Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Steam Next Fest

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. Obviously, 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 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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