A demo for Yacht Club's next game, Mina the Hallower, is out in this. I haven't been able to play because I'm playing Deltarune, but I'm super interested - this has a lot of Link's Awakening...
A demo for Yacht Club's next game, Mina the Hallower, is out in this. I haven't been able to play because I'm still stuck on this fucking chapter 3 boss playing Deltarune, but I'm super interested - this has a lot of Link's Awakening inspiration, but with more platforming and combat focus. Plus it's an excuse for another kickin' virt chiptune soundtrack, of course.
I'll be the dissenting voice and say that I wasn't particularly impressed with Mina the Hallower. There's an in-game manual that may have helped, but it's all written in very pixelated text so it...
I'll be the dissenting voice and say that I wasn't particularly impressed with Mina the Hallower. There's an in-game manual that may have helped, but it's all written in very pixelated text so it was off-putting and I didn't bother reading it. I also made the mistake of picking the daggers which was supposed to have speed, but it still felt sluggish and the lack of range meant getting hit more; maybe the whip's range or the hammer's movement roll would've been better. The healing system is pretty odd: once you're missing health, you have to land hits to raise your potential heal amount and then cash it in by using a flask charge, but getting hit also reduces the amount so it's a cycle of hurting where if you're getting hit in the first place, you're likely to stay hurt. It also feels like the game doesn't properly emphasize how universal the burrowing mechanic is; if you want to dodge or get anywhere, you burrow. I just think the learning experience isn't quite as refined as Shovel Knight's was for what it is.
Dead as Disco Steam Summer Game Fest demo #1 that was a blast to play, Arkham Asylum or Sifu mixed with music for a pretty punchy experience to the beat! Apparently you can upload songs to set the...
I was getting so many stutters on my desktop. I hope the clean up performance some because I definitely want to play this when it come out. Let me know if you have performance issues too please?
I was getting so many stutters on my desktop. I hope the clean up performance some because I definitely want to play this when it come out. Let me know if you have performance issues too please?
I had to change graphics settings to Medium because running at 1440 on CPU- [Ryzen 7 5700x] RAM- [32GB] GPU- [RX6750XT with 12GB VRAM] on Ultra or High made the game not smooth for some reason....
I had to change graphics settings to Medium because running at 1440 on CPU- [Ryzen 7 5700x] RAM- [32GB] GPU- [RX6750XT with 12GB VRAM] on Ultra or High made the game not smooth for some reason. While I do hope its just because it is a demo, I think it's not the best of looks.
Baby Steps was first on the list for me. I've been looking forward to this game for some time and certainly enjoyed the two hours spent hiking this new trail by Bennett Foddy and Co. The controls...
Baby Steps was first on the list for me. I've been looking forward to this game for some time and certainly enjoyed the two hours spent hiking this new trail by Bennett Foddy and Co. The controls worked well for me (both m/kb and DS5 controller) and I was able to become quite proficient at walking rather quickly. The climb only ended up taking about 20 minutes to reach the demo checkpoint, but it seemed like I had chosen the best route and didn't have any large setbacks. The rest of my time was spent exploring the world and trying to climb very difficult objects that aren't part of the main path. Overall it feels like a simplified 3D evolution of QWOP but going up a mountain. Lastly I was not expecting the addition of jiggle physics, butt they do provide maximum immersion while tumbling down the slopes.
Funny you should ask, I went back to explore further and was able to get over the demo area wall. I'm definitely a lot higher than I should be... part of me wants to keep going but I also don't...
Funny you should ask, I went back to explore further and was able to get over the demo area wall. I'm definitely a lot higher than I should be... part of me wants to keep going but I also don't want to spoil too much of the game for myself.
It's time for the summer instalment of Steams game demo showcase, running from June 9th to the 16th. Are there any games that have particularly caught your eye? Also please post your experiences...
It's time for the summer instalment of Steams game demo showcase, running from June 9th to the 16th. Are there any games that have particularly caught your eye? Also please post your experiences with any of the demos you do try!
Brave Escape - coop precision platformer. You guys can thank me later, also comes with a demo available. A little like Bread and Fred or Chained Together. But without the falling part.
Brave Escape - coop precision platformer. You guys can thank me later, also comes with a demo available.
A little like Bread and Fred or Chained Together. But without the falling part.
No, that's probably a better experience for online coop, but it's not the only one. Brave Escape supports Remote Play Together so only one person needs to own it, as well as local coop. Edit:...
No, that's probably a better experience for online coop, but it's not the only one. Brave Escape supports Remote Play Together so only one person needs to own it, as well as local coop.
Also, very technically, you can 'share keyboard' for local coop. So if you were insane enough you could play both characters without a coop partner, left hand WASD and right hand arrows. But I...
Also, very technically, you can 'share keyboard' for local coop. So if you were insane enough you could play both characters without a coop partner, left hand WASD and right hand arrows. But I can't imagine a world where that isn't a punishment for something you did in your past life haha
My Day 1 log. No standouts yet, just going off of what the steam page initially recommended. Gonna browse through the rankings and everyone else's posts tomorrow. Keeping track of NINJA GAIDEN:...
My Day 1 log. No standouts yet, just going off of what the steam page initially recommended. Gonna browse through the rankings and everyone else's posts tomorrow.
