Folks, it’s that time again: it’s Steam Next Fest, baybee. And so, I checked out a few games that caught my eye. Next Fest is still going for the rest of the week, so check some games out for yourself!
The first game I checked out was Bob Saves the Princess, by Milton_Filto. The princess has gone missing, and the blacksmith Bob has gone out to look for her. However, the princess isn’t a passive character. While she’s trapped in the temple she was disappeared into, she can control parts of the temple. And so, you’re actually controlling the princess while Bob acts on his own, and your job is to give him the best circumstances possible to reach you.
You bear witness to things on a control console. One screen displays the layout of the dungeon that you can rearrange. Want to give Bob a break while you focus on other things? Just put the enemy encounters far away from him while he hangs around. Another screen shows fights that Bob can get into and it’s a bit of an autobattler. There’s a panel where you can give him equipment to improve his stats, as well as giving the princess items to use when necessary to help him out. There’s also another panel listing enemies Bob has slain and you can actually revive an enemy to give to him as an ally to help him out and give enemies another target to focus on.
I think the tutorial drops a lot on you and I thought it was kinda overwhelming, but as Bob Saves the Princess got going, I was pretty into it a few floors in. The game advertises itself as a roguelike where you control the roguelite elements, and while that’s true, I sort of see it as more of an auto battler with more managerial duties.
An issue I had though was readability. Yes, you can zoom in on text… but also, all text outside of the tutorials are presented on small cards, so it’s a bit of a pain to read. Personally, I think that maybe inspecting a card should pop out a window that fully displays the text in a clean way.
The biggest problem with Bob Saves the Princess though has to be its performance. The first 20 minutes of the game ran a-okay, but it started to lag after that. The lag gradually grew worse until the game just straight up crashed. But you know what? It’s fine, this is a demo, after all, so this issue will probably get smoothed out.
Overall, while I definitely think some things needed to be worked on, I liked the demo for Bob Saves the Princess!
The next game we have is Killer Chat!, by rosesrot. It was a game that was successfully Kickstarted a few months back, and the pay off lingers in our future.
You are a writer and you’re trying to figure out how to write a crime story. You’re looking up stuff about murder on the dark web and it leads to you getting invited to a chat full of people talking about serial killing. At first, you think they’re all just weird passionate roleplayers. But nah, they’re all real serial killers. You got people that kill for money, people that kill for justice, people that kill for the love of the game…
It’s all very concerning… but…
The writing research is valuable.
The Content… the Content will be so good…
Killer Chat! is a visual novel told through the medium of a Not Discord, with you chatting it up with some fucked up people. It does feel pretty reminiscent of Discord, and hell, I don’t blame your player character for thinking that it was a roleplay group at first. Of course while they’re all real, you gotta roleplay as a serial killer yourself to fit in and not be a narc.
The writing of the game is fun, and it and the presentation has me thinking about Secret Little Haven again. Well, except if it took place in the now and was about murder instead of transgender identity. Well, actually, maybe some of your fellow posters could be trans with the chat rooms embrace of nonbinary identity and an explicit threat against transphobes. Everyone in this chat room is Dark Woke, and I love that for them.
Needless to say, I loved the taste I got from the demo. I am the Michael Jordan of Murder, and I want to see this story through. Also: I think the portraits for the characters shown in the promo materials are cute. They really are my kind of people…
Who out here has existential dread about the environment? Heh heh, well, how about we fight that with Existential Tread?
Ash & Adams Existential Tread is a game where you see to the creation of a post-post apocalyptic world in a mix of top-down shooter action and city builder. The world has been destroyed and is beset by Noise (unrelated to The World Ends with You), but a blessing has crashed down to Earth: a tank powered by greenery that can spread more of it. And so, you go on smashing through the rubble of the old world to spread nature again. Destroy Noise, build new homes for people and buildings to aid you in your quest, and maybe you can reclaim the Earth!
The world is mostly dirt save for the grass around the headquarters, but that greenery expands as you destroy old buildings and build new ones. You’ll sometimes find people living in the wastes, and you’ll need them on board to collect resources more and to man the buildings that act as defenses and aid for you. I kinda wish that the game’s more clear about what buildings supply what resources. Though, unless you’re using special weapons, you can shoot to your hearts content as long as you’re on grass, so savenging around isn’t a big hassle.
But after some time passes, the machines will fight back. Coming from set towers, the Noise will start gunning for your headquarters. They’ll not only damage buildings in their way, but they’ll also eat away at the grass you’ve spread, removing your influence on the world. Your goal is to destroy those towers, but of course, they’re deep in ruined Earth. While you can shoot a bit outside of grass, it won’t be as effective as being on salvaged ground. So, the game becomes a struggle over land. You’re reclaiming Earth so that the destruction of towers is safely within reach, while fighting back against the Noise when they’re trying to chew the Earth back up on their phases.
