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ZearothK posted:It isn't? What the Christfuck. i didn't see anyone give a great answer here but it's because "deckbuilder" in board game spaces refers to games where building a deck is the actual activity you do within the game itself, rather than a metagame one where you build a deck to bring to the game. you'll usually see games like Magic, Netrunner, Flesh and Blood, etc., referred to as "deck construction" instead to more directly separate them from games like Dominion (or Slay the Spire, to use the original example) where you build a deck as you play.
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Feb 11, 2023 19:59
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Playing some of the more popular demos now: Radio the Universe It's not a question of whether Radio the Universe is a quality game, but whether it will actually get finished. This is the first time the public has gotten to play a piece of the game, and its Kickstarter was ten years ago. I'd say a demo is a positive sign of development progression, but what state is the game in? Is the game 75% complete or 25% complete? Will we have to wait another 5 years? I just don't know. The game plays similarly to something like Hyper Light Drifter, in a world that looks like the future era of Chrono Trigger if things got even more hosed. There's a cutscene that leans hard in a similar direction that Signalis went in, although this leans more abstract, while Signalis, despite its dreamlike detachment of consciousness/narrator, had more grounding. It's good, it's just. Where are we at with this? Can maybe a publisher come on board and help give funding to possibly get the game out sooner than later?  The Last Case of Benedict Fox What have I been saying, people. Sound design. SOUND DESIGN. It changes so much. Benedict Fox has a lot of ingredients that sit well together in the pot, but the sound design is the sugar, and right now, this is tasting pretty sour. You feel it most in the combat. Visually, there's feedback, and pushback, and so it should feel decent, but it doesn't, and it's because of the sound design being almost completely absent. Fights are a muted affair with some vocal grunts and muddy bips, far from the powerful kind of foley work needed to make you feel like your attacks have weight. Yeah, they could add some effect sparks and visual splatter to improve the visceral side of it, but without the sound design, it just feels like you're punching socks. The rest, I like, for the most part. It's gorgeous, the character run speed is fast like Samus, the save/fast travel points are not too far apart. They definitely took some inspiration from MercurySteam's Metroid games with the [parry->parry/attacks refill gun->aim gun and fire to finish enemy off] mechanics. I stopped at the boss since the game will be on Gamepass at launch so I can divine the rest later, but I'm curious to see what those currencies in the upper right are for. Ink must be for some sort of upgrade system because its lost on death unless you bank it at fast travel spots, so it's clearly the more important one. The double jump is really weird and maybe them calling it a double jump is misleading and will lead to frustration on people. It's less a double jump and more a ceiling grab and thrust. If there's a ceiling above you, hitting jump again causes your eldritch pal to shlorp at it and stick, and then hurl you further upward. So you can't just double jump whenever you want. It's contextual. I'll give the team at Plot Twist this, that's a unique lore justification for a person being able to jump twice. What I dont like is some of the story themes... a couple of questionable things have been said, IDK. While 2022 spared us a 12 Minutes, I still dread a game that I'm excited for turning out to be a total turkey, and this teeters on the line despite its aesthetics. We'll see how it fares in late April.  Coven Well that was delightful. A romp of a shooter in which you can consume body parts of corpses to heal health, you play a young woman falsely accused of being a witch and burned at the stake, arisen from the dead to take her revenge. You'll be axe chopping, and shotgun blasting, and there's bullet time if you want the FEAR experience of running up to a dude and turning them into mist with a double barrel. The UI is as retro as the rest of the game, and the sound design could be a little better (yes I'm gonna keep harping on this, it's important!), but the running and the violence are good fun. I will say, though, that so far the level design is... well, it's not the most exciting. Not a ton of verticality aside from one room that had spring pads, a lot of long corridors disguised as the outdoors. They're going to have to improve on that for the Early Access release. Oh, you thought, you thought a boomer shooter would just release in full? Hahahahahahaha. You'll be waiting until 2024 for this one then.  