Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Steam Next Fest

Steam Next Fest? NEXT! (Demos, part five)

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Ok. This is it. I’m going to talk more about what I want in a game and what I don’t. And how I am having trouble finding the former as I’m wading through the slop that contains the latter. The thing is, I am part of the problem. If I’m buying an indie game, I’m pretty relaxed as to what I expect from said game. Actually, in general, I’m pretty chill. That way, I’m pleasantly surprised if a game turns out to be good.

Is that a good attitude? Probably not. Am I going to change it? Nope. Here is my post from yesterday in which I mostly talked about how terrible most soulslikes are. Why? Because it’s related to the topic at hand; I swear.

The topic is how once something goes big, there are a million wannabes, and most of them are not nearly as good as the original. I mentioned Stardew Valley (Concerned Ape) yesterday, and today I want to talk about Balatro (LocalThunk).

When it first came out, I stayed far away from it because I knew that it might be the kind of game that I would obsess over. When I finally gave in, I was so right to be wary of it. It has that ‘just one more run’ feel to it and that intangible something that kept me playing. For hours. Upon hours. Upon multiple hours. And got obsessed with it in a very unhealthy way. I got what I consider my personal plat for it*, and it was my life for a couple of months.

It’s such a simple game, and it looks very basic. Aesthetically, there’s not much to it. It’s competent. That’s the way I would describe it. I hadf to turn off the music because it was tickling my brain in a weird and not welcome way. The music wasn’t bad, I hasten to add; it just wasn’t something I wanted to listen to for hours on end. Plus, I watch videos as I game, so I usually don’t like music in my games. (FromSoft games are the exception.)

Balatro went from the little game that could to one of those games that define a genre. I have seen so many balatrolikes, and I will say that most of them are not as good as the original. Which is a theme that continues with games i love and their imitators.

I don’t mind that games try to copy something successful, but I do mind that they often are way too slavish to the source material to be enjoyable. I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but that doesn’t necessarily make for interesting or fun gameplay.


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Demos on my mind, part four

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Let’s talk more about demos. I have tried several more, and I do think the fun of plowing through a half-dozen demos has considerably dimmed. I’m still looking for that hidden gem, but there is just SO much slop. I think I have found one decent game for every twenty crappy games I see. I was talking yesterday about things that seem to be missing from so many games, and I want to continue that in this post.

One thing that I’ve noticed is how many copycat games there are. This is to be expected and it’s not just limited to games, of course. Anything that becomes popular gets hundreds of others trying to copy what made them popular. The problem is that most of the copies if not all of them fail to get to the heart of what made the original special.

I will use FromSoft as an example because they fit the brief perfectly. When they first came out with Demon’s Souls, there were more naysayers than supporters. In that time, games very very much hand-holdy and making sure that the player felt overpowered and unable to die. In fact, dying was made pretty toothless with the ability to respond without any negative effect becoming the standard.

FromSoft (especially Miyazaki) came along and said, “Nah, fuck that shit, yo.” Not those words in particular, but the sentiment. Demon’s Souls was hard and gave no quarter. I have not played it, but I have seen others play it. It’s hard and grueling as you would expect from a From game. More to the point, it does not coddle the player.

You could say the same for Dark Souls, which I have played.  Several times. Both Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls grew to be cult favorites, and Miyazaki was pressured to porting the latter to PC. It was awful. A really terrible port. It’s only because of a mod called dsfix that anyone could play it on the PC at something resembling ok. Because of that, I did not have to experience the Blighttown slowdown (it ran at literally 2 fps for some people).

Fast-forward to 2021 when FromSoft released the biggest game of the year, Elden Ring. It became a huge commercial hit, and it’s what made them cross the rubricon (heh) from niche to mainstream. In the time between Demon’s Souls and Elden Ring, their success has spawned countless soulslikes. A few have been good, while the vast majority have been serivecable, bad, or horrid.

