Buy It You Friendly people
Did you just make that up? If so, that’s very good. I’m using that. If it’s already a thing, then maybe not.
Oh, it was already a thing (on Qt3), coined by the inimitable @BrianRubin. Well, the saying was. The acronym may have been first seen in my post. For when typing out “Buy it, you fucks!” is too arduous.
Edit: Oh, JoshL bowdlerized it by the way. It’s Buy It, You Fucks
Could also be “Buy It, You Folks!”
BUY IT YOU FREAKS
There. You’re welcome.
So for posterity, and because this thread was locked when I posted my impressions up on the other indie games thread, I’m collecting those thoughts up here and adding a few more:
Anyway it took me about 20 hours in total to beat all levels on all difficulties and the hardest difficulty (Ecstatic) is intense. TLDR: anyone who’s a fan of bite-sized play session arcade shoot 'em ups (with a twist) should absolutely check this gem out. Some post-game general thoughts:
I love the horizontal and vertical axes on the crosshair so it’s super easy to find your pointer. I love the dash ability and how it gets stronger with each successive lock-on (great with fangs upgraded for an aggressive dash bite). The dash is a really smart way of offsetting standing still to target enemies and feels great. I love the glowing abdomen when a bullet is nearby (it also shows what part of your spider is the bit to watch out for). I love the clarity of the bullets to avoid. The sound and visual cues on enemies like the mage flying or the sniper zaps, and of course the pick-up barks (‘heat sink!’ ‘freeze!’) go so far in helping you prioritise targets. I love the colour grading on pick-ups and how they slowly gravitate towards you. I love the craters in the background. I love how the different enemies counteract different upgrade weightings. I’m amazed how ‘drill’ expanding the arena makes it feel like a very different experience: zero drill is a dogfight in a cupboard whereas max drill feels like outer space bullet hell. Freez is so satisfying, particularly with the audio slowing down (the explosions sound so crunchy). The music and visuals are, of course, fantastic. I initially found that the click-hold movement fatigued my hand but I think that muscle built up fast and I quickly forgot about it! The mouse movement and aiming is a revelation though and I love the friction between the two. The result is an incredibly fluid almost gestural system that made me feel like a bullet hell wizard. So good. My only real criticism is the tooltip roll overs in-game can obscure the action when you’ve upgraded drill. I feel like that should be in the pause menu or tutorial only. Also the spider is rad and crawls around beautifully.
That does look good. I hope it comes to consoles.
I should do a search somehow to find out if I already own it as part of a couple of bundles I bought on Itch.
I just did a quick search and it appears that The Wratch’s Den and Antecrypt are the only Punkcake games in the itch bundles, specifically the Ukraine and Abortion Funds bundles. Given how good Ecstatic is, I’m keen to know what their other shooters are like now.
A core part of Ecstatic is the mouse-only aiming and movement, and specifically the tension between the two, that is: move or aim. Maybe it could work on a controller but I think some of the snappy aiming and fluidity would be lost.
This is a pretty good video covering the game:
Honey, I Joined A Cult emerges from the cocoon of EA today. I’ve been checking it out sporadically since grabbing it last year, and it’s a good little builder/business simulator in the vein of Prison Architect. Looking forward to diving into 1.0
BIYF is Frecnh for cockslapping, by the way.
That makes it more perfect.
British Isles Youth Fund - glad to see you guys are supporting it
I just loaded up Off-Peak for the first time; it’s definitely my jam. I love immersive sims where you’re not trying to kill everything in sight right away. The first three minutes were great!
Oh that’s great to hear! Yeah, they’re such unusual games but I’ve got a real soft spot for their idiosyncrasies.
Funnily enough, I only started Cosmo D’s latest game, Betrayal at Club Low, a couple of days ago (been meaning to play it since launch earlier this year) and I think of all his games, it’s the closest to a full blown immersive sim with proper options, consequences and an involving dice system to determine how things shake out. It’s still off its rocker. Off-Peak, The Norwood Suite and Tales from Off-Peak City Vol 1. are all first-person but this one is like a point and click adventure with fixed camera angles, which makes a nice change. Last night I did something that has been making me laugh most of the day every time I’ve thought about it which… well, games generally don’t do. And of course the music is fantastic. It always is.
If you come out of Off-Peak wanting more then I can’t recommend the rest of his work enough. There’s nothing else like it.
@geggis, I finally had an inescapable reason to try a Cosmo D game: I’m judging the IGF and Betrayal at Club Low is a entrant. And… I absolutely loved it! I was expecting a first-person game (which is one of the things that has kept me off the other games, even though I own a couple), so the point-and-click style was a pleasant surprise. And the dice, stats, pizza–all of it is just so gonzo and great. So OKAY geggis, I’ll play his other games!
Haha, inescapable! Well that’s great to hear and, yeah, they really are gonzo.
Club Low is his most mechanically sophisticated game yet. I’m used to more of an auditory and visual trip than one with systems and choices on top so it was a nice surprise for me a well!
As weird as the Off-Peak games look on the surface–I mean, they are weird–I often find the characters and their problems ground the experience and there’s usually certain themes that run through and connect them.
What’s cool is that you can start anywhere and play the games in any order. There’s a bigger picture here that I’m still trying to make sense of…!
I’m pretty sure it has something to do with pizza!
I might start a thread for this, but for the moment, I have to tell you all that I have discovered
Treasures of the Aegean is a hand-drawn time-loop platformer collect-a-thon. It’s the best Tomb Raider game since Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. (Or is it Run Lola Run: The Video Game: Ancient Greek Edition??) It’s got this gigantic, lovingly illustrated world that you run, swing, clamber, and slide your way through with style and grace after just an hour or so of playing. It’s got… dialogue that could have used a pass from a native English speaker, let’s be honest. And it does something unique with the time loop concept that I think really works nicely and is fun to discover, so I won’t spoil it.
Here it is on Steam! (currently 50% off)
And here’s some screenshots to ogle:
Stolen Crown is one of those amazing sole developer marvels. I nearly passed on it due to the low price, but instead have discovered a delightful new combination of deck builder / turn-based combat / roguelike.
Key features are . . .
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Deck building to equip heroes with potential actions, similar to Trials of Fire and Alina of the Arena
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Roguelike runs, where you choose between different types of event (combat, boss combat, merchant, dungeon, workshop etc) similar to many card-battling roguelikes / Slay the Spire-likes
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Turn-based, hex based tactical combat, with direct control over your main character and potentially, one or more allies. The combat is similar to Crowntakers, Stolen Realm, Faeria and Alina of the Arena.
Each of the three main ingredients is solid and enjoyable and they form up together very well for a compelling ‘one more stage’ ‘one more run’ experience.
The combat is the star. You start out with just a single hero and potentially one ally. Heroes have both abilities, which run on cooldowns, and also cards. Allies only have abilities. As you complete stages, you can:
~ Add more abilities to your Hero and allies, via levelling up with experience
~ Add more cards to your hero deck
~ Find relics, which give passive boons to your team
~ Add more allies
~ Forge more powerful cards by combining existing cards (and gold currency)
At some point, you may feel you have developed an amazing team. Then a big bad boss stomps all over you. Then you laugh and start a new game!
Also posted in the Building a deck of deckbuilders thread!