Ash & Adams Existential Tread is easy to get action that’s fun to play. And you know, in our current time, it feels good to fight fucked up machines and reclaim the Earth.
For something shorter, we have I Write Games, Not Tragedies by Studio Wife. The game is the interactive story of someone looking back on their past as a cringe goth emo boy – and I say cringe affectionately, here.
The story stars a boy going by Ash, who absolutely acts like a stereotypical kid that sees themself outside of social norms that suffers despite not facing serious contrition. He looks down on the people around him as fakes and he absolutely doesn’t respect women outside of his friend. He especially thinks his partner in class, Ade, is some cringe sports guy based on… nothing, really. But when Ash goes out to see a concert by one of his favorite bands, he finds Ade there, and that encourages him to rethink things.
The most notable aspect of I Write Games, Not Tragedies is its presentation. Almost all the art in the game are drawn, feeling like doodles taken out of an angsty highschooler’s notebook. It’s very true to the mood of the game, and I think it looks good. There’s also the music, you can’t exactly have an examination into emo and goth culture without the music, and I was actually pretty into it. The game advertises collaborations with indie bands from the UK, Japan, and Hong Kong that grants an authentic vibe to the game, and I like the jams.
There’s also a rhythm game to accompany one of the tracks. Handwritten lyrics falls down toward the triggers and you have to hit the highlighted ones. Then there’s a section where you’re just expected to go apeshit. It’s an unusual rhythm game, but the thing is, there’s no failure state or anything. Ash is just letting out his emotions listening to music, and you’re just vibing along with that. It’s not about the challenge, it’s all about those good vibrations. I spent the past year drowning in Andrew Jackson Jihad, I understand what the game’s getting at.
Combining the narrative and the presentation, the cringe of I Write Games, Not Tragedies is a very affectionate cringe. It’s a cringe that expresses the sincere feelings of youth and passion for the things you love. For a moment, Ash expresses the kind of cringe that I hate, the elitist cringe that makes you think you’re better than everyone, the cringe that defines the chucklefucks on X the Everything App (blaze your glory). But Ash turns that attitude around, recognizing Ade as a sincere lover of the same things and opening up to him. And maybe he’s gay about it.
So hey, call me cringe, but I liked I Write Games, Not Tragedies.
And I decided to finish things off with Shuffles n’ Scuffles, by Sour Circuit Studios. It’s a roguelike deckbuilder – and I know that at least one of you is groaning, but hear me out.
Instead of trading blows like in a lot of contemporaries, cardboard enemies advance toward you on a grid before they can strike at you. You play cards to ward them off, and you get set energy a turn to spend before enemies advance again. But hmm, hold the phone, some of the cards cost more than the amount energy you have…
That’s where a unique part of Shuffles n’ Scuffles (at least from my perspective) comes in. You can actually invest energy points into a card in hopes of playing it later. Even when that card gets shuffled back into the deck, the changed energy cost sticks until you play it. It does seem tempting to get the cheap cards off, but it may be worth investing into the hardier cards for later down the line like the Critical Mass. Some cards can shove enemies back, so give those jerks a shove while your economy gets going.
Outside of battles you can hit up two facilities before going on to the next battle. There’s a plain card removal of you burying a card, or a risky carnival game removal. It’s interesting because if you spin right, you can actually remove multiple cards! But… what if you end up having to remove too many cards? Well, you can’t leave the casino until you get a bad roll, so you might end up risking removing your good cards. That’s just how it is when you gamble, folks.
There is a normal shop where you can pick up cards at no cost. But there’s also a second shop that also gives you free cards… that absolutely suck ass. Not to worry, because there’s a separate place where you can edit cards! Making a card too good will rachet up it’s energy cost, but it might be worth it under the game’s systems. But also… why edit the bad cards when you can just edit the cards that are good?
I think something the game can do is introduce a currency where the normal shop charges money, but the cursed shop is either cheap or free. Give the player a valid reason for wanting to go to the sketchy black market instead of the legitimate store. The legit store can give good normal cards for a price, while you’re going to have to put in work to make the bad cards good – but all for cheap.
When Shuffles n’ Scuffles gets going, I like it, I think the battle system’s nice. I think it needs to think a bit more about adding cards to your deck, but honestly, the card removal gambling rules. Never stop gambling.
Aaand I think that might be it for me for now. There’s a lot of games out there and I’m just one person. So hey, besides the games I looked at, consider checking out some other Next Fest games.
Indie Hell Zone 