Underneath my yellow skin

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Let’s actually talk about demos, part two

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Ok! I’m going to talk about demos today. Here is my post from yesterday in which I derialed myself mightily. It has one hell of a footnote, which is so me. But first, let’s talk about the Steam Next Fest in general. Like many things, it has outgrown its usefulness, and now, there are literal thousands of games “featured” in the fest. As you can probably guess, that’s pretty useless and makes it very daunting to find something worthwhile.

What I did was just go through what Steam showed me as quickly as possible, adding several demos one after another. Many of them were cute and cozy games, and there were a few that looked…dodgy. Not dodgy as in scammy, but dodgy as in, “These are not ready to be shown.”

Side note: We know I love me a cozy indie game. I am willing to overlook a lot in an indie game because I know they are often made by less than ten people. And if they have heart, well, I don’t mind if the gameplay is a bit janky.

However. There is a difference between a janky game with heart and just a bad game. Or rather, a game that is rushed to release. Look. I get it. The market is so tough right now. Getting a game any kind of traction these days is a fool’s errand. If you have your eye on the Steam Next Fest, you are going to do your damnedest to get your game ready on time.

You have to be clear-sighted, though. If your game is not ready to go, though, you might actually do more damage to your game than benefit it by pushing it out early.

Here’s where I’m going to say something that’s not very nice.

Some games are shit. They just are. They are clearly meant to be pushed out as quickly as possible with no thought as to is the game actually good or not. There are some companies that churn out the same game over and over again at a quick pace. This was something I saw a lot of in casual gaming, but I never thought it’d creep over into ‘hardcore’ gaming.

Let’s be real, though. The cozy game genre is easy to exploit for devs who are just pushing out the same game over and over again–with maybe a palette swap if they’re feeling frisky.

I’m including a video below by Ellen from Outside Xtra, titled, “I’m Done With Cat Slop”. She’s a huge cat lover as am I, and since she’s a pretty well-known YouTube games content creator, she gets people sending her tons of cat games.

She did a video playing cat slop games (as she was calling them, as a send up of friend slop games), and this video was one in which she explained why she wasn’t going to do that any longer (after showing her playing several cat slop games).

I’m firmly on her side. I have played so many games with cats in them, and there are several of them that are pure shit. Today, I tried one that was about cats and sushi. It was horrible, and more to the point, it didn’t work. First time, the cats did come to the sushi conveyor belt to order sushi. Second day, they did not. Nor ever after that.


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Let’s talk about demos in general

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Before I talk about more demos I’ve played, I want to talk about demos in general. Steam Next Fest is happening right now, and while it used to be a gerat way to see what is new and coming out, now, it’s just way too massive. There are thousands of games on Steam, and, let’s be real. They’re having sales all the time, so it’s nothing special. Here is my post from yesterday on a few demos I really enjoyed.

What it does mean, however, is that there are tons of new demos. I have been adding them like they’re going out of style, and I think I added six or seven. The thing about–ok, I forgot what I was going to say here. But I will say that there were a few games I didn’t like, a few I did like, but not any today that I really like.

I’m going to analyze what catches my eye when I’m playing a demo and what turns me off.

First of all, if it’s first person, chances are I’m going to turn it off rigcht away. That’s just because first person almost always makes me nauseous. I don’t know why Cerature Kitchen (The Rat Zone) from yesterday didn’t, but my theory is beacuse it’s not trying to be photo-realstic, so my brain can accept it as not real.

Another thing that irritates me is if there’s no tutorial. Look. I can figure most shit out, but if there’s not a basic tutorial, I’m going to be frustrated. I played a game that I really wanted to like, but I was lost as to what to do. And it’s a type of game I play often. There are certain tropse that it did not follow, much to its detriment. People like to give tropes a bad rap, but there are times when they are needed .

Once again, I’d like to say that since I mostly try the demos for indie games, I give them as much benefit of the doubt as possible. However, at the end of the day, if I can’t actually play a game, then there’s no point to it.

Here’s something I hate in any game–timed mini-games. One game I quite liked had a mini game for when you were catching bugs (part of the story). It’s the old ‘hit the button when the bar is in the green zone’ except in this case you have to hold down the LMB (no controller) and let go when it’s in the middle of the green bar.


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A confession about my backlog

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I want to talk more about demos/backlogs/piles of shame, etc. Why? Because I’m stridently ignoring the world around me and because why not? Here is my post from yesterday.

Every person who games, especially on the PC, has a vast backlog. We PC players jokingly call it our Steam pile of shame. I, myself, have hundreds of games I’ve bought on impulse because Steam makes it so easy. There’s always a sale. Currently, there is a Krafton Publisher Sale. I had no idea who the hell they were and took a quick glance at the list. I know two or three of the games, but don’t really have an interest in any of them.

Wholesome Games Direct was a few days ago (a week?) as was NextFest. Wait. That’s still going on now. I would not be surprised if there was a sale of some kind every day. Every time I pop over to Steam, which is once a week or so, there seems to be a sale going on. And, like most PC players, I will pick up any game that catches my eye as long as it’s under five/ten/twenty bucks (my threshhold is ten dollars). Is it on my wishlist? Maybe. Does it have to do with a cat? Probably. Will I buy several of them at the same time? Yep.

A content creator I used to watch said that if you don’t buy a game for a buck during a Steam sale, you probably are never going to buy that game (and should take it off your Wishlist). He was right about that, and yet, I still have about 200 games on my Wishlist.

Let’s be real. I should probably take off at least half those games because I will never buy them. And even if I do buy them, I will not play them. But for whatever reason, I insist on keeping them on my Wishlist. Well, I know why. It’s because I can’t be fucked to go through my list and weed out the games I no longer want.

Back to games I buy on impulse. I am someone who doees not usually buy games when they first come out*. I suppose this ties in with the fact that I’m not brand-loyal. Or with the fact that marketing doesn’t work as well on me as it does on most people. It’s really hard to sell me on something that I don’t want. And I’m prone to not wanting things more so than wanting them, so good luck on changing my mind.


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