Rusted Moss Decent looking/feeling Metroidvania that you'll want to rebind the controls of when you play the demo (for some reason they put jump on LB?? even though the A button is not used???). The grapple in this game is a bit different from other grapples in that it's more of an elastic bungie material so you'll need to utilize your character's movement/momentum when hookslinging to determine your rebound and speed. The game also is gun-heavy, with a charged shot that is just a huge spray of bullets that is satisfying and just chews through boss health. I don't get the impression that this is a particularly long game, however. The full game promises "6+ bosses", and I fought 2 in the 15 minutes of demo that I played before stopping. That might put this in the "Mini-Metroidvania" category of games like Spooky Ghosts Dot Com or Gato Roboto. But it seems like it'll be a decent time if they charge $10-15 for it. Tonight I'll play Grim Guardians, Slave Zero X, and Stack Gun Heroes, and I'll have finished all of the demos I downloaded for Next Fest, maybe the first time I've ever pulled that off. I'll give the landing page another look to see if anything else seems like I might want to give it a spin, but for the most part I've had a good time already and might be ready to move back over to full game livin'. e: alright, this is the LAST BATCH i downloaded, I promise: Dynopunk, Elypse, Painter Simulator, Picayune Dreams, Planet of Lana, Troublemaker, Wandering Sword The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Feb 11, 2023 |
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Feb 11, 2023 20:09
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Volte posted:As long as this is the way it has to be, I'll keep powering forward until my muscle memory cooperates. I beat Nioh 1 so I guess I must have it in me somewhere. Yeah, I think I remember having the same reaction back in Nioh 1 and to a smaller extent starting Nioh 2. Then as I got into the flow of the game it just stopped bothering me to the point that I needed to load the game to check after seeing the video because I thought it couldn’t be right. The games are well worth the learning curve.
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Feb 11, 2023 20:36
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Countblanc posted:i didn't see anyone give a great answer here but it's because "deckbuilder" in board game spaces refers to games where building a deck is the actual activity you do within the game itself, rather than a metagame one where you build a deck to bring to the game. you'll usually see games like Magic, Netrunner, Flesh and Blood, etc., referred to as "deck construction" instead to more directly separate them from games like Dominion (or Slay the Spire, to use the original example) where you build a deck as you play. My boomer brain appreciates the proper answer, because I sure as hell expected Magic to fit in in that group.
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Feb 11, 2023 20:41
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So many games, so little time. Every time I see a city builder based in Ancient Greece, I have to stop myself and ask - is this going to be better than Zeus: Master of Olympus? And over twenty years later the answer is still a resounding no. That is mostly because Zeus is a very good game. With Builders of Greece, however, it's because it sucks. I didn't find anything different or exciting here compared to other city builders, and even when looking at the devs playing the game to see if things got better, it just looked like more of the same. Also these guys have at least three other games in development with delays that are literally just this but "what if in Egypt/China/Persia" so the odds of hard work turning this around and making it into a stellar game are slim to none.  Galaxy Highways is an action-space shooter with a wide variety of mission and sub-mission objectives that is almost bullet-hell esque in the amount of stuff that gets thrown at you, but is surprisingly forgiving in that enemies regularly drop HP so if you can survive an engagement and kill some inter-objective enemies you can usually give yourself a fighting chance. It's not really a game for me, but I was able to play pretty far through the demo and I liked it a lot and would definitely recommend it to fans of space shooters.  I am not good at fighting games and I am not good at rhythm games. Usually I can manage one or the other at least enough to gauge a title on, but God of Rock, a combination Rhythm and Fighting game, made my brain explode such that I could barely finish the tutorial. Everything about this seems phenomenally on point, so I am begging someone who can actually play God of Rock to tell the thread if it is even remotely as fun as it looks.
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Feb 11, 2023 20:52
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What has supplanted Hogwarts Legacy atop the New & Trending tab of Steam? Why only the newest release from the Sex with Hitler series developer.
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Feb 11, 2023 21:22
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Jossar posted:One last review before bed:  )I don't think I've played anything not already covered except maybe for Shape Shifter Formations which is a pretty standard survivor-like arena shooter. Go try Nova Drift or Bio-Prototype if you're hankering for crazy chained power-ups. This unfortunately don't really bring anything new to the table yet.  
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Feb 11, 2023 21:28
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Rebel Blob posted:What has supplanted Hogwarts Legacy atop the New & Trending tab of Steam? Why only the newest release from the Sex with Hitler series developer. I can't believe they're cannibalizing HogLeg's fanbase like this
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Feb 11, 2023 21:29
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fourth?ing that DROP is pretty cool, definitely on the wishlist now (e) here's a short gameplay clip, still in easy tutorial-land tho i guess lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o7V_73Nvh4 Ciaphas fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Feb 11, 2023 |
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Feb 11, 2023 22:17
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The 7th Guest posted:It's not a question of whether Radio the Universe is a quality game, but whether it will actually get finished. This is the first time the public has gotten to play a piece of the game, and its Kickstarter was ten years ago. I'd say a demo is a positive sign of development progression, but what state is the game in? Is the game 75% complete or 25% complete? Will we have to wait another 5 years? I just don't know. my impression is that the game has been nearly complete for years and the last few years have been spent on significant iteration and polishing in response to feedback from kickstarter backers who've been able to playtest it. the release of a public demo makes me hopeful it might actually be close to release at last
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Feb 11, 2023 23:34
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 DinoBlits is a cute little town/civilization build em up that tries to be simple, but in the end felt like it was sort of obscuring some of its own mechanics. There's nothing wrong with it as a game if you want to try it out for yourself though.  A lot of people have said that after diving deep into the festival, they eventually run out of demos which interest them in any way, shape or form. I have a different problem - the more time I spend here, the more I find games that even if I like them conceptually, aren't in genres I am familiar with or would ever really play. Candle Knight appears to me to be a charming little 2.5D action platformer in an abandoned castle whose unique mechanic is balancing an Ignition gauge where if you run hot you deal more damage but also take more damage as well. It feels smooth and I'm going to recommend it if you like 2.5D action platformers, but this comes with a big caveat emptor compared to something like DROP where I at least sort of knew what I was talking about before I recommended it.  City of Beats is an ARPG which seems like it should be more heavily rhythm based than it is, but honestly the dynamic soundtrack stuff doesn't seem to make that much of a difference apart from making you feel really cool as you shoot out light bullets at robots. Between the beautiful misty cyber-city, awesome music, colorful side characters (even if not fully fleshed out just yet), snarky internal monologue of the main character, and action packed gameplay I wanted to love this game. However, the dash is too short, which is very noticeable and infuriating in an ARPG like this (with no way to improve it even via metaprogression), the enemies are pretty much all boring variants on red and black robots, and the bosses aren't that much more interesting than the normal enemies apart from being major damage sponges. But even then I would still love and recommend City of Beats... if we weren't almost guaranteed to be getting Hades II's Early Access this year. This last one is possibly the most crucial reason why I can't recommend this game and also the cruelest. I realized about 2 minutes after I closed the demo that even though were a lot of individual differences, City of Beats was giving me a lot of Hades vibes and that it is never ever going to escape those comparisons. These guys slaved for nearly two years on this thing, and Supergiant announcing "oh by the way, we're making Hades II" at the end of last year has basically tanked any chance that it is ever going to get to stand on its own two feet. Maybe that's unfair, or maybe you've got room in your hearts for two games with the same feel, but I don't.
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Feb 11, 2023 23:49
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Rebel Blob posted:What has supplanted Hogwarts Legacy atop the New & Trending tab of Steam? Why only the newest release from the Sex with Hitler series developer. I don't understand this world
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Feb 12, 2023 00:10
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Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth I'm enjoying the core gameplay of this so far quite a bit, but so far it's a bit maddening how little time there is between cutscenes. I'm on chapter 8 or something. Does this ratio improve more over time? Knowing that it was a Vita game, I have a feeling that they made it bite size intentionally.
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Feb 12, 2023 00:20
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Runa posted:I can't believe they're cannibalizing HogLeg's fanbase like this The Venn Diagram of HogLeg's fans and Hitler Bunker fans is single circle at this stage.
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Feb 12, 2023 00:43
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Rebel Blob posted:What has supplanted Hogwarts Legacy atop the New & Trending tab of Steam? Why only the newest release from the Sex with Hitler series developer. Tower Tactics is at the top of my list because I have all the rest of that poo poo filtered or ignored. Tower Tactics is really good.
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Feb 12, 2023 02:02
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 Plan B: Terraform is a logistics based game about terraforming a Mars-like planet into habitability, enough of which have been produced over the last few years that if NASA had received the funding instead... Congress would probably have taken away an equivalent amount from their budget and poured it into a miniscule fraction of making a single F-22. Let's not get our hopes up here. Uh, Plan B: Terraform? Yeah sure, it's fine, whatever. Didn't personally spark joy but it seems solid enough if you really like setting up road infrastructure. I heard some people say that it's what you get if you specifically wanted a mixture of one of the other Mars terraforming games with Transport Tycoon for that reason, though you are still doing plenty of regular terraforming. It'll be out in Early Access in 4 days, if you miss it now just wait on reviews from that.  Worldless is a 2D action platformer in the most technical of senses, in that there is action which is done via a timebar as turn based combat system and there is platforming. It reminds me of a lot of flash games I saw back on all of those sites in the 2000s and 2010s, right down to being annoying to deal with your menus because the developer decided it was more "artistic" to hide them until they were unlocked as part of the in-game tutorial. Those were enjoyable, if not life-changing, and this will be too for those of you who want to try it out.  Hmm. Wantless is a Tactical RPG set in the dystopian future where you are a Transposer - a doctor who literally goes and beats up people's traumas until they're cured. Or voluntarily comatose, whatever the patient's asking for. Every action you take on a turn increases the corresponding number of actions that the enemies can take, but you get action points for eliminating enemies and the battlefield can become unstable if things escalate for too long, so you're encouraged to be tactical but decisive. Following that philosophy there's a reward ladder for pushing to try harder rooms than you normally would, but go beyond your limits and it's not worth it. There's a modular skill crafting system where you can assemble a bunch of different components together to make up the skills that you bring into runs affecting not just things like the ability itself but also the area of effect and cooldowns. I even caught a sight of some kind of PoE style skill modifier tree... I'm going to say you should probably try this out, even if I have only slightly more confidence in that statement than I did for Candle Knight. Hmm.  Zellige: The Tilemaker of Granada is really more of an art project that just sort of happens to have extra interactive elements behind it. You're a skilled tilemaker commissioned to decorate the palace of a wealthy merchant in Al-Andalus with mosaic patterns. Additionally you get to walk around the house and talk to the family/observe their collection of art pieces from around the Islamic world and maybe get a little bit of a look at Granada itself. The game is a perfectly suitable vehicle for what it promises, it's up to you how interesting you find being an interior home decorator who exclusively works in repeating pattern mosaics.  Fall of Bali looks like it's going to be some incredibly grognardy historical strategy game, but as of right now it's just a buggy piece of junk with a history textbook stapled onto all the nation descriptions. But if you want to learn about the multiple kingdoms contesting for power and dominance in 17-18th century Bali, do I have the demo for you! I'm going to try and download as many demos as I can tomorrow to keep reviewing what's available until I run out. Unfortunately there is at least one game I just have to entirely judge blind just to bring it to people's notice because it is currently a 2 player game (although with plans to expand to 1-4), but didn't have a stream going the way King of the Castle did, unless someone's interested in trying out the Battle Turtles game with me: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1812800/Umigame/ Jossar fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 02:45
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Man, Star Wars Squadrons was a disappointment. The VR feels kinda half-assed, I don't know if it was originally designed to have it or they put it in later, but the mixture of half "screen" cutscenes, weirdly stilted interactions between characters, and the (very basic) story being hobbled by attempts to let you play as both sides was a real drag. I only finished it since I figured I might as well since I'd started. Is there anything out there as good as Half Life: Alyx? Or do I pack the VR kit away again. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 04:19
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Jerusalem posted:Man, Star Wars Squadrons was a disappointment. The VR feels kinda half-assed, I don't know if it was originally designed to have it or they put it in later, but the mixture of half "screen" cutscenes, weirdly stilted interactions between characters, and the (very basic) story being hobbled by attempts to let you play as both sides was a real drag. I only finished it since I figured I might as well since I'd started. That depends on what you played and haven't. There's some good games out there, but to be fair nothing as polished as Alyx. Maybe try the MW5 mod I mentioned earlier, but then if you're looking for polished it might not be the right option for you. e: Asgard's Wrath is probably the closest thing to a big-budget VR game I can think of, though it needs a plugin to play through steamvr. For a space sim Elite is excellent in VR. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 04:29
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I only have hearsay to go on, but this one is supposedly pretty good, allowing for some VR jank associated with being a solo project: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1178780/BattleGroupVR/
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Feb 12, 2023 04:33
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Private Speech posted:That depends on what you played and haven't. There's some good games out there, but to be fair nothing as polished as Alyx. The MW mod is Morrowind? I love that game but looking up a video it looks like the movement will give me the same reaction as I got trying the Half Life 2 VR mod, where I immediately felt nauseous. I might take a look at Elite if it goes on sale though. I just got the bug to try out more VR stuff but I suspect I may have "wrecked" it for myself by playing what was obviously the best game first.