Keeping track of
NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound: 2D sidescrolling action with a focus on killstreaks; killing a blue aura enemy with a melee attack or a red aura enemy with a ranged attack makes the next sword/kunai strike oneshot to minimize flow disruption when a tanky enemy shows up. I guess the biggest thing is that the demo boss battle is more traditional instead of going into this flow state. Pretty polished otherwise with level rankings and collectibles at each stage.
Might keep an eye on
Palette: Cards & Chaos: Room-based twin-stick shooter roguelike, except the "cards" are basically weapon modifiers that you can tack onto the limited space of each weapon hand to scale up. Went quick melee build to delete bullets, game feels more like a proof of concept, but it was okay.
KILLBEAT: Room-based twin-stick shooter roguelike, except it's to the beat. Not really into the visual style so far, but it's filling the BPM: Bullets Per Minute void a bit (Robobeat is seriously short as a roguelike and didn't do it).
BALL x PIT: It's a ball bouncing brick breaker game mixed with horde survivor. It mixes the angle aiming of the former with the movement and item-based builds of the latter and I guess a mix of mob prioritization for both? Not a horde survivor person, but this does seem interesting.
Day 2 log. A few things made the vibes list today and a few more to the maybe/deep sale pile. Well these at least made an impression instead of being quietly installed. Vibing Hell Clock: ARPG...
Day 2 log. A few things made the vibes list today and a few more to the maybe/deep sale pile. Well these at least made an impression instead of being quietly installed.
Vibing
Hell Clock: ARPG Roguelite going down a dungeon floor by floor with a death timer going down (by default, there's a setting to turn it off). On one hand, I can already tell there's a ton of grind to it from the giant macro skill tree, persistent equipment, and the way my damage immediately dropped in the zone after the first boss. On the other hand, I kept going on more runs. Look, this permanent relic gives my machine gun skill fire damage and a chance of explosions. Oh, another relic that lets a physical damage gun skill trigger explode and trigger all the damage on an enemy that's on fire. Pick five skills, choose your perks as you level up, and thread that fine line between going down the side paths for loot while still making good time. It also does a nice thing where a skill can only have X amount of Y rarity perks, so it never feels like a waste to take a common perk for a skill because it's still powering it up. Just very well-themed overall.
Absolum: Roguelite Beat-em'-up with co-op, feels smooth to play even at base level with no upgrades. The demo packs a lot: branching paths, a 3rd character who joins after about two runs, unlocking new paths, all that good stuff. Heck there's even three types of counterattack triggers: dashing up/down to sidestep, dashing into the attack, and clashing against the attack with a strong move. Played as the dwarf, it was pretty easy to loop his normal chain into a dash into repeating it, though the game does note the repetitiveness. Pretty confident in this one.
Abyssus: Room-based FPS Roguelite. Has Hades style boons every few rooms to pick for your Primary fire, Secondary fire, and Ability. First run, I had a freezing aspect for my aimed revolver plus a +100% freeze rate on it to burst things down, then my grenades had the chain lightning aspect which also spread status effects for pretty effortless crowd control. Had a nice sunken ruins exploration theme to it.
Might keep an eye on
Bloodthief: Melee FPS speedrun game. Kill enemies for blood, use blood to power chain slide jumps for momentum, rinse repeat. I think my only complaint besides my lack of skill for this genre is how the homing charge only works when you're in the air and not when you're grounded.
Possessor(s): Metroidvania with the steam page saying it's taking combat inspiration from platform fighters. Noticeable hitstop to attacks and the first equipable "special" is kinda like Ivysaur Up+B if it was also a multi-hit launcher move with the vine being the entire hitbox. The game's vibes are immaculate to me with its post-demon invasion ruined city state with the MC having to make a pact to survive, but the general movement doesn't feel polished enough, like it doesn't have enough flexibility when trying to mount onto a ledge for example or the wall jump height being a bit low. Looking at the steam page, the trailer says it's by the Hyper Light Drifter people apparently.
Dispatch: Forcibly retired hero dispatches misfit heroes to solve crime calls. Conversations are Telltale style while the gameplay is analyzing the call details and determining which heros to send, and which heroes to send for a new call while those heroes are out, and then leveling up their stats after they gain enough exp. Humor kinda leaned dick jokes and "Hahaha fuck you," "Yeah, fuck you too." I guess my closest point of comparison in my limited reference pool is Netflix Castlevania-ish? Not really interested in dealing with stats gameplay, so this one isn't high on my list.
VOID/BREAKER: Roguelite FPS with a focus on gun customization combos and breaking the environment to stagger enemies. For a one guy project, it is impressive, but I think it feels like the Borderlands 2 Slag problem where you have to do X thing to boost DPS which in this case is lure enemies to the breakable environment and grenade it then throw the pieces. Really depends on level design to make it work I think, and the demo environments are mostly open space. Also could be interesting, but it's not grabbing me style-wise.
Morbid Metal: 3D Hack n' Slash roguelite with a focus on swapping between characters for different movesets/cooldowns. Demo has a sword all-rounder whose skills are sword beams and teleporting in, along with a heavy polearm-wielder who has a wide sweeping slash and a groundpound launcher move. Doesn't feel as fluid as a dedicated stylish action game, and the pick a random perk system probably lends to min-maxing a single character of the 4.
Dishonorable mention
Hell is Us: I tried it for a bit because the main character has Adam Jensen's voice actor and reading up on it, it's from the modern Deus Ex games' art director. It is also very unoptimized with a sluggishly slow start. Long boring cutscene of the main character getting interrogated, he wants to find his parents, go walk in these woods til you find an old farmer in his basement, take the key and keep walking til you get to the injured soldier and walk more to get a medkit for him, solve this 3 digit 3 picture combination to open a door, and at that point the fps chugged down and there really wasn't a reason for me to care so I stopped there.
Day 3 log. Mopping up what I downloaded out of the top 100 yesterday. Keeping track of Ascend to ZERO: This game takes Half-Minute Hero's basic premise of having only 30 seconds to save the world...
Day 3 log. Mopping up what I downloaded out of the top 100 yesterday.
Keeping track of
Ascend to ZERO: This game takes Half-Minute Hero's basic premise of having only 30 seconds to save the world and optimizing the auto-grinding within that time limit, but instead of the stages being puzzles to figure out the victory conditions, the first HMH's RPG trope parodies, or the second HMH's epic generational tale, Ascend to Zero is a roguelite with a bunch of meta-grinding and investment to get more powerful and keep going farther in the story with every run. Each room has a designated enemy level to grind in until you're leveled up enough to leave and fight the next one and some rooms have minibosses that drop passives for the run. Weapons attack by themselves, but you still have to move and dash to avoid attacks. You also have an unlimited timestop (where no one can attack) that goes on a 6 second cooldown after you leave it which lets you reposition, collect EXP to level up and move to the next room without worrying about the timer, and unleash a super move upon leaving timestop. Normally I complain about meta-grinding in roguelites because you're not allowed to actually win a run until you spend a few hours grinding and filling out some skill tree; in this case though, you always feel powerful for the zone you're in and the game is upfront about how it's impossible to win in the beginning with it being part of the theme that the the world has ended already and the MC is trying to get more powerful through the time machine to keep changing the past more.
Might keep an eye on
PIGFACE: FPS with no crosshair and Hotline Miami is probably the easiest comparison with the MC getting contracted to (basically) kill everyone at a location, a mask providing different passives, and having limited weapon slots (just a melee, gun, and healing syringe in this case). I like the aesthetic, though replaying through the demo level with a fully kitted AK (scoped, laser light, suppressed) by spending the job money in the shop made it laughably easy to just snipe everyone.
Burning Sword: Death Sun: 3D Wuxia Hack n' Slash. It unfortunately runs at 20-ish FPS for me, but I got past the first boss and it just looks cool? Enemies have a break meter which then allows you finish them off by draining their Qi.
Mecharashi: Turn based tactics ala Fire Emblem, but with customizable mechs and body part damage. Just finished the ambushed mission after the engineer joins, the strongest impression I have is the script and VA feeling very anime dubbed. Stopped after I noticed an energy meter at the top right so I ventured into the steam comments and apparently it's F2P Gacha?
Mycopunk: Objective FPS co-op missions with exp and loot. Went a run as the bruiser, probably shouldn't have chosen a kill everything mission as my demo run. Did like the gun feel and how shooting things restores ammo for your other weapon which gives a natural flow to swapping between them. Feeling very mildly interested, would be a dedicated co-op only game for me.
Day 4 log. Downloading from the top 300 now, though avoiding anything above 10-ish gigs. Short list today, but with some stuff I thought was really good. Vibing Flick Shot Rogues: Turn-based...
Day 4 log. Downloading from the top 300 now, though avoiding anything above 10-ish gigs. Short list today, but with some stuff I thought was really good.
Vibing
Flick Shot Rogues: Turn-based roguelike where you flick your hero and bounce them at enemies and around the table to deal damage and avoid getting hit. Had a nice run where i sent in the AoE hero to prime bombs on the enemies before getting a damage boost for swapping back to the direct damage hero and then setting up firefly damage multipliers back for the AoE hero again. There's just a lot of little things that I liked about it: the shipwrecked explorers theme, the shield buffer that recharges every battle, how the game lets you finely tune your shots while aiming, the way you cash in EXP at campfires for leveling up, and just the overall vibes to it. I really like this one.
Windswept: 2D platformer which strongly brought up every memory I had of playing Donkey Kong Country 2. There's the bonus levels each stage, the letter collectibles spelling out a word, the target at the end to jump on with the celebration dance for getting it right, the tag team swapping and throwing, the roll mechanics being exactly how I remember it. I'm just so touched that someone out there decided to make a classic DKC style game and delivered while also evolving it a bit. Did have to put DXVK for stable 60 though.
Might keep an eye on
Bits & Bops: Basically Rhythm Heaven, but non-Nintendo. Got a perfect on the robot game, awesomes on the seal and bird games, and just an okay on the hammer game. I like rhythm stuff, but I know the timing here gets strict so it's not 100% for me.
BALL x PIT is exactly the kind of thing that I like - a roguelite (or in this case a survivors-like) with a central mechanic borrowed from a completely different genre. This one is really well...
BALL x PIT is exactly the kind of thing that I like - a roguelite (or in this case a survivors-like) with a central mechanic borrowed from a completely different genre. This one is really well made though, I'm looking forward to the full release.
