Old School Rally

Heavily inspired by Colin McRae Rally on the PS1 and it looks the part but the car handling really lets in down. Unresponsive at stirred, brakes are too sticky and pace notes are called to late and not together.

Parking Garage Rally Circuit

Fun little circuit time trial mode in the demo with arcade controls (hold X to drift and earn boost like Mario Kart). Kind of game where you will spend time perfecting your run to try and save milliseconds. It has the visuals of a Sega Saturn/Arcade game which is cool.

@games Ash & Adam’s Gobsmacked: cute little goblin FPS that embraces the gremlin nature of the gobbos, the art design is great, the gameplay works, considering it’s rougelite nature, fast climbing and jumping around, and challenges taking place in small arenas, it’s clear that is designed for playtimes of up an hour, I am afraid that it can fall easily into a repetitive grind, but I am cautiously optimistic

@games Glyde the dragon: when I first found out about Glyde, I was sure it was a Spyro-like, and I was half correct, because it’s closer to the Eternal Night series than the classics of the PS1, less 3d platforming challenges more rpg stuff, there are even 2 elements diamonds, the graphics are a little rough, especially the stiff animations, as matter of fact the whole package is slightly off, but this is merely a proof of concept, as even the kickstart was open just a few days ago, so we’ll see

Tried today:

• Beyond These Stars
  Was very hyped for this, now not sure. It’s cute, and I love hexagons (they are the bestagons, after all), but the space whale had far less of an effect than I thought. Plus Against The Storm seemingly ruined me for most city builders. I think I’ll rather wait for whether The Wandering Village (where you build on the back of a giant dino) grows into something cool by the end of its early access. Kept on follow.
• Elsie
  This one was flat out disappointing. It looks gorgeous in videos, but even just playing it the visuals were… distracting? They’re individually beautiful, but they blend together badly which is really meh for such a precision and speed based game. There are outline options and all but I feel this is fixing the symptoms rather than the cause. Plus the UX was in a pretty rough state but the game is in development so that’s okay of course. Anyhow, off my follow list.
• Preserve
  Barely had an eye on this, absolutely loving it. It’s like Dorfromantik and Cascadia had a baby. Chill placing of hexagons that you transform into habitats and then have animals in them. Very pretty, too. Definitely on follow now.
• Honeycomb
  Another big disappointment, this looked like it could recreate the wondrous nature of exploring Subnautica but on land. And maybe Avatar Frontiers of Pandora with its jungle just ruined that for me, but it fell entirely flat. The UI+UX is atrocious but also clearly very very very early and placeholder so I’m not really minding that, but the graphics just… don’t look good. It’s either too artsy, or not artsy enough, with seemingly no clear line. And that ruins the atmosphere, which in turn made the entire game boring. Another one off the follow list.
• The Crush House
  This one is interesting. Only heard about it from an RPS article, you play a cameraman in a Big Brother type situation, and depending on the text comments by fans have to focus on different aspects. It’s a really unique premise, and I like what the demo showed even if it was a bit very simplistic. If more elements than just audiences and their daily likes mesh together in the final version, getting this. It’s on follow now.
• Freakid Fleapit
  A bit unsure. It takes strong inspiration from Crypt of the Necrodancer, but lands a fair bit weaker (to be fair, CotN is a damn high bar to clear). OTOH it has really cool character art and a strong visual identity to its pixel art, too. Keeping on eye on it, could turn out amazing. Kept on follow.

Fera: The Sundered Tribes: an open world survival game based around monster hunting and exploration. You have a glider and a tether that can attach to certain points in the world and you can swing around them like Spider-Man.

First Dwarf: another open world survival crafting game where you play as a dwarf sent to start colonies on floating islands. You have a mech suit you can get in and out of whenever, and a dragon companion you can take control of and fly wherever, similar to the eagles in the new Assassin’s Creed games.

Parcel Corps: a mix of Crazy Taxi and JSRF, you play as a bicycle courier who needs to deliver packages. The demo takes place in a decent sized and maze-like area called “The Plazeria” that’s actually pretty fun to whip around on your bike.

I also downloaded (but haven’t played yet) Goblin Cleanup, which is basically a fantasy version of Viscera Cleanup Detail; and Once Human which seems pretty wild.

I tried Citadelum, which is a Roma-era city builder.

It’s a bit janky given that it’s an early demo, but it’s a neat premise given that the last Roman city builder I was aware of was Caesar 3 from '98.

I give it points for concept and setting, but I think Anno 117 is going to be my preferred Roman-era city builder when that drops, because I already know and love the Anno mechanics.

Goblin Cleanup - I never got around to Viscera Cleanup Detail, so I figured I’d give the demo of this a shot. Honestly, it was a great few hours with 2 friends for free. You play as goblin maids cleaning up a dungeon after (presumably) a TPK. You have to mop blood using slimes, put furnature back in place, feed meat chunks to a mimic, and power up traps using a mana device. Oh, and the traps will kill you too… causing extra work for you (or your laughing/annoyed friends).

We tried co operation: Multiturn (not the greatest name from a discovery standpoint) and had a great time, all you have to do is get the patient in a bed and medication to the patient, easy right?

you have to plan your moves ahead and talk to you friends to make sure the patient you just threw gets caught and doesn’t go sailing out of a window.

Up to 8 people play on phones as controllers so you don’t have to work out the logistics of 8 usb ports etc.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2097840/Co_OPERATION_MultiTurn/

Feed the Deep - swim down the depths to haul resources back, so you can upgrade your air tank etc. Super chill vibe, but has some really cool mechanics with the environment and enemies that you come across which make survival much more difficult.

@games The Big Catch: Man, with a little graphical change, this demo would fit right into the Game cube catalogue, the level of polish of this 3d platformer is astounding, and the dreamlike desert setting/music reminds me a lot of the desert chili-induced visions of Homer from the 8th season of The Simpsons, my favorite sketch from the series, I can’t wait to see what else this game has to offer

@games Warden’s Will: now, there is a lot of potential in this 3rd person shooter, to fly cape flapping in the air superhero style is something that few games can claim, however, I’m afraid the devs may focus so much on the Co-op aspect that they may neglect the single-player balancing, it felt way too slow to conquer the radar points, I’ll have to take a second good look once the project matures a bit

I played the new Creeper World IXE demo, and it was excellent. Looking forward to the full release!