60
votes
The 2025 Steam Summer Sale is live (runs June 26 - July 10)
Quick links:
Share noteworthy deals!
Ask for recommendations!
Discuss what you bought!
Quick links:
Share noteworthy deals!
Ask for recommendations!
Discuss what you bought!
Another Steam Sale means another time for The 4H Club to shine!
These are games that are:
Because the sale just went live, it will take some time for ITAD to populate the deals. Best to check back several hours after the time of this comment.
Also, ITAD has fully adjustable parameters for searching, so you can easily change them to your liking. If you come up with a cool "default" set to highlight certain types of deals, share it here!
That's an awesome list, thanks for sharing!
There are a few standouts I can personally vouch for, most of which have placed in my "games of the year" in the respective years I played them:
I think I've told you this before, but in case I haven't (or even if I have, it's nice to hear it more than once!), your review site is LOVELY. Beautiful minimalist design, sharp and thoughtful layouts and information, with concise yet compelling writeups that get at the heart of your experiences.
Did I mention that your four star review system is brilliant? Simple yet elegant. Love it.
Also, it's genuinely nice to see so many positive reviews. On a wider internet full of people who are generally upset and nitpicky about media all the time, your earnest enjoyment of so many things is a breath of fresh air.
Same, I fell down a David rabbit hole and now I'm following him on socials
Ha, appreciate it! I do what I can 🙂
I really appreciate the kind words! Concise, clean, and focused on the core of each game is exactly what I'm going for. And it does make me sad when I review a game badly. 😅 I know how much work and time and care go into them, but I also feel like I need to be honest when I don't find a game fun. But I also get to choose what I review and I mostly play things I think I'll like, so scores definitely lean higher.
I really love that you do so much for positivity on Tildes. You're responsible for a bunch of great threads including a bunch of great deals-related ones and of course, the game swap one from the holidays. It really makes the site feel home-y.
Oh wow, thanks for posting this because I didn't realize TOEM wasn't on my wishlist! I've been wanting to play it, but I guess I added it on my Switch wishlist back before I got my Steam Deck and never added it on Steam? Added it to my cart since it's only $3.99, thanks!
Awesome, enjoy! It's such a breath of fresh air. There's a sequel coming too!
I loved Battle Chasers but have never touched LoL. Is that important for enjoying Ruined King?
I haven't played Ruined King yet (soon, hopefully!) but my understanding is that it's separate enough to be enjoyable. The characters are all from LoL, but they're introduced to you in the game like any brand new character would be. So there may be references you don't catch, but it's intended to be a standalone experience (with gameplay very similar to Battle Chasers)
Thanks for the link! Just used it to buy way too many games since I have no self control.
Also noticed this through there. Seems it's free for the sale (though buying it as a bundle of itself still costs $5)
Yeah, Tell Me Why has been free for nearly a month now. I have this page bookmarked to check what's free on Steam: https://steamdb.info/upcoming/free/
The Tell Me Why devs have made it free for each Pride Month since 2021!
Some notable ≥90% off titles:
I heard you guys talking about this one also 90%
Europa Universalis IV
Her Story is absolutely worth the $0.99 price tag. Just sit down with a notepad for a few hours and be prepared to watch video clips for a while, potentially multiple times to piece things together.
Thinking about getting the Kingdom Hearts collection for some nostalgia from the PS2 days, but holy crap are their naming conventions all over the place. Looked it up online and there are like 10 games before you even get to KH3, lmao.
What, you mean "Kingdom Heart eiπ+2.71828" isn't a sensible title?
Tabletop Simulator is 50% off, and even cheaper if you get the 4pack and split it.
Now that I'm a complete Moonlight devotee, I'm looking for games that would be good to stream to my tablet and controlled only using touch.
These can be anything from mobile ports built with touchscreen controls in mind to mouse-based games that don't need pixel-level precision. I'm open to any genre.
Anyone have any recommendations?
Papers, Please works great on a touch screen
You might like this group/curator: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/touch-friendly-games
I can think of a few different genres that fit that bill: roguelike deckbuilders, visual novels, simulation/management games, maybe a few grand strategy ones as well if you increase the UI scaling. Anything with turn-based-combat should work. I remember Civ V had a really nice touchscreen mode back when I played it on an old Surface tablet/pc.
Do you know if Slay the Spire works well this way? I know it has a mobile port but I play with a lot of mods on my pc so it'd be cool to have that on a tablet.
I haven't personally tried it on a tablet (played all of my StS on a desktop) but I'd imagine it would work great. As far as I can remember, there are no tiny buttons to press, so clicking and dragging things should work just fine.
