Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

The STEAM Sales and Releases Thread

PulsatingBrain

Huge and Ever-Growing
Patron
Joined
Nov 5, 2014
Messages
6,549
Location
The Centre of the Ultraworld
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath

Not a single mention of Moebius on the store page, even though he's very clearly the direct inspiration for the art :x

vR9Pqs3.jpg

uJe2kcj.jpg
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
34,868
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The fest overall is even worse than yesteryear's: half of the games are pixel hardcore roguelike souls-inspired shit

Looks like pixel roguelike soulstroidvania is the big trend among indies and is here to stay because for some reason it sells well, and of course it's super easy to make because proc gen means you don't have to create any content yourself.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
Zoria: Age of Shattering: Atmospheric music, some spelling mistakes in the first few texts you can see which doesn't leave a good first impression. Graphics are alright. TAB is apparently a highlight key that the game calls a "vision ability" lol. "F" auto picks up items from the ground. The entire level map is uncovered from the start, although there's no markers, quest pointers or anything like that. Tutorials are just PopUps on the Screen, could be done a lot better. There's ~140 Stat points (main Stat painted Orange) and 5 Abilities you are to choose for every character that joins your party (without knowing much about the combat system or what abilities are useful, this might be a Demo thing to be able to test out different builds). HP seems to be relatively important in battle, the more HP a char has, the longer they'll stay in more difficult battles, ~350-400 chars go down easily. For some reason you can even directly increase your Armor or Magic Armor protection as a Stat, weird choice. Lots of lore dumps at the beginning of the game in dialogues, scrolls you can pick up and read, and including "letters" conveniently placed to tell you about the final moments of whatever band of Adventurers. Gets a bit better later. Equipped items don't change character looks, there seem to be some class-specific secret rooms.

There seem to be Shrines with ~1min cool-down that restore your HP and remove Negative Status effects if you have a "Battle Cleric" in your team. Action Points in combat (usually two for each char) are displayed by red jewels at the top of the Screen. Turn Sequence is displayed to the right of the Screen Top down. "Focus" is a battle resource that you cultivate during battle with simpler attacks that you need for more advanced abilities. You usually start battle by walking towards the enemies and doing some basic attacks first.

At the start of the Demo you make your way to a forward military camp right North of your starting location and get the choice of "going through the caves" or taking the way through some "Abandoned Fillondian outpost", choosing the caves requires you to choose a Female Lancer for your party that's proficient in clearing away rubble, the other way a Male Kingsman/Soldier that's proficient with Mechanics. NPCs either don't talk to you or only have generic responses before a Quest advances to the point that it allows you to talk to them, after which they get green glowing globes over their heads. If you go to the Goblin camp South first you can choose between an additional Wizard or a Ranger. You can play with a party of up to four in the Demo, but formations indicate that it could be up to six in the final game.

Story seems to be about military trouble between two countries, the Izirian Empire (a "Magocracy" led by powerful Mages and Necromancers) and the Kingdom of Elion, which you are a part of as a Military Captain.

Either my party build was shit or the game got more difficult near the end there, wiped a few times and got by in some fights with only 1 of 4 remaining standing, and only because of HP and other pot use. There were some mage class Undead enemies doing 3 consecutive attacks and Summons and basically just picking off my chars one by one. Position seems important, there's Backstabs leading to Criticals and Side attacks, although I'm not sure how to position a char other than make him attack a target facing a certain way. Some chars also retaliate, was usually the Ranger that launched an arrow towards a Mage's or Necromancer's face when attacked.

Demo is rather lengthy compared to some of the others. It seems competent enough, graphics and assets are pretty good, it shows promise in other ways and with its systems, there's certainly more here than the usual Indieshit Infinitron keeps shilling, but there's just a lot of "beginner's mistakes" in the design everywhere.

