The STEAM Sales and Releases Thread

[Ivan]

have fun!

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Ninjerk]

 

[LESS T_T]

Lost Intelligence, someone took a page from zwanzig_zwoelf's basement and put sprinkles on it.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Lost Intelligence, someone took a page from zwanzig_zwoelf's basement and put sprinkles on it.

Looks interesting indeed, even though line flickering and uneven thickness makes my inner perfectionist scream in agony.

Wishlisted, thanks for sharing!

 

[lightbane]

Truly, indie games steal everything that's not nailed down or copyrighted.

 

[rashiakas]

Demos downloaded:

Affectus
Chinese Paladin 7
Death Trash
Live By the Sword Tactics
Lost Eidolons
Nadir
Peripeteia
Project Haven
Rise of Humanity
Sacred Fire
Sanctuary Saga
Stolen Realm
Wolfstride
Zoria: Age of Shattering

There were at least just as many that I didn't download... for now.

anything good?

 

[Abu Antar]

Demos downloaded:

Affectus
Chinese Paladin 7
Death Trash
Live By the Sword Tactics
Lost Eidolons
Nadir
Peripeteia
Project Haven
Rise of Humanity
Sacred Fire
Sanctuary Saga
Stolen Realm
Wolfstride
Zoria: Age of Shattering

There were at least just as many that I didn't download... for now.

anything good?

I played Affectus. It wasn't really my cup of tea. Side scrolling rpg. I don't mind them, I even like a lot of these. This one, I didn't feel. Poor performance and not so good controls.

Live By the Sword Tactics was okayish if you can stand Japanese style TRPGs. You don't have units with crazy HP numbers. My fighter had 13HP, the casters were squishes to the extreme. Combat felt very lethal. The levels aren't big, there are cooldowns on abilities (not a fan). It doesn't seem super deep. I doubt it's a game that I will buy, but who knows, maybe one day I will be bored, and I see the game on sale.

Death Trash seems like a decent idea. You do get to put points in stats, and skills. In the demo, you get a stealth implant, and a shock implant. Combat is action based, not turn-based. You can have one melee weapon, and one ranged weapon equipped. Dodging drains stamina, but I don't think attacking drained any of it. There was an animalism skill, but I didn't take that. You have stealth, pcik pocket and such, but overall, there aren't that many skills. Currently, it is not something I would buy. It's in the same boat as the above game. If I was ever bored, and saw it on sale, there is a possibility that I might pick it up.

I played Project Have some time ago, and I found the demo very enjoyable back then. I am hoping that this one has been improved. It's a fun, turn-based game, with good combat. Of any games that are still unreleased, this is probably one of my most anticipated ones.

The other games, I have not tried yet.

 

[Ivan]

Recommending They Always Run. Sidescroller platformer with an emphasis on melee combat and features very satisfying navigation.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

found a new tag to put on ignore
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?tags=1091588

 

[Unkillable Cat]

found a new tag to put on ignore
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?tags=1091588

Sadly all of my ignore tags are full. Steam is even trying to tell me to untag some of them due to overlap, but I need every single one of them.

MOAR IGNORE TAGS!

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like a remaster of Scrapland is coming, from the developer MercurySteam itself: https://steamdb.info/app/897610/info/

There was sort of a teaser last year:

 

[Baron Dupek]

Looks like a remaster of Scrapland is coming, from the developer MercurySteam itself: https://steamdb.info/app/897610/info/

There was sort of a teaser last year:

never played the original, I should still have DVD from some gaming magazine in my old house somewhere...

 

[lightbane]

It was a GTA with spaceship combat and robots. It was okay.
Not worth a remake IMO, but creativity is a scarce resource, nevermind when cheap solutions are around.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

This is the game I am waiting for most maybe, hopefully it actually is released someday. I heard it was a single person working on it, but that seems impossible to me looking at the quality of the graphics and supposed depth of gameplay elements etc, so maybe I misunderstood and there are more people than that, it seems there must be..but what do I know?

I think the developer used to serve on a nuclear submarine in the navy, it sort of shows in the combat, it seems 'sub like' or ship like in someway, but I still like it..

