Welcome back to our regular weekend Spotlight on Greenlight, a feature that took a little time off alongside me, but which now returns to shine brighter than ever upon the best and the most interesting indie titles that sit amongst the pages of Steam Greenlight.
This week, I’ll be looking back at five already greenlit games and seeing how they’re doing now. When an aspiring Steam game is greenlit, there’s a temptation to think that everything is all done and dusted. That the game is in the bag, ready and waiting and that we’ll see it available online soon. This isn’t necessarily the case, and while some Greenlight games are already on general release, others still have quite some way to go.
What is it?
It’s the only title on Greenlight to give Notch amajor nerdgasm, a sci-fi sandbox game of survival, construction and resource collection on an alien world. While some game designers might be content just to generate a world for you to explore, StarForge also generates the space above it. It’s a game that wants you to explore in all directions.
And that’s not the half of it.
It has a physics engine, it has a building system that simulates structural stress, it has a powering system, it has terrain that can be deformed or destroyed and it procedurally-generates much of its content, including equipment and weapons. In fact, even just the weapons have ridiculous potential, existing in endless combinations of overengineered, multi-barreled nonsense.
It also features some very deadly alien worms and the opportunity for you to kill them with rifles or chainsaws, according to your personal preference.
When was it greenlit?
How’s it doing now?
StarForge is doing very well indeed. After raising an awful lot of eyebrows, it then raised $135,000 on IndieGogo, a full $60,000 more than the team’s goal, plus it’s also an IGF finalist in the Technical Excellence category. While the game was originally going to be free-to-play, the three-person development team couldn’t make this business model work for them andare now taking half price pre-orders, which let players into the alpha.
What is it?
This is one of the craziest and most glorious multiplayer experiences out there, a game of airship piloting, midair swordfighting and frantic musket ramming. Air Buccaneers is all about great rickety boats made of leather and wood, tied to the bottom of bulging balloons, creaking and swinging their way through the skies. The crew of these airships dash back and forth to load and aim the cannons, try to ram their rivals and swing aboard to perform assault actions. Sooner or later, inevitably find themselves plummeting landward when it all goes wrong.
Air Buccaneers is nothing new. It began life as an Unreal mod almost ten years ago now (much like the excellent Alien Swarm), and I can vouch for even that early incarnation being tremendous fun, though I doubt you’ll find many people playing it now.
When was it greenlit?
How’s it doing now?
The game went through several well-tested early builds before it was vying for our attention on Greenlight, and by the time it was greenlit it was practically ready to go. Air Buccaneers is now available to buy and play online and received good reviews across the board. It’s a model success story for Greenlight, a game taken through concept to realisation and release.
What is it?
A free-to-play action RPG in the vein of Diablo, set in 19th century Japan and inspired by ink and watercolour art. It’s the work of Spicy Horse Games, a studio headed by veteran game designer American McGee and, like many of his previous games, it has plenty of gruesome undertones. Akaneiro draws influence from some of the more sinister fairy tales out there, most notably the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and it has a rather strange sense of humour too. Take, for example, the Spirit Helper Pet known as Gaben, an oddly familiar little critter created to celebrate the game being greenlit..
When was it greenlit?
How’s it doing now?
Akaneiro seems to be coming along well. Before it was greenlit, it was already in closed beta testing and was close to release. Then, in January, Spicy Horse Games turned to Kickstarter in an attempt to raise an extra $200,000 and extend the game’s development for a little longer and “realise the most complete version of the game.” It was a close call, but the Kickstarter was funded just in time.
Spicy Horse Games will put this money toward polishing the game, adding multiplayer and creating versions for other platforms, such as Andriod and iOS, making the game “a cross-platform experience.” If you want to try Akaneiro, it’s beta is now open to all.
What is it?
A class-based fantasy combat game that marries shooter mechanics with the sort of stat systems you’d expect from an RPG. Imagine Team Fortress thrown a thousand years in the past, before skipping sideways into a parallel dimension. Oh, and into third-person too.
Forge is all about hurling spells and arrows at your enemies while wearing the mantle of a pyromancer or a shaman. Forge asks why shooters always have to be games that are based around the military or around science fiction, and instead challenging us to use our imaginations just a little bit more. Then, it sets us on fire.
When was it greenlit?
How’s it doing now?
Forge has gone all the way. It’s a complete game, available to buy and download from Steam right now and it makes use of all sorts of Steam features, such as Voice over IP and Valve’s anti-cheat technology. Unfortunately, it didn’t receive quite as strong a critical response as Air Buccaneers did, and mixed reviews praised the game’s pace and action, but argued that it needed more levels and a few more ideas. Since its launch last December, player numbers have dropped.
However, an updated posted on the official website just the other day said that the game’s “first major update” was on its way, which includes better matchmaking, a special zone for new players and the chance for everyone to respec their characters. The story of Forge is not yet over.
What is it?
Dadliest Catch puts us into a position that I think we’ve all found ourselves in at some point or another, that of an octopus father who must pretend to be a human at all costs, lest the truth of their their tentacled identity cause untold emotional distress.
Naturally, being an octopus who must masquerade as a human is not very easy and there are all sorts of challenges to overcome, mostly based around having an incredibly floppy body and eight tentacles that are particularly difficult to control. Everyday household tasks that many dads might not think twice about become much more of a bother when you’re slippery, rubbery and flailing at everything around you. In other words, this is a game about being bad at things.
When was it greenlit?
How’s it doing now?
The game is still in development and is hotly anticipated, making many indie “best of” lists for 2013, but that’s partly because Dadliest Catch has quite the reputation to live up to. The first Octodad game, which you can still download here for free, was the Student Showcase Winner at the 2011 Independent Games Festival and garnered a great deal of interest (and probably quite a few laughs). This reputation helped fund a modest Kickstarter appeal for a sequel in July 2011, back in the real old days before crowdfunding went wild.
This funding has allowed developer Young Horses to produce a much better looking game, build a new level editor and rework the controls. By November of last year, the developer estimated the game was about half-finished and this year they have been busy testing as much as they can with their modest team size. They reckon Dadliest Catch is on course for release later this year and, I’m sure, may well be feeling the weight of expectation upon them.