Renault on 12/2/2024 at 17:38
I played through a few dungeon crawler demos in the last few days. Monomyth is looking good and seemingly has tons of features, but the demo I tried seemed very unoptimized and shaky on performance. Hopefully they will iron that out soon. I also tried out Neverlooted Dungeon, which quite frankly was a little boring and kind of underwhelming. It's never fun when the introductory AI in a tutorial like level (in this case, a rat) its just kicking your ass to the point of ridiculousness.
Sulphur on 13/2/2024 at 18:07
Played the demo for Until Then, and it hits a certain... something.
Let me elaborate: it's sort of similar to A Space for the Unbound, but where that one's nominally about growing up in Indonesia and dealing with tragedy, this one's about being a schoolkid in the Philippines and dealing with a mystery/tragedy. They're both side-scrolling adventure-ish VNs, but that sells them short, because they both do the small, observed details that make these places feel real. Until Then has its street carts hawking local foods, train stations with a sort of lived-inness in how there's litter and no one's bothered about it, al fresco tables next to supermarkets, and a lot more that contribute to making the sense of place feel effortless - like I really was in the Philippines, even if I've never been. Maybe it's because culturally there's a few similarities between India and the Philippines, but also...
The main reason it resonated with me is because you play this kid, Mark, who's a huge slacker but clearly smart, and he manages to help crunch out slides for a class book report in ten minutes after hearing a summary of it (Crime and Punishment, no less) on the day the report is due. Which... well, that was basically me during school (he might be smarter than I was though), leaving things to the last minute and slapping them out because I had to, and not doing too badly despite that. Cue teachers going, 'you've got so much potential, I don't know why you aren't trying to...'
And that's actually why it's pretty good, in my opinion. Because that might have described you at some point in school, or someone you knew. It's universal in its specificity, and it draws its characters with similar astuteness, they feel like people you might have known in another life, or remind you of people you did know in this life. The dialogue makes the entire thing work, and if it didn't, I wouldn't have as much to say here. Mark's friend circle has conversations I know I've had in the past, even if they weren't on the (nicely detailed representation of) social media app on a phone. Again, attention to detail - people you meet later on will comment that you liked their post, if you happened to give them a thumb. It's all woven into conversation naturally, too. Even the obvious eccentric you meet is somehow charming, and the entire thing is helped by how it uses its environments to ground the experience - school days are framed by areas rendered in shades of bright, sun-kissed concrete and blue sky; Mark curls up in bed and lies on his side, his face lit by mobile screen glow as he scrolls his feed, occasionally spotlit by the glare of headlights from cars and bukyos, I think, streaming in through the window, momentarily drowning the soundtrack with engine noise as they pass by.
And there's the mystery, of course. The demo only teases it, along with some political commentary on how the Philippines dealt with a series of catastrophes in the game's universe, because clearly those will be paid off over the course of the full game. As is, it was insubstantial enough that it didn't matter, but what did matter was that, for at least a few minutes, I was transported to a time when I was a smartass kid in school with equally smartass friends, and the days were all sunshine and peals of laughter endlessly spooling away into the horizon.
So yeah, you bet I wishlisted it.
Thirith on 14/2/2024 at 08:14
There's a Steam Next Fest demo out for Escape Simulator VR, the VR version of a non-VR escape room game. I'm really curious to try it out, but I'm especially curious about the game proper coming out, because it'll allow for coop between VR and non-VR players. I've had some great fun with the TTLG gang playing some amazingly janky VR escape room games, and it'd be cool to extend that to those of us without silly-looking headsets in a more polished game, which Escape Simulator seems to be.
Sulphur on 14/2/2024 at 16:39
Sure sounds like you're implying a sort of something, Thirith.
Thirith on 14/2/2024 at 20:58
No escape, Sulphur. No escape.
demagogue on 13/6/2024 at 16:47
There was a dogfighting card game I used to really like, where you & your opponent would pick a card from your hand for your plane's next action. Then you'd show the selected cards simultaneously, and play them by putting the card under the plane model so the model was on the starting position, and then you'd move the model to the marking for where it'd end up, and IIRC there was also a retractable bit so you could change elevation.
Then if another plane crossed directly in front of you (in front of the base), you could roll the dice and take a shot. It was a pretty fast and fun game. That S:BOB looks a little like that. Cool concept if it is.
Aja on 13/6/2024 at 19:41
Old School Rally reminds me of an N64 game I'd rent for one weekend and then never again. It's charming, though.
I played a bit of (
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1900250/Demonschool/) Demonschool, and while I'm not sure it's for me, I did like a lot about it, particularly the aesthetic. It's a turn-based tactics RPG-type thing about high schoolers who battle demons. Usually I'm not a great fan of turn-based combat, but the attack animations are crunchy and the interface is snappy, so it feels pretty good. I heard about it because one of the devs is a regular on the Insert Credit podcast. I'm keeping my eye on it.
Renault on 13/6/2024 at 21:03
After 20+ years of playing (
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1712350/Riven/) Riven as a slideshow, it's pretty wild to get in there now and play in full 3D. I'm kind of glad the demo didn't include VR capability or my mind would have been blown behind repair.
Yakoob on 13/6/2024 at 21:18
Quote Posted by henke
Caravan Sandwitch... TOO MUCH TALKING and NOT ENOUGH TRUCKIN....
Oh good, I thought I was the only one that felt that way. When I finally beat the antenna tutorial and thought "ok cool NOW I get to explore the vast open space and do some sick flips!" the demo ended D:
