Ivan
Arcane
it feels like I kickstarted this when I was a teenager. I'm in my 30s now
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The STEAM Sales and Releases Thread - AUTUMN SALE 2024
- Thread starter Hobo Elf
- Start date
it feels like I kickstarted this when I was a teenager. I'm in my 30s now
karoliner
Arcane
Dexter
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2011
- Messages
- 15,655
Played a bunch of Demos from SteamFest again. RPG Edition:
Dark and Darker: Party-based Multiplayer game in a D&D-like Fantasy Setting (which also abbreviates to DnD) made by Korean studio IRONMACE. You can choose between 6 classes so far - Warrior, Barbarian, Rogue, Ranger, Wizard and Cleric, all with their own different play-style. It throws you and your merry band of up to 3 Adventurers in a random spot of one of several meticulously created dungeon maps with Battle Royale rules. The goal is to explore and loot as much stuff as you can carry out of it while killing or avoiding both monsters and groups of other players that are competing with you. When you find better equipment like Plate Armor or better weapons you're supposed to equip it to do better in combat. There's secret passages, loot and traps all over.
As the arena closes in towards the Middle of the map and the remaining players are pitted against one another, blue portals appear in random spots that, if activated, will allow a player to leave the dungeon with every looted item/equipment in his inventory and other valuables that you can sell to Merchants in the Lobby. Your goal is to gather as much loot as you can from monsters, lootables or dead players and step through one of these before you perish. You can take previously liberated equipment with you into the dungeon, but lose every item on you but basic Starter equipment if you die. As you play you also Level up one of up to 6 character classes to be able to equip more Perks.
Surprisingly addictive. It's not exactly "fair" or "balanced" as it stands right now though. Players that have played a while have knowledge of maps and mechanics, many additional helpful Perks and an assortment of equipment to wear. If you as a noob are dropped in a room with either really strong enemies like a Ghost and Skeleton Champion with a few Archers or near a group of 3 high-level fully equipped Murder Machines in full plate armor, stacked with potions and a support it's pretty much gg right there. They consider the game to still be in Alpha and this was "Alpha Playtest 4". So things might change a lot or not much at all as the game gets closer to release.
Dark Envoy: Extensive character creation with 4 Classes (Warrior, Ranger, Engineer, Adept(Mage)) each featuring 4 Specializations. You design two characters (one male called Malakai and a female called Kaela), a brother and sister pair. The overarching story seems to be about some conflict between the Technologically advanced Human Empire and a rag-tag alliance of Magical other races fighting to keep them at bay with a few Neutral parties including a town your characters reside in. There are some A and B story decisions every now and then that might or might not have influence over the overarching plot. Demo is relatively long.
Space to Slow down time/Pause. There's Status effects and the likes, cover, exploding objects, notes with scribbles on them, some interact-able objects for choice text, rare dungeon puzzles. The usual. There are teleports and Health shrines with limited charges placed at specific locations on the maps. Leveling up happens based on story progression, not combat. Graphics are simplistic 3D. You will meet and combat Ancient robots and once you get to the city people are wearing some sort of Power Armor. Start a combat encounter by walking into the "red" sight cone of enemies and every enemy belonging to said group will engage in combat. Some encounters spawn additional troops dropping in from the ceiling or teleporting behind you. There are 6 total active abilities you can use per char once leveled up and some sort of Crafting and Enchanting system I haven't bothered with.
Don't expect a great story or big story hubs, but might be of interest to scratch the party-based combat faggotry itch, maybe. Seems like you'll be able to choose from a Roster of characters to take with you on missions up to a party of four with some locked in for specific missions. Some of the combat once you enter the ruin can already be a bit challenging. There are unfortunately not very rewarding Random(?) Optional combat maps between main story missions, probably for the purpose of padding the game. I ended up a bit Overgeared after the first map or two that were moderately challenging because you only have two characters and limited abilities. Once you get to three chars and are geared/skilled up more it seems a lot easier. There also seem to be some imbalanced builds too, especially involving things like 20%+ Life Leech from items and Attributes or generally stacking certain Attributes high for the Boni.
Capes: X-COM with Superheroes fighting against Supervillains that have taken over King City over 20 years ago and are ruling it through "The Company", published by Daedalic. Instead of letting you create something cool the game lets you gather and put together your Burger King Kids Club of Superheroes through story missions. The first three hero units you get to play are a generic-looking black dude that dropped out of law school to "help people", a pierced pink-haired girl and some sort of Arab in a wheelchair with lame names (Facet, Rebound, Mindfire), and the first Cutscene has allusions to police violence. The characters also keep using "They/Them" in nonsensical ways for some reason, which is all a bit concerning.
There seems to mostly be only one attack ability per unit. The others are Movement, Disarm, Buff/Debuff or Incapacitate Skills on enemies and Combo/"Team-Up" attacks of the main attack ability for Bonus Damage if viable heroes are nearby/close and every hero also has an Ultimate that he can charge up in different ways during combat. Movement Points and Action Points to spend each round. Q/E to rotate the map. There's exploding barrels that set areas on fire and do burn damage over time, Optional Objectives in every mission and Challenges that give you additional Skill Points with which you can Unlock additional abilities (but not in the Demo). You can pick which characters should go on missions (4 spots available) as you unlock more.
The Demo has 3 "Easy" missions to make you get used to some of the early heroes and game systems, but they are not consecutive story missions. Instead it has a bunch of Events that will fast-forward to various story moments, unlock two more heroes and automatically upgrade their abilities (a hulking ex-football-player that looks like The Rock shooting lightning out of his hands and a Asian woman boxer - Weathervane and Mercurial). Then it throws you into a mid-game mission. The final mission was the most "fun" gameplay-wise since you get a lot more abilities and toys to play around with. The "hardest" thing so far was trying to accomplish some of the Optional Objectives before all the enemies die though. I only had a hero K.O. once during an infinite enemy-spawning event, just to be picked up and heal up to half health next round. Story seems somewhat mediocre. Character models, animations leave a lot to be desired. Yeah, I don't think so.