This is the way it goes when something hit sthe cultural conscienceness. There are a bunch of lemmings in any industry (and shareholders desperate to jump on the latest trend–see the debacle of the live service nonsense of the last year), and they will milk the shit out of a trend until there is nothing left but a limp, lifeless husk. In the first few years after Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, there were no copies, obviously. Then the first Lords of the Fallen (Deck13 and CI Games) came out in 2014, and it was the first Souls clone (at least of any notability).


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Moar demos, no problem (part three)

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I’m back to talk more about demos. No, really I am not going to derail myself or get stuck in a footnote. I’m going to stick to demos and why I do and/or don’t love them. (Let’s see how long I keep that promise. My prediction is one paragraph.)

I was talking to Ian about how the Steam Next Fest has blown up into something unrecognizable. There are literally thousands of games in the Fest, and I mean several thousands. I think there are close to/over five thousand; what the fuck is up with that?! That’s way too many games. I blazed through a bunch of them yesterday, installing several on my Steam client. I tried a few, and, well…let’s just say I should have been pickier. The slop, it was slopping. In yesterday’s post, I talked about what I expected from a demo, and I’ll continue that in a bit.

I did the equivalent of going into a store, grabbing everything that’s on sale, and tossing it in my bag. To be fair to me, I did make sure they were in genres I actually played, but that was about it. And because I am very ggenerous towayrds indie devs, I put up with more than I should have.

At the end of the last post, I was talking about the things that really frustrated me in a game. I’ll keep going down that path now. Oh, and these are things that should be in every game. I’m not asking for anything hard, mind. Just things like what the controls are.

Side note: I have a hard time with controls if I’m using K&M because I use the Dvorak system. Most games use QWERTY, and while some switch back automatically, others don’t. Some might let me switch it myself, but others don’t. So I can’t use the Dvorak system at all. I will be fair and say that there is no optimal choice for me because I don’t look at the keyboard as I type, so if the instructions are in Dvorak, I’m lost.

This is one reason I prefer controller to K/M. I will say that I like to use K/M for typing games, of which I played one today. I will talk about it a bit later because it was one game I liked. Mostly.

Here’s the thing. I have different categories and ratings for games, depending on if it’s a triple A game or an indie game*. if I’m paying seventy bucks for a game–well, I’m not going to pay that much for a game, really. I very rarely play triple A games, and I certainly did not pay full price for them.**


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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 derailed 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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Steam Next Fest is making me tired

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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.

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Steam Next Fest aagain, and other (grim) industry news

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I want to talk more about the Steam Next Fest because I played a demo that actually didn’t completely frustrate the fuck out of me (yes, I know that’s damning with faint praise, but I’m just happy that I could actually play it and that I enjoyed it more than it frustrated me).

Before I get to that, though, there was another layoff in the industry, and it’s one that hurt personally. Briefly, IGN bought Eurogamer in May, 2024. Once they did, the changes were immediate and obvious. I don’t know anything about what happened in the background, but from a fan’s perspective, it really sucked.

Now, let me back up a bit more than that. I only cared about the video side of Eurogamer. I started watching when it was Johnny Chiodini, Aoife Wilson, Ian Higton, and Chris Bratt. I hung through it when Chris Bratt left. They added another member for a bit, but she did not work out. Then Johnny left. Did they leave while the other member was there? I’m not sure. Anyway, Zoe Delahunty-Light joined the team. I’m not going to lie. I struggled with her at first, but then I came to appreciate what she brought to the team. It was Aoife, Ian, and Zoe for quite a while, and it was good. Then, Aoife left to work for Larian Studios. Ian and Zoe held it down while bringing in occasional freelancer. One of them was Jim Trinca, and he eventually became the third fulltime member. This was in October of 2024 (so Google tells me). I stopped watching for the most part once Aoife left, but I always wanted them to do well.

Side note: Huh. Apparently, there was a fourth person added later–Alix. I can’t find out who that is in my light research, so I’m just going to leave it at that.

Fast-forward to two days ago. IGN announced that they had cut the whole Eurogamer video team. Even though I hadn’t watched them in quite some time and the industry is littered with layoffs left and right, it still hit hard. I don’t know if it’s because I’m nostalgic for the days I used to watch them on the regular or what, but it really bothered me.

I mean, obviously, it’s terrible that they lost their jobs. I don’t want to undercut that point. It’s awful, and I really feel for them. Especially Ian as he’s been there from the start. It’s a grim time in the games industry, and I honestly don’t know how anyone does it. I understand why anyone who is a games journalist would find a different job.

Back to the Steam Next Fest. It seems almost hollow talking about it in light of the news I previously mentioned, but there’s no way to not make it awkward.

I finally played a demo of a game that I then put on my wishlist. Hm. I was going to say what it was, but I’m not sure I’m going to do that. Why? Because I don’t like to be negative about a game before I’ve even played it. Ok, I have done that in the past, but that’s the rule I made up for myself right now. I’ll review it when/if I play the actual game.


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More about Steam Next Fest

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I’m back to talk more about Steam Next Fest. I went on at length about this sub-genre of Hidden Object Games (HOGs) that is shoving hundreds of the same object in tthe background (in this case, cats), which I find to be boring unless there is some other hook in the game.

Today, I tried out a few more demos. I am not going to name them beacuse I did not enjoy them, and I don’t think it’s fair to give them negative pub before the games actually come out. I will say though that one of them was by a developer who did a game I liked waaaaay back when, but found quite frustrating. I played their second game, which was so buggy. I liked it and tried to push through, but I ran into a bug that made it impossible for me to continue. I gave up on them after that.

This one, there were no bugs. What I did find, though, was something that is a pet peeve of mine, and it happens a lot in indie games.

Clarification: Before I go any further, I want to say that I realize indie devs are doing the best they can with very little. I know that they are running with a very bare crew. Again, I’m talking about indie teams that are under twenty people. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt because they don’t have the money or the people or the time that bigger devs do. Seriously. I will overlook many things.

One thing, however, I have a really hard time looking over is a tutorial that doesn’t tell me how to actually play the game or what the controls are. Or how to exit to the menu. I think this is pretty basic info, and I don’t see why it would not be the first thing they did.

I also don’t like it when puzzles don’t tell you how to solve them. I don’t mean they’re supposed to give you the answer, but they should give you some hint that you have actually solved the puzzle. I did this one puzzle, and I thought I had it right. Except, the game did not make any indication that I had done the right thing. There was a blinking light bulb button, and I thought it was to give a hint. I didn’t want a hint, but I couldn’t see anything else to do.

I hit the button, something flashed before my eyes, and then the puzzle was done. Did it solve the puzzle for me? I was mad about it, so I restarted the game and quickly got to that part again. I did the puzzle once again (and it was a clumsy puzzle. Very much did not like it), and still, nothing to indicate what I should do. I checked a playthrough, and I was, indeed, supposed to hit the button I had hit before.

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Steam Next Fest, let’s talk about it

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When I was a casual game player (decades ago), I liked Hidden Object Games or HOGs as they were called. As the name implied, the main purpose is to find objects that are hidden in the scene. It’s pretty much as simple as that. At least it was when I played them. Then, the devs decided that they needed to make the games adventure games because, oh, I don’t know, they felt guilty about putting out the same game over and over again? Soon, they were putting in morphing objects and collectibles. I hate that shit, but I also feel compelled to find every one. Which is part of the reasons I quit playing them. Another was the aforementioned collectibles. The last reason was that I started playing “hard” games and relegated casual games to a once-in-a-while thing.

I still like HOGs, though, and Steam has started to have more and more of them on the platform. We now have a sub-category that I’ll call hidden cat games. As you can probably tell, that’s right up my alley. I love cats and I used to like hidden object games. What more do I need?

