rat_dance_report.webm
[Hide] (4.8MB, 854x480, 00:56) More Steam-fest demo reviews, read 'em and weep. If anybody has anything to add on the games mentioned here, feel free to do so:
Duil
JL Apps
-Bad Dead Cells clone, clearly an early demo, even the settings menu is unavailable. Nowhere near as fluid, looks pretty barren, lots of negative space. Works off a wonky stamina/energy system where you can have 5 weapons or spells. Combat is as stiff as the movement, you can only attack one enemy at a time, even if they're standing right next to each other. Levels are gigantic and sections are copied and pasted. Dying sends you to a pointless platforming section where you have to find an exit portal, very tedious.
Nothing Beyond this point
Dieuwt
-Cryptic rogue-like, very pixel graphics, got soul to it, probably made by a single person, crusty sound design. Interesting ammo/health system similar to that of Ooze on Sega Genesis: the more ammo you spend, the less health you have. Navigation is intentionally cryptic, think Legend of Zelda East-West-South-West puzzle. Backtracking can be a chore until you find the map. Reminds me of Midnight Station. Not bad at all, would have been a colossal indie gem back in the early 2000's. If the dev tightens some of the combat aspects, I'd have an easier time giving a glowing recommendation.
ROBOBEAT (already out)
Simon Fredholm
-BRM clone, wears it on its sleeve, very stylized, pretty much as difficult to look at as BPM, very curious about my personal data for some reason. Weapons have their own quirks and beat variations. There's dodging, charging, parrying, etc. You can import your own music, cut it up to suit the regular and battle themes of a level. You can also switch between tracks on the fly. Some of the animations are lacking.
Wartorn
Stray Kite Studios
-Very clunky tactics MOBA/RTS wannabe, controls like ass, I can see where they were going with this, but it's just not good or way too raw for now. Voice acting is terrible, along with recording equipment mismatch not doing it any favors. Everything is smudged in Vaseline, very hazy and unclear, it's supposed to look like and oil painting, but the effect only obstructs your view. Barely reached 40fps and still maxxed out my 1080 Ti. Have to hold Shift and drag in order to select multiple units. Think "Company of Heroes", but dogshit.
Dragonkin the Banished
Eko Software
French ARPG that wants to be "Lost Ark" badly, almost fried my GPU, looks and controls fine, but the attack animations are slow, and you get swarmed by trash mobs all the time. Everything else seems like bog standard ARPG fare, it simply doesn't feel good to play. Studio is known for putting out tons of AA shovelware. Of all the ARGS I've played, it reminds me most of "Van Helsing" with a skin of "Lost Ark". I fucking hate "Van Helsing" and "Lost Ark".
Metal Bringer (already out)
ALPHAWING Inc.
I hope you brought your Anti-Aliasing goggles, because this game tries very hard to be retro. Rogue-lite, twin-stick, mech-building, pixel-shaded 64-bit game with an 8-bit soundtrack. It's all meshed together... not all too well. Maybe it requires a more patient approach than what I'm capable to offer, but I always felt limited by the low field of vision and lower energy reserves, making for a very claustrophobic experience. The game is rendered in high enough resolution, but the pixel filter applied to it makes things difficult to make out instead of just making it look "extra-retro". Got killed by a single hit from the first boss, so I assume it requires a lot of grinding.
Mech Havoc
Mid Development
Pretty robust top-down mech game with a choice of piloting mechs, tanks and "I'm fast as fuck, boi" armed cars. Tech trees unlocks, upgrade and side-grade weapons with the important properties listed right these so you can plan accordingly. Maps get reused with different objectives, so sometimes you just need to obliterate key objects and enemies at a base and other times you'll have to mark and secure assets at that same base. Light structure destruction going on, so while I don't believe mountains and big natural rock formations can be affected, you can definitely make a new entrance in a structure if the main doorway is giving you trouble.
Anoxia Station
Yakov Butuzoff
Simplified turn-based LEGO Rock Raiders made by a slav couple. Oozing atmosphere, maybe a little too much. What is it with russians and their obsession with raindrops on your screen? HighFleet was like this, at least you can turn these effects down. Some effects will still overwhelm you, like whenever a giant creatures emerges on the field, you have to suffer through a deflated jumpscare sequence where the camera keeps zooming in and out really fast. Every sound effect is hanging around thrice as long as it should. I guess it makes sense to have a long echo in the underground cave system, but it really bothered me. The game itself is like a mix of Rock Raiders and Darkest Dungeon. The longer you drill and the more structures you construct, the more they drain on your resources, which you're meant to juggle with the help of said structures and specialists you employ. It's really quite engaging and I hope the couple working on this project see their game flourish.
Haste (already out)
Landfall
Developed and published by the same studio that brought us ClusterTruck and Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Haste is a Sonic simulator focused on maintaining your momentum and not running into shit. You're tasked with navigating, what I assume are, randomly generated sky islands and collecting as many gems as possible. Surprisingly, you can't jump in this game, so you rely on running up ramps and landing at appropriate angles to clear bottomless gaps. The more good landings you make, the more you charge up your hoverboard, which gives you a bit of a speed boost. Which seems like a snowball effect that rolls both ways. Between some levels you'll run into a shop where you can spend collected currency on usable items like health potions and passives. After about a dozen or so levels you'll face a boss, which breaks up the slightly samey levels. You can choose to rush through challenge levels for some extra cash, but they can be unforgiving. One mistake and you're rushed to the map screen. Characters are over-designed, but the core gameplay is solid, hopefully it's more fleshed out in the full version.