The Steam Discovery Queue Is Just Depressing

 

Every so often when I have a couple of minutes to kill or if I'm procrastinating something I'll fire up Steam and take a look at the discovery queue.  At first, the discovery queue seems like a good idea because it apparently looks at games you play and then suggests you things based on that but at this point I'm sure that's bullshit because the Steam discovery queue is equal parts depressing and anger inducing and I don't know why I keep clicking through it

I'll start by saying that it's not a totally useless feature, I do occasionally come across a title in that list of games that I'll either buy right away or at least put on the wish list for later because it looks interesting but titles that do that are few and far between.

One thing that discovery queue has done for me is given me a fair bit of contempt for the indie game scene as a whole. I thought that indie games were cool because they were free of things like investors breathing down their necks to make a certain amount of cash and therefore could be a bit more creative and experimental except that's not what is going on at all.  Zelda-Clone, Soulslike, pixel graphic boomer shooter, low poly 3d horror walking simulator, Slay the Spire rip-off or the worst offender, action roguelite.  Just a constant barrage of samey, uninspired dross made by tossers that lack a single creative bone in their body trying to cash-in on whatever is the indie trend at the time.  I used to love roguelike games, but then 2011 came around, The Binding of Isaac came out and was really good but then the store flooded and is still flooded with rougelikes and now nothing will get me to hit that next button faster than seeing that tag.  Take some notes from Dennaton Games or Lucas Pope and try and make something at least a smidge original, will ya?

But it gets worse than that

The reason I think that the claim that discovery queue suggests stuff based on what you play is because every so often I'll get suggested a game that looks something akin to a low effort platformer than you might have found on Newgrounds around my middle school age.  Keep in mind that games on Newgrounds back then.  I got suggested one piece of shit looking game called Bok which looks EXACTLY like some piece of shit game some idiot would have made when trying to learn FlashMX.  The difference now is that it's some piece of shit trying to learn Unity or Godot or some such crap and they want money for it

 

Yeah it's only 2 quid but I'd rather stand in Siberian winter and have someone pull my ear lobes than give you money for that sack of shit.  Purplexingly it fed me that one because of Cuphead and......Bendy?  Whatever algoritihm they got for game suggestions is pretty drunk

But Bok isn't even the worst offender.  I did a couple of queues back to back and found this one guy who had made the same game 3 or 4 times, re-skinned them and jigged the levels around a bit and was selling each game for like 5 bucks each.  If I ever find them again I'll put them on twitter but the lack of quality for those games was absolutely shameless.

While I'm at it, let me also touch on the "Adult Only" games that occasionally pop up in the feed as well.  Why is it that almost every adult game on Steam is the ugliest looking piece of shit I've ever seen.  I've played A LOT of hentai games in my time and if there's one thing a Japanese ero-ge developer will put a lot of time into it's the art, because that is what is pulling in most of it's userbase.  Adult games on steam though all seem to use the exact same ugly looking 3D models with godawful animations and some of the worst "erotic" voice acting I've ever heard.  If there is anyone out there getting off to steam adult only games that aren't a translation of some Japanese thing, let me know because I'm convinced these people do not exist.

It makes me wonder if Steam has anything akin to quality control since the store is just HEAVING with garbage.  A sad state of affairs but luckily there are accounts on places like Twitter and YouTube that will filter through the bullshit better than any discovery queue ever could so tell that queue to go fuck itself and go there instead

Motte Island

Motte Island is a strange little game available on Steam for a mere £4 that was developed by Gamebell studio.  It's a game I knew absolutely nothing about but for that cheap price tag I felt it was a least worth a try. 

Motte Island is a top-down horror adventure game about a guy called Maxi trying to save his sister from a group of strange people who want her dead for some reason.  However, your rescue attempt goes wrong and the inhabitants of the island are transformed into these strange insect-like creatures and it is then up to you to find a way to save your sister and get the hell off the island.

Gameplay comes from a top down perspective so if you image Hotline Miami and Silent Hill had a baby then you'd have a good idea of how this game plays.  It's extremely simple controls means that there isn't much to talk about.  Everything functions as it should and you spend the whole game roaming the island looking for clues and fighting monsters.

The game felt a little weak in the sound design and with a style like this it really had to do well here to be successful as a horror game.  That's not to say it's completely terrible, they did a fairly competent job but it fails to create any of kind scary atmosphere and as a result the whole "horror" part of this "horror adventure" falls a bit flat.

My biggest problem with this game though is that it looks and plays like a fucking flash game lifted straight from Newgrounds back in the early 2000s or whenever it was.  That's not to say the game is bad, because it's not, but after dropping money on a title I want something with a little more production value than a flash game.

It's also quite clear to see that the game was designed by non English speakers and whoever it was who wrote the script needs to work on his/her English a little bit.  It doesn't ruin anything and it's not hilariously bad or anything like that but in certain places it's quite noticeable.

Overall though, I liked Motte Island, it's a short and satisfying little adventure that is fun to play despite it's flash-esque feel.  It also has some pretty cool monster design and sneaking up on a nightmare creature so you can replace it's brains with your axe blade is pretty fun.  I'm glad I spent £4 on it because I feel these guys have their heart in the right place and with some continued support they could probably move on to make something pretty good.  However, it would be understandable if that seems a bit much for this kind of game so if you're on that side of the fence, wait for a Steam sale and grab it for 1 or 2 pounds.

Coil

Coil is a game that was part of The Basement Collection, but I don't know if calling it a "game" is the right word for it.

I find this game extremely hard to write about because the whole thing is so abstract.  Basically, it is a puzzle game where you must follow the growth of this weird alien creature.  Each tasks you with moving a thing or collecting pellets or something, but never actually tells you what it is exactly you have to do or how to control it.  This may seem like awful design, but it's all really simple stuff that you can figure out in about 30 seconds if you have a working brain.

Between each level you get a little text screen that tells some kind of story that may or may not be related to what is happening on screen depending on how you read into it.  Coil is an "art" game through and through, something that you could sit around and discuss the meaning of if you were wearing a striped turtle neck and a beret.

As a game, it's not all that fun.  It's short and you don't actually DO all that much, but if you're into artsy games then you'll get a kick out of it.  Me on the other hand, I prefer my artsy games to have some actual substance to them.

Weekly Freebie: Don't Look Back

Well I've decided to stop calling it the "Free game Friday" because I never fucking do them on Friday, so from this day forward this feature will now be called the weekly freebie!

Anyway, this week I'm bringing you a nice short little game made in flash that is actually rather fun.  As the title of this post says, the game is called Don't Look Back and it's a game made by the same guy who brought us VVVVVV.

Do some platforming, shoot some things and fight some bosses, a very simple game but extremely fun despite being a little short.  There isn't really much else to say, I mean it's a goddamn flash game so just go and play the damn thing.

LINK!
http://www.distractionware.com/games/flash/dontlookback/

The Free Game Friday on Thursday

So this week I know I have a busy Friday evening coming up, so instead of mugging you all off and not providing more free shit, I thought I'd do it a day early, hooray!

So this week I'll be talking about a browser based flash game, and before you get all uppity about it, it's a damn good one so just hear me out.

Right, so the thing is called Pandemic 2, a simulation game of sorts where you play as a virus and you must try and kill everyone on earth by becoming the most badass and most resistant motherfucking virus to ever strike humankind.  When you start the game you get a "class" choice of Virus, Bacteria or Parasite which all have their own traits.

From there you spend most of your time watching a map screen and paying attention to events that happen throughout the world.  You can then use this information to apply the best upgrades to your disease, or you can ignore them and just build it however the fuck you want.

As time passes, you gain evolution points to spend on your disease in order to give it more symptoms or resistance or different methods of being carried from subject to subject, there is quite a bit of choice.  The game also lets you sell already bought upgrades just in case you need to adapt to the way things are going.

Not all that deadly but will cause large amounts of embarrassment

I'm not usually the kind of person who enjoys playing flash games, I tend to avoid them most of the time, but this one is actually really good.  So if you need something to fiddle with while you procrastinate productive things, Pandemic 2 is the way to go!

LINK!
http://www.crazymonkeygames.com/Pandemic-2.html