I'm not sure it's part of Next Fest because the full game launched earlier this year, but I found the demo for Void War last week and got a lot of mileage out of it, I'll probably buy the full...
I'm not sure it's part of Next Fest because the full game launched earlier this year, but I found the demo for Void War last week and got a lot of mileage out of it, I'll probably buy the full game soon. It's a fairly straightforward...homage? clone? of FTL, with a Warhammer 40k dark sci-fi coat of paint on it, but it works really well and plays beautifully, and honestly I'd been wanting some more FTL, so I'm not unhappy at all with a game that sticks pretty closely to the formula that made it work.
I love FTL and was interested in Void War, but the trailer showed me that it’s really genuinely incredibly close to FTL to the extent of even using basically the same sound effect for “crew member...
I love FTL and was interested in Void War, but the trailer showed me that it’s really genuinely incredibly close to FTL to the extent of even using basically the same sound effect for “crew member low on health”
It’s actually kinda off putting, and I’m sure it’s a great game in its own right, but given the choices they made to be as close to FTL in a bunch of ways without going their own way, it really feels like they’re not confident in their own design ideas. Or a less generous interpretation, they’re just trying to cash in on a beloved game and changing just enough to avoid copyright issues, for an idea that could have been a reskin mod of FTL instead.
Couple that with the price (double the price of FTL!) and I don’t think I could ever support it.
I felt like it was different enough that I enjoyed playing it a lot, but similar enough that it didn't take too much to figure it out. Everything behaved pretty much as expected because the...
I felt like it was different enough that I enjoyed playing it a lot, but similar enough that it didn't take too much to figure it out. Everything behaved pretty much as expected because the controls and base mechanics are identical to FTL. But the flavor is cool, and there are some interesting changes as well. I like the psykers (they can directly attack ships or enemy crew and don't interact with shields), the boarding game feels a little different, and the lack of crew leveling meant that you could feed your crew to the grinder a bit more, but they also have equipment which makes a big difference. FTL is, what, 13 years old? It would be kind of crazy for them to create a mod for a game that old instead of re-implementing the core mechanics. But it's been a while since I've played FTL, so it may have just come along at the right time for me.
I'm excited to give it a try eventually, I wonder if the game will continue to add more features and differentiate itself more from FTL during its development in early access. I know It's hard to...
I'm excited to give it a try eventually, I wonder if the game will continue to add more features and differentiate itself more from FTL during its development in early access. I know It's hard to get too far away since the core is FTL with a new skin of paint and new features.
I am glad to see someone iterating on the formula. I think Subset Games made a masterpiece with FTL, and the community has added so much to it with mods. One piece of Void War that I do like is the Developers are intending to add in mod support as part of the package.
The price is also a sticking point for me, since I don't have much of a gaming budget, and I received so much value from FTL and could still sink hundreds of hours in to it. I'm guessing this will be a game I pick up on sale down the line once it's out of early access.
Just finished a session of Jump Ship with two friends. Ended up being intense and super fun. Cautiously optimistic on this one. I see the core gameplay and if they have enough variations/set...
Just finished a session of Jump Ship with two friends. Ended up being intense and super fun. Cautiously optimistic on this one. I see the core gameplay and if they have enough variations/set prices for the random/precedural generation I see this becoming a main stay for my group. Just worried that if they don't it will get stale very quickly. Feels like the expirence that we wanted from starcitizen and elite dangerous but both have yet/failed to deliver. Elite being the disjointed ship vs space leg expirence, and SC taking the approach that to make an online apple pie you must first make the universe.
I wish the ship control was a little more weighty and grappling hooks are super fun but look a little jank when the line is perfectly fixed while the ship is thrusting around wildly. Also the robot sounds like a canadian from South Park.
So I've poked a little at Jump Ship solo. It's probably better with friends (and I haven't waded in too deep). I was expecting something a little similar to Deep Rock Galactic but in space//sci-fi...
So I've poked a little at Jump Ship solo. It's probably better with friends (and I haven't waded in too deep). I was expecting something a little similar to Deep Rock Galactic but in space//sci-fi ruins. Not quite. At present, there's no player progression (no skills, weapons, equipment for the player character). Apparently there's player exp which is tracked, but does nothing at present. So hopefully something in the future! There's also no player classes. You're all the same. You can craft some weapons, as well as find some around the environment, but they don't carry over been excursions. Little underwhelming.
As the name implies, the emphasis is placed on upgrading the ship and ship management. In solo, a lot of ship management is streamlined, so in space combat you largely fly the ship, shoot, and let your robo side kick handle things like ship repair/reloading (he won't craft things, so you have to make things for him to use in advance - and he won't put out fire). I think the true fun of this game is managing the chaos, which you don't really get to experience/do in solo.
Yeah I think the solo experience is a lot less fun. The robot is a little too good at the game and takes some of the fun out of trying to juggle everything. I played a couple of missions with 4...
Yeah I think the solo experience is a lot less fun. The robot is a little too good at the game and takes some of the fun out of trying to juggle everything. I played a couple of missions with 4 players yesterday and it was a massive improvement.
I've either dove in neck deep into Steam Next Fest or completely ignored it, so I'm trying to pace myself inbetween the extremes this year. Here's my current line-up: From my Wishlist: Unbeatable...