Edit: This Reddit post says it works great with Steam Link and mentions that there's an option for touch control inside the game. So definitely seems doable!
The Henry Stickmin Collection is a great way to waste a few hours, and it would play well on a touchscreen (I think)
Disco Elysium is 90% off at $4. It is one of the if not the greatest game of all time.Not that I support supporting the developers (long story short the people behind the game got cheated out of the rights, support the studio za/um as little as possible).
It is a detective game set in an alternate universe (there are many similarities between our world, and the world of elysium, you should not read too hard into them), where you lost your memory and have to solve a murder case.
The game features almost no violence however, and instead consists almost entirely of talking to other people. The game boasts over 1 million words, and is basically just a book. BUT it is fully voice acted, and masterfully done.
As soon as the sale began I snagged 4 new games (all from my list) for less than €60 total. And this is why I have no interest in paying $80 or however much the AAA industry now wants me to pay for a single game. I don't need the graphics to melt a hole through my graphics card, and most of the indies I end up picking (even obscure ones) end up having good gameplay. Worse, the high cost is usually "justified" with a lot of filler content and busywork mechanics.
(No hard feelings about buying discounted, indie devs - I'm doing my best as my finances permit. If you did well I try to sell your game to my friends and to buy your next games too!)
@Sodliddesu helped me realize I have a thing for digging games -- something I knew intuitively, but hadn't really expressed out loud before.
After all, guys literally only want one thing, and it's
fucking disgustingdigging holes.Recommend me your best digging/mining/making a hole in the ground games.
If any other fellow digital digging aficionados needs a jumping off point, here are some that I've played:
One of the collectibles in A Short Hike is underground treasure you dig up by finding x'es on the ground. The digging is short, the holes are shallow, but the discovery and exploration for the treasure is very satisfying. Also (unrelated but kinda related), you can use mine shafts as shortcuts.
This is probably not what you are looking for, but the old Lode Runners series (like its most recent update Lode Runner Legacy) features combat where you dig holes. Yup. I can't believe I remember this, but the idea is that instead of a gun, your weapon is a laser shovel, and instead of directly causing grievous bodily injury, you need to rely on the single-minded murderous intent of your enemies to fall into these traps that they should otherwise be able to avoid. Once they fall in, you can walk over them and continue your platforming ways... all thanks to holes, and the digging of them.
This is reaching back, but if we're going to be talking about combat mining video games, we have to bring up Dig Dug from the Golden Age of gaming. In lieu of sober and thoughtful mineral extraction, Dig Dug favors fast-paced combat using yet another uncommon weapon, an air pump. Also, this is one of the early games where you can dig out a chasm to have a falling rock kill your enemies--you know: good fun.
Glad to see Dig Dug mentioned! If we're reaching back to Golden Age games with combat mining, Boulder Dash also comes to mind. It's also a game where you can drop rocks on enemies.
Dome Keeper is good fun and mining is central to its gameplay (also plays on steam deck like it was made for it). Apparently Wall World drew much inspiration from it.
ITAD link
I still enjoy the old Flash game Motherload which is included in the Steam release of Super Motherload. I didn't play Super Motherload more than ~1 hour so I'm not sure how that game is. I only bought it so I could play the Flash game I remembered as a kid with those few premium extras that were included in the paid version.
Only downside being that you can save the game but it only saves your upgrades but reset all mining progress. That isn't terrible as the game isn't too long and you can beat the Flash game pretty quickly.
Astroneer is technically about exploring space but to get to space you must go down first, in search of resources and research. It's got a similar digging mechanic to Digging A Hole.
My Time At Portia is technically a 'life sim' game with all the farming, crafting and relationships that come with it... But like all games in the genre, the mines call as well. Admittedly, not all that deep (pun intended) but a good part of an overall enjoyable package.
I'll keep wracking my brain on this one.
I spent so much time in the mines in My Time at Portia. The game has its janky bits, but something about the mine's digging mechanics is just satisfying. I could probably spend a whole in-game week trying to clear out a level.
I highly recommend Bore Blasters. It's a 2d motherload+vampire survivors-like. You unlock different characters which come with their own special skill and unlock different weapon upgrades while also upgrading your drilling ship.
Its my go-to plane/travel game when I have my steam deck with me.
I don't recall if you have played Klei Entertainment's difficult sidescrolling space colony simulation game, Oxygen Not Included? You can dig in every direction!
(And it's 70% off right now...)
Has anyone here played Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical.
