Fresh Releases - a thread for discovering interesting new games

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Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

I picked up Fort Triumph yesterday on Steam. It's a plays like Heroes of Might and Magic had a battle system lifted from X-COM (that happens to be entirely about collapsing trees and pillars on top of enemies.)

The game has four factions, but each faction has the same hero pool to draw from, the main difference between them being that towns give different bonuses. Goblins get more speed and are better in cover, humans get more health and can move environments around easier, etc. I kind of wish that each faction had a specific hero "type" that they could exclusively get, but it's a pretty mild grievance overall.

It's also pretty easy to break the game's systems over your knee. For reference: units get 3 AP per turn, but one of my barbarian heroes can start off combat with 8 AP and can kick/stun enemies as a 1 AP attack.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2020 20:30

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 14:41

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

My wife and I bought a copy of Deathtrap Dungeon on a whim. Sort of an ironic purchase? We bought it expecting to roast the poo poo out of it and it ended up being a pretty decent experience. It seems to be a pretty straight port of the tabletop module with a choice of modern/simplified combat rules or classic combat rules.

The entire thing is a tiny british man narrating the experience and your decisions with occasional images from the 1984 book with some D&D rear end D&D art. The game keeps track of the routes that you have explored and makes an autosave at every big decision point, so you can always go back and try out a different path if you want to see all the different ways you can die (or if you were too curious and end up getting one of the many instant game-overs).

It has all of the foibles of old D&D design, such as:

Instant Death if you go the wrong way
Letting you make it to the very end of the game and then killing you because you forgot to pick up a key item.
A difficulty range that scales from Really Easy to Impossible depending on your initial stat rolls.

# ¿ May 7, 2020 20:03

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Superliminal A.K.A. "That game you probably saw .gifs of on reddit." was released today. It was pretty fun! There were a couple of headache inducing moments but overall it was a pretty neat experience.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2020 03:51

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

GeneticWeapon posted:

Did you finish it quickly?

My wife and I finished it in one evening. We took our time exploring and attempting to find easter eggs, but I think overall we finished it in 3 hours.

Tombot posted:

I saw a video of a playthrough on youtube and that was about it for me. Unlike games like portal the whole perspective based mechanics just seem like a gimmick to wrap the story around and aren't really used for many puzzles.

I think this is pretty valid. The first couple of puzzles boil down to "make object big", and when you start to get a taste for other types of puzzles, you realize you're done with that type of puzzle and have already moved on to the next one. There was also way too many rooms where it seemed like you could do something with some combination of items - but we weren't able to get any possible solutions working.

I enjoyed the ones where you needed to adjust the sizes/positions of doorways to make yourself big/small in the room you wanted to go in. Puzzles with item propagation were pretty cool, too. It would have been awesome to see some more puzzles that combined concepts, though!

# ¿ Jul 9, 2020 11:23

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Morpheus posted:

Similarly, if you're looking to get a pokemon-like fix, but in an online setting, you can check out https://store.steampowered.com/app/745920/Temtem/

Also in Early Access, but I've heard from a couple friends that have played it that it's really good.

This is a great co-op pokemon game. My wife and I picked it up through this recommendation and we've been having a blast. Battles are pretty quick and fun so far, too!

# ¿ Jul 18, 2020 06:43

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Sab Sabbington posted:

I've had my eye on this for a while and completely forgot to grab it until I checked the thread today. It's really excellent! It helps that it's extremely my poo poo in basically every possible way, but I'm really enjoying this neat little office-sitcom dungeon defense game.

I agree with this! It's pretty fun to experiment with different unit combinations on the field and getting a composition that can down champions before they leave the first monster room.

# ¿ May 4, 2021 17:01

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Loose Ifer posted:

I've been finding my first room is almost always one shot by most heroes, I'm only on the 3rd stage though, so maybe that'll change later in the game.

If you get lucky with hero composition vs monster composition you can tank some of their hits pretty well. A lot of it boils down to matching resistances vs where the heroes are going to attack imo.

Donnerberg posted:

I don't know, but frog traps do fixed damage as opposed to the %life damage from burn or frostbite, so it would be weird if they were better. I'm playing with all the difficulty sliders maxed because XCOM did funny things to my gaming habits though, so the stats might be different. The game holds up well on the hardest mind. I'm only past stage 1 on one master, but there's great variety in what sort of champions you have to beat and what kind of roster you can field. You also get the miniboss room halfway through the run, which I assume is a later stage thing.

Poison & Wound are interesting in that the fixed damage they deal scale with how many stacks of poison/wound they have (5 damage for every stack they have, I believe). So if you have a lot of things that poison then the frog statue is great but otherwise you might be better off going with something different.

# ¿ May 4, 2021 18:27

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Alamoduh posted:

Haven�t seen anyone mention:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1287840/Disciples_Liberation/

It�s very good if you like the series at all. It�s a solid hex based tactical squad fantasy based game even if you have never played the originals.

Echoing that i'm having a good time with this game. I wasn't a very big fan of Disciples 3, so I wasn't expecting to actually enjoy this one, but it's pretty great! I'm not too far in though, I think- still on T1 buildings for everything.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2021 21:44

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

PotatoManJack posted:

Would it be possible to give a quick overview of the changes to the core gameplay they've made over the older Desciples games (I loved 1 & 2 but never played 3)?

The old gameplay was good at the time, but I can't see it standing up the test of time, so am keen to see what improvements they've made.

A lot of my experience has been with the single player campaign. I see that the game does have a multiplayer mode but I have no idea how that all works.

Like propaganda hour said, it's much more like a king's bounty game than it is a disciples game. While Disciples 1 & 2 was much more about unit formations and city management (and the campaigns let you carry multiple heroes over from mission to mission), this one has you in control of a single hero - Avyanna - and the army that she has with her. You have a single city that you can teleport back to (so long as you aren't in a dungeon) to train new units and upgrade your equipment/spells, but that city only has enough room so far for four unit buildings, a blacksmith, and a marketplace. Avyanna can be specialized however you want her to be via class changing and her skill tree (Fighter, Commander, Caster) and has a bunch of equipment options. Companion characters (Named characters, basically) can equip a weapon + an emotion shard. Fodder units can equip just an emotion shard.

From what I remember of Disciples I & II, there wasn't that much mixing and matching of faction armies. This game kind of lets you go hog wild with what units you want to use. In my current game, my army consists of a mixture of Undead & Demonic legions, but I think if I wanted to add elves or humans (Sadly no dwarves) into the mix I could probably do that- the only thing stopping me from doing that is my faction relations. The side quests that are available on the map let you pick sides with the four different factions, the outcomes of which improve/weaken your relationships with them. A faction you have a strong relationship with gives access to stronger units & faction specific talents, while I haven't played enough to see the consequences of a faction hating me, yet. I'm sure that'll come to roost whenever I visit the human lands.

Combat is no longer ogre battle style 6v6s, but has a hex grid that allows for elements of positioning/cover/flanking. You can field as many units as your leadership allows + 2 companions (Currently I have a necromancer and a demon warrior guy) + 3 backliners. Backline units are the same as your frontline fodder units, just using an alternate ability (i.e. a Banshee in the frontline can fight and take damage, but in the backline they throw on an evasion buff for your allies.) Units still gain experience and level up.

From what I remember of the Disciples II campaign, there were a lot of maps with big conflicts (Uther's betrayal, Resurrecting Gallean, Lenach'lan's death) that started big but ended up in you chasing down angel/gargoyle/giant units that the enemy would try to push out turn after turn. The new format means that there's less chasing down scouts and clicking end turn to make your way across the map, but there hasn't been a big "oh poo poo" moment on par with Uther's betrayal. So far, story battles have been decently challenging, voice acting has been pretty C-list, but overall the new format is pretty enjoyable. When I was in the undead lands I met a vampire lady that i'm positive was a reference to Lady Dimitriscu and the game let me romance her by telling her "You're huge."

# ¿ Oct 26, 2021 07:40

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Look they gotta make up the poor sales of the new Dark Alliance game somehow.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2021 03:36

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Mode 7 posted:

The new content is very, very clearly marked, and you can simply hold off starting that until you've explored elsewhere.
I've noticed what I'm pretty sure are some tweaks and additions to certain parts of the 'old' content but if you've never played before you won't even notice and it's nothing important.

I like the game a lot - playing the demo that Swilo linked is absolutely the way to go though to see if you like it. If you liked the demo you'll like the game. If you don't, there's nothing in the full game that will change your mind.

I can confirm this. I played through this these past two days for someone who hadn't seen the Stanley Parable before, and we were both able to experience all of the old content as well as the new content- and the game made it clear which was old and new.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2022 13:18

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Looks like i'm going to be picking up Citizen Sleeper this weekend. Thanks for the detailed posts y'all.