I've either dove in neck deep into Steam Next Fest or completely ignored it, so I'm trying to pace myself inbetween the extremes this year. Here's my current line-up:
From my Wishlist:
Unbeatable
There's some music platformers already out there, but they tend to be "oogle at the skinny-legged girl animated between the cutesy beatmaps" which just... it is not my *jam*. Unbeatable looks like it's a tamed version of that style, so I'm checking out the demo to see how it feels. Eriksholm
Top-down singleplayer adventure with oddly hyper-realistic zoomed in conversations with characters. Seriously, check out some of the cutscenes of it on youtube, the lip-syncing is insane. Dispatch Elevator pitch: Invincible meets 9-1-1 Operator. Looks very clean and the narrative of the ex-superhero working the office job looks dope. Very polished design.
New demos to me that looked interesting: Dragon Shelter Explosive Odds Sands of Hope DAVYxJONES Voyagers of Nera
I found AEROMACHINA through a fanart of the MC (an aeromorph) instead of Next Fest (again, seems to be a recurring thing, this whole fest discovery not helping that much...). The big thing here is...
I found AEROMACHINA through a fanart of the MC (an aeromorph) instead of Next Fest (again, seems to be a recurring thing, this whole fest discovery not helping that much...).
The big thing here is gliding since you're a 'morph, big thing that tripped me is that joystick only deals with steering and acceleration, not height (unlike a wingsuit). Once you get used to it it's way better, setting aside the fact that glide and stomp are on adjacent face buttons (Y and B), but they should be rebindable in the full game (there's already a field for those options, even if it's empty right now).
Past that, I don't have that much experience in the genre, but it does place it's backtrack goals pretty clearly in sight (but not on the map, even if you entered it and stood right on something you can interact with later). Combat is fun if mostly pointless (not helped by enemies respawning the moment you leave a room). Didn't do everything yet, but I have to get close to the end by now.
The other game I found was though Next Fest itself this time, Slyders, it's pretty much Vampire Survivors (or HoloCure with the upgrade slot system), just as a FPS instead.
Overall, if you like VS/HC and FPS you'll like this game, just noting that it does use AI in artwork (got the whole disclosure thing on steam, right after the description).
Gemporium: A Cute Mining Sim: This game is the only game that really caught my eye when taking ~5 minutes to take a look at the new titles. As soon as I saw the trailer this scratched that itch...
Gemporium: A Cute Mining Sim: This game is the only game that really caught my eye when taking ~5 minutes to take a look at the new titles. As soon as I saw the trailer this scratched that itch for something like the underground section in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl where you would dig for different items and things out of the cave walls. I didn't have many friends who played, so I didn't get to experience a ton of playing it with other people, but I felt that the minigame/activity was really fun to do.
Hoping to play the demo at some point to see if it is good, but I could see this being high up on my wishlist if I enjoy how they implemented it.
A demo for Yacht Club's next game, Mina the Hallower, is out in this. I haven't been able to play because I'm
still stuck on this fucking chapter 3 bossplaying Deltarune, but I'm super interested - this has a lot of Link's Awakening inspiration, but with more platforming and combat focus. Plus it's an excuse for another kickin' virt chiptune soundtrack, of course.Yacht Club being immediately known to all right-thinking people as the developer of Shovel Knight.
Honestly, it's about time they came up with something new. There's eight Shovel Knight games with at least two more on the way...
I'll be the dissenting voice and say that I wasn't particularly impressed with Mina the Hallower. There's an in-game manual that may have helped, but it's all written in very pixelated text so it was off-putting and I didn't bother reading it. I also made the mistake of picking the daggers which was supposed to have speed, but it still felt sluggish and the lack of range meant getting hit more; maybe the whip's range or the hammer's movement roll would've been better. The healing system is pretty odd: once you're missing health, you have to land hits to raise your potential heal amount and then cash it in by using a flask charge, but getting hit also reduces the amount so it's a cycle of hurting where if you're getting hit in the first place, you're likely to stay hurt. It also feels like the game doesn't properly emphasize how universal the burrowing mechanic is; if you want to dodge or get anywhere, you burrow. I just think the learning experience isn't quite as refined as Shovel Knight's was for what it is.
I played this at PAX a couple years ago and it didn't grab me, but I'm sure it's come a long ways since then!
Dead as Disco
Steam Summer Game Fest demo #1 that was a blast to play, Arkham Asylum or Sifu mixed with music for a pretty punchy experience to the beat!
Apparently you can upload songs to set the BPM for the combos to sync to, even in the demo which I'll have to try next time I boot up!
Yooka-Replaylee demo technically runs on the Steam Deck. I say technically because it crashed at least twice. Gonna try it on PC later
I was getting so many stutters on my desktop. I hope the clean up performance some because I definitely want to play this when it come out. Let me know if you have performance issues too please?
I had to change graphics settings to Medium because running at 1440 on CPU- [Ryzen 7 5700x] RAM- [32GB] GPU- [RX6750XT with 12GB VRAM] on Ultra or High made the game not smooth for some reason. While I do hope its just because it is a demo, I think it's not the best of looks.