 

[Dexter]

Wartales: Seems rather rough so far with a bit of jank, but promising. UI and gameplay mechanics are a bit "Early Access"-y. Had to reroll a few times till I got an acceptable party not full of ugly womyn. You travel along a "Overland map" most of the time, where you can find loot or engage in combat with groups of bandits or wolves. There's a Stamina bar above the head of your Mercenary troop and when it runs out it turns red and you'll have to set up camp and rest. You don't want to engage in battle while it's red because all your combat Stats are halved. You stumble upon places like stables, farms or cities where you can sell equipment you don't need anymore (even broken armor), buy or repair stuff (costs very little at the Blacksmith) and rest. You can also attempt to Steal from them, but you add Suspicion and if it goes over a certain threshold Guards are going to come for you. Stealing from things like barrels and crates seems to be easier than from vendors directly. You can give your characters jobs like "Blacksmith/Tinkerer/Alchemist/Thief/Miner" that provide Boni (Strength/Dexterity/Critical Hit etc.) and allow you to do different stuff. As a Blacksmith (seems to be the most useful profession) you can craft better armor and shields than what you start with or are able to buy, Thief allows you to steal, Alchemist allows you to make HP pots from collected plants but you need empty bottles and Miner allows you to mine Iron ore and similar for crafting. Crafting/Mining and some others seem to work with some sort of Quicktime-event system where you have to click just in time to get a good result and get more ore/craft a Superior item.

There's a "Bounty person" at the Inn in town, where you can accept contracts against bandit hideouts or the likes. In combat both you and the enemies hit Armor first, then HP and damaged armor will either have to be repaired in town or using Repair kits. There's a "Morale" bar at the top of the Screen, if you fill it to a certain threshold by killing enough bandits on the field of battle your attack damage doubles or they even attempt to flee. Also your troop demands high wages (114 "Krowns") paid every few (three?) days, so keep that in mind. Stumbled upon some minor bugs.

If you start out make sure to have a Blacksmith to craft some Quilted Tunics (+10 Armor), at least a Small Shield and some Lvl3 weapons for your guys when they unlock, you'll need a bit of leather/cloth/wood and iron ore for that stuff. Once you've hit Lvl3 and got to choose a Special Class like Knight or Assassin and an additional Attack Skill that uses Valour (points you gain while you rest and that all your troops share for special attacks) you should be set for what the game has to throw at you in the entirety of the Demo. The Demo ends after you've completed 7 battle encounters (for me this was after I had just finished the second Bounty contract), so if you want to explore the world and find some shit try and stay out of battles as much as you can.

Spoiler

Death Trash: A Pixel ARPG taking place in a Post-Menstrual world, at least that's how I'd like to interpret whatever "The (Great?) Bleeding" is, that apparently happened centuries ago and left blood and meat clumps everywhere. Dialogue seems funny enuff and premise is interesting, if a bit bizarre. You apparently grew up in a "UNIVERSAL SOCIETY", which sounds like some sort of VR world protected by robots that seem to now rule the world and treat it like a habitat. They tell you to fuck off because you are impure and "unfit" to live there anymore, to never come back and to not reproduce. Art is a bit Tumblr-y, but you can generally be an unfeeling psychopath to whoever and whatever you meet in amusing ways. You have Melee (X) on the controller and Ranged attacks (aiming with the Stick or Mouse) and some abilities like Stealth and Puke. You gain Health by eating pieces of Meat from meat clumps lying everywhere around the world or extracted from defeated enemies. You can steal from NPCs or just club them to death. I recommend a (blunt) melee build for the Demo, since you'll likely use it most often and Ammo is a bit restricted in the three areas you're gonna visit (one of which is a settlement) and it's also satisfying to bash enemies over the head out of Stealth. Or just skill up after the start of the game once you've got your bearings and know better what you need. There's also various other Skills with limited use, like "Animalism" that allows you to tame moving blobs of flesh and you can either Deconstruct them in your inventory for Meat or sell them, "High Tech" that allows you to dismantle Tech components in the environment. "Cybertech" and "Occultism" seem useless so far, since the unlockable abilities are disabled in the Demo. "Artistry" is supposed to give you more dialogue Options etc. Fun and interesting enough, but I'm not sure if it'd keep being interesting for the length of an entire game.

Spoiler

Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector: 2Autistic4Me, too byzantine UI and movement/attack possibilities and intricacies to the battle system. It also comes with a rather simplistic visual depiction of combat and mission design (kill all Xenos, move unit here and click button). Someone's going to have fun with this, but I don't think it's for me. Might actually be something "boardgame enthusiasts" or "tactical gamers" might enjoy. It insists you play the Tutorial first for good reason, which comes off as a bit over-complicated, actually more so than the two missions you get to play in the Demo, in which killing shit is easy enough. I dno, just not that fun to play.

