I’m tired, y’all. I’m so tired. Yes, this is trivial in the grand scheme of things. *Glances around at the world going up in flames* I can’t do much about that, though, so I’m going to ignore it for now and focus on what I can. Which is the Steam Next Fest as it continues to disappoint me. Here’s my post from yesterday in which I talked about the games I tried and didn’t like. Talking about in general terms, I mean. I also talked a bit about the depressing state of the gaming industry. Which, to be fair, I could do every day.
Look.
I don’t know if it’s me just asking for too much, the games not giving me what I want, or the games actually being bad. It might be a combination of all three. Or other things, too. I installed several demos, and I was cautiously hopeful for one or two of them. I mean, just in general. I’m always hopeful in general that I’ll find something good. And, you know, it’s not as if it’s a terrible thing if I don’t. I have so many games in my backlog; I don’t really need to add anything new.
That doesn’t mean I won’t look during every Steam sale. There are so many. So. Many. I honestly think Steam has at least one sale a month if not more. I have hundreds of games in my backlog, if not more. I don’t need to buy anything, and I probably won’t.
I am still on the hunt for a HOG that satisfies me. I said yesterday that I tried one that was ok, but not great. Today, I tried one as well, but it was one of those ‘throw hundreds of one object in the scene and call it a day’. Plus, and this is something that annoys the fuck out of me, I turned the sound off in the menu. When I want back into the game, it was on high. No matter how many times I tried to turn it off, it was on full blast when I went back into the game. I gave up after thirty seconds or so because I cannot stand loud noises if I don’t choose those loud noises. It hurts my ears and it makes me angry. Like physically angry. Like I want to punch someone angry.
I talked yesterday about how I hate ASMR with all my heart. It, too, made me want to punch something or someone in the face. Basically, any noise that I could not control gave me issues. Acutally, this is something that I want to address. Fucking sound.
Let. Me. Control. The. Fucking. Sound. From. The. Very. Beginning.
This is perhaps one of my biggest pet peeves in casual games. They never let you control the sound until after the intro, which means I skip the intro. I cannot stand listening to something if I can’t control the sound. Apparently, this is now becoming a thing in some hardcore game as well. Or maybe just in indie games. At any rate, it annoys the fuck out of me.
And if I cannot turn off the sound? Or I can’t turn it down? Then I’m not going to play the game. It really is that simple. I have very few hard lines in games, but that’s one of them.
Oh! Another is make your goddamn fucking text readable. I understand wanting to use a font that goes with the theme of a game, but again, if I can’t read i, I’m not going to play it. That’s just the way it goes.
I really don’t mean to sound rude, but those seem to be basic things. Let me control the sound and I need to be able to read the text. For the latter, if you want your weird font to go with the theme of the game, then have the option of making it plain text. I don’t know how hard that would be, but at this point, my tired eyes and ears are just doing their best.
I can’t get past this, and I don’t think I should. So many of the devs seem to glide past that, and it’s so basic. I don’t really even consider it an accessibility issue. It’s just basic shit.
I also tried what seemed to be an action adventure game by an indie dev. It was immensely frustrating in its controls.
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but if I can’t figure out the controls within five minutes, I’m not going to play the game. Let me be honest. If I can’t figure them out in less than a minute, then I won’t play the game. There are some games in which I can’t even figure out how to open the menu, and, yeah, I’m not doing that.
To be honest, I’ve been a bit downtrodden by looking through the games in this Steam Next Fest. I feel like nothing was grabbing my interest. Oh, the game I mentioned above. The controls were finicky and I was tired aftrer five minutes. I really don’t want to be hard on an indie dev, but I felt as if they were really muddy in their execution, whatever their initial concept was. And to be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure they had one (a concept).
I tried out a few solitaire games; I did not care for either of them. I also tried a word game that didn’t quite gel with me, either. I feel like I’m in a rut, and I haven’t found anything that I really wanted to play since The Spirit Lift (prettysmart games). I’ve played a bit of Elden Ring because that’s my comfort game, but I’ve not been in the mood for much of anything else.
When I even think of looking at what’s available, I sigh. There’s nothing that intrigues me or excites me. I just keep mindlessly installing demos in hopes that I’ll find one that piques my interest.
I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I wish I could find it, anyway.