Urban Strife: Longest Demo of the bunch made by a Romanian studio from Bucharest. Finally gave this a go, probably because it looks less Shovelware-y with the new portraits and some of the UI changes. The game starts with a Tutorial where a young woman named Kaylee saves (Player character) by using bandages and adrenaline after an ambulance crashed and was attacked by a horde of zombies on the highway near Atlanta, Georgia. This leads you to a simplistic character creation screen where wearing a cap is a "hair type".
ALT to highlight lootables. Turn-based Mode triggered upon combat initiation or coming into sight/hearing range of enemies. AP for actions like shooting, movement, reload (remaining AP are displayed to the right of a character's name - which for some reason isn't made clear and I only found out about after I started counting bubbles). Crouch for Stealth. Melee weapons and Crossbows are silent. SHIFT+LMB to target body parts like Torso or Head. After a brief combat Tutorial you are led to the Shelter in Urban City (hence the name of the game) where you are introduced to its leaders and your starting companions. There's various characters and elements that try to make it clear that the game is set in the South. Writing, dialogue and characters seem okay aside from the frequent typos and a bit of cringe trying to emulate American accents in text. You are made Sheriff Deputy and sent out on missions for the Shelter to repay them for saving you. You don't have much of a choice about this (or generally in dialogue).
The first party will be (Player character) who has amnesia and doesn't remember much, Kaylee the woman who saved you, probably mentally retarded Sheriff Billy Bo and nurse Lucy Li, a Chinese caricature who has a thing for refugees. Their local enemy is "The Legion" across the river, Roman Empire LARPers with their boss Caesar (Lino Cesare). If you step into homes "Owned" by a faction to look around and are seen, the people inside will attack you. On your first trip outside you'll first fight a band of looters. Combat reminds me a lot of JA2. Q/E to rotate the map. Hide behind objects for cover so the enemies miss, burst through doors/windows and the likes when it's your turn and take the best shot. If you shoot enemies in the head they sometimes fall to the ground dazed and remain dazed, allowing you to finish them off.
This was one of the rare games that I tended to like more the longer I played it. Wishlisted since I overall had a positive impression of it.
Longpost with more Screens over here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/urban-strife-turn-based-zombie-survival-rpg.114111/post-8364308
Repo Man: An Art Nouveau/Mucha-inspired FPS RPG with "Fae" and horned creatures made by what seems to be a Brazilian studio (in-game currency was Real and some NPCs were speaking Portuguese, although their Twatter says they're located in Poland). All NPCs stare blankly into space without facial animations. Pre-Pre-Pre Alpha stage. Voice actor for the main character sounds like he's talking with his mouth full while taking a shit. Graphical bugs. The game starts on a tram ride, the tram turns left and right but the player camera doesn't move with it making it all weird. At the end of some phone call if you start it too late the game throws you out of the tram automatically. You can walk right back in and have it go further till the people inside disappear and the game crashes. Initiated a dialogue at the tram station exit, placeholder dialogue Options appear and got blocked out of proceeding. If you choose to Negotiate some strange-looking card game starts that doesn't work correctly. It has a Night & Day cycle and impressive weather system with rain and lightning tho xD Stuck in dialogue at a later point. Debug messages appear at top left. You can't exit to the Main Menu from the game but got to Alt+F4. There's Lorem Ipsum Loading text, you got NPCs literally called "Generic NPCs" and base Unreal Dummies making an appearance. The devs posted some strange message how it all was a misunderstanding and they mistakenly released a dev build or something with a lot of excuses: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1065740/view/3651892391825757905 https://steamcommunity.com/app/1065740/discussions/1/3765608282427654997/
I basically just restarted it a few times because I was curious how much fucked up shit I will stumble upon each time and how far I can get before everything breaks in hilarious ways.
WitchSpring R: Another Witch game, this time by a Korean developer. It seems to be a Remaster (indicated by the Rin the name) of the first part of a Mobile phone series developed for consoles and PC. Cute character designs and voices, surprisingly decent looking animations, but the world design leaves to be desired. You play as a pie-obsessed witch named Pieberry engaging in various hi-jinks like hunting soldiers down in the forest, that for some reason continue to attack you, to steal their pies. Translation doesn't seem to be the best so far, but they seem to be working on it for the release. There's lots of complex systems around crafting, training regimen, pets and stuff. Combat is turn-based with set enemy and ally sequence and various Magic and Physical attacks with some Subsystems that aren't the easiest to understand at the beginning. There are Crystals around the map or items like pies, plants or potions that replenish your HP and Mana. Passive abilities allow for things like Guaranteed Criticals every 5 turns or Turn Bonus if you defeat an enemy with a Melee attack. Attack Counter if an enemy misses. You can Mind Control certain animals if they drop below 30% HP in combat and then Summon them in battle or ride them around in the Overworld. You gather materials by either picking them up from the ground, combat or hunting critters like rabbits and fish with a bow. You need to craft potions to increase Stats permanently or do Training. The Training bar increases when you do combat, pick up items or continue the main story. You can create new Spells if you collect enough of the right ingredients or Evolve your weapon into different trees based on Melee/Magic/Healing builds. You get a Boar companion to help you fight and a Bird companion for Utility (can give you a Support item without skipping a turn every 2-3 turns).
Enemies respawn after a certain time, but you only get combat experience for the first time you defeat them, so not much of the annoying grinding like in other similar games.
Demo is rather long. Fights against late-game enemies or a lot of them can get somewhat tough and require lots of items, different tactics or Trial&Error. Some of the bosses included obviously seem to be geared for late-game and aren't beatable in the Demo.
Dark and Darker: Party-based Multiplayer game in a D&D-like Fantasy Setting (which also abbreviates to DnD) made by Korean studio IRONMACE. You can choose between 6 classes so far - Warrior, Barbarian, Rogue, Ranger, Wizard and Cleric, all with their own different play-style. It throws you and your merry band of up to 3 Adventurers in a random spot of one of several meticulously created dungeon maps with Battle Royale rules. The goal is to explore and loot as much stuff as you can carry out of it while killing or avoiding both monsters and groups of other players that are competing with you. When you find better equipment like Plate Armor or better weapons you're supposed to equip it to do better in combat. There's secret passages, loot and traps all over.
As the arena closes in towards the Middle of the map and the remaining players are pitted against one another, blue portals appear in random spots that, if activated, will allow a player to leave the dungeon with every looted item/equipment in his inventory and other valuables that you can sell to Merchants in the Lobby. Your goal is to gather as much loot as you can from monsters, lootables or dead players and step through one of these before you perish. You can take previously liberated equipment with you into the dungeon, but lose every item on you but basic Starter equipment if you die. As you play you also Level up one of up to 6 character classes to be able to equip more Perks.
Surprisingly addictive. It's not exactly "fair" or "balanced" as it stands right now though. Players that have played a while have knowledge of maps and mechanics, many additional helpful Perks and an assortment of equipment to wear. If you as a noob are dropped in a room with either really strong enemies like a Ghost and Skeleton Champion with a few Archers or near a group of 3 high-level fully equipped Murder Machines in full plate armor, stacked with potions and a support it's pretty much gg right there. They consider the game to still be in Alpha and this was "Alpha Playtest 4". So things might change a lot or not much at all as the game gets closer to release.
Dark Envoy: Extensive character creation with 4 Classes (Warrior, Ranger, Engineer, Adept(Mage)) each featuring 4 Specializations. You design two characters (one male called Malakai and a female called Kaela), a brother and sister pair. The overarching story seems to be about some conflict between the Technologically advanced Human Empire and a rag-tag alliance of Magical other races fighting to keep them at bay with a few Neutral parties including a town your characters reside in. There are some A and B story decisions every now and then that might or might not have influence over the overarching plot. Demo is relatively long.
Space to Slow down time/Pause. There's Status effects and the likes, cover, exploding objects, notes with scribbles on them, some interact-able objects for choice text, rare dungeon puzzles. The usual. There are teleports and Health shrines with limited charges placed at specific locations on the maps. Leveling up happens based on story progression, not combat. Graphics are simplistic 3D. You will meet and combat Ancient robots and once you get to the city people are wearing some sort of Power Armor. Start a combat encounter by walking into the "red" sight cone of enemies and every enemy belonging to said group will engage in combat. Some encounters spawn additional troops dropping in from the ceiling or teleporting behind you. There are 6 total active abilities you can use per char once leveled up and some sort of Crafting and Enchanting system I haven't bothered with.
Don't expect a great story or big story hubs, but might be of interest to scratch the party-based combat faggotry itch, maybe. Seems like you'll be able to choose from a Roster of characters to take with you on missions up to a party of four with some locked in for specific missions. Some of the combat once you enter the ruin can already be a bit challenging. There are unfortunately not very rewarding Random(?) Optional combat maps between main story missions, probably for the purpose of padding the game. I ended up a bit Overgeared after the first map or two that were moderately challenging because you only have two characters and limited abilities. Once you get to three chars and are geared/skilled up more it seems a lot easier. There also seem to be some imbalanced builds too, especially involving things like 20%+ Life Leech from items and Attributes or generally stacking certain Attributes high for the Boni.
Capes: X-COM with Superheroes fighting against Supervillains that have taken over King City over 20 years ago and are ruling it through "The Company", published by Daedalic. Instead of letting you create something cool the game lets you gather and put together your Burger King Kids Club of Superheroes through story missions. The first three hero units you get to play are a generic-looking black dude that dropped out of law school to "help people", a pierced pink-haired girl and some sort of Arab in a wheelchair with lame names (Facet, Rebound, Mindfire), and the first Cutscene has allusions to police violence. The characters also keep using "They/Them" in nonsensical ways for some reason, which is all a bit concerning.
There seems to mostly be only one attack ability per unit. The others are Movement, Disarm, Buff/Debuff or Incapacitate Skills on enemies and Combo/"Team-Up" attacks of the main attack ability for Bonus Damage if viable heroes are nearby/close and every hero also has an Ultimate that he can charge up in different ways during combat. Movement Points and Action Points to spend each round. Q/E to rotate the map. There's exploding barrels that set areas on fire and do burn damage over time, Optional Objectives in every mission and Challenges that give you additional Skill Points with which you can Unlock additional abilities (but not in the Demo). You can pick which characters should go on missions (4 spots available) as you unlock more.
The Demo has 3 "Easy" missions to make you get used to some of the early heroes and game systems, but they are not consecutive story missions. Instead it has a bunch of Events that will fast-forward to various story moments, unlock two more heroes and automatically upgrade their abilities (a hulking ex-football-player that looks like The Rock shooting lightning out of his hands and a Asian woman boxer - Weathervane and Mercurial). Then it throws you into a mid-game mission. The final mission was the most "fun" gameplay-wise since you get a lot more abilities and toys to play around with. The "hardest" thing so far was trying to accomplish some of the Optional Objectives before all the enemies die though. I only had a hero K.O. once during an infinite enemy-spawning event, just to be picked up and heal up to half health next round. Story seems somewhat mediocre. Character models, animations leave a lot to be desired. Yeah, I don't think so.
Urban Strife: Longest Demo of the bunch made by a Romanian studio from Bucharest. Finally gave this a go, probably because it looks less Shovelware-y with the new portraits and some of the UI changes. The game starts with a Tutorial where a young woman named Kaylee saves (Player character) by using bandages and adrenaline after an ambulance crashed and was attacked by a horde of zombies on the highway near Atlanta, Georgia. This leads you to a simplistic character creation screen where wearing a cap is a "hair type".
