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Cowcaster posted:whatever happened to "single solution multiple approach" subjective objective router (root-er) shooter
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Jul 28, 2021 20:59
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Triarii posted:But yeah the skill tree is real bad, and stinks of "well open world games have skill trees so let's figure out what basic gameplay functionality we can turn off so you can turn it back on by spending points"
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Jul 29, 2021 03:22
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K8.0 posted:Gating mechanics can be good if it's done to give the player the opportunity to learn the core mechanics first. There are other good uses for it as well. Unfortunately, modern AAA game design tends to just be more about fulfilling a checklist - open world, progression, collectibles, unlocks attached to them, etc - than actually creating the most fun experience possible. Thankfully, there are so many good games now there's just no reason to play the crap ones, but it's annoying to see so much effort wasted creating deliberate garbage (gently caress you, Ubisoft).
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Jul 29, 2021 03:58
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Hey y'all, I'm about to make a big infodump on upcoming games as I tend to do these days. It's nearly August, and August has a LOT on deck. I am not joking when I say this month is packed, wall to wall. Note that I focus on indie and AA games, I don't really give a poo poo about AAA games sorry   Grime (August 2nd) (Demo available) Genre: Souls-like, Metroidvania For People Who Like: Giger-esque visuals, interesting world Potential Issues: Makes Gears of War look like a vibrant rainbow explosion at times Price: $24.99 I had played the demo of Grime in the Steam Next Fest and went "what the gently caress where did this come from??" The combat is satisfying (maybe a little too easy?), the world is weird, and the exploration feels right. The game has a couple of interesting additional systems... defeating enough of a monster gives you a perk, for example. I wish there was a little more color to the game, it's mostly sprinkled in the back for some occasional texture, but I worry that might make the biomes hard to distinguish. But I like a game that is inspired by art like Giger's without flat out ripping him off (reminds me a little of Zeno Clash's alien-ness as well). Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1123050/GRIME/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1  Here Comes Niko (August 3rd) Genre: 3D Platformer, Casual For People Who Like: Cute games, something chill/relaxing Potential issues: Not an issue per se, but seems tailored to the younger set Price: $24.99 I've already mentioned this game before in past posts... I didn't get too into the details of it. Based on trailers I'd say this is somewhere inbetween Frog Detective and Mario Sunshine. It's a 3D platformer, but it doesn't look too complicated. You are helping people out with their requests, but you probably won't be racking your brain much. I'd say this is something that could cater to all-ages, like Rain on Your Parade. The game says there will be 6 islands, but it's a bit hard to tell just how much gameplay that will translate to. I'm assuming this is going to be a shorter game. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/925950/Here_Comes_Niko/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1  Toodee & Topdee (August 4th) Genre: Puzzle-platformer For People Who Like: Twitchier puzzle platformers, avoiding spikes, planning ahead Potential issues: Will the level design get a little too Meat Boy? Price: $19.99 Take two types of puzzle games, the side-view puzzle platformer and the top-down Adventures of Lolo type, and mash them together to get Toodee & Topdee. You switch back and forth between the side-scrolling Toodee and the top-down Topdee to get both characters to the goal. The GIF pretty much explains it. This is one of those games where you need to think ahead on what you intend to do, as whichever character is inactive is frozen, but both have enemies that will come for you, so it's not the type of game you can sit still to strategize. I suspect this will be a game that shows up at Games Done Quick events in the future. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303950/Toodee_and_Topdee/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1  Death Trash (August 5th) (Early Access) (Demo available) Genre: Isometric ARPG For People Who Like: Fallout, Cosmic Horror, Puke Potential Issues: Short on content for Early Access Price: $19.99 (subject to change) After a small introduction to the setting of a post-apoc world and the creation of your character, you are spat out into a world of fleshy trees, nude vagrants, and disembodied cyborg heads. You've been marked as infected, and you need to figure out if there's any cure out in the world... while solving other people's problems in whatever way you see fit. Death Trash started development as a Fallout fangame before becoming its own beast, splitting from the turn-based conventions of the original series and opting for a combination of dodge-roll melee combat and ranged gunplay. You can puke at will. The biggest issue with this at launch will be the fact that it is only launching with the first chapter of the game. Will there be that much more content than the demo? It reminds me a bit of Grounded, where I had played a demo of the game, and then the Early Access launch version had only one additional main quest that wasn't in the demo. I just don't know about buying it right away. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/941460/Death_Trash/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1  Starmancer (August 5th) (Early Access) Genre: Simulation For People Who Like: The idea of Spacebase DF-9 but not abandoned Potential Issues: Abandonment; being published by Chucklefish, who is as good at game management as they are taking care of an office dog An indie space station sim with a nice isometric look, this one's been in development for... a while (nearly 6 years). You are the AI on board a space station and you're tasked with taking care of the many consciousnesses of the remainder of the human race. The care of the colonists seems to be job #1, as they can go insane or commit mutiny if they're not kept happy. Whether Starmancer will be the game Spacebase wanted to be will depend on a few factors... whether Chucklefish, the publisher that couldn't take care of a dog, keeps their feet to the fire, for example. I'm not exactly thrilled to see "What will constitute v1.0 will depend on feedback from the community" which makes me think they don't have a fully concrete plan. This may be one to watch from the sidelines to start. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062000/Starmancer/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1   Dodgeball Academia (August 5th) Genre: Sports RPG For People Who Like: Sports games with story campaigns, the old Kunio-Kun dodgeball games maybe?? (I've not actually played them but it's not like there's a ton of action dodgeball games) Potential Issues: Reverence for Pokemon might be a little too strong and lead to overly repetitive encounters in the world Price: $24.99 I am not a huge sports gamer but I am a fan of games that take sports and make single player RPGs out of them, whether it's Mario Tennis for GBC, or Golf Story for Switch. Dodgeball Academia is made in this mold, where you are a student at a dodgeball school, taking part in many dodgeball battles with your party. Unlike Golf Story, this seems primarily focused on the Dodgeball battling-- the actual story battles do look like they will have some twists here and there, but it's probably not going to be as flexible and varied as Golf Story is. Still, it's got a campaign, side quests, and minigames. It has leveling up and experience points, it has character progression... one thing I don't remember from playing the demo is whether there is gear progression or not. The only thing that concerns me with this game is the battling itself, which I thought was very fun, but if it's just that over and over for every quest and sidequest, it could get old fast. It'll really depend on how they twist things up from battle to battle. For example, one battle took place out in the parking lot, and you had to dodge cars that drive right through the court because parents just don't give a gently caress about other kids I guess. (cutting social commentary!!!) Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422420/Dodgeball_Academia/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1  City of Gangsters (August 9th) Genre: Simulation, Resource Management For People Who Like: ..the old Gangsters series I guess? Price: $30 Not related to the original Gangsters series OR Empire of Sin, this is a Prohibition-era gangster sim about bootlegging, by the developer of Project Highrise (the one that was inspired by SimTower). I am out of my depth here when it comes to games like this but I have to include it just because it's by a notable developer. You grow your bootleg hooch empire as best as you can before alcohol becomes legal again. Apparently there's combat too and it's turn-based? Maybe someone with better knowledge than me can fill in the gaps here. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1386780/City_of_Gangsters/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1  Black Book (August 10th) (Free prologue available) Genre: Card-based RPG For People Who Like: Slavic folklore, a Deckbuilder with a story Potential Issues: People have mentioned translation issues with the prologue, not much to go on about the full game from the limited info available other than the promised claim of 20 hours of gameplay Price: $24.99 This one is interesting... a combination of deck-building turn-based battler and narrative game exploring the countryside with quests, sidequests, and Decisions to make. Not sure why people tagged it with Roguelite... it seems to be a hand-crafted adventure game that just happens to have card battling and deck assembling/customization. It's not my cup of tea but it looks neat. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1138660/Black_Book/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1   Glitchpunk (August 11th) (Early Access) Genre: Top-down Open World Action For People Who Like: Grand Theft Auto 1 (yes, the original), cyberpunk settings Potential issues: Well, it's early access, so, all the risks that come with that. Maybe you just didn't like it when Grand Theft Auto got that third dimension, maybe you were the weird one that played the first GTA demo forever, especially after figuring out how to disable the demo timer. Now bring it into 2021, slap some cyberpunk paint on it, and make the guns more over-the-top. It promises 10 escalations of Wanted levels, 12 different gangs with their own quests, and four full cities..... in the final version, anyway. The early access version has two cities.. which is actually still a decent amount of content if those cities are feature complete. They're not really hiding the influence on this one folks. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1459960/Glitchpunk/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1  SkateBIRD (August 12th) Genre: Skateboarding For People Who Like: Tony Hawk and  Potential issues: People not thrilled with demo in prior Steam Festivals, up-and-down resume for the developer Price: $19.99 It's hard to say that the momentum that carries SkateBIRD along has anything to do with the game itself and more to do with the memetic nature of the premise. It's birds on a skateboard. Make GIF, put on twitter, get lots of retweets (bird pun). I don't know what to make of the game, as people have complained that the original demo was janky, and I never heard if later demo builds improved at all. The developer (a former goon, Shalinor) previously made Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Jones on Fire... I actually liked Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but was cold on Jones on Fire which was a bit.. simple. I dunno. I could go either way on this one. Good luck to them! Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/971030/SkateBIRD/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_1  Fire Tonight (August 12th) Genre: Adventure For People Who Like: Story games, rotating a camera around dioramas Potential issues: Light on gameplay Price: $5.99 Fire Tonight comes from the developer of unique (if repetitive) and definitely overlooked all-ages co-op game Fossil Hunters (in the itch.io BLM bundle), and it's a story game about two people trying to reach each other when the city they live on gets engulfed in a massive blaze. The game says it is a narrative puzzle game, but they are likely to not be much more complicated than what you see in the GIF: finding a solution on the same screen as the problem. Whether this one succeeds will largely depend on the strength of the story. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1188900/Fire_Tonight/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  Road 96 (August 16th) Genre: Story/CYOA For People Who Like: Road trips, branching storylines Potential issues: Claims to be "procedurally generated"... hhhrrrmmm Price: $19.96 Road 96 (which should've swapped the numbers around imo, just saying) comes from the team of Valiant Hearts and 11-11 Memories Retold, but this time it's not about old war soldiers, it's about road tripping in the 90s. Something that I didn't realize about the game until now is that it is set in "the authoritarian nation of Petria". And part of your road trip is escaping the regime. So your protagonist is not quite as passive as I assumed. You'll be making decisions, choosing routes, and getting into all sorts of situations. Valiant Hearts was actually pretty good, imo... this one promises exploration, contemplation AND action... but it's unclear to me if that just means quick-time events like a typical Telltale game. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466640/Road_96/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2   Greak: Memories of Azur (August 17th) (Demo available) Genre: Puzzle-platformer, Action, Character-switching For People Who Like: The Lost Vikings, Trine Potential Issues: Is tagged as a Metroidvania and my experience with the demo was... it's not. So this is not an issue so much as, keep that in mind. Price: $19.99 I hope that Hollow Knight hasn't ruined the ability for other developers to make atmosphere platformers with fog and moody lighting, because I feel like everyone's just going to shout that comparison from the rooftops at everything. The better comparison for this one is Trine but with more action. You have three characters with their own abilities and fighting styles, and you'll be switching between them to solve puzzles and progress through the world. It's a bit buried under other games for me at the moment when it comes to my wishlist, but I don't think this one should be ignored. There's definitely a lot of effort gone into this one. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1311070/Greak_Memories_of_Azur/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  Tetris Effect: Connected (August 18th) Genre: Tetris For People Who Like: Tetris, Vibes Potential Issues: Tetris addiction I don't normally mention games coming out of Epic jail, because they aren't REALLY new releases, but this one warrants attention as it is one of the three most significant Tetris games to come out this past decade (the other two being, of course, Puyo Puyo Tetris from Sega, and Tetris 99 from Arika). From the creator of Lumines, Tetris Effect is as good as Tetris gets, and it is amplified by a phenomenal soundscape and shifting aesthetics. And yes, this version has VR support. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1003590/Tetris_Effect_Connected/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  Monster Harvest (August 19th) (Demo available) Genre: Farming RPG For People Who Like: ...besides the incredibly obvious, also Pokemon. Potential Issues: Kind of out of nowhere, first game by this dev, battling looks a little.. simple Price: $19.99 New Stardew just dropped. Okay but seriously, here's a farming game with an additional layer of monster raising and battling. So you've got your farming and you also have your turn-based Pokemon fights. The game has a story to it, it seems. It really comes down to presentation and depth. I know nothing about this dev but a google search brought up a website that may as well not have been a website. Merge is a reputable publisher, it's just... I dunno. I would've expected to see this kind of game in early access to get feedback from the community, so. I dunno what to make of it. The slightly tilted perspective is a neat look. I guess I'll have to play the demo at some point to make any fair judgement. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1363350/Monster_Harvest/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  Recompile (August 19th) (on Gamepass) Genre: 3D Platformer, Metroidvania For People Who Like: Metroid Prime, Hacking minigames Potential Issues: As with any indie 3D platformer, if the feel of the jumps is bad, it throws everything off. Hopefully they've tuned this well. Here's a cool one... a 3D platforming Metroidvania with some third-person shooting, lots of hacking, a cool setting, branching narrative and multiple endings. Listed as inspirations in the description are Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight and Breath of the Wild, so, yeah, I'm interested. I just hope the platforming is alright. In clips the jumping is a little.. fast? Fast acceleration and de-celeration. As someone who has played Poi, FreezeME, Yooka Laylee, A Hat in Time, Demon Turf, Pumpkin Jack, etc... the feel of the jumping sets the tone for the whole game. If it doesn't feel good, the whole game feels bad. So that's the biggest hurdle for this one to clear and hopefully it clears it. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/986310/Recompile/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  SYNTHETIK 2 (August 19th) (Early Access) Genre: Roguelite, Top-Down Shooter For People Who Like: The original SYNTHETIK Potential Issues: Haven't played the original so I'm not qualified to say, but as always, early access games come with pitfalls SYNTHETIK has a shiny new coat of paint on it. New weapons, classes, headshots, and looooore. I don't have much to contribute on this one, I have not played the original (I'm not a roguelite person) but this game has some very dedicated fans so I'd be remiss not to include the sequel. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1471410/SYNTHETIK_2/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  12 Minutes (August 19th) (on Gamepass) Genre: Story/CYOA For People Who Like: Time loop stories Potential Issues: Hopefully skipping forward in time is not too painful. You have dinner with your wife, an argument happens, then a police officer breaks in and beats you to death... start over. This one is highly-awaited, is voiced by James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe, and comes from a publisher with a top-tier pedigree (Annapurna). I'm not just going to throw it on the GOTY list right away, but I think this is going to be one a lot of people play. As with most time-loop games, I hope that there are not too many lull points where you are sitting around waiting for something to happen. Please. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1097200/Twelve_Minutes/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  Hoa (August 24th) Genre: Puzzle-platformer For People Who Like: ...puzzle-platformers??? Potential Issues: Not sure what the hook is Price: $14.99 Hoa is a gorgeous looking platformer leaning towards the end of the month, although... it says that it has "exploration based puzzles" and it's hard to say whether that means you will actually need to look around and find things, or if they just mean "make it through the level by finding the way forward!" Because then that means Mario is an exploration based puzzle game. It looks nice though. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1484900/Hoa/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  I Expect You to Die 2 (August 25th) Genre: Adventure For People Who Like: Seated VR silliness, escape rooms Potential Issues: Will likely be short, like its predecessor. Price: $24.99 Yes, VR gamers get something this month too, besides the bonus VR in Tetris Effect. I Expect You to Die is one of the classic Steam VR games, a game of spy shenanigans where you avoid laser grids, stop rocket launches, prevent world annihilation and gently caress up grabbing objects with your stupid VR hands, all from the comfort of your chair. This looks to be more of the same, and to be fair, I don't think the wheel needed to be reinvented here. It's just more levels essentially. The only caveat to VR games is, as always, the ridiculous pricing which never matches the content on offer. $25 is at least not TOO bad, especially if the game has more content than the original. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1499120/I_Expect_You_To_Die_2/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  Psychonauts 2 (August 25th) (on Gamepass) Genre: 3D Platformer For People Who Like: Psychonauts, Platforming mixed with Adventure Gaming Potential Issues: It's Double Fine, the definition of Potential Issues in the dictionary (the special kind that defines two words together) is just their logo. Price: $60 If an AA developer gets acquired by Microsoft does their game become an AAA game? I dunno. I just hope that this comes anywhere near to living up to the hype, because DF has a wild track record and people are very jaded on them. Granted, that cynical nature comes from Spacebase and Broken Age which were years ago at this point, and they've put out solid games since then (such as Headlander and Rad), but still, it's hard for them to shake the image that they have problems finishing games. This does feel like a legitimate full fledged game, not cut short, not compromised, and hopefully this will be Psychonauts as we remember it in our heads Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/607080/Psychonauts_2/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_3  ProtoCorgi (August 26th) (Demo available) Genre: Horizontal Shmup For People Who Like: 90s Shmups, Cute Visuals Potential Issues: Finding the balance between bullet hell and approachable game for newcomers A dog-based shmup with great pixel art (very Yoshi's Island inspired), and heavy action. Something I didn't know about until today is that the game will include a level editor that is inspired by Super Mario Maker, which should make it possible for people of all ages to make their own little doggy shmups. It will have an adjustable difficulty from "Pup" to "Ultra Nightmare" so I'm curious to see the differences. The demo was fun. IDK, it's a shmup. Buy it or don't what do I care Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1039280/ProtoCorgi/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_3  Baldo: The Guardian Owls (August 27th) (on Apple Arcade) Genre: Zelda For People Who Like: Zelda Potential Issues: Translation, slightly off art, not many details given This one's been in the works for a while and you might have seen it before and forgotten the name because the name is loving horrible. Well I don't blame you because drat, that name. They don't even include a colon in the Steam page title and didn't seem to proofread the page much... so while I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt, it's possible this will be a jank fest. It has a Ni No Kuni style look to it, but slightly off. You'll know what I mean if you go to the store page and look through it. It's just.. a little bit off. This one will be on Apple Arcade so I'll be able to give a hands on when it releases. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1614890/Baldo_the_guardian_owls/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2  Book of Travels (August 30th) Genre: TMORPG (see below) For People Who Like: Other Might & Delight games, experimental social multiplayer games Potential Issues: Might be tough to find other players if it's not a major success Price: $29.99 The developer of the Shelter series has a new experiment, a Tiny Multiplayer Online RPG where you don't have a specific goal. There may not even be quests? I can't tell for sure. It will have detailed character customization, and combat, and a ton of abilites and perks... but it's also nonlinear. So this is definitely a risk for the developer. Will the game hold up if you never see another person, for example? You will only be able to communicate to them with symbols you find in the world, anyway. I think this could be pretty cool, but also the kind of game that people talk about a decade from now going "man, that really could've been something if people actually played it". Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_3  The Big Con (August 31st) Genre: Adventure For People Who Like: The 1990s, playing as a con artist, intense colors. Potential issues: Gameplay could become repetitive Price: $14.99 While the developers claimed they weren't going too hard on nostalgia during the Tribeca Games Festival in June, it's hard not to just look at The Big Con and think of it as Nostalgia: the Game. It's the 90s brought to you through Mission Hill-esque color theory and Nicktoon-esque characters. In this one you play a teen learning how to pickpocket and grift people in order to save her mom's rental shop. This can simply involve swiping change, or eavesdropping on conversations and "helping" people, or fulfilling other objectives. The demo was fine, I'm just not sure if it will vary things up enough across the whole game. It's got a very powerful aesthetic, I will give it that. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1139280/The_Big_Con/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_4  KeyWe (August 31st) Genre: Co-op Puzzle For People Who Like: Overcooked, Monaco, any game where co-op can lead to panicked shouting Potential issues: The art on this one looks REALLY busy, it might be hard to tell where you are at times which is not great when you're in the midst of mayhem. Price: $24.99 As far as I know, this is how the postal system works in New Zealand. You play as two little kiwi birds working together in a post office, pulling levers and pressing buttons to get mail to where it needs to go. What separates this from games like Overcooked is the additional platforming element. Since your characters don't have hands, part of your functions involve butt slamming on buttons and also jumping to reach things. So the developers designed levels around this, with platforms and hazards, so it's a bit more active in that regard rather than a game where you are just walking from one counter to another. I think this could be quite special if it finds the right audience (I'm sure it will be popular with streamers). Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1242980/KeyWe/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_4  Soul Nomad & the World Eaters (August 31st) Genre: SRPG For People Who Like: Nippon Ichi games, PS2 SRPGs Potential Issues: Port quality After bringing Phantom Brave to PC, NISA is continuing to bring PS2 games over (will La Pucelle Tactics be in the future?). I don't really know anything about this game, I just know that it looks like one of those Disgaea games and it's by NIS, so.. there'll probably be six fans clamoring for this one. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1535610/Soul_Nomad__the_World_Eaters/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_4  Lamentum (August 31st) Genre: Survival Horror For People Who Like: Resident Evil, The Count Lucanor Potential Issues: Combat could be cumbersome, but that would just make it all the more genre-appropriate Price: $14.99 (subject to change) There are two major indie ResiEvils coming out this year; one is the extremely slick Signalis coming from publisher Humble Games. This one comes from smaller publisher Neon Doctrine who has published games like Yuppie Psycho and The Count Lucanor and this definitely fits in that same wheelhouse, but with even more of a tilt towards classic survival horror action. The art isn't to my personal taste, but this seems to have everything you'd want in a Resident Evil clone: a large mansion, esoteric puzzles, mechanisms that need multiple talismans placed in them, awkward item combining, weird creature designs, and... okay there aren't tank controls. But that would be weird for a top-down game, so be fair. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1033950/Lamentum/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_4  Ambition: A Minuet in Power (August TBD) Genre: CYOA/Visual Novel For People Who Like: Long Live the Queen Potential Issues: If it's as difficult as Long Live the Queen you might never get to the end; art style is so-so It's been a hot minute (minuet) since Long Live the Queen was the first VN that came to mind when talking about Steam's catalog; the notoriously difficult stat-based CYOA where a bunch of decisions and stat boosts would not seem important until long after it's too late to do anything about it (many people just couldn't help themselves to that poisoned chocolate). Here comes a similar game of stat raising, diplomacy, and avoiding bad ends. You are a commoner rising in power right at the brink of the French revolution, and you'll be trading in gossip, strategically dating, make political decisions that affect the story and pretty much try not to die. Note that this game got delayed from June to August and then still doesn't have a specific release date, which is why it's at the bottom here. Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/949200/Ambition_A_Minuet_in_Power/?snr=1_7_7_popularcomingsoon_150_2 ---- This month will also feature Aliens: Fireteam Elite and Amazon's New World MMO, but.... I dunno about actually repping them here. For starters, no one wants Fireteam Elite, we want Isolation 2. Also, who gives a gently caress about Amazon's game. There are also a couple of other games being freed from Epic Game Store jail this month: Humankind (a civvy), The Cycle (F2P PvPvE shooter), and Mortal Shell (a souls-like). Now, one weird thing about indie devs is that they will put games in specific months of the release queue on Steam either because they do intend to release in that month or because they once planned to, and then forgot to move it. So I have a lot of games below that are shown in the August queue on Steam, but none of them specifically list August as a release date. So it is possible they will move out of August, or very much will release in August and will get a release date soon (Lamentum literally announced their release date as I was away from the computer): System Shock - The remake from Nightdive, gone through a bit of a development hell... I doubt this will come out in August but we'll see. Carrier Command 2 - The return of Microprose.... currently seems to be sandwiched between a bunch of August 10th releases. Garden Story - A combination of life sim and ARPG where you go from town to town fighting off The Rot. Sandwiched between a bunch of August 11th releases. Dread Templar - Another retro shooter, this one gives you a sword to go along with the guns. I thought the demo was alright. Land of Screens - A 2.5D narrative game about a woman who ditches social media and tries to establish in-person connections with people. Developed by Serenity Forge (Neversong, The King's Bird). Beacon Pines - Furry Stranger Things, with a unique storytelling gimmick where you gain words that you can place inside of the sentences that narrate the story and change the branch you're on. The game does claim to target September on the Kickstarter, so while it may miss August it's not too far off. Really liked the demo of this one. Final Fantasy IV - This is the pixel remaster of FF4 which is currently in the queue for August 19th but does not have an official release date confirmed by Square yet. Arietta of Spirits - A melancholy Zelda-like about a girl that discovers the ghost of her grandmother and starts seeing spirits around the island the family has gone to visit. Moncage - A cool little 3D puzzler where you transport objects from one dimension to another. Each face of the cube represents a different world. The developer says that development is complete but also that it will release "by the end of 2021" so... probably not coming out in August. Alchemic Cutie - An extremely vibrant life sim, this one is in the August queue, but the developers specifically mentioned September as the target window. Midnight Fight Express - An isometric brawler that looks cool as poo poo. Has a mission in it where you go into the No Russian level from COD:MW2 and stop it from happening, which rules, gently caress you Activision. Behind the Frame - Is an escape room an escape room if you don't intend on escaping? This is a chill one-room puzzle game about a painter with gorgeous art direction. Update: Confirmed for August 25th OPUS: Echo of Starsong - The OPUS series of narrative sci-fi puzzle games have been more popular on Switch, but they've been ambling along on Steam all the while. This is the latest one, and it looks to be the biggest yet with actual 3D mixed in with the 2D elements. Queued for August 25th. Murder Mystery Machine - This one's been in a quasi-state of Early Access via Apple Arcade for a year; it has a slick look for an investigation/detective game, although I found that the game was not willing to take the training wheels off and let you actually do any detective work yourself. You're just sort of clicking around to find the clues and then you move on to the next location, and there's a pinboard style deduction process but it was pretty basic. We'll see if more has been done to the gameplay since I played it. Myst Remake - This is not RealMYST but a -new- remake that will also support VR headsets. Personally I think Cyan needs to stop milking this cow and release another game, now that Obduction has dried on the line for a few years. Outworlder - This is basically the Spacebound-but-good game that goons have been working on for a while now. If you didn't intend on releasing in August, folks, consider this an opportunity to fix that! Patrick's Parabox - A recursive puzzle game about levels inside of levels. Compared to the platforming of similar entry Recursed, this one is a Sokoban style game, but looks to be a bit more fixed than brain (and universe) destroying. Steel Assault - The latest 2D action game published by Tribute (Mercenary Kings, Panzer Paladin). It looks great but I wasn't a huge fan of the level design in the demo. Other games in the August queue: Sam & Max VR, Atomic Heart (lol no), Trepang2, Soup Pot, Ultra Strangeness, One Dreamer The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Jul 29, 2021 |
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Jul 29, 2021 04:12
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Clockwerk posted:7th Guest, thank you for your service The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Jul 29, 2021 |
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Jul 29, 2021 06:26
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Isomermaid posted:7thGuest, do you have a Steam Curator Page?
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Jul 29, 2021 16:11
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Armauk posted:Great list. Thanks for compiling. nordichammer posted:I very much appreciate the large effort post as well Made me realize that the average launch price for an indie game has risen to $25 but that doesn't really surprise me, given the times and general inflation. There are still a few $15 and $20 games on the list, though.
