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Steam

LudoNarracon will be back on May 1st-5th. I love this virtual festival, it is how I've heard of so many great games (Citizen Sleeper, Spiritfarer, 1000x Resist immediately come to mind).

There will be a sale of a bunch more games too but these are the showcase ones (the majority have demos too):
LNC+2025+Social+Official+Selection+Promo+1920x1080.jpg
 
So Steam Next Fest. Yeah haven't tried too much, what with a new console out and everything, but...

Everdeep Aurora looks lovely visually, but if the game is supposed to be a Steamworld Dig esque drill based exploration game the demo did a poor job of showcasing that.

MIO is also and underwhelming demo from what I played so far. The trailers are full of visually interesting areas, but you start the demo proper in some surprisingly bland corridors.
 
Becksworth said:
MIO is also and underwhelming demo from what I played so far. The trailers are full of visually interesting areas, but you start the demo proper in some surprisingly bland corridors.
Click to expand...

In fairness, those corridors have some lovely shading, and the game’s ice physics are actually cool and fun.
 
Ball X Pit: Super rad arkanoid-survivor game. Starts off fun, gets even more fun as you play it. Each character is different enough to be fun to get the hang of, and then the progression systems account for that by giving plenty of rewards for trying them all out, but if you have trouble with one specific character you will end up leveling them to be stronger. Good stuff.

Everdeep Aurora: I could live my whole life without seeing another slow door open animation. Folder says it holds valuable notes and drawings but it mostly has bad questionably localized poetry in it. Doors don't do a great job of showing when they're open/locked. Lots of doors with keyholes you can just kind of open. I don't know why I have a drill. There's a drill recharger: could I have used the drill? Apparently the demo isn't going to be in the final game, and I can only say thank goodness.

Motemancer: Kind of messy Factorio-like. I found it difficult to parse things on screen but that could just be me being unused to the visual language.

Star Birds: A good kids game, but doesn't really have any depth. A my first factory sort of game. A bit disappointing from the Dorfromantik folks.

Gemporium: A fun little mining game that kind of reminds me of old flash games. Might pick it up for a couple of dollars.

Quartet: Oxford commas (off by default) in the options menu tells me there was a dev fight. Seems like the plot is magic WW2 with all that entails. Kind of reminds me of FF6 in that you start as disparate teams that come together. Battle system seems neat: I like the emphasis on swapping back and forth from the back team.

Little Rocket Lab: A mix of Factorio and Stardew Valley. Talk to townspeople and solve requests with automation. Pretty charming, I'm interested in seeing the full game.

Occlude: Not sure how many more possible permutations on the central idea of this would be fun, but I did enjoy the demo enough to solve all 3 rituals. It's a solitaire with a twist: each ritual has a way of earning 4 coins that you need to figure out for yourself.
 
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Gecko Gods needs a lot of polishing still, but the base concept is still charming enough to shine through all the jank.
 
Touhou ~ Dreams of a Sunflower plants Souls, fertilizes with Armored Core, and comes out smelling fresher and more vibrant than either has been in recent years. Lots of good ideas like a Y-axis hover that allows for three-dimensional large-scale navigation and charting of boundaries, and stats being tied to planting flower seeds and watering them by spending your power meter. Highly individual weapon types (a rapidfire long-range shot, a shotgun, a melee sword), all further differentiated by their parry functions carrying different payoffs. 3D danmaku from all directions can be hectic in large group encounters, but also lenient in the gaps present and the generous parry timing when it comes to projectiles; still interesting decisions to be made like staying aloft and moving slower, or staying grounded and expending stamina for a faster dash, while exposing oneself to patterns that crawl the ground. Charming low-poly people with tremendous inherent humour in the presentation and mechanics--chucking fairies around, ragdolling wildly--and apt flourishes in adapting the genre staples to appropriate iconography, from Yuuka pouring herself tea in lieu of an Estus sip, and admiring sunflowers for a bonfire checkpoint. Like with all oversaturated genres, games like this show that you just have to approach the baseline from an interesting and novel way to stand out.
 
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Judging by the demo, Star Birds is shaping up to be a peaceful, low-pressure little game about resource management with an especially charming art style. You can drive a little rover around asteroids! The pilot of the rover is named Ensign Yolk! It’s just a pity none of the birds are owls.
 