20210619173313_1yhkv5.jpg

20210619142313_163kv3.jpg
20210619142332_1s4ji2.jpg
20210619143837_190jcq.jpg
20210619143850_1rujy1.jpg
20210619144418_14tjpe.jpg
20210619150023_1c6jq6.jpg
20210619150437_19wkni.jpg
20210619150751_1dfjgn.jpg
20210619155000_1pqjpt.jpg
20210619161549_1fhjj5.jpg
20210619162103_1onkj3.jpg
20210619163032_1dwkhc.jpg
20210619163243_1fqk53.jpg
20210619163302_1qijtp.jpg
20210619165002_17ijbx.jpg
20210619165414_19qjc0.jpg
20210619170236_1bgk2l.jpg
20210619172440_1gzj6y.jpg
20210619172642_1asjs1.jpg
20210619174146_1omkn7.jpg
20210619183505_1kska5.jpg
20210619190050_1gljoe.jpg
20210619190153_185j41.jpg
20210619200507_1bek5x.jpg

Lost Eidolons: First thing I noticed is apparently no support for 4K or any resolution above 1600p. Also lmao, leave it to Koreans to make a vaguely European-resembling Medieval setting with a story about Monarchy & shit actually populated largely by people who look like they'd fit in there, also some hot chicks.

Game Demo starts with a Cinematic, immediately afterwards throws you into a Turn-based Battle/Siege without much of any explanation. After you've finished that, it throws you into a 3rd person over-the-shoulder "Camp Exploration" section, where you can walk around your campaign war camp and talk to the troops. Presumably this is also where you upgrade the camp, buy new equipment etc. but can't do too much in the Demo. Can't jump or do lots of stuff with the character either, just sprint around and talk to random people starting brief conversation cutscenes. There's some weird/awkward animations and clipping making it all look a bit janky. Talking "realistic" characters having no lip movement or voice-over at all in "Cinematic 3D" adds to that feel, but presumably they plan to change that for the final release. I also stumbled upon Quicktime Events during combat Training, it wanted me to press Q+E and disappeared so quickly I couldn't even react. You spend Leadership points (10/50 pro section apparently) to do things like Training, Sparring and Talking or sharing a meal with other characters to improve relationships in these segments between missions. Dialogue during these scenes seems to be generic/repeating about a few generic topics you can choose from and not specific. Another thing that'll get old fast.

If you're confused of how to break the Siege at the beginning, "Swap Weapon" on Knights/Warriors changes their current Weapon to a Bow. Attacking enemies with magic or Special Attacks from afar that they can't counter (you see on your HP bar if you get any incoming damage and lose HP when you are about to attack) and then finish them with an attack that they could counter but are too dead to do afterwards for less damage. Enemy does nothing with his units when you're moving/repositioning your troops from one side of the map to the other while you're not engaging or within direct sight of that specific group of units.
Kinda Eh... Battles drag on for quite a bit with not much happening, gets a bit boring. Played over 4 hours for two missions and a bit of running around in camp after each. Don't know if I can stick with slowly and systematically moving the same ten units across the battlefield and patiently murdering everything of the wrong color while watching the same attack animations play over and over again with the distinct possibility of them whittling down my units and not being able to finish the final fight/having to redo the entire thing. The camp stuff felt boring, since it was largely fetch-quests with a bit of choice text.

Finishing the Demo sends you to this page with some sort of Survey: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1580520/view/5466788056884269812

20210620000500_1fnkgq.jpg
20210620001535_1hmjgr.jpg

20210619223826_1epkfj.jpg
20210619224108_12qj6i.jpg
20210619224112_1ggks1.jpg
20210619224422_1x3kro.jpg
20210619224527_1uvjdi.jpg
20210619224939_16vjee.jpg
20210619225959_11tkmy.jpg
20210619233433_1nojol.jpg
20210619234835_174kon.jpg
20210619235357_13mjs3.jpg
20210620002030_10ijku.jpg
20210620002150_1j7jol.jpg
20210620002311_15vjna.jpg
20210620002644_1dqkk9.jpg
20210620003045_110kg6.jpg
20210620003448_1nykp5.jpg
20210620004402_1cskh1.jpg
20210620004541_191jtw.jpg
20210620005116_1dgj47.jpg
20210620005314_14ukb4.jpg
20210620005323_1ppkfa.jpg
20210620005346_1dhkyu.jpg
20210620010529_16ajgi.jpg
20210620011135_1opjo9.jpg
20210620011359_1g1jlw.jpg
20210620012106_1xqjir.jpg
20210620012952_1v7j5c.jpg
20210620021814_1sjkh8.jpg