Well.

I feel a bit ungenerous in what I’m about to say.

I don’t like the way it’s being implemented. In most HOGs, the objects are hidden in a way to make them blend into the background. Plus, it’s usually ten or fifteen hidden objects per scene. The new breed of HOGs (and the one in which most cat HOGs fall) is to just throw a shit ton of objects on the scene, pretty artlessly.

In the case of the cats, it’s just hundreds of cats tossed in the background. There are some other objects to find as well, but it’s mostly just tons of cats. I’ve played several of these games, and I’m bored with it already. If there’s nothing else to reel me in, then I don’t really want to play it. I’m not saying it’s a cynical money grab, but, I’m also not saying it’s not.

How does this tie into the Steam Next Fest? One of the demos I saw was for one of these games by a developer of whom I had bought their two previous games–which were exactly the same. That’s three games in a year, which is very similar to how the devs in casual games dropped their games. Same game just with a palette swap. This series is really pretty, I’ll give it that, but it’s…boring. There are literally over a hundred object in each scene. If you keep the ‘page’ at the regular size, you will miss half the objects beacuse they simply won’t appear.

You can enlarge the page to the point where you have maybe one-fortieth of the page on screen.  But then you have the chance to miss something when you’re scrolling to the next part of the scene. There is a hint, but you have to wait something like 2 minutes for it to refresh. I read a hint that if you go out of the level and go back in, then the time resets.


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Demo(lition) woman

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It’s Steam Next Fest! What is that? I had no clue when Ian told me about it. I thought it was yet another Steam Sale, which, to be fair, it is, but it’s also a conference/festival/etc. Summer seems to be the time for this shit to happen, which is fine. In this case, that means many demos! I’m a casual gamer at heart and with casual games, demos are expected. Casual games are probably easier to make in general so it’s no biggie to have a demo, but it’s really nice to be able to play the first hour or the first chapter before buying. And that’s with a $7 game! With hardcore games being upwards of $70, it makes sense to want to check it out before buying.

In fact, that’s one reason Game Pass (Xbox and PC) is such a good thing. You can play the games for free and then buy them if you really like them. It’s pretty great that most of the stuff coming up on Xbox is going to be on Game Pass from day one. Which includes PC. I’m here for that and my Game Pass library is growing to the point where I have a pile of shame over there as well.

First, I’m still playing Cozy Grove by Spry Fox every day. It’s my comfort game and it’s my way of starting the day–well, continuing the day. I don’t do it when I first get up–that would be my taiji routine after feeding Shadow, but I usually do it within a few hours after that. Nowadays, it takes about an hour because I have so many resources to gather plus helping my spirit friends and, most importantly, Fashion Grove! I had to help one of my friends leave this mortal coil–look. This is difficult to explain, but they’re spirit bears who are caught in limbo. When they need help, they’re translucent as is the area around them. Nothing grows in the translucent areas and the animals are frozen. After I help them, they wave their paws in the air and become colored again–as is the area around them. Animals spring back to life and you can harvest fruits and flowers again.

Anyway, once you fill all five of their hearts, they are ready to move on. That happened with one of the characters and I was caught off-guard. I was trying to back out of it because I wasn’t ready and managed to flub it up so I didn’t get her final story scene. That bothered me and still does, but I can picture it in my mind (also, not going to play the game all over again just to get there because that  would be two more actual live-time months). I actually said I wasn’t ready for her to go. Afterwards, she turned golden and she’s still there, but I can’t talk to her. Or rather, she can’t talk to me. She still sends me on fetch quests now and again, and I can still buy/sell from/to her when she does, but other than that, she’s just there.

Today, I had a task to do for another spirit bear and he said it was one last craft. I adore him and did not want him to go so even though I had the material he needed, I refused to give them to him until I had done absolutely everything else for the day. Then, I gave him what he needed and it wasn’t actually the thing that pushed him to being released. I was relieved that he was still going to be around.


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