I have it on my wishlist but I don't remember where from or why...I have a lot of games on my wishlist...I'm trying to pick up probably about $40 worth of games, between
I played Stray Gods. It was... Well, it wasn't bad, per se... Very "theatre kid," in tone and content. Which, as a recovered theatre kid myself, I personally found very painful. Mix of a VN and a Telltale game. I found the writing to be solid but unremarkable, the musical numbers mostly unmemorable. It's a fine game for a couple sittings but nothing to write home about.
By contrast, the three other games on your list that I've played -- Outer Wilds, Signalis and Wanderstop -- are real standouts: singular all-time greats that expertly utilize the medium.
Wildermyth was fine but almost certainly not as good as the others. I haven't played Wanderstop yet (it's in my list) but obviously have a very high opinion of Outer Wilds.
Outer Wilds is fantastic. If you enjoy self-directed exploring and piecing together a mystery as you go, it's well worth the hype.
I also enjoyed Wildermyth, but it didn't grab me as much as I had hoped it would (I only played 10 hours and was expecting to play more like 50). I've played a lot of XCOM (steam says 350 hours across Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2, and Chimera Squad), so I expected it to scratch the same itch and it kinda did, but not as well as I'd hoped. I ended up bouncing off after finishing my first proper campaign. All in all, I remember the time fondly.
I haven't played Signalis, Stray Gods, or Wanderstop, so I can't say anything about them
I will have to revisit Outer Wilds at some point. Played it a couple of years back and the the games lack of direction is exactly why I couldn't get into it. It was very different from any other game I had played by then.
It definitely requires a certain headspace. The lack of direction is great because it means that you can figure things out in any order, but it's also tricky since if you aren't in a mood to figure it all out, you're just out of luck.
I found most of the things to solve were really fun to figure out. Except for this one really thorny puzzle where I was not about to take the time to figure it out. I looked for a spoilerless hint and was happy to find people had guides out there giving the barest info to push you along.
Something to consider if you feel it's too directionless after a couple tries.
Speculating on the puzzle
I really hope that was an intentional pun about navigating Dark BrambleIt was Bonooru, and I'm glad it was noticed because I worried it might have been too subtle.
I would recommend that you get the voice over mod. To me that made such a big difference it's hard to convey. I only learned this while playing and after getting the mod, but I was finding it somewhat demotivating when the reward for exploration was a wall of text, even when it offered hints about next steps or insights into the story. Voice overs made it so much more enjoyable and made the game feel more alive.
I'm exactly the same when it comes to both XCOM and Wildermyth.
Wildermyth was not impressive or engaging in the slightest to me, though I really wanted it to be.
Hey I know it's been a few days, but I just saw that Stray Gods is available to keep for those with an Amazon Prime membership. I remembered you mentioning it in this thread and so figured I would let you know in case you happened to have a prime membership and still hadn't gotten the game.
Thank you so much!
Thinking I might finally snag Baldurs Gate even though it’s only 20% off. Might also buy EUIV since it’s currently a whopping 90% off, but I’m a Paradoxical newbie and kinda intimidated by them. I’m a big Total War fanatic so I’m worried of being disappointed when it’s not that. And I mostly would want to play with friends I think.
For what it's worth, I used to be huge into Civ and Total War (sooooo many hours spent in Civs IV and V, as well as Empire TW and Shogun 2 TW). Then one day I discovered EU4 and tried it and haven't looked back. Now I have like 2500 hours in EU4 and struggle playing Civ or Total War because I think EU4 does all the major things better. Like each has their own strength/niche (Civ has exploration/settlement, TW has the real-time battles) but just about everything is more in-depth in EU4. The combat is way more nuanced than either of those. The trade, the technologies, the cultures, religion, economic management, historic accuracy, etc. God don't even get me started on the diplomacy, which is leagues above either of those two series.
But of course everyone has different tastes, so your mileage may vary. Plus I was never really interested in the multiplayer of any of these games, so I can't comment on the multiplayer side of EU4. But in my opinion it's worth a shot to see if you prefer the more in-depth simulation that Paradox games can offer. Who knows, maybe it'll serve as a gateway to other incredibly detailed simulators like CK3, Vic3, or the upcoming EU5. If you get it, feel free to pm me for any questions you might have! It can be a bit daunting for a newcomer, but so worth it!
Side note: Empire TW still has the best naval combat of any game I've ever played, 15+ years later.
Just bought it! I’d welcome any recommendations for beginner guides, to get the lay of the land. If there’s anything concise I could share with my friends (who also just got it), that would also be great!
I haven't done much more than skim them, but Paradox recently put out Beginner's Guide videos for each of their games and they seem quite well done. Here is the one for EU4.
Personally, I'd recommend playing a campaign or two between watching each video in the series.
Most importantly, more time played will be the single biggest source of learning in the beginning, so try not to be too intimidated and just jump in! Guides can tell you what to do but only experience lets you actually do it.
Great! I've been kind of casually browsing the wiki the past few days, waiting for some free time to dive in. Thanks for the tips and resources.
Awesome! In addition to the official videos that the other person linked, I believe the game now has a tutorial (not entirely sure about this since I started playing before there was one). Definitely try that out, since their tutorials in other games like CK3 and Vic3 have gotten pretty good in recent years!
Also, the two best places for information about the game are honestly the in-game tooltips and the paradox wiki. It sounds a bit obvious or dumb, but seriously, just reading the tooltips in the game can clarify sooooo many things. Almost every value or resource or nation or whatever has a tooltip if you hover over it. Any time you perform any action. Pretty much every button you can press. All of it has tooltips explaining exactly what's going to happen. This is incredibly helpful, e.g. if a country doesn't want your alliance, there's no guesswork about why, you just hover over the acceptance score and it breaks down every reason why they may or may not want your alliance. That level of information, as well as how accessible it is to the player, is precisely why I love the game so much.
And the wiki is amazing too. Literally anything that you have a question about, be it a resource or a mechanic or whatever, just google EU4 ____ wiki and chances are there's a page that very clearly explains what it is and why it's important.
As for some general tips, in no particular order:
Aggressive Expansion (AE) is probably the most important number in the game, especially as a beginner. Get this too high and other nations will fuck you up, Napoleon.
For income, there are usually a few key ways to make money. Taxes and Production typically go hand-in-hand, just develop your provinces and you'll typically have plenty of this. Gold comes from gold producing provinces, which there are only a few of on the map, so they are extra valuable. Trade is a whole system by itself but basically you have a home trade node (say the English Channel if you are playing as England) and you receive a percentage of that trade node's value. But other nations are trying to pull trade in their own directions, so you're constantly building up trade buildings or ships to protect your trade value in these important nodes (your home node and typically the ones that lead up to it). And lastly, one of the best ways to make money in this game is.... to get it from someone else! Wars wars wars, baby. Become a bully and steal everyone else's lunch money, either in a lump sum or in installments (war reparations).
For military, never attack with fewer troops until you really know what you're doing. Terrain matters a lot, so don't attack into mountains or across rivers! Don't worry so much about choosing between different infantry types or cavalry types or whatever. Just stick to mostly infantry and a couple of cavalry to round out your army. Then slowly ramp up the number of artillery once that becomes available. Always have a general leading any troop that goes into battle.
Three of the most important resources in the game are your Administrative, Diplomatic, and Military power (and money/ducats of course, which can be converted to pretty much anything). Besides being needed to advance your technology and institutions, these points can be used for a ton of useful things like developing your provinces, recruiting generals, converting lands to your culture, increasing stability, securing peace deals, etc.
Oh one final number that is super important is stability. This ranges from -3 to +3, though you'll usually be somewhere around 0 or 1. Do yourself a favor and just try to never be below 1. 0 is okay, 1 is great. 2 and 3 are even better obviously but don't kill yourself for it. Just aim for 1 and your game will go a lot smoother, trust me. Fewer rebels. Fewer bad events. Better prosperity in your lands (that's an actual stat btw). Just all around good times.
I'll stop there or I'll be typing all night. Good luck! Feel free to reach out if there are any things that don't make sense!
Thanks so much, especially for the general tips!
I am also a total war fan who has tepidly been playing some paradox games, I really like crusader kings 3, while my friend who introduced me to total war is really enjoying Victoria 3 (both can be run with friends!)
I went for Rail Pass at 50% off, the lowest it's been. I sometimes watch one of the Transport Fever developer's YouTube channel and saw that he had played it some months ago and had no idea what it was. The first hour of play has been a ton of fun. I'm really interested to see how the automation starts factoring in to allowing you to expand the number of trains you can manage at a time and how freight and regional trains will start to make things complicated.
Ah yes steam sales, the perfect time to add more things to the unrelenting backlog. Added about $60 worth of stuff which well, formerly the full price of a game. From least pricey to most:
Nexomon: Extinction: $2 from $20. Saw xavdid's post above and thought "sure, why not try another mon game".