These were both rather lengthy Demos that can take up to ~4 hours, so trying out some (hopefully calming) Adventure games next :P

Brok the InvestiGator: You play as a cartoon alligator in a future Techno-Dystopia full of other cartoon animals with problems in this crossbreed between an Adventure game and a Beat'em'Up. You can play with a Controller or Mouse+Keyboard. It seamlessly switches between them depending on what you're using, so you can easily mix and match too. There seems to be only one interaction button for most items though. You have 120HP at the beginning of the game and certain actions give you -10HP. You can switch to "Action Mode" with the "Y" button to beat the shit out of objects (beat down doors, destroy crates and similar) or fight enemies, which gives you fight XP. You gain levels by Leveling Up that way and can improve your HP, Strength or Special Attack. You can Jump and fall down places in Action Mode, you can't in Adventure Mode. Beat'em'Up sections aren't trivial either and there's various mechanics like dodge, light and hard attacks, special attacks while under 50% health etc.
20210621001829_1i6j6t.jpg


There's also some sort of hint system I haven't really used based around collecting "Ads" (3 on every screen), some of these seem relatively tough to find and they aren't highlighted by the Highlight system. There's deaths and you can try to "collect" all Game Over screens, you can do wrong shit or lose fights etc. This doesn't punish you too much though, it returns you to the same Screen with half HP (sometimes this means you get healed) and memorizes everything you've already done before e.g. what items you've picked up or conversations you've had with other characters. Talking about conversations, there's a circular menu for dialogue, top row is the themes you can talk about. As long as they still glow blue there's still new information to be gained and bottom row is about your own thoughts about someone and showing items to NPCs to see their reactions to them.
20210621010833_1jbk8k.jpg


I will admit I was a bit apprehensive at first regarding whether to even download this due to the Furry-esque art style, but it seems to be more in the style of 90s cartoons before anthropomorphic animals were irrevocably tainted, and the game kind of grew on me with time. The world, story, characters and mood don't feel simplistic and it kind of reminds me a bit of Beneath a Steel Sky with a bubble city and two-class society etc. and with characters that have a similar charm to them, are more complex and don't come off as "one-note", but not at all from the art style. Also, just my luck the Demo is long, 4-5 hours for what the game says is about 15% of the entire story. Just as you're about to finish the Demo, the game also pulls an "Interrogation" mechanic based on clues you uncovered in Adventure Mode out of the hat:
20210621030714_107j2n.jpg
20210621030945_1b9j1m.jpg
20210621031229_1nzkhl.jpg
20210621031422_11njls.jpg
There seems to be quite a bit of C&C, most of it based on whether you "solve" problems via Brain or Brawn, which mostly means that you can bypass some puzzles by using your fists or on the other hand bypass some fights and platforming sections by using your brain. But based on your decisions and whether you decide to help certain characters or not they can apparently even die. This definitely gets a Wishlist. Here's my final decision tree for the Demo/Prologue:
20210621021842_16ukn5.jpg
20210621033032_1r3kl5.jpg
20210621033114_167kth.jpg
It also teaches you important lessons, like:
20210620231507_1pak29.jpg
20210620231836_1vfkmf.jpg
20210621000533_131j26.jpg
20210621013218_1n8j3r.jpg
20210621013423_1t0k1d.jpg
20210621014704_1oxjcp.jpg
More Screens:
20210620221257_18qjy5.jpg
20210620221557_1egjeb.jpg
20210620221819_1h0kql.jpg
20210620222622_1rcj8i.jpg
20210620223747_1dxk9s.jpg
20210620223811_1dpj96.jpg
20210620224355_1uhkz5.jpg
20210620224909_12djxi.jpg
20210620230024_1xejev.jpg
20210620230425_146kx4.jpg
20210620232830_15hki6.jpg
20210620233518_12lj48.jpg
20210621003258_1jyjw6.jpg
20210621003322_1wyjxt.jpg
20210621004144_1x2jnu.jpg
20210621010437_1w1k1h.jpg
20210621010621_16gj1b.jpg
20210621012359_14nkko.jpg
20210621021118_1vjk3a.jpg
20210621021828_1hnjqm.jpg
20210621022403_1xajv4.jpg
20210621022425_15pkfg.jpg
20210621023806_1h4jc6.jpg
20210621024315_138jp2.jpg