ALT to highlight lootables. Turn-based Mode triggered upon combat initiation or coming into sight/hearing range of enemies. AP for actions like shooting, movement, reload (remaining AP are displayed to the right of a character's name - which for some reason isn't made clear and I only found out about after I started counting bubbles). Crouch for Stealth. Melee weapons and Crossbows are silent. SHIFT+LMB to target body parts like Torso or Head. After a brief combat Tutorial you are led to the Shelter in Urban City (hence the name of the game) where you are introduced to its leaders and your starting companions. There's various characters and elements that try to make it clear that the game is set in the South. Writing, dialogue and characters seem okay aside from the frequent typos and a bit of cringe trying to emulate American accents in text. You are made Sheriff Deputy and sent out on missions for the Shelter to repay them for saving you. You don't have much of a choice about this (or generally in dialogue).
The first party will be (Player character) who has amnesia and doesn't remember much, Kaylee the woman who saved you, probably mentally retarded Sheriff Billy Bo and nurse Lucy Li, a Chinese caricature who has a thing for refugees. Their local enemy is "The Legion" across the river, Roman Empire LARPers with their boss Caesar (Lino Cesare). If you step into homes "Owned" by a faction to look around and are seen, the people inside will attack you. On your first trip outside you'll first fight a band of looters. Combat reminds me a lot of JA2. Q/E to rotate the map. Hide behind objects for cover so the enemies miss, burst through doors/windows and the likes when it's your turn and take the best shot. If you shoot enemies in the head they sometimes fall to the ground dazed and remain dazed, allowing you to finish them off.
This was one of the rare games that I tended to like more the longer I played it. Wishlisted since I overall had a positive impression of it.
Longpost with more Screens over here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/urban-strife-turn-based-zombie-survival-rpg.114111/post-8364308
Repo Man: An Art Nouveau/Mucha-inspired FPS RPG with "Fae" and horned creatures made by what seems to be a Brazilian studio (in-game currency was Real and some NPCs were speaking Portuguese, although their Twatter says they're located in Poland). All NPCs stare blankly into space without facial animations. Pre-Pre-Pre Alpha stage. Voice actor for the main character sounds like he's talking with his mouth full while taking a shit. Graphical bugs. The game starts on a tram ride, the tram turns left and right but the player camera doesn't move with it making it all weird. At the end of some phone call if you start it too late the game throws you out of the tram automatically. You can walk right back in and have it go further till the people inside disappear and the game crashes. Initiated a dialogue at the tram station exit, placeholder dialogue Options appear and got blocked out of proceeding. If you choose to Negotiate some strange-looking card game starts that doesn't work correctly. It has a Night & Day cycle and impressive weather system with rain and lightning tho xD Stuck in dialogue at a later point. Debug messages appear at top left. You can't exit to the Main Menu from the game but got to Alt+F4. There's Lorem Ipsum Loading text, you got NPCs literally called "Generic NPCs" and base Unreal Dummies making an appearance. The devs posted some strange message how it all was a misunderstanding and they mistakenly released a dev build or something with a lot of excuses: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1065740/view/3651892391825757905 https://steamcommunity.com/app/1065740/discussions/1/3765608282427654997/
I basically just restarted it a few times because I was curious how much fucked up shit I will stumble upon each time and how far I can get before everything breaks in hilarious ways.
WitchSpring R: Another Witch game, this time by a Korean developer. It seems to be a Remaster (indicated by the Rin the name) of the first part of a Mobile phone series developed for consoles and PC. Cute character designs and voices, surprisingly decent looking animations, but the world design leaves to be desired. You play as a pie-obsessed witch named Pieberry engaging in various hi-jinks like hunting soldiers down in the forest, that for some reason continue to attack you, to steal their pies. Translation doesn't seem to be the best so far, but they seem to be working on it for the release. There's lots of complex systems around crafting, training regimen, pets and stuff. Combat is turn-based with set enemy and ally sequence and various Magic and Physical attacks with some Subsystems that aren't the easiest to understand at the beginning. There are Crystals around the map or items like pies, plants or potions that replenish your HP and Mana. Passive abilities allow for things like Guaranteed Criticals every 5 turns or Turn Bonus if you defeat an enemy with a Melee attack. Attack Counter if an enemy misses. You can Mind Control certain animals if they drop below 30% HP in combat and then Summon them in battle or ride them around in the Overworld. You gather materials by either picking them up from the ground, combat or hunting critters like rabbits and fish with a bow. You need to craft potions to increase Stats permanently or do Training. The Training bar increases when you do combat, pick up items or continue the main story. You can create new Spells if you collect enough of the right ingredients or Evolve your weapon into different trees based on Melee/Magic/Healing builds. You get a Boar companion to help you fight and a Bird companion for Utility (can give you a Support item without skipping a turn every 2-3 turns).
Enemies respawn after a certain time, but you only get combat experience for the first time you defeat them, so not much of the annoying grinding like in other similar games.
Demo is rather long. Fights against late-game enemies or a lot of them can get somewhat tough and require lots of items, different tactics or Trial&Error. Some of the bosses included obviously seem to be geared for late-game and aren't beatable in the Demo.
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What is it with the SJW types and adventurous wheelchairs anyway? Do you have to play the Amazing Adventures of Gimpman, or can you dump him in a home and get someone good?
What is it with the SJW types and adventurous wheelchairs anyway? Do you have to play the Amazing Adventures of Gimpman, or can you dump him in a home and get someone good?
Modron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 5, 2012
- Messages
- 11,141
He's a telepath who flies around anyways; is no one going to make a joke about him staring at his mother's breasts?
What is it with the SJW types and adventurous wheelchairs anyway? Do you have to play the Amazing Adventures of Gimpman, or can you dump him in a home and get someone good?
Harthwain
Magister
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2019
- Messages
- 5,427
It's the next step of giving representation to yet another class of people who were either never represented or outright discriminated in games. Did you ever count the number of times when you fired some poor schmuck for getting a crippling injury in Darkest Dungeon/Blood Bowl/Battle Brothers? But now these heroes get the attention they deserve!
That said, you CAN do something interesting with people on wheelchairs. The Surge is an excellent example. When you start it's a big WTF moment and plays very well into the character's motivation and explains why he ends up being where he ends up being in the beginning of the game (as well as the whole sci-fi setup). Honestly, I am surprised how much I liked that game on multiple levels.
