Seven Steaming Slices

It's Steam Next Fest time again, I'm very happy to say. I've been looking forward to it the way other people used to look forward to the big Steam sales but don't seem to any more. I never really paid much attention to those because I rarely itch to spend money on games unless I know for certain sure I want to play them right away, in which case I'm usually happy to pay the asking price. I mean, you either want it or you don't, right?

Having a huge smorgasbord of free demos to pick away at suits me much better than any sale, not only because I'm cheap but also because demos are bite-sized amuse-bouches that tickle my tastebuds deliciously. Most of them run no longer than an hour, very occasionally two, meaning I can start and finish in a single session then move on to something new. I prefer that hugely to committing to a week or two, playing the same game.

I was thinking about it today and it occurred to me that I'd actually prefer it if a lot of games lasted no longer than a couple of hours in their full and final release. I might well buy a lot more of them that way. I'd happily pay a dollar for a game that lasted a couple of hours where I'd balk at paying $15.99 for one that might take me a couple of weeks. 

It's a change of attitude that's slowly overtaken me in recent years and it doesn't just apply to games. I find it very hard nowadays to commit to watching a full-length movie, something I used to do literally four or five times every week. Sitting down to watch anything that runs longer than an hour makes me twitch and the bar is getting lower all the time. These days, I'm finding it a bit of a challenge even to watch TV shows that last around an hour. 

 

Whether it's part of the aging process or something to do with the infamous cultural drift towards a shorter attention span (A theory hardly supported by the ever-increasing average length of hit movies.) I couldn't say but it's been creeping up on me for years now and it's getting worse. Even MMORPGs, infamously disrespectful of the players' time as they always have been, no longer exert the hold they once did. I play them in shorter and shorter sessions, often dropping in for half an hour or less to do some dailies or a single instance, then logging out to do something else instead.

Demos are perfect for me: short, free and entirely lacking in commitment. I also find them oddly satisfying, the good ones anyway, in the same way a short story often has a stronger impact than a long novel. I believe there's much to be said for brevity, although you'd never know it from this blog.

As usual, I've tried to limit myself to as many demos as I think I could reasonably hope to complete and post about before the event ends on June 26. Seven demos in seven days doesn't seem like too big an ask.

I didn't get all the way to the end of the list this time, partly because I'd already hit my target but mostly because there seemed to be a mildly depressing sameness to the games I was seeing. So many iterations of the same old ideas. Not that I can cast any stones, given the lack of originality in my own choices, the same old Point & Click adventures, MMOs and walking simulators as always.

Here they are, in the order I picked them. They may not be Best In Fest but they're the best I could find before I lost interest. 

Coreborn: Nations of the Ultracore

Second time that trailer's appeared on the blog. Doesn't get any better, does it? 

This came first because it's on my Wishlist so Steam prompted me to pick it. I wrote about it a short time back, when I said "The gameplay looks rough but the world looks kind of pretty." I guess we'll find out just how rough and how pretty. I'm not optimistic, if I'm honest, but it's the closest thing to an MMORPG on the list so I feel kind of obligated at least to try.

Chronique des Silencieux 

It's set in France! In the 1970s! It's in French! It's a Kickstarter! The trailer looks really shaky!

There is an English translation, fortunately, although I quite fancy practicing my very rusty language skills. It looks like a standard detective adventure game but the setting is original, at least. I travelled through southern France a bunch of times in the seventies so it might even be nostalgic. Well, it would be if I could remember anything about it. Mostly, all I can recall is a vague impression of the inside of the car and a few municipal campsites. It wasn't exactly St Tropez. 

Cat's Request

First of the inevitable cat games. Second of the inevitable detective games. The only one to combine both. I think I was pretty restrained this time. This one is a bit different in that the cat is an alien who repairs old robots when they get replaced by androids. The cat has a virtual assistant and the plot revolves around a search for a body to put the assistant into because of a government edict that all disembodied virtual assistants have been reclassified as malware. 

Did I say "a bit different"? Make that batshit insane. The trailer looks like an AI's fever dream. Looking forward to this one. 

 Robotherapy

More robots, fewer cats. Actually, no cats, as far as I know. Set in a "dystopian robot society" after the robots have killed all the humans, you play a robot psychiatrist trying to help unhappy robots come to terms with the knowledge that even killing all the humans hasn't made them happy. Bleak enough for you? I think it's supposed to be funny but it's hard to tell. 

Stray Gods

This one's definitely a comedy.* A musical comedy, no less. Points for originality there, for sure. The trailer looks amazing and the music sounds great. Not so sure about the gameplay, about which there doesn't seem to be a lot of detail. Lucky there's a demo, then, isn't it?

Little Kitty, Big City

A Switch port, possibly. There are some really good names this time around. Not Coreborn: Nations of the Ultracore, obviously, although that does have a certain Saturday Morning Cartoon grandeur to it. Stray Gods is a very solid pun but Little Kitty, Big City is pure genius. I would have picked it just for the name but luckily it turns out to be some kind of open-world adventure game so I ought to be able to play it, too. 

Did I mention the cat can wear hats? And there are lots of them? I should have led with the cat hats. Hats for cats are awesome.

Underground Blossom

Lastly, there's this, a graphically stylish point & click from the creators of Rusty Lake, a series I feel I'm supposed to have heard of but can't say I have. The plot is a bravura hybrid of high concept and arcane weirdness, in which you travel through the memories of one Laura Vanderboom by way of the metro stations of her mind, a set-up which immediately reminded me of Crazy Jane from Doom Patrol. Pretentious? I hope so!

And that's the seven. All I have to do now is play them. I see XyzzySqrl already streamed two of my picks so I'd better get a move on or everyone's going to have played them before I can write them up.

Wish me luck.

* (No, it's not.)