Warp Frontier: Pretty trash from the looks of it. Meh voice acting and sound levels off with some characters and lines louder than the protagonist, awkward animations, static backgrounds that look like from a VN, lots of hotspots that aren't directly interactable with no dialogue, just an explanatory text Popup at the top. Stupid and non-obvious puzzles because of this, you'd think you could take something from the garbage, crates lying around the ship to patch the hole, but the game wants you to remove a specific tool panel with a knife to be able to do it. You have to use items on yourself for further interaction etc. Your Helper AI tells you you're being "Offensive". Ends relatively quickly. Next.
20210621185445_1msk2o.jpg


The Season of the Warlock: Classic Adventure game by a Spanish development studio. You walk around searching the screen for things to click on and fill your pockets with stuff you later find use for. You play as either Lord Alistair Ainsworth, an English university professor researching supernatural phenomena like Warlocks on a research trip to the country of Groldavia and residing in a big Castle, or his fat, hunchbacked manservant Nigel. The 3D animations are a bit awkward, but the characters seem to have some personality to them and the story seems promising enough so far. There are some Story-Cutscenes with dialogue interjections. Sarcastic "English humor" with quite some lines that hit. Somewhat macabre. If you double-click anywhere the character disappears briefly and reappears a la "quick travel". The Demo ends by asking you to either enter a deal with "the" Warlock or fight against him and promises that the entire game will change revolving around said choice.
20210621204601_1d0k78.jpg

20210621200101_1krjq3.jpg
20210621200520_1vokog.jpg
20210621200616_1wejpe.jpg
20210621200651_1k3jhs.jpg
20210621200706_1lrkvf.jpg
20210621201148_11pk89.jpg
20210621201229_1kskb8.jpg
20210621202605_136kdl.jpg
20210621204451_1eakgp.jpg
20210621205348_1lsk2e.jpg
20210621210641_1chkti.jpg
20210621210634_1f3kx1.jpg
20210621211759_13xjh0.jpg

Anyone played this? I can't quite place it or what it's about, but it keeps popping up:
 
Last edited:

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
Final batch, some of the shorter/smaller Demos:

The Night Is Grey
: Good looking art style, simplistic gameplay with a mouse pointer in the form of a simple white circle and just being able to click a few obvious hot spots for dialogue. No voice acting. The Mouse cursor turns into arrows in places where you can traverse to another screen. Inventory bar appears at the top. It feels like it was designed for tablets or mobile. There was a Quicktime Event to start something. Somewhat intriguing characters and premise about a guy named Graham that got lost in the woods and is being trailed by wolves, meets a little girl that is in need of help. Low-key creepy atmosphere. Not much more to say.

20210622053334_1eyjrk.jpg

20210622053651_1xlj9q.jpg
20210622055110_15xjgr.jpg
20210622053842_150ko9.jpg
20210622053923_1dajsm.jpg

GRIME: A strange-looking Platformer with combat, Checkpoints and Level-up mechanics. You can equip different weapons and armor. You absorb enemy energy to Level and increase your power. Killing said enemies by countering them at the right moment fills the half-circle at the top left, which you can convert to HP. You need to kill a certain amount of specific enemies "Prey" to gain new abilities. You gather crafting materials to unlock and upgrade those abilities from your Level screen once you know about them. Attack/Dash consumes "FORCE"/Stamina. The boss near the end was easier than some of the simple enemies, due to offering free easy health constantly. You can apparently also increase mass after defeating him.

20210622135005_1twk63.jpg

20210622133805_1w9jvm.jpg
20210622133823_1pvkq5.jpg
20210622134354_1fqkwt.jpg
20210622143142_1iojwm.jpg
20210622150044_1wfksy.jpg
20210622150054_1mpkia.jpg
20210622150243_1u8keo.jpg
20210622150338_1btjmg.jpg
20210622151805_19fjvc.jpg

Glimmer in Mirror: Pleasant art style and music, Jump&Run where you can shoot blue magic like a machine gun. Can also use as charge attack. Collecting butterflies heals HP. Easy. Very short. Text almost seems machine translated. Apparently Chinese. Too cutesy 4 me.