Cat Headed Eagle
Learned
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2023
- Messages
- 3,771
it's just a Charles Xavier type character
Yes I know. I was making a snarky comment mostly related to the D&D wheelchairs.
Oniken going for cheap.
Dexter
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2011
- Messages
- 15,655
Played a bunch of Demos from SteamFest again. Platformer Edition:
Planet of Lana: Visually superb looking Puzzle Platformer with great Animations and audio about a girl called Lana on another planet that seems to be under invasion by alien robots. She makes gibberish vaguely Native American sounding noises while talking to her pet monkey. A to Jump, LT to duck, X to move objects, B (Hold) to tell your monkey to stop or (follow you) and RT+A to point and tell it to go somewhere and do stuff for you like drop down a rope or burrow through a hole to somewhere else it needs to be. It can jump further than Lana, so you can tell it to climb up somewhere and cut a rope or similar. If you drop too large a distance you die. There are Checkpoints before every Puzzle. There are strange black creatures hiding below and moving around stones that are sometimes part of a puzzle. You can cut power to electrocuted areas by covering solar cells. You have to hide in tall grass from Spider Deathbots. It's mostly environmental puzzles to help you progress in the level, as opposed to combat-based one.
Gameplay-wise it's nothing you haven't seen before and won't be blown away. The Demo is relatively short and snappy.
Bionic Bay: Unity-based Platformer. You are a Scientist, and after an explosion something goes horribly wrong and you end up in a strange machine-filled Dystopian nightmare. Such a machine hits you with a light ray at the beginning and gives you superhuman abilities. You can now run really fast, Dash forwards with B, jump higher with A and climb on the environment like an athletic monkey. You can jump farther by Dashing then Jumping or the other way around. Opposite to the previous game, this is mostly about the gameplay. You will fall from and into various goos, liquids and biological material of indeterminate origin as you make your way through the levels. On the second level you find a device you can activate on an object with X that will switch places with you once you hit LB/LT, that you'll get to use in various creative ways to continue from then on. But it's a double-edged sword because if you drop something heavy above you, it'll always crush you. The game introduces more and more fuckery as it continues, from explosive devices, to trampolines, suck pipes to lasers, guided missiles and gravity fuckwittery.
Near the end of the Demo in Level 4 it got "frustratingly hard" for a bit there near the last few Checkpoints, to the point that I thought about stopping to play as it constantly ramped up the difficulty, but pushed through. Also felt like I had my fill after a while, since not a lot changes about the visuals and there doesn't seem to be a story hook or similar to motivate you to go on.
Full Void: You play a boy in a hoodie during an alien invasion in this Puzzle Pixel Platformer. There are situations where if you don't move or do specific things you'll get an Auto-Game Over, although Checkpoints are always nearby. Vaguely reminiscent of the likes of Another World or Blackthorne/Flashback. Controls are very simple, A to Jump and X to interact. That's it. Gameplay is slow, you have to hang from ledges to drop from less height and not die or pull yourself up every time and climb ladders very slowly. Early puzzles include enabling electricity to start an elevator via Minigame, pushing a box to climb on a roof and using a crane to lower a platform. There are a lot of ways to die, failing one of the many "Quick reaction" events against the alien stalking you through the first level, mistiming a jump, platforms that crumble, falling a bit too far, electrocuting yourself, stepping on a wet spot(!) etc. accompanied by a short non-graphic death scene. Once you're in the sewers you mostly turn valves, climb pipes, avoid dangerous(!) water puddles and steam while evading zombie dogs following you and destroying/hacking spider bots. Wasn't very impressed. Once you're in the sewers the game even gets visually weaker.
Nocturnal: Seems like a Prince of Persia homage. A to Jump, X to Attack, B to Dash, RB to Interact. You jump farther if you attack mid-jump. You play Ardeshir, a warrior everyone else is calling a Traitor/Deserter looking for his sister Arsia in the fictional nation of Nahran. Checkpoints are these flames that automatically light up. There's a Platforming bit relatively early on where you have to escape an encroaching shadow. Then you can light your sword aflame at torches and use it on other flammable objects like bushes or unlit torches to extend the light and decrease the darkness or defeat shadows. You have to be quick about this in some cases as the flame sword goes out quickly. This is what most of the game will be about. There's also secret rooms.
Enemies early on are rare, some bowmen with 3 Health whose arrows you have to dodge and Swordsmen with 5 Health. Then there's some Shadow critters that come later and throw bombs at you or attack you melee. Kind of annoying that areas usually close down immediately after you pass them, locking you out of potentially valuable upgrades, since it sometimes isn't clear which is the way forward and which is the Optional bit. There's the usual Skill Tree with Healing Skills, increase for things like your Health, Speed, Damage or Fire Duration and unlocking additional attacks. You get Skill currency from destroying vases. Most secrets and ways to progress seem to involve finding a fire source and then lighting all the torches. There's also some Torch combination puzzles.
Not particularly difficult most of the way once you get the heal early on, nor particularly interesting and those are usually the qualities that propel these kind of games. Near the very end of the Demo the platforming got a bit more difficult with a slightly annoying moving platform timed section and then the final boss had like one attack pattern too many and took a dozen attempts. Eh. There's better Alternatives out there.
Turbo Kid: The (Pixel) graphics aren't very impressive. A to Jump, Y to summon your bike, B to brake, X to Shoot your Blaster (Hold to charge), LB to aim, RB to sword slash, LT to duck. LT/LB or RT/RB to align your bike while on it. There's lots of jumping from platform to platform, hanging from ledges and shooting targets to open doors. You can do bike stunts to platform. Saving by sitting down on couches and playing video games. Enemies are some sort of Wasteland punks that you can gib by shooting at or slashing them and picking up their decapitated heads for posing sometimes. There's spikes, saws and shit everywhere and when you die you have to start at the last Checkpoint again that might be a while back and lose all progress. There's some bike races where you have to race against the time to progress. I somehow made it to the final boss of the Demo and gave up because the mechanics were annoying and she would repeat the same dialogue every time the fight started again. I didn't like it much, never knew when to be on bike or on foot, where to go to continue since you seem to be able to go in almost any direction you want and the bike handling felt a bit unwieldy. Might make someone out there very happy, but not me.