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Jul 29, 2021 18:22
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Donnerberg posted:Indie games going up in price, and it being accepted by the audience, is a good thing for the future of indie games. It'll be easier to clear the bar for surviving as an indie dev without being the big zeitgeist game of the month. I didn't include Haven Park on the list because I can't fully vouch for it being a great game but it was a cute game when I tried the demo, and it comes out next week, for anyone that wants a smaller Short Hike type experience (not the same type of game but that type of vibe and scale): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1549550/Haven_Park/
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Jul 29, 2021 18:41
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News from the Annapurna Showcase: Release dates/windows confirmed.... The Artful Escape: September 9th (will be on Gamepass) - This is a story game that looks a teensy bit pretentious but has a gorgeous game world Neon White: Winter 2021 - A fast speed game and shooter where you get cards that function as guns, until you discard them and use their secondary function (like double jump, butt stomp, etc). By Ben Esposito (Donut County), also has VN segments and side quests. Solar Ash: October 26th - The latest game from the Hyper Light Drifter developer which combines third person action, platforming and parkour will be an Epic exclusive, sorry folks The Pathless - Steam release on November 16th, finally leaving Epic Game Store jail. This is a BOTW-ish game where you are an archer helping the spirit world. A lot of emphasis on building up speed by auto-locking on targets and shooting them as you move. Stray: Early 2022 - This is the cyberpunk game where you are a cat and solve puzzles as cat, and explore as cat. New game announcements: A Memoir Blue (Cloisters) (on Gamepass) - "A Memoir Blue is an atmospheric journey through the memories of Miriam: a champion swimmer, who on the day of her greatest success dwells on her childhood memories of her mother and a special trip they took." A story game that mixes real-time 3D with hand-drawn animation. Storyteller (Daniel Benmergui, creator of Fidel Dungeon Rescue) (Demo available) - A game in which you are given a story to tell, and drag and drop characters and story elements into panels in order to tell the story. While there are objectives, you can tell the story a bunch of different ways. Untitled Outer Loop (Falcon Age) game - Looks to be a story-based skateboarding game but all I could tell was what I saw on computer monitors during talking head segments. Untitled Jessika Mak (SoundShapes) game - Looks to be another music game, seems to be a combination of runner and action with switching perspectives. Untitled Ivy Road game - Ivy Road is a new studio by the creators of Gone Home and the Stanley Parable, no real details on the game. Untitled No Code (Observation, Stories Untold) game - The dev claims they never set out to make horror games with Stories Untold or Observation, but this time it will be intentional from the start. finally.. THE OUTER WILDS EXPANSION ANNOUNCED!! Echoes of the Eye, releases September 28th The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jul 29, 2021 |
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Jul 29, 2021 20:33
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Mr Underhill posted:Humbly announcing the game we've been working on in semi-secrecy for the past year and a half. If it looks like something you'd be into, wishlists are super-appreciated ☺ e: oh neat it's got a bit of extra rpg and customization elements to it, reminding me of quest for glory and unavowed
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Jul 29, 2021 22:23
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Mr Underhill posted:Thanks! Yeah, this time around we're also shooting ourselves in the foot one extra by having custom itemized outfits that also need to be animated frame by frame 😅 Especially if you have to do more specific animation of, like, climbing a ladder and grabbing a thing off a shelf... can't imagine having to do that like 30 more times lol
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Jul 29, 2021 22:29
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Oh you'll learn the story, and you'll learn just how much tech bros suck
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Jul 30, 2021 04:07
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SkateBIRD's been delayed to September 16th, but on the flip side they announced it will be on gamepass
The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jul 30, 2021 |
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Jul 30, 2021 16:08
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I saw a ResetEra thread on indies in August and I missed a few, here are some more (this will not be a detailed post like the other one btw) The Ramp (Aug 3) - A digital toy for skateboard fans (ie not a game with scoring/objectives)  Dreamscaper (Aug 5, Full Release, Likely $29.99) - I guess I forgot about this one because I don't personally care for roguelites but I remember people really liked the prologue demo a year ago.  Foreclosed (Aug 12, $19.99) - Stylish mix of action and comic book presentation and yes, it's more cyberpunk, this trend is not dying anytime soon.   Tetragon (Aug 12, $14.99) - One of those world rotatey puzzle games  The Plane Effect (Aug 12, $14.99) - One of those surreal dream logic story/puzzle games The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jul 30, 2021 |
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Jul 30, 2021 16:23
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Just wanted to post a few more little capsule reviews of stuff I played in July. I'd already done this for a lot of the games I played on vacation so here's some of what I played after the vacation (full list in steam anonymous thread): Wildfire Released: May 2020 Price: $15 demo available While my perpetual wait for Mark of the Ninja 2 continues, I keep hoping another game will hit that itch. Wildfire doesn't hit it entirely, but I think it's still a very fun 2D stealth game. Obviously, you're not spider-manning all over the ceiling and just being a Shadow Killer, but you do have the elements of magic at your disposal. You can light fires to scare people, put yourself in an aqua bubble to float into the air, grow vines on walls to climb, and several other options. For each main objective and side objective you accomplish, you get upgrade points to put towards your elements to unlock more abilities. This includes optional don't get discovered, nonlethal, and beat-the-clock objectives. The fire effect is pretty cool (not on the level of Noita's physics sandbox or anything but it looks neat), but I can't give the ultimate grade on stealth games because I'm so bad at them. I think the levels are pretty well designed even though I hosed up on a bunch of them and kept having to run from enemies. .gif?t=1627917632) Sizeable Released: March 2021 MSRP: $10 In the genre of "3D puzzles that take place in the void", Sizeable's gimmick is being able to shrink or grow items in the scene, which often have a causal relationship to other items or the scene in general (for example, changing the size of the sun changes the seasons in one level, which causes the items on the stage to completely change or appear/disappear). You basically solve 3 puzzles in each diorama -- with an optional bonus hidden item -- before moving on to the next stage. I thought it was fun, the nature of these games is that they're never going to blow you away, they're just something you can play while listening to a podcast and relaxing. The game apparently is getting free content updates, as it currently has 30 levels but will be getting at least 3 new worlds and 4 additional mini-updates in the future.  Cozy Grove Released: April 2021 MSRP: $15 So, I put 150 hours into Animal Crossing New Horizons and thought, that was pretty fun, I liked the additions they made this time around. Apparently people who put 5000 hours into Animal Crossing disagree and think the game sucks because it doesn't have 5000 hours' worth of content, which like.. hey just play other games folks. Anyway, life sims are big now but most of them go after the Stardrew formula, not as many games go straight for Animal Crossing. The two most notable this year are Hokko Life and Cozy Grove. The game has a really cute art style, and the content is pre-determined: everyone has the same villagers, the same main quests, etc. What changes every day are the random determinations of whether a villager will have a side quest, a personal story quest, or... nothing. And boy oh boy is the nothing annoying. Actually, I could burn up enough energy to keep the sun from dying in a couple billion years just talking about my frustrations with this game. AC:NH, for its flaws, is very well-tuned to allow you to get a ton accomplished in a day, and for you to be able to set out to achieve a goal in a session and be able to achieve it or come close. Cozy Grove apparently thought that was the worst aspect of AC:NH, as it is tuned purely for hardcore grinders. If you look at discussions of the game, almost all of them boil down to "don't have enough X for the farmer's quest? Well you should've been planting 10 trees a day every day for 50 days and harvesting all of them every time they recharge!" Which, btw, they take 36 real-time hours to recharge, unless that's changed. Now apply this to... everything, whether it's wood, ore, livestock. Everything is a fetch quest that will take you forever if you haven't been grinding, and the only way out.. is to grind. Who is this for??? It's not for kids, even though it has a cute art style, as kids will not be able to accomplish anything other than doing the same repetitive side quests day in and day out. There are characters that talk about dying of cancer and one person is a redpilled conspiracy theorist. It's not even for the kind of casual playing adult that played AC:NH to get through the quarantine times, because like.. if you want to craft stuff, the required resources for them are loving insane, so any plan you have to decorate will take several real-time days. You can't craft previous versions of tools once you upgrade them so if you don't have resources to repair them (because yes there's durability), tough luck fucker!! I guess this isn't a capsule review but I just can't recommend people play this. Play something that better respects your time. Or just play Animal Crossing.  