Spoiler

Mechajammer: Let's try Infinitron's (second?) most favorite "Pronoun" game. Cringe Indie art style, some sort of unholy alliance between effortless low-poly 3D and pixel graphics. Dialogues happen with thought bubbles you click on. There's some dialogue dumps about things the player is unfamiliar with and has no connection to early on, ETA to capable Stronk Black Womyn like two minutes. Unsure what all the buttons do, since it ain't explained. Clicking RMB apparently engages combat even though there are no enemies around and the only way I saw out of that state is clicking the green gun at the bottom left of the screen. Combat system seems Eh, feels like some sort of RTWP that auto-pauses between attacks, you just right-click to shoot or bludgeon and things die as they come closer. Mousewheel Up brings up different kinds of attacks. Enemies look like some sort of ghouls. You have to Left-click on compartments on the wall to open them, this works less often than you'd think and you have to reposition characters to be able to do so. F picks up items. Stumbled on some other bugs like got stuck in a close zoom while looting a fridge-looking thing and had to figure out holding MMB and dragging the mouse zooms in or out and misspellings within the first few minutes. You just kinda walk around by clicking aimlessly and kill shit, which isn't particularly fun till the Demo ends in just a few minutes. There's a driving section near the end, says it's a bike but looks more like a buggy to me. You control it with WASD like Micro Machines just a lot worse, W to Accelerate and A, D to turn left or right. Controls about as well as it sounds. Real GOTY here.

Spoiler

Adam? It says "Mika". They wouldn't just be "deadnaming" the poor lad here, would they?

"Right click to attack and enemy or target."

 

[Azalin]

Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch is 75% off for the first time

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Wartales is very bland compared to Battle Bros, and has literally popamole blacksmith minigame.
Mechajammer shows potential and promise, but controls and ui are terribad.
Warhammers is surprisingly gud, death trash is unsurprisingly trash.

Also, project haven can be

The fest overall is even worse than yesteryear's: half of the games are pixel hardcore roguelike souls-inspired shit, and most of the others are low-effort or artsy-game-is-experience.

I think that warhammer game is going to make slitherine/matrix a ton of money and big an enormous hit for them. They already say the pre-orders are higher than any game they have ever sold I think. The DLC opportunities and sequels seem endless if this is the case.

 

[Harthwain]

I think that warhammer game is going to make slitherine/matrix a ton of money and big an enormous hit for them. They already say the pre-orders are higher than any game they have ever sold I think. The DLC opportunities and sequels seem endless if this is the case.

What Warhammer game? You mean Battlesector?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I think that warhammer game is going to make slitherine/matrix a ton of money and big an enormous hit for them. They already say the pre-orders are higher than any game they have ever sold I think. The DLC opportunities and sequels seem endless if this is the case.

What Warhammer game? You mean Battlesector?

yes battlesector, I have not played it, just judging from the pre-hype and videos I have watched.

 

[Belegarsson]

Can't help but feel like boomer DNA is kicking inside me. Downloaded like 15 demos but only got hooked by two. Patron is a medieval city builder, don't have much knowledge about this genre because I only play Anno 1800 but I utterly love Anno 1800 and this thing feels pretty good to play. And Norco, a scifi southern gothic, cyberpunk swarmlands, whatever it is, visual novel taking place in Louisiana being invaded by industrial expansion, surprisingly engaging and thoughtful writing.

 

[Dexter]

There's no Light: Looks like a cheap Russian game in pixel art style. It takes place in Metro tunnels (What's with Russians and Metro tunnels? Do they have some secret desire to live there?). NPCs have no faces and are static, they don't even turn around when you talk to them and only have one idle bounce animation. Game throws you into an Info-dump area right at the beginning with a settlement called "Nimbus". There's a lot of exposition via text bubbles, where you can "Agree" or "Disagree" with people and there seems to be some sort of overarching Morality or Karma system that either goes into the Red or Green and a talking Skull that comments and berates you about your decisions. There's also something about a war between "The Order" and "The Corps". There's some spelling mistakes here and there and Inventory items seem to be in Russian.