Afterimage: A Chinese "MetroidVania" Platformer. Graphics not that impressive. A to jump, X to attack. You gather XP by destroying crystals or beating respawning monsters and collecting dew. You get important items and weapons from chests or as monster drops. There are weird Mushroom-like creatures, frogs, butterflies, birds, armadillos, hedgehogs and other animals to fight as enemies at the beginning, as well as Sword/Archer/Mage "Wanderers"/zombie things later on. You play as "Renee" who has the "Gift of the Gods" and has a spirit companion called Ifree (and appears to be another Amnesiac). There's some backstory about souls and shit, but it seems convoluted and not particularly interesting. Voice acting is kinda bad.
You save at Trees in the Level that replenish your health but respawn enemies. If you die, the game sends you back to the last Checkpoint and you have to backtrack to regain your experience. There's a Minimap and you can spend XP on Talents to help you fight or survive better. Talents usually go along: Attack, Defense, HP, MP and Special Attack Weapon Talents for: Sword, Greatsword, Scythe, Blade, Dualblade, Whip after you reach Lvl 10. Areas look fairly different from one another. You can equip different kinds of Weapons on X/Y for Melee and B for Magic. Aggressive Autoattack before enemies can hit you seems to be the best tactic against mooks. Dash "Afterimage" is the first new ability unlock from a Sideboss and binds to RT. You can go into the Inventory and drink HP pots, but they're a limited resource and gone even if you die and have to reload.
It's not necessarily bad gameplay-wise, in fact it's probably the best effort for such a game that I've seen from a Chinese studio, it just doesn't stand out enough. The final boss of the Demo was again rather hard. What is it with these Demos being overall very easy just to have final bosses where you have to memorize all their attack patterns and perfectly evade 90% of the time to beat them, and even have changing attack patterns based on remaining HP and always ending on that note? I couldn't be bothered to finish after a bunch of attempts.
Gestalt: Steam & Cinder: Another Unity-based "MetroidVania" Pixel Platformer. Story about an Apocalypse having happened in the past and some sort of invasion by (an alien race?) called the Anak that almost destroyed humanity. But humanity persevered and rebuilt into a Steampunk world with Iron and Steam and fought back with an Elite caste of warriors called the Vanguard, with the jewel of the new empire being the city of Canaan. You play as a red-haired fiery cowboy-looking "Söldner"/Bounty Hunter called Aletheia on a mission looking for guy named Simon in "The Vaults", which is the first level. When she finds him, he unlocks her powers with a thingamajig called a Tether. Saving at "Tethers" you find in the game world. If you die, you have to restart from the last Checkpoint.
A to Jump, X to Attack, B to Dodge-roll. LT to backward somersault, RT to aim your gun and X/Y to shoot. Tutorial messages are part of the background graffiti-ed in red. Mechanics feel tight enough. You can glide down walls and wall-jump from one to another. Enemies are robots of all kinds. Small ones that can electroshock you if you get close or bigger ones that can shoot projectiles or use a shield. There's uncharacteristically a lot of dialogue and Story Cutscenes for a Platformer. Some characters will upgrade your gear like giving you Tesla bullets to be able to open doors or stun robots or give you keycards if you complete Quests for them. Leveling up and getting ability points by killing enemies or completing Tasks (like Bounties). Upgrade Menu has Health, Blade & Gun Dmg Nodes and Critical Chance nodes you need to Upgrade in order to get to new abilities. You get imba against the base enemies rather quick with a few Sword Dmg and Critical Chance Upgrades. There are various thingamabobs throughout the levels that can replenish your health or bullet energy or give you XP and red orbs that you can shoot that will give you Ability Points and seemingly lots of secrets. You can also find Corgis throughout the levels. There's some deeper mystery to what happened and an overarching story with lots of characters that just barely gets introduced in the Demo. Last boss for this one was fair enough. I liked it overall, Wishlisted.
Planet of Lana: Visually superb looking Puzzle Platformer with great Animations and audio about a girl called Lana on another planet that seems to be under invasion by alien robots. She makes gibberish vaguely Native American sounding noises while talking to her pet monkey. A to Jump, LT to duck, X to move objects, B (Hold) to tell your monkey to stop or (follow you) and RT+A to point and tell it to go somewhere and do stuff for you like drop down a rope or burrow through a hole to somewhere else it needs to be. It can jump further than Lana, so you can tell it to climb up somewhere and cut a rope or similar. If you drop too large a distance you die. There are Checkpoints before every Puzzle. There are strange black creatures hiding below and moving around stones that are sometimes part of a puzzle. You can cut power to electrocuted areas by covering solar cells. You have to hide in tall grass from Spider Deathbots. It's mostly environmental puzzles to help you progress in the level, as opposed to combat-based one.
Gameplay-wise it's nothing you haven't seen before and won't be blown away. The Demo is relatively short and snappy.
Bionic Bay: Unity-based Platformer. You are a Scientist, and after an explosion something goes horribly wrong and you end up in a strange machine-filled Dystopian nightmare. Such a machine hits you with a light ray at the beginning and gives you superhuman abilities. You can now run really fast, Dash forwards with B, jump higher with A and climb on the environment like an athletic monkey. You can jump farther by Dashing then Jumping or the other way around. Opposite to the previous game, this is mostly about the gameplay. You will fall from and into various goos, liquids and biological material of indeterminate origin as you make your way through the levels. On the second level you find a device you can activate on an object with X that will switch places with you once you hit LB/LT, that you'll get to use in various creative ways to continue from then on. But it's a double-edged sword because if you drop something heavy above you, it'll always crush you. The game introduces more and more fuckery as it continues, from explosive devices, to trampolines, suck pipes to lasers, guided missiles and gravity fuckwittery.
