Only recently Steam hosted the autumn festival of demo versions “Games to be!». And now there is a new festival dedicated to Halloween – Steam Scream Fest. As you can easily guess from the title of the article, a considerable number of demos of games that should be released in the foreseeable future were also poured here. I tried some of these demos, recorded a video of the playthrough and formed my subjective opinion about them. What I would like to share with you.
In comparison with the previous steamfest “There will be games!", the Halloween festival is somewhat limited in terms of games due to its theme. But, despite this, they offer more than three hundred demo versions of games of various genres. This doesn’t count demos of already released games.
At first I thought it was a bit. Therefore, when selecting games that I would like to watch, I slightly lowered the bar of requirements in order to get at least a dozen. But I very quickly realized my mistake, realizing that this way I could hold out for up to fifty games, which I physically would not be able to play in a short time (after all, there is work, personal matters and all that…). So, I quickly set the requirements back. And I still have 23 games to review. True, 5 of them dropped out of the list for various reasons in the process. Something turned out to be too different from what I expected, something did not start, and somewhere when going to the game page, it turned out that “this product is not available in your region”. It would be possible, of course, to get confused and find a way to launch games that were not accessible or did not start. But, since the list was still more than decent, I decided not to bother with them.
For those interested, I leave links to playlists of the gameplay of all the games listed below in Youtube And VKontakte.
Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to pre-announce the entire list of games being reviewed. So, if you are interested in something specific, you can immediately see whether the game you are interested in is in the list or not. I give the games in the order of their review:
Well then. Looks like we’re done with foreplay. So, let’s get on with the games!
Recording demo gameplay
And we’ll start with a classic point&click quest about the girl Prim (yes, like the name of the game). This girl is not an ordinary girl, but the daughter of Death himself. True, like many children, Prim considers her dad to be too strict and forbid her absolutely everything. This is why this is not possible, this is why this is not possible and all that. And then she constantly dreams of some guy who supposedly needs help. Well, one fine day, the girl decides to run away.
As you might guess, this is where the game begins. And spoiler alert, the demo ends during the escape.
Visually, the game looks very nice and Tim Burtonovsky, and the color scheme is made in black and white. The voice acting is also very nice.
All controls are on the mouse: interaction – with the left button, viewing – with the right button, opening the inventory – with the wheel up, closing – respectively, down. That’s all. It’s all management. So, the game can be played with one right hand. Well… or left, if you’re left-handed. Very convenient and intuitive.
Gameplay is, I repeat, a classic point&click quest, with the inherent advantages and disadvantages of this kind of quests.
The latter include leisurely animations that cannot be missed in case of repetition of actions and pixel hunting.
But to the credit of the authors Prime, they tried to solve both of these problems.
In the case of leisurely animations, when repeating various actions, some of these animations are not played completely. And pixel hunting was simplified by highlighting objects with which you can interact. This highlight does not appear immediately, but it can be opened in just a couple of actions, at the very beginning of the game.
Hmm, I said above that all controls are bound to the mouse, but the highlighting of active objects seems to be set to space. However, I think this doesn’t change much. Moreover, if you consider it a rendering, you don’t have to use it. But, in my opinion, highlighting objects is better than clicking the mouse over the entire screen in search of a missed object, without which the passage is completely blocked.
Another common problem with such quests is the strangeness and, sometimes, seeming (and sometimes not seeming) illogicality of solving puzzles. And with this in Prime complete order! Not in the sense that they are illogical, but quite the opposite. All the actions that need to be done to complete the accessible part of the game are completely logical, although this does not mean that some of them will not have to be reached by trial and error.
Even to me, who had not played this kind of quest for almost 20 years, everything seemed intuitive. However, it is possible that outside the demo version, the riddles may no longer be as logical, but the demo itself puts you in a positive mood.
By the way, she sets a positive mood not only and not so much with the logic of the riddles, but with unobtrusive humor that smacks of a slight degree of blackness, so to speak.
After the end of the demo, a video message from its author is launched, who explains the idea of the game and promises various goodies to those who make a financial contribution to its creation (not in-game). And from the first impression, for fans of the genre, the game deserves it.
All in all, Prime left behind an extremely pleasant impression. So, fans of classic point&click quests should pay attention to it. And perhaps not only them. The game seemed quite friendly to beginners. At least within the demo.
Release Prime the authors plan next year.
Recording demo gameplay
Behind this strange name is a shooter set in the Second World War, but with the paranormal abilities of the main character.
Unfortunately, unlike the previous game, KVLT turned out to be stupid shit and below I will try to explain why this is so.