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Feb 12, 2023 04:59
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ZeusCannon posted:I don't understand this world Fascists are all power-bottoms. I'm not kidding.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:02
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lih posted:my impression is that the game has been nearly complete for years and the last few years have been spent on significant iteration and polishing in response to feedback from kickstarter backers who've been able to playtest it. the release of a public demo makes me hopeful it might actually be close to release at last This is true but even as a tester in the backer discord there are gaps of many months of radio silence between builds — the last build I got before this one was in 2021! Hopefully this is the last of the “rewrite large portions of the core game mechanics” build and into larger demos for testing.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:03
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ZeusCannon posted:I don't understand this world it's just a variation of shock marketing, no?
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Feb 12, 2023 05:09
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Jerusalem posted:The MW mod is Morrowind? I love that game but looking up a video it looks like the movement will give me the same reaction as I got trying the Half Life 2 VR mod, where I immediately felt nauseous. I might take a look at Elite if it goes on sale though. I just got the bug to try out more VR stuff but I suspect I may have "wrecked" it for myself by playing what was obviously the best game first. It's my understanding that MW5 usually refers to MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries rather than Morrowind, but having looked at a video for it, bouncing around in a mech's tin can cockpit might still make you pretty nauseous.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:18
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Thanks, I was confused by the 5 since I checked their previous post and saw them talking about a Morrowind mod  Yeah, it looks like that would give me the same problem. I think my stomach would protest at anything that wasn't sitting in a smoothly moving vehicle like a spaceship or maybe a car, or being able to "blink" move around the world like you can in Alyx. Man, for years I've heard people complain about motion sickness and thought how lucky I was not to suffer from it, experiencing it was not a good time!
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Feb 12, 2023 05:34
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tinaun posted:This is true but even as a tester in the backer discord there are gaps of many months of radio silence between builds — the last build I got before this one was in 2021! Hopefully this is the last of the “rewrite large portions of the core game mechanics” build and into larger demos for testing. yeah that doesn't surprise me at all lol i'd hope the public demo suggests a level of confidence that means they're done reworking things and can finish things off now
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Feb 12, 2023 06:00
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Here's another one in the "man, I don't know" pile! Ravenbound  As a caveat, you have to register a user name and e-mail to start playing the demo, but I didn't have to verify or anything so just toss them "butts@butts.com" and see if it goes through. It's billed as an open world action roguelike. The base combat is serviceable in the "attack, heavy attack, dodge, block" vein. Every time you beat an enemy camp you get a "Fragment" and combining three fragments gets you a coveted one-of-three card choice. Some of these items are "relics" with a passive effect but which cost mana to play, there's card roguelike staples like "redraw a discarded equipment card" or eco-boom "gain one additional mana when leveling up" but also many, many, "+4 to sword" cards too. I wasn't really able to interact with the system because I kept dying and I had no idea how to gain mana since it seemed like the only way was opening chests, but opening chests always cursed me? I'm not going to lie, it's Extremely Mid and one of those games that feels like a 7/10 game that lands on Game Pass BUT if you can get through the tutorial turning into a raven and flying around is extremely cool.
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Feb 12, 2023 06:22
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Jelly posted:Fascists are all power-bottoms. I'm not kidding. You have to be inherently submissive to subscribe to an authoritarian ideology.