You can Dash. You have three fighting styles with different speeds: sword, some sort of larger throw-able flaming sword and fists. You charge up your "Rage" bar by attacking objects or small enemies to use the charged attacks against the bigger ones. You have low health and can die rather easily in combat, which is difficult. If you do you have to redo the entire section and enemies again since the last save/spawn point. The game expects you to Git Gud, learn to dash and evade and not get hit from the beginning. It got a bit annoying after a while in a "FUCK YOU, GAME!" kind of way. Weapon Upgrades are very effective and necessary for progress, I went all-in on the sword, since it seemed the most useful out of the three.

It got a bit frustrating and I gave up on it during a Mage section near the end. It's a combination of things that add up. Limited respawn points, constantly having to redo the same shit over and over again, LOSING THE ONE HP POT you found after using it once during one attempt. If you die anyway you have to do the entire section with only one HP bar after you respawn etc. AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT FUCKING ENDS! So, definitely for people that love challenging ARPGs and don't mind the simplistic 2D Pixel graphics style.

Spoiler

Little Witch in the Woods: I thought I needed something calming and happy after that, so I tried this. It's apparently a Korean game. In 4K the image gets reduced to a bit in the middle, breaking the UI and there doesn't seem to be a way to change the resolution, people with below 1080p resolution will likely have similar problems in the other direction. It starts like a VN with boring nonsensical exposition for minutes at the beginning, I almost lost patience during all that. But I managed to finish it and it turned into a vaguely comfy gather resources to brew potions to solve puzzles Simulator/Adventure.

Spoiler

They Always Run: Another Russian game. A futuristic side-scroller with some sort of Cyberninja bounty hunter character that uses three swords. Art style and animations are stylish. Controls and platforming are tight and responsive. Mostly counter-based combat system, where you can counter up to three enemies at once, you have gadgets like a scanner and whatnot helping you open closed doors. Dodge-based evasion. There's a gimmick about him being a Mutant with a third arm that you can do lots of stuff with like breaking enemy blocks, breaking crumbling walls or destroying things in the environment. There seems to be some sort of Upgrade system that gives you additional health, makes you able to carry more stim packs and the likes. Bosses are tough without being near impossible. After you've got your target you can decide to bring them in dead or alive and have to carry them to your ship and deliver them to your contact on a space station, nice touch. You steal money from chests during missions and get them for successful missions or eliminating certain targets and you can buy Upgrades for your suit or better weapons etc. with said.
It's cool, added it to my Wishlist. Still, if you're in the market for a similar game that's already out, "Foregone" from the last "Steam Fest" imo played a bit better overall.

Spoiler

Goblin Stone: A Cutesy hand-drawn game with calming music and a pleasant narrator, where you lead a band of up to six Goblins on Adventures exploring "Dungeons" (in this case green fields and nature) to the end of the map with Turn-based combat, where the Goblin or enemy in the front gets to act based on their sequence. Every new Screen holds a new event or combat till you reach 100% of the current "Dungeon". The game Autosaves, so you'll have to live with your decisions and losses. You can hire new Goblins that might come with better stats (they start off as "Peons") and give them a career as what you'd like them to be. The Goblins have Stats and equipment (main attack is based on the kind of weapon they carry for instance) that you can replace with better or different stuff that you find or buy, and there's loot to pick up and events to stumble upon. You unlock a base after the first mission with all that entails, unfortunately most base management features seem to still be locked during the Demo. There are three small regions you can explore on one part of the map and a final boss. It gets a bit repetitive after a while. Don't do any of the Optional "Eliminate" missions, cause the doors at the end are bugged.

Spoiler

 

[Jenkem]

Moons of Darsalon
Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum
[echostasis]
Unmetal

based demos

 

[Latelistener]

Grime is surprisingly good. It's a souls-like metroidvania so there's almost nothing new, but visuals, sounds and animations are top-notch and it's just pleasant to play. Also, art reminds me of Giger a bit. Not many games can even replicate that and this one has something unique going on in it.



Terra Nil is one of those games I already mentioned before. Basically a game where you build, but not a building / economy sim, more like a puzzle similar to Islanders and Dorfromantik. Beautifully animated and relaxing.



Haven Park is actually better than I expected. I don't think it'll be popular, but it's good. Sort of like Animal Crossing, but with its own ideas.



Sable has a lot more hype than the three above combined together and has more issues than the three above combined together. Basically, it's a Breath of the Wild rip-off, but climbing is absolutely atrocious. There are a lot of bugs and issues and they lifted 30fps lock only after the demo was released (but apparently never tested it, so I personally never go above 45).

 

[Rahdulan]

Amusingly enough, trying the Sable demo led me to remove the game from my wishlist.