Firstly, pressing the Escape key in the main menu of the game means exiting the game. I’m having a hard time understanding how stupid you have to be to do something like that. After all, when you try to exit some submenu, you intuitively press Escape, but the game may not immediately respond to the press and after pressing it again, with a high probability you will be kicked out of the game. But this is still a small thing.
Secondly, after starting the game process, you cannot go into the control settings and change anything there. You need to go to the main menu and change it like that. But I didn’t notice any saving in the game at the stage I passed. That is, if you want to change something in the control settings (even just change the mouse sensitivity), start over. Okay, maybe the demo is short and doesn’t need saves, but in the game itself they will be normal (which is not a fact).
Thirdly, the technical condition of the game also leaves much to be desired. In half an hour of play, it crashed twice for me. Once on record and once off record. Okay, at least no brakes were noticed, although if it had also slowed down with this schedule..
Fourthly, in terms of movement, opponents behave like dummies from ancient shooters. Moreover, shooters where the movement of opponents is poorly implemented.
Fifthly, I didn’t notice any impact in the game from dealing damage to the main character, which is why I died twice without even noticing that they managed to inflict a ton of this damage on me. And as we remember, saves are not provided in the demo.
Sixthly, the impact from your weapon is also quite mediocre.
Seventh, THIS is stupidly boring to play. Even paranormal abilities, in the part of the demo that I managed to see, did not arouse much interest – a shield that protects from damage, and paranormal vision that allows you to see or unsee anything.
Well, you’re probably already asking: is there anything good in this game?? Well, I’ll answer you anyway! Yes, I have. It’s so wretched that it took me less than half an hour to understand it.
Conclusion – give me a paranormal ability https://luckymeslots-casino.uk/bonus/ that will allow me to unsee this dull dumb shit consisting of a strange set of letters KVLT.
THIS does not have a clear release date. And honestly, it couldn’t have been better.
Monsters Domain
Recording demo gameplay
The next game on my list is Monsters Domain, is an open world action RPG with crafting and base building.
The game begins with two dudes awakening some kind of evil, after which one immediately dies, and the second manages to run to the side, and at first I thought that I would be playing as this very second dude. But no, you have to play for that same thing, awakened evil (or even Evil).
At first, the protagonist flies in the form of a spirit and in this state he is practically immortal. But in order to get the opportunity to do anything, you need to move into any available corpse in order to take it under your sensitive control. Thus, one must understand that immortality in the form of a spirit is limited by the presence or absence of these same corpses into which one could inhabit.
Naturally, you can also inhabit defeated enemies. However, I still wouldn’t recommend constantly moving from one dead guy to another, since this resets character leveling. Conceptually, it looks strange that I can’t move back into my own corpse unless it’s torn to shreds, but oh well.
Regarding the aforementioned leveling, we have a skill tree. But it is not available in the demo. Therefore, I only saw a level increase, which only affected gaining access to equipment of the corresponding level.
The combat system reminded me a little Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, but, unfortunately, simplified to complete primitivism. There’s a punch, a charged punch and a block. In addition to melee weapons, you can use bows and magic. I received spells from the enemies I killed and they work similarly to weapons. That is, I need to take the scroll with the spell into my hand to cast it. I didn’t notice any effects from the spells other than direct damage. So, I don’t even understand what the difference is between lightning and fireball.
The primitiveness of the combat system is compensated by the ability to raise an army of the dead into battle, each of which can be given a name and equipped to your taste. The trouble is that in the crush of a mass brawl, the combat system is even more depressing, since it is difficult to understand where your friends are and where the enemies are and who to beat at all. But from the outside it looks a little fun.
Defeated enemies can be brought to victim, Just kill or even move in in them, as mentioned above. To be honest, I didn’t notice the difference between murder and bringing to victim and I don’t understand why this is needed. Likely, killed the enemy can be resurrected into your army, and sacrifice gives more experience.
Equipment can be collected from defeated enemies, from chests scattered throughout locations, or you can craft it yourself.
For crafting, of course, you need resources and a forge. So, let’s move on to creating our base. In the demo, it was only possible to build some huts that increased the size limit of my army of sinister (rather amusing) dead. To create these huts, I had to swing a pick while mining silver and an ax while cutting down trees.
To be honest, the process of building a base seemed monotonous and uninteresting to me. But maybe I just don’t like this kind of gameplay, but fans of the genre will like it.
Visually the game doesn’t look great, but the graphics didn’t give me any special complaints. Okay, at least it doesn’t slow down, which often happens with projects at an early stage of development.
By the way, the authors warn in advance that the demo does not reflect the final state of the project and a lot can change. Well, that’s probably how it will be, considering that the game’s release date is not specified.