20210622173239_1jqk9g.jpg

20210622172959_1c4kq3.jpg
20210622174238_1rikxk.jpg
20210622175159_1vsj2n.jpg
20210622175552_15pkhp.jpg

Greak: Memories of Azur: A Puzzle-based Jump&Run/Platformer. You fight some sort of Undead looking slime monsters. There's a brother and two sisters. You can switch between them like Lost Vikings once you unlock them. The brother (Greak) is a sword fighter, can do wall jumps, double jumps and use a crossbow for which you find ammo scattered around. The sister (Adara) is a magic user. She floats and can shoot magic forward, up or down. She can also breathe considerably longer underwater. Puzzles require you to use multiple characters to solve them by doing platforming sections where they help each other get to places the others can't go alone, placing them on certain objects as weights or to open doors etc. The game was generally more difficult than some of the others. By using the Left Trigger + Left Stick you can walk/attack with both (or presumably all three) characters. Very tightly designed. Boss was tough, but not too tough. Wishlisted for now.

20210622180729_1x4j7p.jpg

20210622180541_1khk5u.jpg
20210622181105_1plkgh.jpg
20210622181138_12yk9d.jpg
20210622181142_13xj36.jpg
20210622181149_13okcu.jpg
20210622182026_10xjns.jpg
20210622184451_16kk4h.jpg
20210622185510_1mtk20.jpg

Terra Nil: A somewhat relaxing casual game where you make shit green by building other shit and then have to recycle all the shit you built to load into a spaceship and fly away and do the same shit again somewhere else.
20210622215801_16nk4d.jpg


Project Haven: Lost me really early on with the Tutorial. The combination of the weird zoomable bird-eye 3D view, the unwieldy and over-complicated UI. Having to press Space to aim yourself for some reason, the shit with the cover and manually leaning around corners. Sometimes not being able to turn to actually face the enemy even though he's just right of where you're looking/aiming at (moved one char behind cover facing the enemy, then tried to shoot, but the enemy was just like two digits to the right of where he could point the gun, see Screens). Other times the characters sprained themselves into impossible contortions, where the lower body pointed one way and the upper body another to be able to hit. The somewhat cringe voice acting, dialogues and character models once the actual mission starts. Nah... not fun.

20210622222827_1tak3n.jpg

20210622222133_159kl5.jpg
20210622222216_1lvj2z.jpg
20210622222851_1jxj5z.jpg
20210622223144_14djh5.jpg
20210622224326_1jzjbn.jpg
20210622224337_1fhk0t.jpg
20210622224400_12lj5e.jpg
20210622224409_1ozjwt.jpg

Wishlisted: Brok the InvestiGator, They Always Run, Greak: Memories of Azur
Tentatively Wishlisted: Zoria: Age of Shattering, The Season of the Warlock
Keeping an eye on how development goes: Lost Eidolons, WarTales

Final tally of games that seemed interesting enough to try...

2 Russian (They Always Run, There is no Light)
2 French (Brok the InvestiGator, WarTales)
2 Korean (Lost Eidolons, Little Witch in the Woods)
2 Portuguese (The Night Is Grey, Project Haven)
1 Spanish (The Season of the Warlock)
1 Romanian (Zoria: Age of Shattering)
1 Philippinean (Goblin Stone)
1 UK (Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector)
1 German (Death Trash)
1 Australian (Warp Frontier)
1 Israeli (GRIME)
1 Chinese (Glimmer in Mirror)
1 Mexican (Greak: Memories of Azur)
1 South African (Terra Nil)

Where are the USian Indie developers?
 
Last edited:

Nutria

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 12, 2017
Messages
2,261
Location
한양
Strap Yourselves In
Two of these titles specifically mention ferrous metals and another one implies it. This is why it's so hard to be a consumer these days.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655

Latelistener

Arcane
Joined
May 25, 2016
Messages
2,631
I'm starting to question myself what kind of sale it will be since some stuff is having historical lows but only before the evening.







 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom