In The Event...

Just three days ago, Kay at Kay Talks Games was looking at Steam's Hidden Object Fest and saying how nice it is that the platform hosts such events for anyone that cares to put one together. I have no interest in hidden object games but the post started me thinking about how quite a few bloggers in this part of the 'sphere, myself included, jump on Next Fest just about every time it rolls around and yet hardly anyone mentions any of the other Steam "Fests" or events.

I don't even have any idea how many there are, much less what they're about. Is there always one running, every week for the whole year, except when there's a seasonal sale on? More than one? And why doesn't Steam really publicize these things? 

There's that pop-up window that appears the first time you log in that tells you about some promotion or other, usually some kind of sale from a specific publisher, but even when Next Fest runs I sometimes have to dig around a little to find it.I certainly never seem to get any emails about Steam events, whereas other publishers deluge me with press releases and promos (/wave Square Enix.)

Did you know, for example, that there are two events on right now?  One is getting the pop-up treatment and the other isn't. Unless , of course, they're taking turns.

The one in the shop-window today is Lovecraftian Days, "The fourth annual celebration of the widespread influence of the works of H.P. Lovecraft and the cosmic horror genre in gaming ", hosted by Fulqrum Publishing. I'm not a big Lovecraft fan but I clicked through anyway, just to see what was there and after I pushed my way through the inevitable forest of tentacles, I came to Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened.

I'm a lot more interested in Holmes than I am in Cthulhu. A 90% discount on a £39.99 game from 2023 with a Very Positive rating seemed like a tempting prospect. I was pondering on whether I'd actually get around to playing it when I spotted a banner across the top of the game's Store page. It read   

Hmm. Weird. A Sale Event within a Sale Event? What was that all about? 

So I clicked on the banner. It took me to the expanded version, which looks like this:

Half an hour's browsing later and here I am, writing about it. I have a couple of things to say and the first is, who knew there were so many crowdfunded games? 

Not me, for sure. I mean, I feel like I ought to have known but I really didn't. When I think about it, though, it seems obvious. I must read about a new fundraiser at least every few days and those are just the ones in the genres the niche gaming sites I follow feel the need to cover. Anything that's not some kind of MMO or RPG probably isn't going to ping my radar at all.

Then there's the spread. These are games old, new and yet-to-be. There are some titles in the sale that have been around for years, names you'll recognize, like My Time At Portia or Sunless Sea. There are games just about to launch that you also might recognize by name, things like Outbound or Your Crown Is Mine, both out in May. And then there are the games with no launch date at all, just "crowdfunding soon". Games from developers who, presumably, would still like you to chip in so they can get them finished. 

There were more games than I could readily evaluate. I scrolled through what seemed like hundreds of titles and didn't get to the end. I'm not sure how many crowdfunding platforms for games there are. They can't all be Kickstarters, surely?

Those were the games the event organizers were hoping you might buy or fund but of much more interest to me were the demos. I only knew there were demos because one of the sort categories is "Top Demos". I started scrolling and it went on and on. If those are the top ones it makes me wonder how many there might be with the middle and bottom ones thrown in. 

And that was when I started to wonder why we make such a big deal of Next Fest if there are always dozens of demos just waiting to be played. I like playing and reviewing demos and it's a long time between Next Fests or it can feel like it. It'd be good to have another snack of them between-times.

So I had a look at what they had and I picked a few. Not too many. I can't be sure of finding the time to play, let alone review them.  For Next Fests I usually go for six to eight but this time I settled on four,

And they are:

Lucy Dreaming - "Discover a dark family secret and rid a young girl of her nightmares in this splendidly British point & click comedy adventure. Playing as sharp-witted Lucy, explore both dreams and reality to meet all the colourful characters who'll help you solve puzzles, gather clues and find a murderer."

When it comes to games, normally I just have to see the words "British" and "Comedy" in the same sentence and I'm on to the next. It almost always means labored Monty Python or Terry Pratchett pastiches and I'd had more than enough of those by the '90s. I liked the illustration for this one, though, and the title. And it's a point&click...

I watched thirty seconds of video. It was... mildly amusing, no more than that. But much more importantly it wasn't Pythonesque. Or Pratchetty (Can that be right?) 

I heard Lucy say "I bloody love queuing, me!" and I was in. Self-deprecating irony and cultural stereotyping! Now that's British comedy! And the developers, Tall Story Games, are based in Telford, so they'd need a sense of humor....

Phoenix Springs -  "Lose yourself in Phoenix Springs – a modern point-and-click set in a mysterious neo-noir world. It begins with an investigation: find your brother Leo. You already know where it ends."

Arthouse point&click with an aggressively over-designed visual style. Featured review quotes on the Store page from the New York Times and the Guardian. Ah, I know where we are!

I'm always up for a bit of pretension and the voice-over on the trailer is deliciously dry. Just hope it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Love, Money, Rock 'n' Roll -  "the romanticism of the Eighties, mystery and intrigues, betrayal and sacrifice, hatred and passion — all this and more in the new game from the creators of the legendary visual novel Everlasting Summer!"

Didn't even look at the video. Saw the title, read the description, hit download.  

It's just as well I didn't. I have watched it now and if I'd had to listen to that caterwauling racket, I'd most likely have passed. Visuals are good though. If the story is too, maybe I'll play it with the sound off.

Habromania - "A dreamy Alice in Wonderland-inspired RPG that follows 19-year-old Alice as she tries to escape the surreal, cozy hellscape that is Wonderland—hopefully with her sanity intact."

Not even sure this one is in the event. I might have just grabbed it when I was looking at the Store before this all started, when I was checking the price of Equinox: Homecoming, whose demo (That I wanted to finish.) no longer works since the game launched. I'll almost certainly grab it if it goes on sale again at a decent discount.

Back to Habromania: it looks charming but I'm curious as to why Alice is nineteen. that seems weird. In the books she's seven, which is one hell of a leap. Would any of the story work if Alice was an adult instead of a child? Then again, there are so many versions of Alice, I guess by now she's whatever people want her to be.

And that's the lot. If I play them I promise I'll write about them but I'm not promising I'll play them. I probably will, though. I mean, how long does it take to play a demo? 

Oh, and Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened? Never did get around to buying it.