Minit is a top-down adventure game (ala The Legend of Zelda) with a unique twist - you have one minute to live!
Early on, you pick up a cursed sword that kills you in 60 seconds then respawns you at your home (starting the countdown all over again). As cursed items go, you can't simply discard the blasted thing, so you set out to find a way to remove the curse.
You can find my thoughts on the game at 4:06:01 in the video above.
Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms is an incremental/clicker game based in the popular Dungeons & Dragons setting. While similar to Clicker Heroes or Tap Heroes with its fantasy adventure theme, Idle Champions contains more... everything, really.
Celeste is a challenging platformer with a surprisingly strong story. As Madeline, you're trying to climb to the top of Celeste Mountain, but the journey is treacherous. There's far more than just rugged terrain to contend with, as it seems that both the mountain and Madeline are haunted.
Almost two years ago, I made a small post experiencing interest in the ambitious undertaking that was Peria Chronicles. Sadly, players were very underwhelmed by the recent Korean beta test and the game was scrapped as a result. Eight years of development and $8 million down the drain. The above video by MMOByte goes into greater detail if you're interested in knowing more about what happened.
I'm not sure I really understand why the game was cancelled after one beta test. It seems that players were unhappy with combat, but I guess the real disappointment was that the beta didn't include any of the creation tools that have been touted as one of the game's biggest features.
For the game's first beta, I'm not sure if we should've expected those tools to be available... that really depends on how much alpha testing was done and if Nexon thought the features were ready to enter the next phase. Obviously, Nexon decided to hold those back and focus on basics like combat.
Surprisingly, the hard pass from testers over tab-target combat was apparently enough to shutter further development entirely. Other games have had similar complaints in their early stages, and developers for those games responded by changing the combat system. One can assume then that either the rest of the game's mechanics heavily depend upon the combat system or that Nexon (for whatever reason) refuses to put more resources into meeting the testers' expectations.
Regardless, Nexon feels it's better to just cut their losses now. That's disappointing as a potential player, because Peria Chronicles seemed to have some promising features. Who knows how far along those features were really developed though? Maybe it's better to be disappointed by the game being scrapped than to have it release and be even more disappointed by promises that weren't delivered. We've already seen our fair share of those in recent years.
Fez is a 2D puzzle platformer with an almost literal 3D twist (it's more of a turn than a twist, but close enough). You play as Gomez, who early on gains the ability to rotate his two-dimensional world and see things from different perspectives. Like any great power, it also comes with great responsibility - Gomez learns that his world is in danger and only he can protect it!
Hyper Light Drifter is an action adventure title influenced by classics like Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, only cranked to eleven in terms of scale. A number of large zones are immediately open to explore, but dozens of areas are either cleverly hidden or locked away. This game doesn't just reward you for exploration - it kind of requires it. Earning upgrades and finding some of the keys (or other unlock mechanisms) means scouring every inch of the map looking for hidden paths.
GNOGis a casual puzzle game full of fanciful and colorful art. Each level is presented as a box, house, spaceship or other object that somewhat represents a monstrous head.
Alan Wake is an action adventure thriller with elements of supernatural horror. What begins as a relaxing vacation turns into a frantic nightmare as you (playing as the titular Mr. Wake) are attacked by shadows and your wife goes missing. Things get even weirder when your search for her yields pages to a horror story that's unfolding right before your eyes.
Some have called this game a masterpiece, and by what I've played of it, I can see why. It has an excellent atmosphere that is great at building tension and dread when combined with its encounters and mechanics. The forest is appropriately dark and foreboding at night, with just enough ambient rustling to keep your guard up. Discovering pages to the mysterious novel often provide additional (and unsettling) context or eerie foreshadowing of terrors lying just ahead. Supplies can be scarce in some locations, meaning you'll have to consider when to fight and when to flee (if you can flee).
Alan Wake is worth picking up at its current price, so obtaining it free is quite the deal!
Moonlighter is a combination of roguelike action-adventure game and business simulator. You brave the mysterious dungeons for loot, then use that loot to craft or upgrade gear... or sell it to customers in your shop!
This was a double feature (can you believe we're up to 190 of these?) and I fully intended to play Mario/DMCA Royale as the first game. It was unfortunately shut down earlier that week, so I took the opportunity to voice my opinion on Nintendo's heavy-handedness. I have the feeling Nintendo saw Royale as a threat to their newly-released Mario Maker 2, which is pretty silly as they're not nearly the same. They perhaps should be far more concerned with Mario Multiverse, but hey, I'm just a gamer... what do I know, right?
Moving on to fan-games that are still available (for now), the second game of the night was TMNT Rescue-Palooza. It's a brawler much like TMNT: The Arcade Game, but contains dozens of characters from the variety of Turtle properties. Think of it as the "deep dish deluxe pizza" of TMNT brawlers. It's definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of the old TMNT games.
Rebel Galaxy is an open world trading and combat game set in sci-fi space. Your aunt sent you a ship and a message to meet her at a space station to discuss an unusual artifact. Things don't quite go to plan when you arrive, and now you're going to have to work and/or pay for information.
In addition to my comments found at 4:21:36 in the video above, I must add that the music for this game is exceptionally good. I also have to agree with some of my viewers that the side missions can get repetitive pretty fast. That said, the VOD should give you a good idea if this is a game you'd enjoy.
Kingdom: New Lands is a strategy game with the ultimate goal of protecting the crown from hordes of monsters. It plays like the original Kingdom, but includes much more content and multiple maps. My only real complaints about the original was that it lacked content and replayability, which New Lands heartily provides. You can hear more of my thoughts at 3:56:45 in the video above, but all you really need to know is that Kingdom: New Lands gets a thumbs up from me!
City of Brass is an action adventure roguelike with the goal of reaching the center of the city. You begin armed with a sword and a whip (which has several interesting uses), but can find a variety of other items available as you venture in. It's a neat game, but I personally prefer Ziggurat just a bit more. You can hear more of my thoughts on City of Brass at 2:23:56 in the video above.
BONUS GAME - DEEPER
Deeper is a dungeon crawler that replaces Diablo's character classes with dodge rolls and a speed multiplier. It's in open alpha, so expect a few bugs. If you'd like to see a playthrough with some developer commentary, it starts at 2:32:03 in the video.
The Sims 4 is currently the latest in the popular life simulation series brought to you by Maxis/EA. As someone that hasn't played since the original Sims, I was interested in seeing how the series has grown. There's a lot of improvements to the graphics and UI, including a full rotating view. Characters have also been given many more features, both in terms of appearance and personality.
Pretty much every aspect of the game has grown since its first incarnation, but not enough to make the game feel unrecognizable. The overall experience feels very much the same, and that's not a bad thing because The Sims was quite the charmer back in its day. You can hear more of my thoughts on the game at 4:12:48 in the video above.
Stories Untold is an adventure puzzle game with some sci-fi and psychological horror elements. The game is divided into four episodes, each with their own mechanics (from classic text adventure to codebreaking). Episodes can be played independently, but are all connected by a story (which becomes clear during the final episode).
While the game as a whole feels like it could've been longer, each episode is just about the perfect length. Doing the same kind of puzzles can get tiring after a while, but the episodes make sure not to overstay their welcome. You can find more of my thoughts on the title at 3:32:07 in the video above.
Romans From Mars is a simplistic shooting game that plays kind of like a tower defense, but not really. You fire a ballista at incoming waves of enemies before they reach your wall. Enemies that aren't killed in time deal one damage to your wall, and you lose if the wall reaches zero health.
This game is a textbook example of the cash-grab mobile game ported to PC. It quickly spikes in difficulty (level 19 is a good example) and sets up situations where you don't have enough currency to keep up unless you grind slowly or pay money. More annoying than that, the game doesn't always register mouse clicks (or perhaps somehow delays them), giving enemies some free time to advance at the start of a level and typically ruining that particular attempt altogether.
It's also fairly limited on defense options, with upgrades to the ballista, wall health, and a magic spell to freeze (or burn) enemies. While the title plays somewhat like a tower defense game, it's missing staples such as autofire turrets, mines/traps and barricades, to name a few.
You should probably skip Romans From Mars entirely. There's better shooters, tower defense games and mobile ports available, even for free.
World of Goo is a physics puzzle game where you use various types of goo balls to build a structure that leads to a pipe, allowing you to collect the remaining goo at the end of the level. Unlike the vast majority of games I play on Fridays, I'm already somewhat familiar with this title (having got it on Steam some years back). It's a solid puzzle game with a well-paced learning curve. If you want to hear more of my thoughts on the game, check out 4:24:53 in the above video.
MilMo is an MMORPG that's been around over nine years, but slipped under my radar until recently. I quickly learned the game originally appeared on Facebook, which explains how I didn't know of it for so long. Anyway, MilMo is now available on Steam. You can find my thoughts on the game at 4:12:48 in the video above.
Transistor is an action RPG displayed in the same perspective as Diablo and its ilk, but also incorporates a system for planning out moves and abilities to execute. It's a unique title both in terms of combat as well as character options, most notably the multi-purpose use of skills. They can function as hotkey abilities, modifiers to other abilities, or slotted as passive buffs. This allows for a multitude of potential skills - from stealth to AoEs to pets - all of which you can reconfigure at every checkpoint if so desired. While the hybrid combat won't appeal to everyone, the plethora of build options let you focus on a preferred playstyle, whether action-based or tactical. You can hear more of my thoughts on the game at 3:55:31 in the video above.
It's another double feature with a theme - the internet's favorite animal, cats!
First up is Zap Zap Zombie Cats, a tower defense game. It shows some promise, but it could use some tweaking. You can hear more of my thoughts on it at 1:38:20 in the video above.
Cat Quest is an action RPG that's been polished to a shine and is about as cute as it could possibly be without crossing the line into nauseating. It feels a bit short even for a demo, but gives you a small taste of what to expect. The art and presentation are fantastic, and the gameplay is competent enough to be fun (based on what little of it there was in the demo, that is).