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Feb 12, 2023 06:56
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 Grim Guardians I need to find a word other than "anime" to describe the sort of... I dunno. OC energy that I get? From things like this, and Touhou, and Umineko. Where there's just demons and demon hunters or whatever, and gods, and they all oscillate between world destruction and tea parties. Because that's more specific than "anime". It's a very specific thing that irritates me. Anyway it's on display here with these characters from the pervert gun game, but fully clothed and just being in a Castlevania game basically. IntiCreates is not shy about what they're modelling Grim Guardians: Demon Purge after; it's Rondo of Blood. The levels are linear but have multiple routes, the aesthetics are VERY similar (although the sprites may call to mind more the IGA games of the Gameboy Advance, your Circles of Moon and whatnot), the emphasis is on sub-weapons, no metroidvania abilities. One character can crawl through one-tile high gaps, so that's basically the only real 'ability gate' there is, and you have it from the start. No experience or level-ups, but there's "Pride" which enemies sometimes drop that builds up a gauge for a super attack. It also builds up a meter next to your remaining lives that gives you extra lives when the meter is filled, as points did in the classic CV games. As far as the combat goes, there's no whip, but one character is melee with a sword and can slice through shields, while the other character has a gun that can hit from long range but must be reloaded (unlimited ammo, however). It's fine. I think Inti is too skilled to make an outright bad 2D game at this point, so their lowest floor is just forgettable? This was fun enough, but the world/setting is nothing to me. But that might be okay because it really is just a higher-tempo Castlevania game and it doesn't really matter who the characters are from. Just spam your way through the dialog about 'pranks' and 'demon academy' poo poo.  Painter Simulator ...woops. I spent 2 hours playing a simulator demo. What a Saturday night!! Painter Simulator is basically Powerwash Simulator + Paint by Numbers. You have an object to paint with numbers all over it, you switch to the color, then get to blastin'. This may be the first Paint by Numbers in the history of the medium to have a skill tree, lol. One map had you paint a race car in a freeze frame of a race in progress, then the race resumed and paused later, and you got to paint the ramp the car rode on. Seems like they want to have a little fun with it.  Picayune Dreams Did you know Vampire Survivors was actually an imitation of an existing mobile game? Yeah it's basically an Infiniminer/Minecraft situation, though the dev of VS has never actually hidden that fact. Anyway, I do not like VampSurf. It's dull, and boring. You just move around as all your powerups automatically wipe all the enemies around you, and you have to do it for a half hour. I see the jingling keys and they do not fascinate me. You don't even need to be all that good at the game to finish it, because so many different synergies just pancake the map. But IDK how you quantify 'good' anyway. Good at moving from chest to chest? At figuring out one of the many combinations of upgrades that functionally auto-wins? But Stux insisted I play Picayune Dreams, because as he put it, "it's more of an actual game." Picayune tries to bring a crumb of skill to the table by giving you bullets that you actually have to aim yourself with the cursor. There are also other upgrades that must be similarly aimed, like a laser beam that comes out of your cybernetic eye. You drift around in space as all sorts of weird creatures come at you, and XP is actually shown as numberical icons you slurp up rather than gems. As is traditional, with each level up you choose one of a few upgrades, which might give you a new weapon or power up an existing one, or give you a stat perk like increased projectile speed or quicker movement. After several minutes, a boss will come in and you have to fight them, after which point it's time to mosey on over to a new area of space to fight some more creatures. Even with these added elements I still found it kinda boring until I got careless and died AND THEN IT BECAME YUME NIKKI, gently caress. Now I know why Stux recommended this to me, loving dammit. You get to traipse through a bunch of strange environments chatting with people as you remember something from your past. To be clear, I don't know if this is going to be a major component of the game beyond just a couple of fun intermissions... but if it's a sizeable portion of the game... I may have to give the full game a shot. This is definitely one where I'll wait on reviews. Because this exploding subgenre does nothing for me otherwise, so it's basically that Yume Nikki aspect that intrigues me alone.  Troublemaker Although the 3D visuals look a bit clunky I kinda wanted to give this game a shot since it seemed pretty off the wall. Indonesian indie Yakuza-style brawleRPG where you're a delinquent high school kid? Seems like a tall order for a small team. And to be honest, it was a tall order. I don't know if this team has the chops. I'm gonna talk about it again, the sound design is just not getting the job done. Punching sounds that feel like they've cranked the limiter up too much, music that doesn't feel properly mixed in and doesn't duck under audio, vocal grunts that are too loud. The combat also feels not really up to snuff for something wanting to be compared to RGG's output. It feels almost more like Arkham combat but without the magnetism. But the weirdest thing is the disconnect between the 3D visuals and the drawings of the characters. They just don't match up at all. The 2D drawings have some style and energy to them, and then the 3D models look like Unity store assets. Why isn't the 3D as stylized as the character portraits? It'd be way more appealing. Maybe a future game from this team can rise up to the challenge they've set for themselves, but not this one. e: oh yeah you also can't pick up and throw things! Even though there's lots of objects around! Added to wishlist: Picayune Dreams (just to keep an eye on it), Grim Guardians, Painter Simulator (gently caress me) Tomorrow, the final day: Dinopunk, Elypse, Planet of Lana, Slave Zero X, Stack Gun Heroes, Wandering Sword. and then it's back to regular games!! i'll tierlist the demos I played as well as point out which games have actual release dates. i ended up wishlisting slightly less than half of what I played and that's not a bad hit/miss ratio as far as indie demos go. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 07:13