Near the end of the Demo in Level 4 it got "frustratingly hard" for a bit there near the last few Checkpoints, to the point that I thought about stopping to play as it constantly ramped up the difficulty, but pushed through. Also felt like I had my fill after a while, since not a lot changes about the visuals and there doesn't seem to be a story hook or similar to motivate you to go on.
Full Void: You play a boy in a hoodie during an alien invasion in this Puzzle Pixel Platformer. There are situations where if you don't move or do specific things you'll get an Auto-Game Over, although Checkpoints are always nearby. Vaguely reminiscent of the likes of Another World or Blackthorne/Flashback. Controls are very simple, A to Jump and X to interact. That's it. Gameplay is slow, you have to hang from ledges to drop from less height and not die or pull yourself up every time and climb ladders very slowly. Early puzzles include enabling electricity to start an elevator via Minigame, pushing a box to climb on a roof and using a crane to lower a platform. There are a lot of ways to die, failing one of the many "Quick reaction" events against the alien stalking you through the first level, mistiming a jump, platforms that crumble, falling a bit too far, electrocuting yourself, stepping on a wet spot(!) etc. accompanied by a short non-graphic death scene. Once you're in the sewers you mostly turn valves, climb pipes, avoid dangerous(!) water puddles and steam while evading zombie dogs following you and destroying/hacking spider bots. Wasn't very impressed. Once you're in the sewers the game even gets visually weaker.
Nocturnal: Seems like a Prince of Persia homage. A to Jump, X to Attack, B to Dash, RB to Interact. You jump farther if you attack mid-jump. You play Ardeshir, a warrior everyone else is calling a Traitor/Deserter looking for his sister Arsia in the fictional nation of Nahran. Checkpoints are these flames that automatically light up. There's a Platforming bit relatively early on where you have to escape an encroaching shadow. Then you can light your sword aflame at torches and use it on other flammable objects like bushes or unlit torches to extend the light and decrease the darkness or defeat shadows. You have to be quick about this in some cases as the flame sword goes out quickly. This is what most of the game will be about. There's also secret rooms.
Enemies early on are rare, some bowmen with 3 Health whose arrows you have to dodge and Swordsmen with 5 Health. Then there's some Shadow critters that come later and throw bombs at you or attack you melee. Kind of annoying that areas usually close down immediately after you pass them, locking you out of potentially valuable upgrades, since it sometimes isn't clear which is the way forward and which is the Optional bit. There's the usual Skill Tree with Healing Skills, increase for things like your Health, Speed, Damage or Fire Duration and unlocking additional attacks. You get Skill currency from destroying vases. Most secrets and ways to progress seem to involve finding a fire source and then lighting all the torches. There's also some Torch combination puzzles.
Not particularly difficult most of the way once you get the heal early on, nor particularly interesting and those are usually the qualities that propel these kind of games. Near the very end of the Demo the platforming got a bit more difficult with a slightly annoying moving platform timed section and then the final boss had like one attack pattern too many and took a dozen attempts. Eh. There's better Alternatives out there.
Turbo Kid: The (Pixel) graphics aren't very impressive. A to Jump, Y to summon your bike, B to brake, X to Shoot your Blaster (Hold to charge), LB to aim, RB to sword slash, LT to duck. LT/LB or RT/RB to align your bike while on it. There's lots of jumping from platform to platform, hanging from ledges and shooting targets to open doors. You can do bike stunts to platform. Saving by sitting down on couches and playing video games. Enemies are some sort of Wasteland punks that you can gib by shooting at or slashing them and picking up their decapitated heads for posing sometimes. There's spikes, saws and shit everywhere and when you die you have to start at the last Checkpoint again that might be a while back and lose all progress. There's some bike races where you have to race against the time to progress. I somehow made it to the final boss of the Demo and gave up because the mechanics were annoying and she would repeat the same dialogue every time the fight started again. I didn't like it much, never knew when to be on bike or on foot, where to go to continue since you seem to be able to go in almost any direction you want and the bike handling felt a bit unwieldy. Might make someone out there very happy, but not me.
Afterimage: A Chinese "MetroidVania" Platformer. Graphics not that impressive. A to jump, X to attack. You gather XP by destroying crystals or beating respawning monsters and collecting dew. You get important items and weapons from chests or as monster drops. There are weird Mushroom-like creatures, frogs, butterflies, birds, armadillos, hedgehogs and other animals to fight as enemies at the beginning, as well as Sword/Archer/Mage "Wanderers"/zombie things later on. You play as "Renee" who has the "Gift of the Gods" and has a spirit companion called Ifree (and appears to be another Amnesiac). There's some backstory about souls and shit, but it seems convoluted and not particularly interesting. Voice acting is kinda bad.
You save at Trees in the Level that replenish your health but respawn enemies. If you die, the game sends you back to the last Checkpoint and you have to backtrack to regain your experience. There's a Minimap and you can spend XP on Talents to help you fight or survive better. Talents usually go along: Attack, Defense, HP, MP and Special Attack Weapon Talents for: Sword, Greatsword, Scythe, Blade, Dualblade, Whip after you reach Lvl 10. Areas look fairly different from one another. You can equip different kinds of Weapons on X/Y for Melee and B for Magic. Aggressive Autoattack before enemies can hit you seems to be the best tactic against mooks. Dash "Afterimage" is the first new ability unlock from a Sideboss and binds to RT. You can go into the Inventory and drink HP pots, but they're a limited resource and gone even if you die and have to reload.
It's not necessarily bad gameplay-wise, in fact it's probably the best effort for such a game that I've seen from a Chinese studio, it just doesn't stand out enough. The final boss of the Demo was again rather hard. What is it with these Demos being overall very easy just to have final bosses where you have to memorize all their attack patterns and perfectly evade 90% of the time to beat them, and even have changing attack patterns based on remaining HP and always ending on that note? I couldn't be bothered to finish after a bunch of attempts.
