Humble Choice – June, 2022

Another month means another Choice and frankly, this month’s Choice is pretty stacked! I won’t pause this month because of how great the selection of games is and today I wanted to share why exactly I’m so excited about this month’s Humble Choice game selection!

Rank	Games	Developer	Genre
1	SUPERHOT: Mind Control Delete	SUPERHOT Team	Shooter, Time Manipulation
2	Call of the Sea	Out of the Blue Games	Adventure, Puzzle, Indie
2	Siege Survival: Gloria Victis	Black Eye Games, FishTankStudio	Survival, Management, Immersive Sim, Strategy
4	Phoenix Point: Year One Edition	Snapshot Games Inc.	3D, Turn-Based, Strategy
4	Gamedec	Anshar Studios	Isometric, CRPG, Detective, Cyberpunk
5	I Am Fish	Bossa Studios	3D Platformer, Physics-based, Adventure
5	Pumpkin Jack	Nicolas Meyssonnier	3D Platformer, Action-Adventure
8	STAR WARS: Squadrons	MOTIVE, EA	Flight, Space-Sim, Action

Where do I begin? Well, first up, SUPERHOT is pretty darn great! I played a super early of the first game when the demo first appeared online and I enjoyed it so much back then… and while I own the full release of SUPERHOT on Epic Games, I haven’t actually touched it in recent years, which is a shame as I know that I’d enjoy the heck out of it! SUPERHOT: Mind Control Delete is a sequel to that, meaning that I will check it once I’ve played through SUPERHOT – and given that I’m kinda hyped about it right now, getting this game now in Choice means that I’ll have an incentive of sorts to play SUPERHOT over on Epic Games now! Regardless of that, though, SUPERHOT is great. It’s this sort of Shooter where time only moves when you move, effectively adding a fast-paced and tactical component to the supercool bullet-time action… and well… “SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. […]” is kinda iconic!

Call of the Sea is another game I was super excited to play, especially as it’s published by RAW FURY who have a great idea when it comes to what games they publish… but I already own this one already. In search of your missing husband, you embark on a journey to a distant island where you need to solve puzzles and solve a mystery revolving around your husband’s last exploration. The plot is great and from what I’ve seen of the puzzles in the game, it looked like something I’d enjoy greatly, although I haven’t had the time to get to it just yet… Regarding the extra copy I now have, though, I am looking forward to giving it away to my viewers over on Twitch, for the Charity Fundraiser I’m doing! This month’s Choice is actually supporting The Trevor Project (who are amazing!), just like my Charity Fundraiser, so I effectively get to support them double by getting this month’s Choice. The other game that I placed on Rank 2 is a game that I’ve never heard about until now and that I’m equally excited about: Siege Survival! In this game, you manage resources and have to essentially survive a siege, which is an interesting setting for a Strategy/Survival game. Honestly, I may not be the biggest fan of medieval non-fantasy settings but this one is gonna be interesting for sure!

Next up, there is Pheonix Point – a game inspired by the original UFO series although most people will probably understand what it is better if I were to say that it’s similar to the XCOM series. Essentially, this one looks kinda realistic with some amazing enemy designs and some interesting influences that vary from the XCOM series, making it an interesting pickup for sure. The reason why I didn’t place it higher, however, is that I’m frankly not too good with these sorts of games. I get too attached to my soldiers and get devastated when they die… The other issue I have with Pheonix Point is that apparently (according to some Steam reviews) the game isn’t receiving any more updates and fixes for prevailing issues. There is a save state issue, for instance, that screwed someone over greatly and there was no support or patch for it at all, which sucks to hear. Still, I’m looking forward to playing this eventually. Gamedec is a single-player non-combat cyberpunk isometric RPG (yup, that’s a mouthful) where you’re a “game detective” who solves crimes inside virtual worlds. The setting is certainly interesting and I know nothing else about the game apart from it, although I don’t want to necessarily find anything out just yet as story-based games like this kinda require you to not get spoiled, in my opinion… but just like with Pheonix Point, I have a slight issue with this one: It’s text-based and probably somewhat lengthy (at the price of 30 bucks) and I don’t have the energy (or time) to sit through that at the moment, which is why I ranked it a bit low… but Pae is quite excited about it, which probably means that it’s a great game as Paeroka has a great taste in games!

At last, I Am Fish is a bit of a platforming-adventure game where you are a fish that got separated from its friends and have to reunite with them. It kind of reminds me of Goat Simulator but with less chaos if that makes sense. The demo is interesting but I’m not the biggest fan of platformers, so I ranked it a bit lower. In the same vein, Pumpkin Jack didn’t quite intrigue me either, despite the lovely Halloween-like setting. This one’s an Action-Adventure with some platforming elements to it but again, I’m not good with platformers. And well,… at last, there’s STAR WARS: Squadrons. People may hate me for saying this but I don’t actually mind that it’s not on Steam. This one is redeemable on Origin, actually, but as I don’t really care about that too much (especially because GOG Galaxy exists), that’s not the reason why I ranked it last. Frankly, I like Flight Sims but I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan. I maybe haven’t dabbled in the franchise enough, so that may be why… but I’m not all that excited for Squadrons here. On top of that, games like this tend to work a lot better if you have an actual flight stick or even a flight-sim setup and a lot of experience. Playing without that can feel fiddly and, frankly, hit or miss. Keyboard & Mouse (or Gamepad) controls sometimes can feel really well done, like in The Falconeer, but other times, it may feel unresponsive, unfitting, clunky or just bad in general – like in other games that I played in the genre ages ago that I frankly forgot the names of. It’s a very important aspect of the game. On top of that, according to Steam Reviews, the player population is not only very small but also very experienced. Getting into this as a newbie is hence apparently quite punishing and frustrating, which is also why I’m hesitating to feel excited about this.

Overall, I will probably give away Call of the Sea, Star Wars: Squadrons, as well as Pumpkin Jack, to my viewers for the Pride Month Charity Fundraiser. I believe that that would be a better use of the keys than for them to sit around in my library/backlog. All in all, however, this month’s Choice is amazing and I find it cool that the Humble team is supporting The Trevor Project again this year. The Trevor Project is one of the leading charity organisations for Suicide Prevention and Crisis Intervention for LGBTQIA2+ youth – and they also provide a 24/7 chat/text/phone hotline for emergencies as well as education programs, research, and other activities that help make the world a safer world for people like me and others. They’re honestly great! Either way, that’s it for today’s post. Are you grabbing this month’s Choice? If so, would you rank some titles differently?

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. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!