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I've just been going whole hog on the Meet Your Maker demo. It's kind of amazing the variety of level designs I've already seen at play, and the different ways you can gently caress with people. Wide open arenas full of those full-coverage plasma-firing cubes and flying enemies that offer just enough cover to not be impossible, constrained corridors that pack traps around the most unassuming corners, routes that lead you through multiple challenging gauntlet rooms full of enemies and/or traps. And of course, people already out there buildin' dicks: Shoutout to whoever took the time to paint the entire exterior of their base to resemble some sort of hanging housing, this poo poo takes a while:  Personally I've been trying to specialize in "gotcha" trap design. The very entrance to my base is deliberately timed so that it will likely kill the little carrier dude who you can follow to the goal, if you're impatient. Also as a general rule you start off with only two rounds for your bolt gun and have to retrieve them once fired, so here's one of the first things you see once inside:  You enter via the red ramp and there are paths to your left and right. On the right is this guy. If you grapple to him, you have to watch out for the spike floor. If you shoot him, his corpse ejects backwards into the acid cube. I left one of the sides of the cube open, and some of the more intrepid participants have successfully grappled through it quickly enough to recover their bolt without dying (I'm always impressed when they pull that off), but it's claimed a good handful of people who got greedy and fumbled the recovery. It's always entertaining to watch that part of the replay and see them slowly process that "oh, that's in there now, huh". Just past there sit the decoy ceiling spikes (you can see the same acid cube in the background):  You don't even need to worry about them. They're just kinda there, being vaguely threatening, and the game incentivizes destroying traps, so you might shoot at or melee the spikes. See anything special about the block underneath them though? No of course you don't, nobody plays the game slowly enough to pay attention to where fake blocks might be unless they've already been caught off guard recently. That is a fake block underneath the spikes, and underneath that fake block is another acid cube. If you're quick enough to react you can still recover, but that little beauty is probably my #1 most effective trap somehow. It might be even more effective if I put an upward-facing bolt launcher down there instead, but an acid cube only costs 10 points! It's so economical!  Protip: Make your base kinda lovely-looking on the inside. Allow the immovable default blocks to bleed into your design. That way, when you place a fake block (which is stuck with the dark default block as its appearance), it won't stand out so much. Put them in ceilings, build them into corners, anywhere someone is likely to try and be hasty or double backwards, then hide nasty stuff on the other side. or good stuff! I've seen some freaking expertly-trapped caches. Speaking of, my level's cache sits at the very bottom.  I built the path over top of it and sealed it off on all sides except for one (which is then also covered by another fake block). The route to the main goal is, of course, to the left. The route to the cache is in that pit to the right. You can even come at that pit if you drop off to the left and turn back around, I left a little opening under the path here that you can take to find it. Half the people who come into my base search all over Hell's half acre when they hear the cache's telltale hum, they go to the left, they go past, underneath, and back around to a random dead-end courtesy of the default level generation, they go in every possible direction except the one that would lead them there. It's uncanny, something about the way I've built this seems to render that path on the right completely invisible to everyone who passes through (including before I painted a line towards the main goal when I noticed people getting way too turned around while looking for the cache). I've been working on subtly signposting it because I want to see someone find it, and still nothing. Mind you, it is possible to seal off entirely if you're a dick, so after enough dicking around most people are probably just making that assumption. Game's fun. The rate at which you unlock stuff is kind of arduous, but the only thing I really feel gimping me is the absence of certain traps and trap upgrades for my own designs. Depending on the price point, I may very well have to get this when it launches proper. MonkeyforaHead fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 09:39
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Rinkles posted:it's just a variation of shock marketing, no? Getting attention instead of being instantly buried in the endless mud is the hardest challenge for small games without a marketing budget on Steam these days, and the fact that for instance OP made a post about it to show it to everyone and we've now made multiple posts about in response shows that they did find a way to do it. You might say it's "New & Trending" here in the ol' Steam thread now as well.