Gestalt: Steam & Cinder: Another Unity-based "MetroidVania" Pixel Platformer. Story about an Apocalypse having happened in the past and some sort of invasion by (an alien race?) called the Anak that almost destroyed humanity. But humanity persevered and rebuilt into a Steampunk world with Iron and Steam and fought back with an Elite caste of warriors called the Vanguard, with the jewel of the new empire being the city of Canaan. You play as a red-haired fiery cowboy-looking "Söldner"/Bounty Hunter called Aletheia on a mission looking for guy named Simon in "The Vaults", which is the first level. When she finds him, he unlocks her powers with a thingamajig called a Tether. Saving at "Tethers" you find in the game world. If you die, you have to restart from the last Checkpoint.
A to Jump, X to Attack, B to Dodge-roll. LT to backward somersault, RT to aim your gun and X/Y to shoot. Tutorial messages are part of the background graffiti-ed in red. Mechanics feel tight enough. You can glide down walls and wall-jump from one to another. Enemies are robots of all kinds. Small ones that can electroshock you if you get close or bigger ones that can shoot projectiles or use a shield. There's uncharacteristically a lot of dialogue and Story Cutscenes for a Platformer. Some characters will upgrade your gear like giving you Tesla bullets to be able to open doors or stun robots or give you keycards if you complete Quests for them. Leveling up and getting ability points by killing enemies or completing Tasks (like Bounties). Upgrade Menu has Health, Blade & Gun Dmg Nodes and Critical Chance nodes you need to Upgrade in order to get to new abilities. You get imba against the base enemies rather quick with a few Sword Dmg and Critical Chance Upgrades. There are various thingamabobs throughout the levels that can replenish your health or bullet energy or give you XP and red orbs that you can shoot that will give you Ability Points and seemingly lots of secrets. You can also find Corgis throughout the levels. There's some deeper mystery to what happened and an overarching story with lots of characters that just barely gets introduced in the Demo. Last boss for this one was fair enough. I liked it overall, Wishlisted.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2017
- Messages
- 31,837
Crysis is very much where the wave broke regarding shooter design. Especially 2 and 3.
I finally got around to trying the few demos I noticed that I was interested in. Disappointments all around! I won't belabour the point since it's been well discussed earlier itt, but...
Capes: Holy cow is this ugly! It's not too bad when you're in tactical battles, but the close up dialog bubble cut scenes look like ass. That could be improved by allowing a "skip all" for the insipid dialog and such, but the bigger issue is just how clunky the thing is. Still, with some work on allowing more key binds from the get go (didn't look to see if you could assign any in the demo) and working out inconsistencies between how you advance things (sometimes N, sometimes ->, etc.), this could be a reasonably decent game. Assuming you can deal with the weird cheap looking early 3D era models. Either way, it's the most promising of the lot.
Arcadian Atlas: I spent like a minute in the town menus of this thing where I couldn't believe how crappy some of the UI was and then shut it down because I didn't feel like aggravating myself by wasting more time. I'm stuck with it since I kickstarted it like a decade ago anyway, so... +1 Charity points, I guess.
Seriously, you go to recruit your guys and instead of giving you a list of potential recruits, you get shown one with a picture and their class. And you can either hire them or hit next, to see what randomly generated class is up next. If I hadn't shut it down, I was going to get a concussion from slamming my face into my desk.
Dark Envoy: Ok, I'll be honest. I actually lost the will to boot this one after how shit the other two were and the comments earlier around. I think I'm just going to give it a miss and wait to see the reviews on launch, because I suspect it's going to get shit on.
2023 Steam Next Fast Rating:
out of 10
It's going to be another great year, boys!
Capes: Holy cow is this ugly! It's not too bad when you're in tactical battles, but the close up dialog bubble cut scenes look like ass. That could be improved by allowing a "skip all" for the insipid dialog and such, but the bigger issue is just how clunky the thing is. Still, with some work on allowing more key binds from the get go (didn't look to see if you could assign any in the demo) and working out inconsistencies between how you advance things (sometimes N, sometimes ->, etc.), this could be a reasonably decent game. Assuming you can deal with the weird cheap looking early 3D era models. Either way, it's the most promising of the lot.
Arcadian Atlas: I spent like a minute in the town menus of this thing where I couldn't believe how crappy some of the UI was and then shut it down because I didn't feel like aggravating myself by wasting more time. I'm stuck with it since I kickstarted it like a decade ago anyway, so... +1 Charity points, I guess.
Seriously, you go to recruit your guys and instead of giving you a list of potential recruits, you get shown one with a picture and their class. And you can either hire them or hit next, to see what randomly generated class is up next. If I hadn't shut it down, I was going to get a concussion from slamming my face into my desk.
Dark Envoy: Ok, I'll be honest. I actually lost the will to boot this one after how shit the other two were and the comments earlier around. I think I'm just going to give it a miss and wait to see the reviews on launch, because I suspect it's going to get shit on.
2023 Steam Next Fast Rating:
out of 10It's going to be another great year, boys!
ELEXmakesMeHard
Learned
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2021
- Messages
- 807
Sons of the Forest (survival horror, sequel to The Forest) releases this Thursday. They recently changed it to an early access release though.
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2011
- Messages
- 4,376
What is it with the SJW types and adventurous wheelchairs anyway? Do you have to play the Amazing Adventures of Gimpman, or can you dump him in a home and get someone good?
"Uh oh, it looks like someone's about to join the ranks of the disabled," should be Batman's catchphrase.
Steam Mystery Fest is underway for the next week. It's disappointing how few games I can find that have actual investigation/deduction mechanics.
Harthwain
Magister
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2019
- Messages
- 5,427
That reminds me of Lucifer Within Us. It would've been great investigation/deduction game if it weren't so damn short and was a bit more ambiguous in terms of testimonies given by NPCs. As it was, you could solve all three cases (one of which is pretty much a tutorial!) pretty much by exhausting all options as it helps to narrow everything down.
Agreed LFU has room for improvement but I still think it is outstanding. Anyway that is a discussion for another thread
karoliner
Arcane
They are actually asking 60 dollars for a 6 years old PS4 port.
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2014
- Messages
- 14,199
Werrcomu to Nippon, baka!
karoliner
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 99,662
ferratilis
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2019
- Messages
- 2,906
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