Conceptually, comparisons come to mind with Dungeon Keeper And Overlord. In the sense that you have to play for the universal Evil.
Give an assessment Monsters Domain I probably won’t. I’ll just say that I wasn’t particularly interested in the game, but this is not due to its state (which is far from final), but to the primitive combat and, which seemed boring to me, base construction. Perhaps fans of the genre will be quite pleased with this.
The release date of the game, as I mentioned above, is not specified.
CONSCRIPT
Recording demo gameplay
The theme of the First World War in games is rather poorly represented. Off the top of my head, I only remember Battlefield 1 and gorgeous Valiant Hearts.
U CONSCRIPT there is potential to add to this list. The events of the game take place in 1916, during the meat grinder near Verdun, and the game does a good job of conveying the spirit of this horror. There is complete chaos going on around, and the main character (French) is looking for his brother, who has just gone to the front line.
Zhanrovo, CONSCRIPT is a survival horror with an isometric view and pixel graphics.
In general, throughout the entire demo I had the feeling that I was playing some kind of game Resident Evil, only in the scenery of the First World War and without any supernatural bullshit. Judge for yourself:
· There is an inventory that can be expanded and the filling of which needs to be monitored (although in the demo there were no particular problems with this);
· Events take place in a limited area, where the main character will have to constantly rush back and forth, performing certain actions to move forward;
· The map, although made in its own style and as if drawn on a piece of paper, still has some common features with Rezik;
· Ammo is limited (although on medium difficulty, in the demo I had absolutely no problems with ammo);
· To save ammo, you should use melee weapons. In the game there is a sapper’s shovel, which is good at knocking out enemies, preventing them from immediately attacking in response, and there is a knife, which is noticeably weaker, but does not break;
· There is a merchant from whom you can buy various goodies for cigarettes, such as weapon upgrades, ammunition, consumables, increased inventory capacity, etc. n. Also, he can upgrade his weapons;
· There are save rooms where you can save and put things you don’t need at the moment into a storage box;
· Sometimes, as loot, I found gunpowder, which made me think about the possibility of making cartridges from this gunpowder (although it is possible that it will be used for other purposes);
· Damn, I even came across some analogue of the Tyrant here. A powerful armored German soldier who completely ignored my attempts to beat him with a shovel or shoot him with a rifle. He didn’t even care about the explosion of “exploding boxes”, which had previously killed everything in the affected radius. As a result, this armored car was knocked down by a successful artillery strike. True, it remains unclear to me whether I managed to somehow trigger the artillery strike or whether I just had to run away from this armored dude for some time to be scattered around the trench;
· After completing the demo, I was given a “C” grade, which is also traditional for the series RE.
In general, based on the above, I think you will agree that CONSCRIPT quite a lot in common with the games in the series Resident Evil. But I don’t consider this a minus of the game at all. There are not so many well-executed games in this style. And games made in the style of the First World War and even more so.
So, if pixel graphics don’t bother you, then I strongly recommend paying attention to this project.
Specific release date CONSCRIPT not specified. As often happens in such cases, there is a “coming soon” sign on Steam.
Dark Fracture
Recording demo gameplay
Where would a Halloween festival be without more classic horror games?? I hasten to reassure you, they will be here. By the way, here is one of them.
Dark Fracture is a scary walking simulator in the spirit of Layers of Fear. True, unlike Layers of Fear, somehow he didn’t really grab me.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that a significant part of the gameplay of the demo, the game keeps me in the dark, where, at best, anything is visible only for a couple of steps. Despite the fact that the events unfold in a rather confined space – in the morgue.
Perhaps the fact is that I did not always understand what action the game required of me. This may be due to an insufficient understanding of the English language (even though Russian localization is announced for the game, it is not in the demo), but a couple of points still confused me.
Throughout almost the entire demo, our protagonist says that he would like to smoke, but he cannot take a pack of cigarettes lying in the office, although interaction with it is provided.
Same with the key to the exit from the morgue. This key can only be taken at the moment when the hero, under the pressure of supernatural circumstances, decides that he’s had enough and it’s time to get out. It is clear that this was done so that when the key is needed, it will disappear from the locker and appear almost side by side, hanging on a chain that sticks out very crookedly from the ceiling (crookedly – in visual terms). But damn, SUCH conventions are annoying. So you often keep the keys that you are supposed to use all the time in your locker? I guess not. Here, the main character has all the keys scattered in different places.
