Following on from yesterday's post, which it has to be admitted somewhat got away from me, here's the one I meant to write about the current state of Prime Gaming. Not that I have anything much to say about it. That's probably how yesterday got started.
Anyway, here's what I've got, such as it is.
It just popped into my head yesterday morning that it'd been a while since I picked up my free games from Prime. The era of Amazon promoting the service in any meaningful way seems to be over. For a while, I used to get emails telling me there was something new to collect. After that, there was the "blog". Now, as far as I can tell, there's nothing.
Actually, if I go back far enough, I seem to remember I used to have to log into Twitch to claim the games, back when it was Twitch Gaming or some such. Or was that just a dream I had? I think that was the reason I made a Twitch account in the first place. To get those free games.
Now it's up to me to remember. I think everyone can guess how that's going to go.
It also very much looks like the days of a dozen or more free games every month are in the past, too. It's very hard to be sure, without the published monthly slate. The claim dates overlap so I can't tell without going back through the posts here when I registered something was "new". They always did overlap a bit but at least there used to be published start and end dates you could refer to if needed. Now it just says on the offer when it runs out but not when it began.
So, how many new, free games have been added since last time I looked? Good question. Luckily, last time I posted about it, I made a list. There were dates then, I see. I wonder where I got those from? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place now.
Where I have been looking is on Luna itself, where all of those are still claimable except Lovecraft's Untold Stories and Another World. Those two seem to have vanished, always assuming they were ever really there. I claimed the Borderlands, Fallout and D&D titles I didn't already have and passed on the rest.
On to what seems to be new since last time:
Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus (GOG)
Gunslugs II (GOG)
Christmas Adventure: Candy Storm (Legacy)
Ashworld (GOG)
Gylt (Amazon Games)
They've started using an icon to tell you where you'll be claiming the game from, which works perfectly well for Good Old Games and EPIC, both of whose icons are basically their names. Unfortunately, the others are a picture of a crown and a snowflake, neither of which mean anything to me.
The crown turns out to be Amazon Games, which still exists independently of Luna, apparently. Or maybe not. I can't tell any more. If you claim a game with a crown on, it says you need Amazon Games installed to play it, anyway, although I suspect when you try to launch the thing it'll go through Luna after all.
As for the snowflake, I'm guessing that means it's a holiday offer. It's on the only two obviously seasonal games, which would strongly suggest so. I imagine it would tell you for sure if you claimed them but since I don't want either, I can't say for certain. They're both from the hidden object specialist, Legacy Games and they also have the Windows icon so who fricken' knows? Or cares?
The new games I did claim were Ashworld and Gylt, both of which looked quite interesting. I wouldn't have thought so if I'd been paying attention, though.
If I'd had my mind on my work, I wouldn't have bothered claiming Ashworld. I just read the description and grabbed it.
And why not? It looks great in the splash illustration, doesn't it? Here, take a look. Wouldn't you want to play a game that looked like that?
The description makes it sound quite appealing, too. It's an open-world survival game with scavenging, crafting, combat and vehicles. We like those, right?
Well, yes, we do. Just not when they look like this:
Is that what you were expecting from the picture above? No, me neither. So I won't be playing that one.
Gylt looks more likely to get a run-out sometime. It's "a narrative adventure with stealth, puzzles and action" in which you play Sally, "a little girl living in Bethelwood, Maine".
Sally's having kind of a bad time just now. "After being chased by a group of bullies, Sally is dragged into a twisted version of her town where her fears and worse memories are presented in a wicked and very real way."
It's a psychological horror game with surrealist tendencies. Not my favorite sub-genre but I've played and enjoyed a few. It looks pretty and it has an "Overwhelmingly Positive" Steam rating, so definitely worth a shot for free.
I claimed it, at least. Whether I'll ever play it is another question. Then again, that applies to just about all the games I've ever claimed from Prime under any incarnation.
Will there be more free games in January? No idea. Will I remember to check? Possibly. Do Amazon care if Prime members know any of these games exist? Sure doesn't look like it.
They want us to know about Amazon Music and Audible, though. I get emails about those every blasted week.
As for games, I think they probably wish they'd never got started on those to begin with.
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