# ¿ May 6, 2022 14:41

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Morpheus posted:

It's always fun playing games like that. I played the first game with my gf and there's a part where, from my pov, I'm just setting up some stage backgrounds, making sure the right characters are on stage and such. Nothing too harrowing. Meanwhile I'm hearing my gf get more and more harried on the other side of the mic because some sort of shadow harlequin is getting closer and closer to murder her while I'm just like

"So is the king on the correct side of the stage?"
"he's getting closer!"
"Okay but the king?"

lmao yeah, my wife and I had a similar experience with that exact same puzzle. I was oblivious that there was a shadow puppet thing approaching her so I was like "uhhh, how's this?" while she was freaking out the entire time

We also had fun with the chess puzzle where we got queens and kings confused.

# ¿ May 11, 2022 15:18

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

fast cars loose anus posted:

I'm not really much of a Zelda-like person but Death's Door (which is also on gamepass) was really fun for me

Seconding Death's Door. It's pretty great for a Zelda-Like and has a lot of character to it.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2022 16:24

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

ultrafilter posted:

Islets

https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256902246/movie480_vp9.webm
100% positive based on 3 reviews.

I picked this up yesterday for the Switch and it's a lot of fun! I played Sheepo (the other metriodvania by this developer) earlier this year and this expands on that type of gameplay pretty well.

My only complaint is that your character does a lunge when you do a basic attack, so it can take a little getting used to to not ram into enemy hitboxes.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2022 00:50

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Venuz Patrol posted:

This one's fun, but evil. I definitely recommend it if you like tower defense games.

You get one card per wave which contains a single or double tile structure to place on the map. These tiles include towers, path pieces which allow you to extend the field of play, and flags which expand the island you're limited to. gold earned with each wave of defense can be spent to draw extra cards in a single turn, or buy specific tiles at periodic shop events.

Limited resources allow building outside the bounds of the isle or overlapping with other tiles, but they're rare and expensive, so the placement of the path and towers needs to be meticulously planned out while also leaving room for the likely possibility that you don't draw a path joint you need for an extended period of time. This is complicated by most useful tiles coming with adjoining useless water tiles that gum up your design.

It's extremely difficult, which is what most of the negative reviews complain about. I would describe it a bit like jumping into your first ever Slay the Spire match at ascension 15. Wave composition is highly varied and very likely to sporadically break through defenses that aren't very tightly planned, and on the only campaign mode available on a fresh save file, two brand new paths spawn in at specific waves to further complicate building. While it's definitely limiting to have your first six hours be spent with all the interesting main menu options locked while learning the very first game mode, I still find it fun, and I've found the complaints about RNG to be overblown. There's a significant amount of variance in layout and available towers in each run, but there's always been enough tools provided that I feel I would be able to win if I paid attention and put everything in the right place (so far, I have not)

I've been giving it a try as well, and I think i'm addicted to it. It gets a little frustrating with card pulls now and then because there isn't really a deckbuilding element to it, but the different archetypes encourage different playstyles in a very neat way.

Although i'm not sure if Cannoneer's guild is bugged because I didn't get any flags for them and ended up making some incredibly dense kill zones.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2022 17:50

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

ultrafilter posted:

Frog Detective 3: Corruption at Cowboy County

https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256911486/movie480_vp9.webm
No reviews yet but both of the first two games are rated overwhelmingly positive and if you haven't played them yet what are you waiting for?

Guess I know what i'm doing on saturday

# ¿ Oct 27, 2022 13:43

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Play posted:

Got a big dump for you lads and lasses

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1082970/Archaelund/
https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256850282/movie480_vp9.webm?t=1704720621

Early Access. 89% positive out of 55 but with many of the positive reviews still pointing out a lack of content and high difficulty level.

Finally, the Betrayal at Krondor-like i have been waiting for.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2024 21:05

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 14:41

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Pelican Dunderhead posted:

Put in enough hours to unlock the home base. It�s Suikoden 2.

Army battles and duels exist and my only complaint so far has been that menu navigation is pretty slow in battles as well as on the field with this completely unnecessary delay on switching between inventory, formation, etc.

Game rules other that that though, I kickstarted it what- four, five years ago?

These are my thoughts as well. For a game that's 90% navigating menus it's a little frustrating that everything takes so long to do, but also the people you can recruit own and the game is fun so i'm not too mad about it.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 15:33

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