It’s Saturday, which means it must be time for me to present you with another of what I think are ten of the best Steam Greenlight projects out there. I have this tiny fear inside of me that, one weekend soon, I won’t be able to collect ten titles. Perhaps I’ll only have nine, maybe even eight, because I just can’t find ten that I think are worth sharing. Still, that hasn’t happened yet. The internet remains a fountain of creativity and so, like any reveler would, I tore off my shirt and dived in.
And I dove straight into BROFORCE, a ridiculously overblown platform shooter with destructible scenery, a selection of characters and an assortment of weapons. BROFORCE is what you would get if you had a tap labelled “The 80s” in your house and, one day, you just left that tap running, coming back many hours later to find your home flooded with ACTION and CAPITAL LETTERS. I hope the end result is every bit as exciting as the trailer makes it seem and I’m interested to see just how the shark racing pans out. In the meantime we can all download the “brototype” from the Greenlight page.
Memento Mori – The Secret of Eternal Life
A puzzle-solving game of adventure and multiple endings, Memento Mori could well be the kind of thing that so many many PC gamers have been missing for so long. Ten or so years back, I swear we had adventure games like this coming out every month, but they’ve gradually been pushed to the margins. In fairness, quite a few of them were bad, boring or both of those things. Here’s hoping Memento Mori gives us a bit more to sink our teeth into.
If
you were a mad scientist who owned a lab and used it to conduct strange
breeding experiments, then you might well be inclined to splice
together the genes of a beat-em-up and a top-down shoot-’em-up to create
something like… Suguri. It’s a little like Street Fighter in
spaceships, you’d tell people, your white hair all frazzled, and you’d
cackle at the HD graphics and the multiplayer. You’d gently stroke your
new creation, wringing your sweaty hands as you explained to people they
could enjoy multiplayer over the internet or while sat next to each
other. You’re a monster, I’d tell you, and I never want to see you
again.
REKOIL
You can call me grumpy if you like, but I turn to the indie scene to get away from typical PC conventions, particularly first-person shooters, so when I see FPS games on Greenlight I purse my lips like a platypus. Add to that a Totalbiscuit trailer showing a level that reminds me all too much of my least favourite Battlefield 3 map and my forhead crumples into a frown. Still, REKOIL wants to do something a little different, offering mod support from the off, with the intention of being a very customisable game that brings the FPS genre back to its basics, stripping away all the extra elements and concepts that have gradually been added in the last decade.
This one has been around for a little while now and, while you just saw me (probably unfairly) grumbling about indie developers making FPS games, Receiver is exactly the sort of indie project that pricks my meerkat ears (yes, I have a very expressive face). For a start, it has procedurally generated levels and permanent death, meaning that the game will build new levels for you every time you play, Spelunky-style. It also has a rather unusual and very detailed gun-handling mechanic that I don’t feel I can quite explain, so check out the video below.
HeroesLAND
This
one mixes both strategy and RPG conventions, very much acknowledging
that it’s riffing along to the same kind of rhythms laid down by games
like Heroes of Might and Magic. While HeroesLAND (odd, only half this
one is capitalised) doesn’t boast much in the way of presentation, as a
man raised partly on roguelikes and hex strategy games I can’t say I’m
too bothered. If the mechanics are well-designed and the interface works
well, then I can get lost in a game for hours. HeroesLAND certainly
looks like it has a lot to offer, so I’ll be keeping an eye on it.
When I first came across LaTale I wasn’t paying proper attention and I
thought it was just an anime-styled platform game. Turns out it’s
actually a free-to-play MMORPG with the “most friendly” community which,
I have to admit, is certainly not a claim I’ve ever heard any other
game. It’s very cute, it’s very customisable and I think it’s fair to
say it’s more than a little bit juvenile. Its style gives me strange
flashbacks to the free-to-play but pay-to-win golf game Pangya, but this
time people are using their golf clubs to clobber one another.
You might be aware that we’ve covered this tower defense game before, reporting on the start of a Kickstarter project which ultimately fell far short of its $350,000 target. Well, that little setback hasn’t deterred developers PixelFoundry and they’re now trying to nose their way onto Steam. Blackspace boasts real physics and terrain that can be destroyed and reshaped, offering all sorts of tactical possibilities for the inventive player.
Royal Envoy
I
have to say that Royal Envoy is the game that I’m most skeptical of
week. I’m not entirely sure whether it’s vying to be a Caesar-like title
based around intricate city planning and resource management, or if it
plays more like a straightforward, Facebook-style game. Yes, I know the
game’s description makes a point of saying it isn’t a Facebook title,
but I can’t help feeling a little bit doubtful in my tiny, twitching heart. Perhaps it’s the very
cutesy presentation or the apparent lack of detail in the interface. But
hey, what do I know? I’ve not yet played it and I’m including it in
this roundup because it might well surprise me.
Super Meat Boy drove me nuts with how difficult it was, but its retro platformer action struck a chord with many gamers, a big fat power chord. I’m optimistically suggesting that Mos Speedrun might be just a little bit easier to play but will still appeal to the same deep-rooted retro desires that lurk inside all of us, bubbling in the back of our minds like pits of tar. You get that too, right? Yeah?