Every week or so I take the time to trawl through the new releases on Steam and see if anything fun or bizarre stands out amongst the endless flow of porn games and Only Up clones. I've found some fantastic stuff this way. Games like Sunken Ships, Deios I and Peaks of Yore that really tickled my fancy and I likely wouldn't have stumbled upon otherwise. So why not take the time on a semi-regular basis to share what catches my eye with others? The loose ground rules:
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No big releases or notable smaller indie games. The former is obvious and if you're reading this to begin with you probably don't need the latter either. Decent chance I arbitrarily break this rule when my whim dictates
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I have likely not played many of the games I am pointing out. I play lots of stuff. Really, a lot. But I can't play everything and I try to be aware that some things that aren't interesting to me may be to others, so these are less recommendations and more 'hey, check this out, maybe you should give it a try'. At the same time though I gravitate towards the stranger works than the kind of indies you'd see listed alongside Vampire Survivors or Hollow Knight, so there is a clear bias in selection
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The concept here is to show what I find on the Steam new releases queue but if I see things elsewhere that stand out then sure, I'll throw them in here too. I do check the Itch new releases sometimes but that is an exhausting task even above and beyond this
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You're not likely to see many games with a heavy sexual content ratio on here. Not because I'm against including them, far from it. There's very obviously plenty of great horny games. The problem is differentiating between the porn shovelware and the meaningful stuff. If I find anything I'll include it but my eyes do glaze over most of what has the 'sexual content' tag on Steam
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Just a blanket warning for anybody with photosensitivity issues to tread carefully as devs will put all sorts of things on their game's page
The Games
Bleed Runner
2D beat-em-up with puzzle bits? OK I'm listening but not sure I'm fully in. Oh it's free? Very cool. Wait it for some reason has fucked up camera angles and retina-destroying visual effects? You got me
Crossroad OS
Played the demo for this during the last Next Fest and had a grand time. Your PC desktop is haunted and morphing around you, better solve some puzzles!
Engineered Damnation
You're stuck in a room working for a quite literal hellcorp and need to decipher materials you're provided with to summon demons. Best of luck
Gardens Of Celestial Globes
Absolutely no clue what is going on here, which is of course a positive. Even after watching a lengthy video of someone playing it (there aren't many) the best I can gather is that you control a planet(of some description?) going across a fucked up universe and fighting other planets. It seemingly comes with a 123 page instruction manual, a fact that only further shreds my understanding of the game. What I do know is that it's fucking beautiful and its obtuseness only gets me more onboard
The Great Below
First-person horror puzzles with a few neat tricks up its sleeve. Tried this one's demo during the recent Next Fest and enjoyed it. Particularly like the stylistic touch of how traversal in the pitch-black rooms is handled via a top-down map before you light one of your limited matches
HunterX: code name T
Listen I have no idea if this 2.5D action/RPG/platformer is any good but it really looks like a modern version of something you'd see a trailer for on a DVD that came with a PS2 magazine circa-2005 so it needs to be highlighted
Incarnation
I seem to recall someone of note (Tom Francis? Mark Brown?) musing about one point about designing a roguelike that reverses the power curve, taking away your abilities as you progress. Well here's one that does just that! Played entirely with a mouse and looks surprisingly tactile for a 2D platformer
MACHO SPINNER
Right it's asset-flip Beyblade, yeah, but instead of dragons n that coming out of your spinner it's big muscle guys. Yeah?
Monster Loves You Too
A sort of visual novel/RPG combo in which you just gotta make your way through the travails of life as a, well, monster. Nice cardboard-cutout art
Nitrojet
An extremely frantic, open and aesthetically-loud 2D action-platformer in a world that gets all sorts of mangled by you and your sometimes humongous foes. Reminds of Deios I in how there's a lot of crazy shit going on at any one time in an artstyle that resembles 2000s flash games
Notice
Super short and visually delightful adventure-y experience about truly acknowledging everything that surrounds you in your day-to-day
Octo Vinctum: Revenge of the Czar
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1899110/Octo_Vinctum_Revenge_of_the_Czar/
m
Charmingly amateurish-looking (J but not actually J)RPG in the classic Earthbound style featuring a young girl who just wants to be a pop star. Vivid, playful, goofy. Dancing is a battle action and one of the enemies appears to be a suave guy with the glaive from Krull so what more could you want
pareidolia in █▄██▄▄
Only ('only') a prototype at the moment but a beguiling lil game about fashionistia'ing your own anime angel girl character and walking around taking photos on a flip phone in a stark city (as well as your apartment complete with a Reimu doll). Be sure to look out for secrets with your photos! Yes there are dnb tracks included as you'd expect from something bearing this premise. Great start and I hope the dev sticks with it
The Paupers
Strange, poetic small sojourn across a rotating land listening to the requests and reflections of wandering spirits
Pygmalion
A colour block puzzler with some cute character interactions breaking up the action. Just released in Early Access
Quest Giver
Funny little narrative RPG parody where you reverse roles and play the quest giver (the Quest Giver)
Repugnant Bounty
2D Metroidvania with a clear Gameboy Colour inspiration in both its visuals and gameplay. In fact, a rom playable on a real GBC is even included with this Steam release. Huge fan of the style here, taking that GBC squished look and greatly expanding the colour palette
Schism
Real gnarly single-screen bullet hell with some serious style (Early Access)
Soul Device
Another 2D action-platformer that stands out for having the appearance of 'what if Hieronymus Bosch took to making Newgrounds games instead of painting'
Tunnet
If you find that an oppressive underground labyrinth is a great place to hyperfocus on optimal ethernet cable routing then Tunnet has you fucking covered
Hope you found something that piqued your interest. There is no specific timeframe for when I'll do another one of these. It all depends on the volume of things I find when I have my regular dig. Maybe what comes out in the next week is enough, maybe it's thin pickings and it takes longer to round up a good selection. This first edition doesn't have a starting point to work with so it's wider-reaching and stretches back a few weeks
Be well and have great days