At some point, the phone rings in the protagonist’s office, to which he reacts in the spirit that this may be an important call, but naturally does not have time to pick up the phone. And upon returning to the office, the player does not even have the opportunity to interact with the phone. In any case, I expected that it would be possible to call back the last missed number. However, in this case, this is the problem of my expectation.
For some reason, the game has a huge number of drawers on chests of drawers, shelves and tables that you can open and check their contents, but in 90% of cases, there is nothing there.
There is an interesting feature in the game with the mental state of the main character. In fact, his psychosis scale should apparently replace the health scale, but maybe it will be used in some more creative way. Perhaps the GG will experience more frequent glitches during psychosis or something like that. But in the demo everything looked scripted.
You can normalize your mental state by taking pills (sedative, apparently). And here again we are faced with a rather idiotic convention. The bottle of medicine is in GG’s office, but at first he can’t take it. Instead, you need to go to the other end of the morgue and in the locker with personal belongings take the pill lying there separately. And to accept it, you must stand in front of a mirror. Damn it! Seriously?! And there’s no need to make a face.
The game scared me most of the time, not very scary, although there was a moment where I was normally so scared (you can even hear it in the video). But in general, at first there was normal pressure, and then some hands sticking out of the walls and floor that didn’t even try to grab me. The trailer showed some strange creatures, the design of which is slightly reminiscent of the creations of Hans Giger, which is why I had an association with Skorn, but in the demo something vaguely similar appears only at the very end and at this stage does not cause any emotional response.
All in all, Dark Fracture I wasn’t hooked at all. And I can recommend it, even just for reference, only to connoisseurs of the genre.
There is no exact release date for the game. Costs TBA die (to be announced later).
Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow
Recording demo gameplay
Quite a visually pleasing, three-dimensional platformer about a boy and his teddy bear, who work in a duet, helping each other in overcoming obstacles and running away from an ominous hand that is trying to grab the boy.
We play as a boy, and at the right moments we can throw the bear cub somewhere out the window so that he can climb through and open a passage, or give him a command so that he performs the desired action in one place, while the boy, under our strict guidance, is busy with something else.
In general, there is scope for joint action. And it would be pretty cool if the bear obeyed commands normally. Instead, at one point he did not reach the desired object, went back and generally hid in a corner (perhaps he decided to cry on the quiet), not responding to commands.
And in another game episode, this idiot simply began to behave like a real idiot, doing something completely different from what was required of him, returning to me and looking at me with devoted eyes. At this point, I was stuck like that for about twenty minutes, not understanding what the game wanted from me. Having gotten pretty bored, I couldn’t stand it and went to YouTube to see what needed to be done there. But even after finding this out, I was unable to perform the necessary actions due to the behavior of the teddy bear. In the end, after several attempts I got tired of it and gave up on completing the demo version completely.
Perhaps it’s not the game, but the fact that I didn’t understand how to play it correctly, but it didn’t seem obvious to me that in order to make the bear perform the desired action, you need to be at a specific point on the screen or something like that. I didn’t have the slightest desire to find out this by trial and error, for the reason that each attempt requires performing a series of actions, and this, in turn, takes time and is very annoying with its repetitiveness.
I also had problems with perspective in some places, when I had to jump over objects not to the side, but deep into the screen. But specifically, here it’s more likely not a matter of playing, but of acquiring the necessary dexterity and the need to get used to such a prospect.
On the good side, I would note a nice picture and good music, which, by the way, YouTube complained about copyright, but they didn’t complain too much, so they could forget about it. The game also has interesting approaches to solving problems, such as launching a toy train to light the way.
By the way, the problems of interacting with a teddy dummy could have been avoided if it were possible to play in co-op (in the manner of It Takes Two) or if given the opportunity to switch to the bear at the right moments.
As a result, a couple of unpleasant moments pretty much spoiled my impression of the game. And it’s a shame, because she has potential. So, I cautiously recommend trying to watch the demo yourself and decide for yourself whether you want to overcome the difficulties of mutual understanding with the bear or not.
By the way, representatives of the developers paid attention to my gameplay video and responded quite adequately to the comments. I sincerely wish them good luck with the project.
Exit Daydreams: Forgotten Sorrow scheduled for next spring.
Hellscreen
Recording demo gameplay
Hellscreen – this is truly a hell of a screen!
The game has a rather unusual visual style, which is what caught my attention. The color scheme consists overwhelmingly of red and blue tones. At the same time, something is constantly flickering on the screen, which makes the picture look very eye-popping and not everyone will like it. Therefore, when entering the game, we are honestly warned that it is better for epileptics not to meddle here. And I advise you to heed this advice!
I didn’t experience any epileptic seizures, so I bravely started playing through the demo. Which, by the way, is quite short.