorite of all the ones I talk about here (by a BIG margin).
20 Minutes Till Dawn: This is a gun-focused one that lets you manually aim. It's got beautiful minimalist graphics and lets you build some really satisfying, cascading builds. Steam says I got 34 hours out of it, though many of those were my friend who wouldn't let go of my Steam Deck because this game got its claws into her.
Boneraiser Minions: This is a necromancer-themed one. It, personally, didn't do anything for me. I played it for an hour and bounced off of it. I found it hard to tell what was going on. One of my friends got it and loved it more than VS, however, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
These are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I might have played more of them, but I have no way of easily knowing that because I still can't filter my library by the
bullet heaventag, STEAM.Thank you for this great breakdown! I was literally just thinking about checking out this genre so this was very helpful!
Would you say Brotato also has a variety of satisfying builds and synergies? To me that’s the most important part of roguelikes and such - being able to have fun trying out new builds and play styles and not feel locked into certain builds. I’m assuming it does because you also seemed to highly value that, but just wanted to make sure.
Again, thank you very much for your write-up!
Oh most definitely. The whole game is about trying to get the random loot you’re hoping for to make the synergies you want happen. The game is good about respecting its own rules, and so you can absolutely run away with things if you get lucky drops that pair or stack. A big part of the game is “slot machining” the drops at the end of a wave — repeatedly re-rolling and holding items you want to buy.
The game also has a bunch of different characters, each with their own unique starting stat blocks or traits. This pushes you into trying different strategies across your runs, because a viable run with one character might be completely unwinnable for another. I’ve done so many runs of “let’s see if I can get this to take off” and, more often than not, you can! The game has a ton of different stats, and you can win the game if you manage to run away with nearly any of them — to say nothing of the fun combinations you can create.
For people that don’t like Brotato, a common complaint is that it doesn’t really have metaprogression. You can unlock new characters and items, but it doesn’t have the part of the loop where you dump your resources from the end of a run into making your character persistently more powerful. A lot of people, myself included, enjoy this grind, but it’s absent in Brotato. Some people actually prefer this as well, thinking that metaprogression is an artificial way of padding out game time (and they’re not wrong!).
So if you’re looking for that, then Brotato is not the game for you, but if you want sweet builds and synergies and “oh my god I can’t believe that worked” moments, then the game is absolutely worth the (very low) asking price.
Wonderful! Thank you so much once more for the helpful reply!
I’m certainly a fan of meta-progression when done well, such as in Hades, but I do like the purity of games where you unlock more options but don’t necessarily improve the strength of those options, if that makes sense. Slay the Spire and Monster Train being the two examples that come to mind for me!
I did pick up Brotato, and I'm very much enjoying it! It's definitely got its hooks in me. I can see areas where I might like more here and there, but it's totally an engaging experience in its own right and been a blast so far. I can see why the 'bullet heaven' genre is so appealing now!
I do like the emphasis on synergies - such as the classes of weapons, combining them, etc. - and it's fun seeing what the new characters each encourage, and how the damage types overlap and the like. I do feel like there's a lot of items and upgrades that are pretty "numbers-y" and not as interesting or radical of changes as you might see in games like Monster Train or Slay the Spire, but I also can see that a lot of those stats themselves have a huge effect on the build and playstyle.
The waves and enemies also do feel a bit 'same-y' over time, though again, I think that's part of the appeal of the game? Still, it's something I miss from Slay the Spire for example, where you can face enemies that force you to play quite differently and keep you on your toes, or a boss can be coming up that you know you have to plan around.
Anyway, thanks so much again for the recommendations! Brotato is indeed a blast!
Fanatical is having a bundle sale on their classic games! (I think the most recent one is RAGE, which was great.) All the classic (classic) Fallouts, Doom, Quake, Dishonored, and TES3 and 4.
https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-bethesda-classics-bundle
(also a nice break from just Humble sales haha
This is a seriously great deal for anyone looking to pick up some classics.
Separate from the deal: I like Fanatical, but I hate that they've gone heavy on the ads/promotions now. After a purchase I now get a pop-in at the top of the page with string of "offers" for things like the Capital One Shopping extension. Even with an adblocker. Yuck.
yeah, it's super similar to the AMC ticket buying experience, I'm not a huge fan.
It also looks like Team17 is having a sale right now too: https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/Team17
(To see them, go down to the break in the page and click on "Discounts")
High praise for Overcooked 2, Moving Out, and Going Under, as well as the Worms games especially for Thanksgiving coming up! Was looking at Bravery and Greed personally but not too sure about it tbh.
Damn, when you said Team17 was having a sale, I desperately hoped it included DREDGE... but sadly, it does not. It's still too new to go on sale yet, I guess. :(
p.s. Seconding your recommendations for the Overcooked, and Moving Out series. I have them on Switch and play them with my nephew. They're a hoot! :)
Sorry!! (If you're still looking for a sale on Dredge though, you can look at Fanatical: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/dredge)
(I use isthereanydeal to check game deals! Probably not the best for your wallet though!)
Hmmm, never heard of that site before. Is it legit, like Green Man Gaming supposedly is? Asking because I am always incredibly wary of all those third-party game key retailers, since a lot of them are shady AF. They often sell keys acquired via stolen credit cards, chargebacks, and such, which ends up hurting the devs and smaller publishers like Team17. And a major reason I buy games instead of just pirating them is to support the devs and smaller publishers.
I've used them multiple times, and it's trusted on /r/gamedeals. I buy from them with no issues (anecdotal obvi). I generally use the gamedeals list to judge third party sites as well, so I understand the wariness!
I know gamedeals had an issue with GMG for a bit but I think they've also been allowed back onto there a couple of years ago. I think all of the sites listed on isthereanydeal are trustworthy sites.
Ah, okay, if it's trusted by /r/gamedeals then it's likely legit. The mods there were usually pretty good at vetting services and keeping the shady grey market ones off the subreddit. I just don't use reddit much anymore, so am a bit out of touch with what is and isn't legit when it comes to game key sites. Thanks. :)
Edit: Looking into it some more, Fanatical is owned by Fandom, so yeah, it does appear totally legit. I don't like Fandom much as a company, but I highly doubt they would be doing anything illegal with their game retail site.
no worries! that sub is the only one i check nowadays because i think they did a good job of building a community and i used to enjoy the discussions there. it's not as good anymore tbh but they still post some good deals. that's why i love these threads :)
To be another corroborating voice: Fanatical is aboveboard (I use them all the time) and IsThereAnyDeal doesn’t list grey market key sites. If it’s on ITAD, it’s legit.
Also, if you’re wanting to learn which sites to avoid, gg.deals (another game deal aggregator) splits out deals on games into ones from “Official Sites” and ones from “Keyshops”. Looking at a game on there can help you identify which sites are gray market (the ones from Keyshops).
Yeah, I found out Fanatical is owned by Fandom, so is legit. Thanks for the heads up about ITAD (and gg.deals) too though. I didn't know anything about those sites before this topic either. :P
Steam has Europa Universalis IV on sale for $12, there's a lot of DLC, but I feel like people might enjoy this game around here lol
https://store.steampowered.com/app/236850/Europa_Universalis_IV/