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Feb 12, 2023 10:20
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MonkeyforaHead posted:I've just been going whole hog on the Meet Your Maker demo.  I've been having a lot of fun with this game the last week as well.Seeing everyone play all these demos ITT I felt like I was missing out and installed half a dozen ones that sounded OK last night, quickly uninstalled 3 lol. One could be fun and didn't get to the remaining 1 or 2 yet but I just wanna play MYM and my other usual video game loves 
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Feb 12, 2023 12:21
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Could anyone give some recommendations for good deck building games on Steam? I've really enjoyed Slay the Spire, but I'm hoping to branch out a bit to other games that still involve a deck building element.
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Feb 12, 2023 12:29
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Monster Train is on sale for like $5, extremely worth it. Gordian Quest was pretty cool too. I went on a bit of a card battler binge last Spring and those were my favorites
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Feb 12, 2023 12:31
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Teriyaki Koinku posted:Could anyone give some recommendations for good deck building games on Steam? I've really enjoyed Slay the Spire, but I'm hoping to branch out a bit to other games that still involve a deck building element. Alina of the Arena had a gamepad update recently. It's basically StS with a spatial element so you can dodge enemies, do ranged attacks, AOE etc.
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Feb 12, 2023 12:43
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Teriyaki Koinku posted:Could anyone give some recommendations for good deck building games on Steam? I've really enjoyed Slay the Spire, but I'm hoping to branch out a bit to other games that still involve a deck building element. Inscryption
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Feb 12, 2023 12:49
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Oh my god I have a new favourite 30 seconds. I was suddenly raided by a pair of players (didn't even know that could happen), and apparently when you do that you get the ability to revive each other pretty much without penalty, which makes it a lot easier to do a complete run. They'd grabbed the GenMat, were on their way back, and this whole beautiful series of events happened: https://i.imgur.com/zXCRtKY.mp4 I was wondering how the hell there was a death token in that upper hallway with literally no traps. e: Even better, on their way out next run they became the first ones to find my cache. Good on them! MonkeyforaHead fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 13:11
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Jerusalem posted:Thanks, I was confused by the 5 since I checked their previous post and saw them talking about a Morrowind mod My favorite non-ALYX VR games have been: Beat Saber, Elite Dangerous, H3VR (Hotdogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades), SW: Squadrons (I know you weren't impressed, but as long as I'm flying rebel ships its something I've dreamed about since I was a kid), and heavily modded Skyrim VR (seriously, the modding scene is incredible and adds some real 'why wasn't this included in the release?' type stuff). Other fun games to consider (not sure if these would make you motion sick or not): Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, Into the Radius, Vox Machinae (big stompy robot simulator sort of like Mechwarrior), Ragnarock, Until You Fall, No Man's Sky Oh and make sure to download 'the lab' and give it a try. It's free (Valve created) and a lot of fun.
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Feb 12, 2023 13:44
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I don't own VR, but since everyone's talking about spaceship games in order to enjoy it I'll mention again House of the Dying Sun, which was great fun and apparently explicitly coded with VR in mind.
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Feb 12, 2023 13:50
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Thanks for the suggestions everybody, I'll check them out!
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Feb 12, 2023 13:53
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