Exposition Owl said:
Judging by the demo, Star Birds is shaping up to be a peaceful, low-pressure little game about resource management with an especially charming art style. You can drive a little rover around asteroids! The pilot of the rover is named Ensign Yolk! It’s just a pity none of the birds are owls.
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Owls aren't Kurzgesagt's brand.

store.steampowered.com

Star Birds on Steam

Star Birds is a relaxing asteroid base-building and resource management game. Discover and mine countless asteroids, create production networks and guide your flock of spacefaring birds to new interstellar horizons!
store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com
 
So I was looking at the steam page for the DQ7 remake and, uh, this seems new? Is this new?

Advanced Access

Advanced Access is a feature that allows users that have pre-purchased a game to play prior to the game's official release. For example, a "deluxe" pre-purchase version may include Advanced Access. Unlike Early Access, Advanced Access is not a unique model of development for a game, it's simply an opportunity to play a game before it fully releases on Steam.

How does Advanced Access work?

Participating games will indicate if one or more of their pre-purchase versions of their game will include access to the game prior to its official release date. Players who purchase these versions will be able to play prior to release.
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So apparently you can pay SE twenty extra dollars to play DQ7 in advance of its official release date.

Seems bad!
 
I think it might be Good, Actually to have tiered pricing. In effect, Steam has been doing this for ages: how many games have you wishlisted, intending to pick it up the first time there's a big sale?
 
Sure would be nice if I could pay 50% of a game's asking price to "rent" it for a month or so. Doubt Steam's infrastructure and the general nature of digital games permits that tho.
 
Steam Autumn sale is on through Monday. I haven't had time to browse too much but all demos are here. A few notes below.

I feel like I heard good things about BallxPit recently, but can't place it. I do know that's coming out on Gamepass soon though so I'll probably just do that instead.

I played a little of Winter Burrow at another recent Steam event. Curious to play more.

Someone was talking about Alabaster Dawn recently, I want to check out this demo for sure.

Bits and Bops is a very cute Rhythm Heaven style game, Lumber and I played this demo a while ago and loved it.
 
Next Fest this week.

Motorslice has a demo and if you want more 3D Prince of Persia and/or Shadow of the Colossus this is something to keep an eye on.
 
Don't think I need to tell anyone interested in Marvel Cosmic Invasion to check that out...

Cairn was something I wanted to like, but the climbing mechanics are even more complicated than those in Jusant. The system spec requirements seem higher too, so this isn't probably a good Steam deck game.

Apparently there is a picross rogue like, so I'll to check that out next...
 
lincolnic said:
What's that called?
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CiniCross. It's alright, but the nonograms are just procedurally generated patterns (roguelite and all...), and at least with the Steamdeck the controls are clunky.

Lumines Arise I wasn't even aware was coming out, and I had a much better experience with its demo. It's basically just "what if Tetris Effect, but Lumines?", but that's all it needed to be.
 
While a more focused version of Steam Machines might fair better, I think the underlying problem of "What does this offer over various Home Theater PC options?" is still there. The handheld PC market was so niche and expensive that that the Steamdeck made sense in a way that I'm not sure can be as easily replicated on that end.

At least with Steam Frame one can point to how utterly inept other companies have been with pushing VR. Meta actually made decent in roads into the game industry with Quest 2, and practically burned it all down trying to reinvent VR Chat but shittier. Will be interested in seeing how the Steam Frame pans out
 
Price will make or break this - if Valve wants to break into the console space, it's going to need to be very competitive. Otherwise it will remain niche. I want them to succeed, and now feels like the right time, but I don't know if this particular iteration is going to do it.
 
I think the Steam Machine is going to be able to take excellent advantage of the fact that Windows 10 is reaching end of life and a lot of people are skeptical about Windows 11. If the only thing you use Windows for is gaming, a Gabecube might be an appealing offramp.
 
Picking the controller up day one and if the cube is a good price im absolutely interested in picking it up when I can. Having used windows on my old dell laptop recently plugged into my tv is so unenjoyable that I honestly miss Linux so much.

Plus I just think the cube’s neat.
 
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