Draugen Released: May 2019 MSRP: $20 Ragnar Tornquist, besides being a cool name, was the writer of The Longest Journey, Dreamfall, and the Secret World, so when a new game of his comes out I have to at least give it a look. I shouldn't have memory holed Dreamfall Chapters though, because I forgot that sometimes his writing can... suck. This is a walking simulator where you are investigating and island where everyone has seemingly gone missing or dead, and uncovering the mystery. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, the game decides that it's just as important to show off a completely uninteresting twist about the main character that is, quite frankly, one you have seen in many other games in the genre. It needs to stop, honestly. Just give me a neat mysterious town to explore and interact with, I don't care about your clever "ACTUALLY, IT TURNS OUT....!!" pivots.  Tiny Lands Released: January 2021 MSRP: $7 Spot the Differences isn't just for magazines at the dentist office lobby anymore! Here's a 3D spot the differences game where you are given a double view of a panorama, and have to click on the differences to move on. Each difference you spot gives you a star (out of 5 per level) which you need to unlock the other worlds. Very good stuff if you like this kind of pointless activity. A lot of levels too. I kind of wish the panoramas had animation, but I also understand why it makes more sense for a Spot the Difference game to not have motion in it. That said, some of the differences went beyond hard to spot and felt.. I dunno, just weird. Like an instance of an object being SLIGHTLY bigger on the right than the left, but it's hard to tell when you're swiveling the panorama around.  Even the Ocean Released: November 2016 MSRP: $15 It may seem like Anodyne 2 came out of the ether but the developers of Anodyne made another game... actually a couple other games, and I don't just mean Anodyne 1. Even the Ocean is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer that has the kind of warm palette and aesthetic you would expect from Anodyne 2 but with a bit of simpler gameplay that you might expect from the dev's earlier era. You are tasked with restoring the functionality of power plants, and each one has a different puzzle gimmick to them. In addition there's a lot of story and character building, although at times it's a bit ham-fisted. Let's just say the game is an INCREDIBLY UNSUBTLE METAPHOR for something. I liked it, allegory aside, although there's something that feels just a tiny bit off about the art and the game speed, I dunno.  Sensorium Released: August 2020 MSRP: $10 A first person puzzle game that would fit next to stuff like Talos Principle or Antichamber, although the scope and budget are obviously a lot smaller and there's not so much brain-warping physics going on. Each area of the world is based on a sense (sight, sound, smell, etc) and the puzzles for each area are themed around that sense. Some are memorization based, some are pattern based, some are good ol' block pushin. A decent game to find on sale.  Voxelgram Released: November 2019 MSRP: $10 demo available 3D Picross is my favorite puzzle game of all time, so where does a 3d Picross clone rank? Honestly it ranks pretty well... among indie puzzle games, anyway. I would never play Voxelgram 2 over 3D Picross Round 3, but I'd happily play both. The main thing that separates the two is that the control scheme of the 3/DS Picross series was perfect and this game is only ideal on mouse & keyboard (although this makes me realize that Switch 3D Picross is probably not going to be very fun to control). Also, no animations for the solved puzzles, and the music in 3D Picross is a lot better. That said, there's a lot of content here, and over 1000 player-made puzzles in the Workshop. A perfect game to unwind to.  Willy Jetman Released: January 2020 MSRP: $15 demo available Side-scrolling action platformer where you have a jetpack and guns, and you go from level to level laying waste to the alien ecology, recycling trash to get money for weapon upgrades, and lots of little tucked away secrets. I'm a sucker for jetpack games, especially ones where you jetpack around shooting at an enemy mob... Hero Core is one of my favorite Metroidvanias after all. This is not a Metroidvania regardless of what the dev or Steam tags claim, but the levels do have a lot of little secrets tucked away if you want to poke around at walls, blow up rocks, etc. The game also has a pretty sharp difficulty curve, as enemies start doing more and more damage to you in a hurry, so it actually behooves you to find the secrets in order to upgrade your stats. A decent game all in all, trying to go for an 'old school' compy feeling, doesn't quite get there but I enjoyed it.  The Touryst Released: November 2019 MSRP: $20 not available on Steam So, this is something I only learned today which is that The Touryst is not actually available on Steam, for some reason. Only the Microsoft Store. C'mon Shinen. The Touryst is Shinen's non-violent take on something like StarTropics, where you go from island to island opening up monuments, exploring them and fighting bosses. The cubey aesthetic could've felt derivative and ugly but it ends up looking very nice and sharp. The game is not quite a Metroidvania but you can buy new abilities as time goes on like the double jump and sprint, which are required for later levels, and also finding scroll pieces. There are something like 10 different islands, each with their own quests and characters. One interesting thing is that sidequests are required to complete the game, although it's just a set amount of them, so you can choose which ones you want to fulfill. That could've been annoying but because it's not specific in what quests you need to do, I thought that was okay... I didn't feel like I was forced to do a quest I didn't like just to complete the game.  Genesis Noir Released: March 2021 MSRP: $15 A saxophone player creates The Big Bang when he tries to shoot his ex-girlfriend in an act of revenge, and you are trying to stop it from happening. Genesis Noir easily wins the Style Award for this year, with highly imaginative design and animation, and a jazzy soundtrack. But, for me, it also wins Most Disappointing Game of the Year award, because it doesn't do anything interesting with the premise or gameplay outside of a couple of great (but too short) segments. Actually, some of the gameplay segments seemed so basic as to be insulting. You have a cosmic game where you aren't constrained by almost any rule, and your puzzle design is... connect the dots puzzles, switching colors puzzles, put a broken thing together puzzles? Really?? There are basic puzzle types that I can accept in stuff like escape room games (for example, Tiny Room Mysteries which I also played this month), but not in a game that is supposed to be inventive and high concept. The game is also bug-prone, and I ended up softlocked in one chapter and had to restart the whole chapter over again (no mid-chapter saves, coooool). Finishing Up  Octopath Traveler Released: June 2019 MSRP: $60 Solid B JRPG from some people that briefly looked at Bravely Default. It's not an overly ambitious game, as a lot of dungeons look exactly the same, there's plenty of palette swap enemies, and the chapters have a very formulaic feel to them. But in the same way that Dragon Quest is a milk-before-bed game, I feel that Octopath has that same quality. You can do a chapter in a night before bed if you want, where you get all the components of a little mini-story... a character comes to town, witnesses a conflict, gets involved, has a bit of personal growth, there's rising action and climax and a big boss to fight. I understand that people were frustrated that characters don't interact with each other outside of Tales-esque little skits, but that did not bother me personally. What does bother me are two things: Number one is the bench situation. Characters on the bench don't receive XP, and as I'm going through chapter 4 now, only three of my characters are hitting level 50, while two are in the mid-to-upper 30s, and the others are in the 20s. Which means that even though I've briskly gone through the game so far (34-ish hours with 5 characters remaining in chapter 4), I'm going to now have to go into optional dungeons and grind. And this didn't have to happen; all they had to do was make bench characters gain XP too, and it would've been fine. But then I guess you don't get the incremental job skill upgrading and so they didn't want that to happen?? I dunno. I just don't like it. Because the final act of the game requires you to use all of your characters, so they all have to get good in a hurry. Number two is... this is simultaneously the most saturday morning cartoon RPG Square has made, and the most cynical. One lesson that Alfyn learns in chapter 3 is that, don't heal just anyone you find because they might turn out to be bad!! So just.. let them bleed out I guess?? Also, the game constantly has characters saying "I've been hurt in the past but I just need to believe in people", but then you are constantly betrayed in almost every chapter. Most chapters, you'll meet someone and befriend them, then they turn out evil. It's universal across all the characters and just becomes really silly after a while. The betrayal Primrose encounters in chapter 3 is so ridiculous it becomes comedy. I think Olberic and Therion are the only two where they get the betrayal out of the way in flashbacks so that their narratives can be about rehabilitation/recovery. But I haven't finished Therion's story yet so maybe there's a last little betrayal there too. I can't wait!! The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Aug 2, 2021 |
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Aug 2, 2021 19:21
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deep dish peat moss posted:Hot take I know but I'm beginning to see the benefit of EGS when every time I look at the Steam storefront or recommendations I just see stuff like this The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Aug 3, 2021 |
