Hey, no complaints from me. I really appreciate folks doing stuff outside the usual elves/dwarves fantasy paradigm.
My wife talked me into trying this out this week and it is on a big sale right now too. The party setup and fighting is similar to Everquest, but the loot is more like Diablo with various rares and even item sets. There are no talent trees yet as it is early access, but for some quick missions and battles, it can be pretty fun.
The main setup is very basic as there seems to be only one town/quest hub and only one set of the various merchant types, but there are a lot of races and classes and the battles themselves are interesting enough that we are enjoying it so far.
I believe the price is by far the lowest yet so maybe it would be of interest to others. It starts off pretty slow, but the gear and challenges are starting to ramp up.
Nevergrind is terrific with friends. So fun.
On the Besties podcast, Chris Plante talked a little bit about playing 33 Immortals (mentioned above) hands-on, and he had good things to say. He said he was playing with six or seven others. He described a mechanic of one player throwing objects down onto the ground and when each one has a player standing on them, it fires off a big combat effect. He also mentioned that it seems set up for subsets of the players in a level to split apart and tackle separate sub-dungeons at once.
In other news, Stoic Studios has announced their follow-up to Banner Saga. Towerborne! It’s a hand-drawn action RPG/brawler with a plan for long-term ongoing content.
That looks right up my alley. How is the player base? Can you find other’s to group with or is this one of those better bring your own friends games?
I wish there were good Wuxia games (thematically like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Martial arts, improving through practise and study, immortality as a main goal. The genre is just perfect for gamification but almost everything on Steam is just awful from a game design perspective.
I just tried the Lost Village a wave-survivor game with some colony building elements and it’s just… horrible.
The best (and by that I mean maybe reaching playable) are Amazing Cultivation Simulator, a Rimworld clone in a Wuxia setting. The Rimworld parts actually work decently well. The Wuxia additions are initially good but quickly explode, also in your face.
The other one is Tale of Immortal, an open world sandbox RPG-ish game. You play a student and wander from city to city, doing quests to buy, find and earn martial arts handbooks with different styles. Other characters wander the world too and you can form friendships and feuds. You can join sects and assist them to gain access to their specific knowledge.
In the end it sadly gets sunk by the most terrible, boring combat imaginable and a basic RPG system that just doesn’t do anything.
Get hyped! A brilliant little student game that I played when it was entered in the IGF competition is becoming a full product:
Check it:
Sorry I missed this! I was off for the weekend and don’t sign in at home.
The population seems to be a bit higher lately with the sale, but I wouldn’t call it a lot of people. It looks like maybe 20-50 people during the weekend. There are level ranges too so I am not sure I would count on reliably getting groups frequently, but there does seem to be a lot of new characters with the sale. My wife and I have just played together for now, but will try groups eventually I am sure.
I took the plunge for 4 bucks. Man the EverQuest comparison was spot on. It uses the same exact sound sets for combat, Spells and abilities. The rat even had the same EQ squel. I closed my eyes and I flashed back 25 years! I played a couple missions and already got my money’s worth in nostalgia sound effects alone.
Well, that looks amazing. It’s like someone made an (extremely) updated version of my beloved Swashbuckler from the Apple II days.
If anyone tries Naheulbeuk’s Dungeon Master, which appears to be the latest Dungeon Keeper-alike, during Steam Next Fest, please give impressions. Also there’s a The Movies-alike, Blockbuster Inc, which I’ll definitely be trying out myself.
Next Steam Next Fest!
Some demos and impressions for games that caught my eye:
Moonstone Island
Deckbuilding combat with creatures you collect and develop, 100 explorable islands, a strong Stardew Valley backdrop.
Good first impression (minus some minor control scheme issues). Really looking forward to this now.
Dicefolk
Dice crafting, creature collecting, tactical combat game. Some light Slay the spire touches (map progress, relics).
Turn based, well paced combat with a decent amount of tactical depth even in the short demo. Really looking forward to this as well. Notably well done art style(s!).
Tales & Tactics
Singleplayer Auto Chess (not turn based like the steam shop says). The game works well, a decent selections of units and tactics already. Some awkward UI and control issues.
From the mod team that made the Downfall fan expansion for Slay the Spire.
Laysara: Summit Kingdom
Peaceful city builder with focus on flow based economy and Anno 2205 style trade routes between different settlements you build.
Good demo impressions, the full game features some more content like monuments, weather management and settlement interaction that hopefully deepens the experience.
Astrea
Slay the Spire with dice crafting instead of cards. Distinct art style (impressive but messy iconography).
Good gameplay.
Mind Over Magic
Magic school colony builder. Some well done aspects in what I would describe as a cluttered experience.
Average impressions but could work out with some serious polish.
Gord
RTS colony builder with survival elements and citizen management.
The RTS design really didn’t work for me but the multitude of other systems might be really good in the end for the whole game.
I’ve tried out Gord on my Steam Deck. It runs and plays pretty well- somewhat expected since it’s coming to consoles on release next month, so it has fine controller inputs. I liked it well enough, but it did lock up towards what I thimble was the end of the second scenario. I might throw it on my Xbox wishlist and pick it up on sale sometime.
I played the Stellaris Nexus demo. No dedicated StD controls, but it played okay with the touch pads. I got through the tutorial, might crack into a real game later. It did have a boardgame-y feel.
I also downloaded Laysara, but haven’t gotten to it yet.
I tried out a thing called Isle of Wind, about witches on Iceland, but didn’t get too far. No controller support.
This was a Stadia game, now on Steam.
I only tried the Woden GP 2 demo, and between inverted gamepad controls impossible to reconfigure and the mandatory ugliest crt filter thing I ever watched, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
Is there another way to navigate the “fest” than the inscrutable default page, and its genre sorting that makes little sense, screen estate taken up by banners, and more clicking needed than your average clickr?
A simple list would almost be a blessing.
This is a great money saver for me. Station to Station, Xenotheria, and especially Revival:Colonization I probably would have ended up buying. But a short time with each, and I can see they are not at all my cup of tea.
Still undecided on these two though. I plan to play more of each demo before deciding, but each contains some interesting systems.
Brotato has left early access. Vampire Survivors clone. The screen shaking effects can be disabled.
The first demo of Brotato released before VS. So as much, VS is the Brotato’s clone? :P
I was thinking this, surely Brotato is the elder brother here?
Also, Smash TV called…