The Steam Game Festival is going on until tomorrow, so here’re some more games to check out! I’ve been kind of slouching with these posts due to the quality of some titles and the amount of time that I need to spend in some games to make these posts possible. Pair that with a tight schedule that keeps me from leaving the desk until I’m done with my studies… and then add a little bit of a lack of motivation to it due to me having to continue sitting at the desk in order to write these blog posts… and that basically results in me not being able to write these posts in time. It’s a bit of a bummer and the pandemic and everything isn’t helping, especially with winter ravaging outside and me not being able to leave the house.
But from all of this explanatory exposition to more positive matters. Today we’re playing more Indie Game demos and here are my first impressions on those!
The Longest Road on Earth:
This is an emotive interactive visual novel and auditory experience based upon intimate human connection and the journey we all must take. Just like Per Aspera which we’ve covered in the past, it’s also published by Raw Fury, which is why I was rather excited about trying this one out… It’s a bit of an interesting Adventure game. The anthropomorphic animals each have their own lives and roads to take and master… and while the art style is stunning, I was even more impressed by the fantastic soundtrack by Beícoli. The situations you’re facing are all kind of out of context and focus on small things like riding the bicycle or going to the canteen… but the at times mellow and at times melancholic sounds that have been composed for this title give every single one of these scenes some sort of meaning… For whatever reason, one of the earlier scenes made me cry just now while another lifted me up but if I had played it without the sound on, it would have been completely different, obviously, and I may not have reacted in that way. Similarly, I love it that the demo ends on an upbeat note with some mischief and a little bit of snowy fun.
Ashwalkers:
Ashwalkers is a highly stylised post-apocalyptic survival game where your group tries to find the legendary “Dome of Domes” and hence ventures into a harsh world without rules or judgement. Your choices matter as you always have different approaches to all kinds of situations. Do you sneak past wolves or do you yell at them to scare them away? The choice is yours! While travelling to the vast and grey areas your party members’ energy, food and warmth levels decreases. Alas, you’ll have to set up camp every now and then, distribute resources, schedule guard duties and allow your people to rest or chat in order to replenish energy or let encourage them again. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to face even more dooming challenges. Will your party members make it through? Try it out yourself!
Osteoblasts:
Osteoblasts is a dungeon crawler RPG about, by and for skeletons. Although I’d have to say that since I, as a lich, can still quite enjoy it, I’d imagine that humans like you would also potentially like it. The art style is utilizing some rather pretty colours, the soundtrack is lovely as fuck, and the story is… I don’t really get it but I’m looking forward to figuring it out later on! You are being revived as a skeleton and have to fight against dogs among other enemies. There are multiple classes and items that change your skills. To use skills, you’ll have to use some of your bone marrow… and whenever you level up, you can select between three gods to gain their skill bonuses. The full game will feature multiple endings and while I may not be the biggest fan of turn-based combat in games, I actually really enjoyed this title and am looking forward to trying out some builds in the future and potentially reviewing this game as well once it’s fully out!
Cats and the Other Lives:
Cats and the Other Lives is a narrative experience that explores the reunion of a broken family. After the passing of grandfather Bernard, all of the remaining members of the Mason Family return to their childhood home once again. Alas, we step into the role of the house cat, Aspen, and interact with the world in a point and click style fashion to touch on past hopes, disappointments and regrets of the Mason family. Through flashbacks to the time when Bernard was still alive we learn new things about the past and about the mysterious things that took place in this house, and alas it is our role to relief the family members’ frustrations, to toss things over and to uncover secrets. Overall, this is a rather cute game, though somewhat creepy in some ways. I love the idea of stepping into the role of a pet instead of playing as a family member. It is interesting how typical cat behaviours are put into the game and how the developers enabled the player to utilize those patterns in order to progress through the story. Apart from that, I’ve loved small things like the little bits and pieces of information and lore you can pick up from NPCs in the hallways and rooms as well as the soundtrack that gives the game a somewhat eery and mysterious vibe. Great demo!
And with these few games, it’s already over for me. I have hardly enough time to publish this post and also play more titles. As always there is just not enough time get through so many unless of course, you have nothing else to do than playing games. There are other games that I would have liked to feature but due to time constraints, I’ll just have to vaguely list them:
Dead Estate is an action-roguelike with a top-down-shooter-ish perspective and an interesting art style. It’s supposed to be gory, fast-paced and Halloween-y.
Everescape is a political simulation of an employee of the immigration department. You’re supposed to prevent the entry and spread of some virus and do so with the power of bureaucracy. This seemed like another “Papers, Please” clone but with the difference that it also features an art style that is very much similar to Paintbucket Games’ “Through the darkest of times” (at least as far as the character design goes), so I thought I’d check it out and see how different it is to “Papers, Please” and how well it is done.
Blue Fire is a minimalistic action-adventure that kind of reminds me of Hollow Knight but in 3D. Apparently, however, it is somewhat short and the healing in it is frustrating on top of the game crashing quite often. I would have played it today, actually, but the demo got removed from the store, for whatever reason, so I don’t know how stable the build actually would have been.
Faith of Fate is an adventure game that apparently also has dating sim elements to it and that, according to Steam, is similar to Undertale. Looked interesting!
In My Shadow is supposed to be a puzzle platformer where you use these puzzles to confront your character’s past. The puzzles seemed interesting and I feel like the story could also present you with some nice interactions. Sadly, I didn’t like the art style too much, which is why I let it slide for now and which is why I didn’t play it first thing this festival.
Sands of Aura is an interesting mix of open-world exploration and souls-like action. The premise of it is that you bring life to a world buried beneath a sea of sand, which is something that kind of resonated with me. I like the idea of that world and I would have loved to try out the combat of this one!
Tasomachi is supposed to be an atmospheric 3D Platforming game in a fantasy setting, I guess. The world looked pretty and I would have loved to dive into it.
Undying allows you to accompany a young mother in her journey to protect and raise her son, Cody, in a zombie-infested world. After being bitten by a zombie herself, she knows that her days are numbered, which is why she’s got to protect her son, search for safety and teach him skills while she still can. This sounds like a great game and I like the minimalistic approach to the art style and the perspectives, so I’m sure that this is a great title to check out. Wishlisted!
Either way, the Steam Game Festival will still be up until February 9th, 10 AM (PST), meaning that I still have about 19 hours left to play some of these demos, and potentially more if some of them still are around after the event. I’d recommend you to check out the titles listed above as well as the games that I didn’t get to. I still have a bit of time until then, so I will check them out. I will probably just not write about these last few titles as there wouldn’t be enough time.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this (somewhat longer) post. What other discoveries did you make during this event? Did you find any nice titles to play? Let me know!
Cheers!
This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well.
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