Summer Next Fest may be over and the steam sale may be upon us, but I’m due to make at least one more post on things featured in Next Fest.
The first thing I checked out was something that I was surprised I didn’t check out earlier. You know that I’m open about my love for gambling aesthetics. A different kind of casino called to me… a devilish one, which firmly reminded me that I should never gamble for real. Thankfully, it’s not all about gambling…
Meaningless Random Numbers is an incremental game by Nikko Nikko. The devil has presented you with a money making opportunity: just roll some meaningless numbers. Press the box and you get money and experience equal to the number rolled. Soon, you can get another box, enabling you to roll more and rake in more dough if you get a pair. Depending on the character you start the run with, you can click on their face for a benefit like tripling experience gain or letting you re-roll a number an extra time to push growth along.
As with most incremental games, things expand from there. Paying the devil’s rate early builds up anxiety that increases the money you make. You’ll eventually have auto-clickers working on your behalf. If things are going too slow, you can restart the run for prestige to invest in the meta game to further your money making scheme.
But no, making money the normal way’s not going to cut it. You’ll need another raw emotion from anxiety to multiply those gains: pure fear. After the first rebirth, you can get a handy gun, and if you roll a triple or better, you’ll get some bullets. You’ll then train your reticle on a poor soul. You shoot with what’s functionally a revolver (maybe update the sprite?), and having all six bullets guarantees the death of the poor soul if you don’t want to leave things to the good ol’ Russian roulette. Deaths increase the fear in society and enables you to rake in more dough. You know, normal self-defense industry stuff. Make that money. Make number go up. Make them dead.
But God is watching. He hates your grindset. Blasphemy against the holy spirit and whatnot. As you spill blood, the chances of your crimes catching the attention of God increases. And so, on one faithful killing, He may interrupt it and cast a curse upon you: a bright red X to disable boxes and auto-clickers. You can pray away your sins with prayers you store up with pairs, but if you’re serious about Making Number Go Up, God’s eyes will always be watching.
With that in mind, Meaningless Random Numbers doesn’t straight up become an idle game because you have to juggle around some things yourself. Combined with its theming and electronic music, I certainly think it sets itself apart from a lot of incremental games. I think it’s fun, though I’m curious how the game’s going to be built on from here besides making number go up.
My only criticism is that the guy needs to look sluttier if you’re going to have one. Forget that long sweater, I want him to be showing me some skin.
The next demo I checked out was South of the March, by Small Gray Games. Small Gray Games was a mutual of mine for a long time, and I’m embarassed to admit I haven’t played any of their games yet. So, I thought it was the perfect time to fix that.
Gemma and Cyrus are for-hire mercenaries in a fantasy world. Their latest job is a curious one. A lumber camp has stopped almost all work. Eh? No, you’re not there to commit anti-labor violence (presumably, anyway). Work has stopped because an employee went missing after revealing that he had an encounter with the divine in a cave, and people stopped work out of paranoia. So he claims, anyway. And so, Gemma and Cyrus are made to investigate where the employee went, what happened to him, and if the divine is truly among them.
South of the March bills itself as a visual novel RPG adventure. Gemma and Cyrus travel around a hand-drawn world, with all exploration being conveyed through text. The writing is very descriptive, painting a nice picture of the game’s world beyond what’s conveyed through the art. Simple character portraits chat things up when you’re going around for additional information. Characters have a lot to say, making the game feel like an interactive fantasy novel.
The sellswords will find themselves at odds with danger, be it a bad random roll when going to a location or a plot-mandated scuffle. South of the March then shifts into a turn-based RPG combat system. It’s one of those RPGs that uses a timeline system, and you always gotta love those. Keep an eye on that timeline to figure out who to focus on.
An interesting part of the combat system is that upcoming critical hits are telegraphed in advance by the timeline on the side. You’ll know when you should use a skill for a better impact, but also, you’ll know when an enemy will do a critical hit. It seems sensible to just down the next enemy on the timeline before they hit, but with the critical system in mind, it may be smarter to take care of a critical enemy in advance before their critical turn happens that’d be more devastating.
Outside of battle, you can go to the restaurant or camp to get some food to heal and get a temporary buff. You’ll also need Gemma and Cyrus to get some rest because stress stacks as you fight on and on, which would badly debuff them. So outside of fights and narrative exploration, there’s a good focus on party management.
I think South of the March is a neat game, and as someone trying to get back into reading instead of burning my eyes with screens, it’s encouraging. Well, I’m still reading things on a screen, but as the game isn’t super flashy and has a rather muted color palette, it’s still a welcome read with good action.
You have to remember though: it’s Pride Month. So, to end things off, I checked out Rizz Dungeon: Skeleton Key to My Heart, by Snoozy Kazoo, a sapphic game about fighting and getting with monster girls.
As the game’s narrator angsts, the demo has an original plot. Taking place before they break up with their Dragon girlfriend, Taffy ventures into a dungeon to get a gift for her. Unfortunately! She sucks ass at fighting. But the narrator reminds Taffy of their true ability: their ability to rizz up women, and fortunately, the dungeon’s full of monster women.
Rizz Dungeon is a stylish dungeon crawler where you lead Taffy through a dungeon for the sake of canonically doomed yuri. When you get into a fight, Taffy can put on the charm. They can flirt up an enemy until they can lay on that rizz with a pick-up line. With the right line, battle stops – and from there, you can choose to friendzone the enemy to get them to fuck off or recruit them into Taffy’s battle polycule.
Taffy’s monster girlfriends make their own moves after Taffy makes theirs. The Slime can heal or go for her own strike, the Goblin will fuck ’em up – though, she’ll take a step back if Taffy’s trying to lay down the charm. She’s a cool and thoughtful girlfriend. To maintain their stats, you can spend Taffy’s turn to address members of their entourage to keep them emotionally stable to keep fighting.
At the inn, Taffy can spend the night with one of their girlfriends. Things don’t go into NSFW territory, but if Taffy rizzes them up enough with the right conversation topics for them, you’ll be treated with a nice bonding scene full of sweetness and goofs.
Is the game’s title and some of the writing a bit cringe? Mayhaps. But being queer is about exploring yourself. It’s about exploring who you are and what you’re interested in. Even if there’s some embarrassment in your escapades, it’s embarrassment born out of expressing honest feelings. Being cringe is freeing, and that’s a feeling queer people deserve to have in our here and now. And so, combined with having neat gameplay mechanics and really nice pixel art, Rizz Dungeon: Skeleton Key to My Heart is looking to be excellent. Go forth with your cringe (affectionate) rizzing, Taffy.
Aaaand, that’s the last of what I checked out from this round of Steam Next Fest. The next iteration of the Steam Sale is upon us, so consider checking out the official Indie Hell Zone steam curator group to get a line on discounts for stuff this site looked at!
Indie Hell Zone 