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Aug 3, 2021 02:50
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two games I mentioned in my august game megapost will be added to Gamepass later this week: Dodgeball Academia and Starmancer recommendation for dodgeball academia based on my time with the demo is don't feel like you need to just get into every battle you can or you'll burn yourself out quick, especially because generic battles and side quest battles don't have some of the gimmicks that main quest battles do starmancer is early access and published by chucklefish so..... good luck
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Aug 3, 2021 16:14
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a couple of release date updates: Christine Love's next game Get in the Car Loser (a lesbian road-trip RPG) releases in September F.I.S.T. releases September 7th Garden Story and Arietta of Spirits will be announcing specific release dates soon they also put up a cute little video for garden story showing hats because all pc games are required to have them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXamfn3KtU0
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Aug 4, 2021 02:00
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it's disingenuous to say horror as a genre didn't exist prior to amnesia (i mean, penumbra existed before amnesia already!!) because of titles' nicheness or whatever alone in the dark was a hugely influential game even if it plays like rear end now. there was also the game sweet home on NES that kickstarted the whole survival horror genre. adventure games like the colonel's bequest, sanitarium and dark seed, horror themed shooters like realms of the haunting The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Aug 4, 2021 |
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Aug 4, 2021 02:22
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it's fine to say you personally didn't think of it that way, it's just weird to gatekeep and go "well that one doesn't count because X"
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Aug 4, 2021 02:29
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couple more indie august news: Ambition: A Minuet in Power has an official release date of August 18th Monster Harvest (the combination of farming and pokemon game I mentioned in my August megapost) got a slight delay to august 31st also not an indie, but it looks like the pc port of Bubble Bobble 4 Friends is coming around August 26-27th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1287030/Bubble_Bobble_4_Friends_The_Baron_is_Back/ and Amazon's New World got delayed AGAIN, this time to September 28th. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Aug 4, 2021 |
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Aug 4, 2021 22:11
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Indie game release date updates: Arietta of Spirits releases August 20th Webbed releases September 9th Garden Story is still in the Steam queue for August 11th, they've started streaming the first 30 minutes 24/7 on the Steam page so I would assume that even if it doesn't release this week, it will release very soon Dread Templar will be releasing in Early Access on August 14th as part of the Realms Deep event (a retro FPS E3-type showcase)
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Aug 9, 2021 16:07
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Det_no posted:The game Deiland was removed from the store a couple of days ago because they are putting out a new version under a new publisher. The publisher change means they can't automatically upgrade people to the new version but if you own the old one and fill in the form listed in the game's news post, you can get the new game for free.
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Aug 10, 2021 16:45
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Some major indie game updates, courtesy of Nintendo's Indie World presentation: Axiom Verge 2 releases today (will be on EGS and Switch to start)  Boyfriend Dungeon releases today  Garden Story releases today  Necrobarista Directors Cut out today  Eastward releases September 16th  FAR: Changing Tides releases early 2022  Bomb Rush Cyberfunk releases in 2022  TOEM's release window confirmed for Fall  Metal Slug Tactics releases in 2022 :quality(80)/f/93161/1920x1080/592188197e/skpocketdungeon_002.png) Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon announced. A combination of dungeon crawler and Tetris puzzler. Releases this holiday, developed by Vine. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Aug 11, 2021 |
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Aug 11, 2021 17:14
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addendum: Boyfriend Dungeon is also launching on Gamepass today some launch prices: Boyfriend Dungeon - $20 Garden Story - $20 Glitchpunk - $20 Library of Ruina (out of Early Access) - $30 Black Book - $25
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Aug 11, 2021 18:09
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Det_no posted:Anyone spring for Glitchpunk? I was looking forward to modern GTA 2 but it's getting some rough reviews. It seems to only include 1 of 4 cities planned for release too so that's slim pickings even for early access.
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Aug 12, 2021 07:09
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time to suffer again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1vhzJUdnaE
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Aug 12, 2021 16:04
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i'm a fan of garden story i would say it's somewhere inbetween zelda and stardew valley. it doesn't lean too hard in either direction, so you're not farming in this game, and you're also not going through 3 floor mega dungeons getting new tools either. it's a cozy game in a given day you're given random requests from the town you're in (I won't even call these sidequests as they're more just errands), doing them levels the town up in three different categories, which can open up shops, allow for upgraded tools to be sold, etc. if you die the only penalty is the day ends early and you lose 15% of your money. outside of the daily requests there are no deadlines, just do stuff at your own pace much like animal crossing the game meters out to you what you can do little bit by little bit. the first day you're just walkin' around. the second day you get a weapon to defend yourself, then you get a shield, then you start taking on requests, then you can upgrade your existing weapon, buy a hammer, then as you fulfill story quests you open up a town library which functions as the museum of the game (donate one of each resource to unlock books) i'm 2 hours in and i've made it over to the second town, but i'm also not done with the first town yet.. so i'm not sure if I will be making a full rotation through each town or if it will be kind of a back and forth thing, I'm assuming it's the latter. each town has their own troubles and you're gonna be helping them out, upgrading your tools, doing favors for people (favors are the actual sidequests in the game), going into small dungeons and fighting a boss, get the game's equivalent of a heart container that ups your max health and stamina and then move on to the next objective as far as combat goes it's just sort of basic zelda with a dodge roll. it doesn't reinvent the wheel and it's a cutegame so it's not going to try to be a platinumgame or whatever. it's just functional enough to get the job done. the same weapon and damage numbers also apply to the various resources to collect, so you swing at stumps to break 'em into twigs and sap for example. i just got a dowsing rod in the second town which functions as like a fishing rod for resources -- you cast it, then repeat a series of inputs, to pull up an item from the ocean floor. the second town is ocean-heavy and flooded so it seems like a lot of the progression in this town will involve using the rod i think i can't give it an actual grade yet until i've been to every town yet and i've seen sort of what the full unlock structure is. bear in mind i'm coming over from Fantasian where they were like "hey by the way your character has a skill tree now" in the final hour of the first half and then it ends, lol. i've heard garden story has town building stuff but it unlocks late in the main game, so another instance of "hey maybe give this to me earlier", but since i have been enjoying the progression so far, i haven't seen a need to complain yet. but it is definitely not a non-linear game.. you have general goals to work towards to unlock the next bit of story, whether it's raising the town level, fixing a bridge, powering up a library, etc. it's generally moving you forward at all times. so another reason why it doesn't lean too hard into the Stardew category... you are playing through a story first and foremost but you're playing through it at a casual pace e: a note to people playing on switch, you'll notice the game has a black border around it, it seems that's an intentional bezel. so if you're playing on a switch, you basically get bezel+ e: e: oh also the game has an interesting perk system. there are achievements in game which aren't Steam achievements, and they unlock photos in your photo album. when you're on your bed you can assign these photos to slots, and each photo has its own perk (like stat buffs, or increased chance to find rarer resources, etc) The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 20:40
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https://www.humblebundle.com/games/jackbox-party-2021 $20 for Jackbox Party Pack 1 Jackbox Party Pack 2 Jackbox Party Pack 3 Jackbox Party Pack 4 Jackbox Party Pack 5 Jackbox Party Pack 6 40% off coupon for Jackbox Party Pack 7 Drawful 2 Fibbage XL The entire You Don't Know Jack Collection to say this is a good bundle is an understatement. you will never have a quiet night with friends again
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Aug 13, 2021 20:59
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big week of cool games: Tetris Effect: Connected 12 Minutes Mortal Shell Recompile Road 96 Greak Humankind Ambition: A Minuet in Power Arietta of Spirits and of course Zool Remastered  (will the chupa chips still be there....)
