It being the summer, I have a lot of time on my hands. I am trying to match the reading record from last year, I’m also working on (finally) finishing the third Solomon Code book, and I have a little social media project I’m working on.
But I’m still maintaining this blog, and even though (as I said last week) no one’s very interested in my review posts, I feel it’s important to give some kind of exposure to artists and do my part to give guidance to people navigating the glut of pointless stuff out there.
Which is why I made sure to play a number of demos during the recent Steam Next Festival this May, and why I’m now writing a review of the ones I played.
Total sacrifice on my part, really.
Tiny Bookshop
I saw an ad for this a while ago–I believe at the recent IGN Game Festival. The trailer basically shows you everything there is to show–it’s a cute, chill game, with a nice aesthetic. All the books are real books, which is unusual, and you get to recommend books for customers and customize your trailer-bookshop.
It seems like it should be right up my alley–but there’s no goal to work towards, no larger story that I could tell. I liked being able to recognize the actual books being referenced, but it didn’t seem like you could upgrade your shop much, which is half the fun of these “Simulator” style games. It’d be fun to do for a few hours or so, but I can’t say I’m really curious about what the larger game is like–it seems limited.
Still. Maybe the fuller game will have a clearer story or more opportunities for expansion than I saw.
Star Birds
If you’re not familiar with the Youtube channel Kurzgesagt, you should be. Wonderfully creative, magnificently informative, they’re one of the premiere producers of content out there–making videos that make you think and inform you about niche topics or interesting speculative questions.
They’re also making a video game, which I had not heard, somehow, until I saw the demo in the Next Festival. It features their simple, colorful animation, and follows a spacefaring civilization of birds who are journeying across the stars, mining as they explore new regions of space. From what I played, the gameplay is simple but addictive, and could easily become very compelling for many fans of Satisfactory and other similar space-building games.
There are hints at a larger plot in the demo, with the Space Birds stumbling across a strange element they’ve never encountered before. There are also distinct character types within the ship, who could make for good back-and-forth. A compelling story would go a long way to attracting me personally to this game, though I’m also disposed to trust the team behind it, as I’ve loved their videos for so long.
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault
I played the demo for Moonlighter during a previous Steam festival and was not impressed. The premise was promising, with the group of villagers and the mechanic of you selling artifacts, but the dungeons felt all very much the same and it quickly began to be like a grind. Your central protagonist had no real personality and no real motivation beyond “make money.”
It seems I was in the minority, though, as Moonlighter did well enough to merit a sequel, and one that makes the jump into three-D environments. Combat felt smooth and the environments afforded challenges–but again, the dungeons were just sort of boring and the enemies bland. The story seems to be setting up another predictable “Capitalism is bad” plot and despite the clear level of polish that’s gone into an already successful game, I can’t say I’m inclined to pick this one up.
Herdling
Herdling is another story. This one I also saw trailers for at the IGN Games Festival. An exploration game reminiscint of Journey or Rime, your non-speaking street urchin must guide a herd of strange, fluffy beasts out of the city, through beautiful mountain countrysides.
It’s a gorgeous game, and what I played flowed well. There’s an odd mixture of gritty reality and dreamlike fantasy, and I seriously wonder if the revelation is going to be that your character has died and dreamed this whole adventure with fluffy cows, but this is one that I’m genuinely interested is and likely to buy when it comes out.
Generation Exile
This one crashed on me, which is… not a great look, obviously. Could just be bad luck. Prior to the crash, it was at least following an interesting premise–an RTS game set on the surface of a barely-liveable world (or ship? I wasn’t quite certain), working on a hexagonal grid to try and reorient an inherently toxic world. The normal RTS mechanics are here, with some new twists about really needing to establish a good environmental balance with waste disposal and chemical traces. It also has a distinctive art style, which helps a lot.
I’m just not actually certain how many players are actually going to want to figure out how to handle the proper disposal / recycling of waste materials and carefully husband power resources. I mean, yes, it’s realistic and an important lesson, but fundamentally games are about play, and if the game is too annoying players may not enjoy it.
Especially if it crashes.
Dispatch
I have a soft spot for this one, because it’s superheros, which I love, and an original superhero universe, which I find promising, and it’s a workplace drama game set in an original comic book universe and all of these are things that I find fascinating.
Less fascinating: It seems to be one of those games that wants to be a movie.
There’s a particular breed of video game that makes a big deal about having big-name movie-star voice actors for game characters that could just as easily be voiced–indeed, probably should be voiced–by voice actors who know how to give expression. These games tend to also have a set narrative that you’re railroaded into despite an illusion of choice, and often focus on “edgy” topics. A good example of this would be 12 Minutes from a few years ago, which made a big deal out of having Daisy Ridley, James McAvoy, and Willem Dafoe on board, only for the game to bomb.
Dispatch seems to be doing a lower-budget version of this by advertising how they have Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad voicing the main character, along with an assortment of Youtube influencers voicing the various heroes in the game. Given that the game is literally about you working on a computer and dispatching various heroes (formerly villains, in the story) to deal with problems, the voice talent is extremely important here. Unfortunately it also is a bit… lackluster. Jeffrey Wright is the only one who really sounds natural, in his aged-up speedster mentor character. Aaron Paul’s lines especially drag.
But perhaps that was merely to do with where his character was in the story. A recently out-of-work superhero needing to manage a team of ex-villains who hate each other would, probably, sound bored and depressed. The story will count for a lot here, and could easily make or break this game. I’d like for it to do well. I really would.
After Inc: Revival
This game was fun and simple… perhaps a bit too simple. (Though this is partially explained by this game being designed for mobile platforms) There was a lot more content when I stopped playing, I just… didn’t have a desire to see more. You wouldn’t think a story about rebuilding civilization after a zombie apocalypse would be boring (heck, I’m currently obsessed with a different one with that same concept), but seeing everything way zoomed out had a way of ridding any decision of any feeling of danger. And again, there was no unified story or larger plot to what was going on, it was just a collection of various scenarios. This game might do well for others, but I don’t have any plans to pick it up.
In Sum…
No absolute clunkers like in previous years, but also not a lot of real standouts. The biggest shortfall I’m seeing is in narrative, which a lot of the games were lacking or simply mediocre in. Hopefully it’s not a trend that continues, but with all the recent layoffs in the gaming industry, I’m worried that a lot of gaming companies have decided that stories are an expense they don’t need to retain users.
Still. Herdling is beautiful, Dispatch will be fine if the story is fine, and Space Birds has a talented team behind it, which should be enough to carry them to success. I hope they all do well.
The Solomon Code 