Baby Steps was first on the list for me. I've been looking forward to this game for some time and certainly enjoyed the two hours spent hiking this new trail by Bennett Foddy and Co. The controls worked well for me (both m/kb and DS5 controller) and I was able to become quite proficient at walking rather quickly. The climb only ended up taking about 20 minutes to reach the demo checkpoint, but it seemed like I had chosen the best route and didn't have any large setbacks. The rest of my time was spent exploring the world and trying to climb very difficult objects that aren't part of the main path. Overall it feels like a simplified 3D evolution of QWOP but going up a mountain. Lastly I was not expecting the addition of jiggle physics, butt they do provide maximum immersion while tumbling down the slopes.
Do you... get over it?
Funny you should ask, I went back to explore further and was able to get over the demo area wall. I'm definitely a lot higher than I should be... part of me wants to keep going but I also don't want to spoil too much of the game for myself.
booooooo
It's time for the summer instalment of Steams game demo showcase, running from June 9th to the 16th. Are there any games that have particularly caught your eye? Also please post your experiences with any of the demos you do try!
Brave Escape - coop precision platformer. You guys can thank me later, also comes with a demo available.
A little like Bread and Fred or Chained Together. But without the falling part.
Both players need to buy it? For 19eur each? A bit steep.
No, that's probably a better experience for online coop, but it's not the only one. Brave Escape supports Remote Play Together so only one person needs to own it, as well as local coop.
Edit: typos + hyperlink
Also, very technically, you can 'share keyboard' for local coop. So if you were insane enough you could play both characters without a coop partner, left hand WASD and right hand arrows. But I can't imagine a world where that isn't a punishment for something you did in your past life haha
... and now that you gave me the idea, I have to try it.
My Day 1 log. No standouts yet, just going off of what the steam page initially recommended. Gonna browse through the rankings and everyone else's posts tomorrow.
Keeping track of
Might keep an eye on
Palette: Cards & Chaos: Room-based twin-stick shooter roguelike, except the "cards" are basically weapon modifiers that you can tack onto the limited space of each weapon hand to scale up. Went quick melee build to delete bullets, game feels more like a proof of concept, but it was okay.
KILLBEAT: Room-based twin-stick shooter roguelike, except it's to the beat. Not really into the visual style so far, but it's filling the BPM: Bullets Per Minute void a bit (Robobeat is seriously short as a roguelike and didn't do it).
BALL x PIT: It's a ball bouncing brick breaker game mixed with horde survivor. It mixes the angle aiming of the former with the movement and item-based builds of the latter and I guess a mix of mob prioritization for both? Not a horde survivor person, but this does seem interesting.
Day 2 log. A few things made the vibes list today and a few more to the maybe/deep sale pile. Well these at least made an impression instead of being quietly installed.
Vibing
Hell Clock: ARPG Roguelite going down a dungeon floor by floor with a death timer going down (by default, there's a setting to turn it off). On one hand, I can already tell there's a ton of grind to it from the giant macro skill tree, persistent equipment, and the way my damage immediately dropped in the zone after the first boss. On the other hand, I kept going on more runs. Look, this permanent relic gives my machine gun skill fire damage and a chance of explosions. Oh, another relic that lets a physical damage gun skill trigger explode and trigger all the damage on an enemy that's on fire. Pick five skills, choose your perks as you level up, and thread that fine line between going down the side paths for loot while still making good time. It also does a nice thing where a skill can only have X amount of Y rarity perks, so it never feels like a waste to take a common perk for a skill because it's still powering it up. Just very well-themed overall.
Absolum: Roguelite Beat-em'-up with co-op, feels smooth to play even at base level with no upgrades. The demo packs a lot: branching paths, a 3rd character who joins after about two runs, unlocking new paths, all that good stuff. Heck there's even three types of counterattack triggers: dashing up/down to sidestep, dashing into the attack, and clashing against the attack with a strong move. Played as the dwarf, it was pretty easy to loop his normal chain into a dash into repeating it, though the game does note the repetitiveness. Pretty confident in this one.
Abyssus: Room-based FPS Roguelite. Has Hades style boons every few rooms to pick for your Primary fire, Secondary fire, and Ability. First run, I had a freezing aspect for my aimed revolver plus a +100% freeze rate on it to burst things down, then my grenades had the chain lightning aspect which also spread status effects for pretty effortless crowd control. Had a nice sunken ruins exploration theme to it.
Might keep an eye on
Bloodthief: Melee FPS speedrun game. Kill enemies for blood, use blood to power chain slide jumps for momentum, rinse repeat. I think my only complaint besides my lack of skill for this genre is how the homing charge only works when you're in the air and not when you're grounded.
Possessor(s): Metroidvania with the steam page saying it's taking combat inspiration from platform fighters. Noticeable hitstop to attacks and the first equipable "special" is kinda like Ivysaur Up+B if it was also a multi-hit launcher move with the vine being the entire hitbox. The game's vibes are immaculate to me with its post-demon invasion ruined city state with the MC having to make a pact to survive, but the general movement doesn't feel polished enough, like it doesn't have enough flexibility when trying to mount onto a ledge for example or the wall jump height being a bit low. Looking at the steam page, the trailer says it's by the Hyper Light Drifter people apparently.
Dispatch: Forcibly retired hero dispatches misfit heroes to solve crime calls. Conversations are Telltale style while the gameplay is analyzing the call details and determining which heros to send, and which heroes to send for a new call while those heroes are out, and then leveling up their stats after they gain enough exp. Humor kinda leaned dick jokes and "Hahaha fuck you," "Yeah, fuck you too." I guess my closest point of comparison in my limited reference pool is Netflix Castlevania-ish? Not really interested in dealing with stats gameplay, so this one isn't high on my list.
VOID/BREAKER: Roguelite FPS with a focus on gun customization combos and breaking the environment to stagger enemies. For a one guy project, it is impressive, but I think it feels like the Borderlands 2 Slag problem where you have to do X thing to boost DPS which in this case is lure enemies to the breakable environment and grenade it then throw the pieces. Really depends on level design to make it work I think, and the demo environments are mostly open space. Also could be interesting, but it's not grabbing me style-wise.
Morbid Metal: 3D Hack n' Slash roguelite with a focus on swapping between characters for different movesets/cooldowns. Demo has a sword all-rounder whose skills are sword beams and teleporting in, along with a heavy polearm-wielder who has a wide sweeping slash and a groundpound launcher move. Doesn't feel as fluid as a dedicated stylish action game, and the pick a random perk system probably lends to min-maxing a single character of the 4.
Dishonorable mention
Day 3 log. Mopping up what I downloaded out of the top 100 yesterday.
Keeping track of
Might keep an eye on
PIGFACE: FPS with no crosshair and Hotline Miami is probably the easiest comparison with the MC getting contracted to (basically) kill everyone at a location, a mask providing different passives, and having limited weapon slots (just a melee, gun, and healing syringe in this case). I like the aesthetic, though replaying through the demo level with a fully kitted AK (scoped, laser light, suppressed) by spending the job money in the shop made it laughably easy to just snipe everyone.
Burning Sword: Death Sun: 3D Wuxia Hack n' Slash. It unfortunately runs at 20-ish FPS for me, but I got past the first boss and it just looks cool? Enemies have a break meter which then allows you finish them off by draining their Qi.
Mecharashi: Turn based tactics ala Fire Emblem, but with customizable mechs and body part damage. Just finished the ambushed mission after the engineer joins, the strongest impression I have is the script and VA feeling very anime dubbed. Stopped after I noticed an energy meter at the top right so I ventured into the steam comments and apparently it's F2P Gacha?
Mycopunk: Objective FPS co-op missions with exp and loot. Went a run as the bruiser, probably shouldn't have chosen a kill everything mission as my demo run. Did like the gun feel and how shooting things restores ammo for your other weapon which gives a natural flow to swapping between them. Feeling very mildly interested, would be a dedicated co-op only game for me.
Day 4 log. Downloading from the top 300 now, though avoiding anything above 10-ish gigs. Short list today, but with some stuff I thought was really good.
Vibing
Flick Shot Rogues: Turn-based roguelike where you flick your hero and bounce them at enemies and around the table to deal damage and avoid getting hit. Had a nice run where i sent in the AoE hero to prime bombs on the enemies before getting a damage boost for swapping back to the direct damage hero and then setting up firefly damage multipliers back for the AoE hero again. There's just a lot of little things that I liked about it: the shipwrecked explorers theme, the shield buffer that recharges every battle, how the game lets you finely tune your shots while aiming, the way you cash in EXP at campfires for leveling up, and just the overall vibes to it. I really like this one.
Windswept: 2D platformer which strongly brought up every memory I had of playing Donkey Kong Country 2. There's the bonus levels each stage, the letter collectibles spelling out a word, the target at the end to jump on with the celebration dance for getting it right, the tag team swapping and throwing, the roll mechanics being exactly how I remember it. I'm just so touched that someone out there decided to make a classic DKC style game and delivered while also evolving it a bit. Did have to put DXVK for stable 60 though.
Might keep an eye on
BALL x PIT is exactly the kind of thing that I like - a roguelite (or in this case a survivors-like) with a central mechanic borrowed from a completely different genre. This one is really well made though, I'm looking forward to the full release.
I'm not sure it's part of Next Fest because the full game launched earlier this year, but I found the demo for Void War last week and got a lot of mileage out of it, I'll probably buy the full game soon. It's a fairly straightforward...homage? clone? of FTL, with a
Warhammer 40kdark sci-fi coat of paint on it, but it works really well and plays beautifully, and honestly I'd been wanting some more FTL, so I'm not unhappy at all with a game that sticks pretty closely to the formula that made it work.I love FTL and was interested in Void War, but the trailer showed me that it’s really genuinely incredibly close to FTL to the extent of even using basically the same sound effect for “crew member low on health”
It’s actually kinda off putting, and I’m sure it’s a great game in its own right, but given the choices they made to be as close to FTL in a bunch of ways without going their own way, it really feels like they’re not confident in their own design ideas. Or a less generous interpretation, they’re just trying to cash in on a beloved game and changing just enough to avoid copyright issues, for an idea that could have been a reskin mod of FTL instead.
Couple that with the price (double the price of FTL!) and I don’t think I could ever support it.