Aliya: Timelink: $2.50 from $3. Saw it while searching from Steam250 with most reviews calling it an emotional VN where you're communicating with Aliya in real time. It's cheap, so into the cart.
Touhou Hero of Ice Fairy DLC1 - Rose Idol: $2.50, not on sale. Honestly, the base game is cheap enough and I liked it, so I'm willing to just pay for the new boss fight.
EVERSPACEâ„¢ - ULTIMATE EDITION: $3 from $30. Roguelite spaceship dogfighting going from node to node. Also cheap so I'll take that chance.
RoboCop: Rogue City: $3.69 from $50 when looking at ITAD. Mostly nabbed it because it's a new historical low with the previous low being $7-ish bucks.
NOISZ episode G : $4 from $5. Story DLC for NOISZ. Now I am a little miffed because I got the game and 1st story DLC at the start of June from deciding to get the $20 add-on for their Chronal Chain kickstarter, except with the current sale, it's $20 for the game and both story expansions as a bundle anyways with no complete the bundle option.
Pawnbarian: $5 from $10. Roguelite deckbuilder with a single chess piece and the cards being the different movement options. I played the demo and really like the general feel of games that let you optimize movements to avoid damage (Into the Breach, Tactical Breach Wizards), so this is the first proper "I want it cause I actually want it" choice for a game.
Crab Champions: $7.50 from $10. See, I've seen this before and thought it was some type of joke game, but it's apparently a competent roguelike with 23k reviews? I'll take the chance on the vibes.
The Void Rains Upon Her Heart: $9.09 from $13. Horizontal Bullet Hell Boss Rush Roguelike. It sounds up my alley and it had its 99th update, so why not get it before the 100th? Well I've also seen it before it's had its price raised, so that's another reason.
Guidus Zero $10.04 from $15 at ITAD. Now this is more of a gamble as a 69% Mixed rating game with the top 3 shown reviews being negative, but there's been a patch this month and dev notes about their future direction plus I enjoyed the next fest demo for it from last October, so I'll gamble on it.
Yet Another Killing Game $11.38 from $17. Played the demo, wanted to see where the rest of the game leads, simple as that.
Almost pulled the trigger but didn't:
Blazblue Entropy Effect Character DLCS 1-3: There's a tempting $10 complete the bundle option and the freshly released Bullet, but I've only just unlocked and played as all the base characters once each, so I'm gonna hold off on that.
Divinity Original Sin 2 & Pillars of Eternity 2: Tempting CRPGs, except I keep remembering that I am not good at stats and character building and also the other CRPGs in my library.
So in summary, mostly roguelikes, 2 VNs, and misc games/DLC.
The Void Rains Upon Her Heart is genuinely excellent, but it's the kind of game I can't ever really recommend to anyone because it has (to me) completely unnecessary nudity in it. There's an option to turn it off, but it just blurs bits instead of removing the images altogether. I'd love for an option to disable it completely.
The gameplay is truly excellent though. It's got a brilliant set of mechanics with TONS of replayability.
It's kind of funny, looks like my main sale purchases are going to be Netherworld Covenenat, which is still on its launch discount, and Bloodrush Undying Wish, which is inexplicably launching in the middle of the seasonal sale. There's also BlazBlue Entropy Effect's new character DLC, also on launch sale, so none of that is really seasonal sale stuff.
I'll pick a couple shmups to pick up, probably Divine Orders and Assault Shell 2, but those are both stingy sales. Only particular sale-sale items I'm looking at are Void Expanse finally putting their DLC back on sale after 2 1/2 years of nothing, and 30XX's character DLC finally getting its first sale, but those are minor even if holdouts.
Was actually rather hoping to pick up Relic Hunters Legend, after they finally put a demo up so I could see the game had more meat to it than it looked like, but annoyingly, they seem to have put the demo up right in the middle of the Feb NextFest with the game on sale for only a few days, and then nothing since for anyone who saw the demo later, despite pushing release (from early access) back to Q3. Indie devs man, it's like they are just flailing around doing random things. Someone in their forum mentioned devs had said on discord they would run another sale alongside launching their next game (Hell Clock), so end of July-ish I guess for that. Better than nothing, I suppose.
I guess I'll pick up Idun Frontline Survival (tower defense game where you move the towers around, not a horde survivor) instead, but was hoping to get some partner co-op going with Relic Hunters. We'll have to get that from Synthetik 2 instead, since they finally got their next update out after like two years stalled early access, though the game still seems like rather a mess plus it already screwed up my save. I knew it going in, but man those are terrible devs. I so wish someone else made something like Synthetik, so I could just never deal with these guys again.