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Aug 15, 2021 20:42
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I mean a story outline is not a hugely significant thing to type up for a game. I'm sure a lot of devs have such ideas for what they'd do if their games were a long-running franchise. It doesn't mean every game will end in a 'to be continued'. Just Yu Suzuki's games. like I'm sure Iga has a bunch of concepts/ideas he's already written down for future Bloodstained games. and Remedy's probably got a ton of different pitch ideas for the Control universe
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Aug 16, 2021 15:04
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feels like a lot of boomer shooters are riding the early access train this year - Viscerafest - Graven - Project Warlock 2 (soon) - Dread Templar - Prodeus - White Hell - KUR - Forgive me Father (October) that event dedicated to boomer shooters was just nonstop early access teases and no release dates given :|
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Aug 17, 2021 19:25
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Hwurmp posted:boomers don't deserve to have nice things named after them
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Aug 17, 2021 19:47
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i'll do a proper september releases post when we get closer to the end of the month, but there have been some updated release dates Webbed will release September 9th Kraken Academy will release September 10th Flynn Son of Crimson will release September 15th Astria Ascending will release September 30th we know that Sable, Aragami 2, and Lost in Random (via EA Play) will be on Gamepass in September.. I also want to predict a couple. Flynn: Son of Crimson is a Humble Game, and most of their recent lineup (Dodgeball Academia, Project Wingman, Prodeus, Wild at Heart, Carto, Ikenfell) is on Gamepass. So I feel like that's a possibility. Another is Astria Ascending, which is a JRPG published by Dear Villagers. Another Dear Villagers JRPG, Edge of Eternity, is already scheduled to be on Gamepass when it comes out of Early Access, and based on having games like Ikenfell, Battle Chasers, Octopath, DQ XI, the Final Fantasy series, etc. it seems like Microsoft is willing to get as many JRPGs on the service as they can. I don't know a whole ton about Astria Ascending other than it being written by the head writer of Final Fantasy X, and it's trying to go for a Vanillaware side-scrolling cut-out illustration art style:  It claims to have team members from Bravely Default & Nier Automata as well, and the music is by the FF12/Vagrant Story composer. So I dunno. Could be decent? I hope it's better than Fantasian's second half turned out to be 
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Aug 17, 2021 20:33
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as a quick 12 Minutes protip, you can fast forward time by laying down on the bed, and the pause menu shows the current time
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Aug 19, 2021 18:29
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you can stab your wife in 12 Minutes  the game does not hold back on the things it will let you do just from loving around. it reminds me a little of one-sentence parser IFs but obviously nowhere near as loose/unrestricted as those because there's a fixed amount of objects and interactions here and you're limited to, well, household items
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Aug 19, 2021 19:06
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12 minutes is cool, not sure how to reach an ending though. spoiler territory i've been able to betray the wife, and i've also been able to shoot bald gently caress, but neither resulted in an ending, just making it to the end of the loop alive and resetting. I even thought that hiding the gun in the vents was going to be important and then the loop just ended up resetting and it didn't matter. But the fact that you can do it SEEMS like it's important?
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Aug 19, 2021 20:48
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i've finally found the "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it" of video game remasters https://store.steampowered.com/app/1550260/BloodRayne_Betrayal_Fresh_Bites/
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Aug 20, 2021 04:11
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Broken Cog posted:Help step sis, I'm stuck in a time loop! I guess I have to wait a few months before more people have played it to really talk about it but i think it makes for interesting conversation, the idea of whether it's worth sacrificing an interesting story to have an interesting mystery. i mean, probably not? but video games as a medium are experienced in such a different way than other story media that unpacking the mystery in real time can be worth more than the actual intellectual merit of what's being told. I feel like the Ace Attorney games demonstrate this to an absurd degree. it's just that this really is a case of it. i think you could end the game a half hour earlier and have a better story but then you don't have all the pieces put together. but by putting the pieces together you realize the picture you assembled is kind of ugly e: also as someone mentioned in the GB thread, the whole thing feels kind of pointless. why was the protag caught in a time loop over this, what do we take away from this, other than shock value? that's the problem when you build around a twist mystery (or twistery) rather than go into the game having something you want to say The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Aug 20, 2021 |
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Aug 20, 2021 06:59
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exquisite tea posted:Even beyond the story in 12 Minutes being incredibly dumb, I feel like it didn't really deliver on its premise of providing this interactive environment with many permutations of how everything could happen. It's really more of a timed puzzle game where you're intended to perform things in a linear sequence until you figure out what action at the very end is going to advance the narrative. This makes the later loops very tedious as you've replayed the opening dozens of times at that point. I'm putting this one at #18 on my 2021 list (out of 20 2021 games i've beaten/played). it ranks just above Fantasian and Tiny Room Stories. despite the repetition it's nowhere near as frustrating as Fantasian was, and despite the bad decisions made with the story, at least they were intentional and delivered well by the voice cast, so I won't put it at the bottom of the list (I can't stress enough how dry the localization for Fantasian was and how the characterization is so thin that you'd think Final Fantasy 1 characters wound up in Final Fantasy 9). it's just another highly disappointing game after the long wait, like Genesis Noir was. there's a decent amount of flexibility to the interactions at the beginning, but because of the small set, you run out of fun experimentation halfway through, and it's not exactly a long game. and the jank that comes from adventure game coding. my list currently: 1) Unbeatable [White Label] 2) Famicom Detective Club 3) Dodgeball Academia 4) Garden Story 5) Binky's Trash Service 6) Dread X: The Hunt 7) Sizeable 8) Record of Lodoss War 9) Haven Park 10) Omno 11) Scarlet Nexus 12) Annalynn 13) Cozy Grove 14) Pear Potion 15) Tiny Lands 16) Genesis Noir 17) Death off the Cuff 18) 12 Minutes 19) Fantasian 20) Tiny Room Stories Still to play from what I have: Recompile (just started and highly enjoying, but not for everyone), Cris Tales, The Ascent, Outriders, Last Stop, The Wild at Heart The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Aug 20, 2021 |
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Aug 20, 2021 08:05
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