I felt like it was different enough that I enjoyed playing it a lot, but similar enough that it didn't take too much to figure it out. Everything behaved pretty much as expected because the controls and base mechanics are identical to FTL. But the flavor is cool, and there are some interesting changes as well. I like the psykers (they can directly attack ships or enemy crew and don't interact with shields), the boarding game feels a little different, and the lack of crew leveling meant that you could feed your crew to the grinder a bit more, but they also have equipment which makes a big difference. FTL is, what, 13 years old? It would be kind of crazy for them to create a mod for a game that old instead of re-implementing the core mechanics. But it's been a while since I've played FTL, so it may have just come along at the right time for me.
I'm excited to give it a try eventually, I wonder if the game will continue to add more features and differentiate itself more from FTL during its development in early access. I know It's hard to get too far away since the core is FTL with a new skin of paint and new features.
I am glad to see someone iterating on the formula. I think Subset Games made a masterpiece with FTL, and the community has added so much to it with mods. One piece of Void War that I do like is the Developers are intending to add in mod support as part of the package.
The price is also a sticking point for me, since I don't have much of a gaming budget, and I received so much value from FTL and could still sink hundreds of hours in to it. I'm guessing this will be a game I pick up on sale down the line once it's out of early access.
Just finished a session of Jump Ship with two friends. Ended up being intense and super fun. Cautiously optimistic on this one. I see the core gameplay and if they have enough variations/set prices for the random/precedural generation I see this becoming a main stay for my group. Just worried that if they don't it will get stale very quickly. Feels like the expirence that we wanted from starcitizen and elite dangerous but both have yet/failed to deliver. Elite being the disjointed ship vs space leg expirence, and SC taking the approach that to make an online apple pie you must first make the universe.
I wish the ship control was a little more weighty and grappling hooks are super fun but look a little jank when the line is perfectly fixed while the ship is thrusting around wildly. Also the robot sounds like a canadian from South Park.
So I've poked a little at Jump Ship solo. It's probably better with friends (and I haven't waded in too deep). I was expecting something a little similar to Deep Rock Galactic but in space//sci-fi ruins. Not quite. At present, there's no player progression (no skills, weapons, equipment for the player character). Apparently there's player exp which is tracked, but does nothing at present. So hopefully something in the future! There's also no player classes. You're all the same. You can craft some weapons, as well as find some around the environment, but they don't carry over been excursions. Little underwhelming.
As the name implies, the emphasis is placed on upgrading the ship and ship management. In solo, a lot of ship management is streamlined, so in space combat you largely fly the ship, shoot, and let your robo side kick handle things like ship repair/reloading (he won't craft things, so you have to make things for him to use in advance - and he won't put out fire). I think the true fun of this game is managing the chaos, which you don't really get to experience/do in solo.
Yeah I think the solo experience is a lot less fun. The robot is a little too good at the game and takes some of the fun out of trying to juggle everything. I played a couple of missions with 4 players yesterday and it was a massive improvement.
I've either dove in neck deep into Steam Next Fest or completely ignored it, so I'm trying to pace myself inbetween the extremes this year. Here's my current line-up:
From my Wishlist:
Unbeatable
There's some music platformers already out there, but they tend to be "oogle at the skinny-legged girl animated between the cutesy beatmaps" which just... it is not my *jam*. Unbeatable looks like it's a tamed version of that style, so I'm checking out the demo to see how it feels.Eriksholm
Top-down singleplayer adventure with oddly hyper-realistic zoomed in conversations with characters. Seriously, check out some of the cutscenes of it on youtube, the lip-syncing is insane.Dispatch
Elevator pitch: Invincible meets 9-1-1 Operator. Looks very clean and the narrative of the ex-superhero working the office job looks dope. Very polished design.New demos to me that looked interesting:
Dragon Shelter
Explosive Odds
Sands of Hope
DAVYxJONES
Voyagers of Nera
Era One: the proper successor to Homeworld
I found AEROMACHINA through a fanart of the MC (an aeromorph) instead of Next Fest (again, seems to be a recurring thing, this whole fest discovery not helping that much...).
The big thing here is gliding since you're a 'morph, big thing that tripped me is that joystick only deals with steering and acceleration, not height (unlike a wingsuit). Once you get used to it it's way better, setting aside the fact that glide and stomp are on adjacent face buttons (Y and B), but they should be rebindable in the full game (there's already a field for those options, even if it's empty right now).
Past that, I don't have that much experience in the genre, but it does place it's backtrack goals pretty clearly in sight (but not on the map, even if you entered it and stood right on something you can interact with later). Combat is fun if mostly pointless (not helped by enemies respawning the moment you leave a room). Didn't do everything yet, but I have to get close to the end by now.
The other game I found was though Next Fest itself this time, Slyders, it's pretty much Vampire Survivors (or HoloCure with the upgrade slot system), just as a FPS instead.
Overall, if you like VS/HC and FPS you'll like this game, just noting that it does use AI in artwork (got the whole disclosure thing on steam, right after the description).
Gemporium: A Cute Mining Sim: This game is the only game that really caught my eye when taking ~5 minutes to take a look at the new titles. As soon as I saw the trailer this scratched that itch for something like the underground section in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl where you would dig for different items and things out of the cave walls. I didn't have many friends who played, so I didn't get to experience a ton of playing it with other people, but I felt that the minigame/activity was really fun to do.
Hoping to play the demo at some point to see if it is good, but I could see this being high up on my wishlist if I enjoy how they implemented it.