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

Slay The Spire First Impressions

While I was drinking in a video game bar near my house, a friend of mine fired up this game on a laptop he brought on down and we had a merry old time playing this over a few drinks.  Granted I was a bit drunk when I tried it so if any details I mention now are off a little, forgive me, but I only did one run so it's not like I went that deep into it anyway.

Slay the Spire is a sort of Roguelike deck building game and if there is a story involved then I sure as fuck wasn't paying attention to it.  Basically there's a big spire and you gotta go fuck up all the demons inside it.  When you fire up the game you get a choice of either a warrior guy or a sort of thief type guy and for the one run I did with my buddy we played as the warrior.  From there you are given a map of levels and each level will have a battle or some kind of event that could either help or hinder you.  You fight your way through each map until you either are killed or you make it to the end which sounds easy but if you didn't know what I meant by "Roguelike" before, that means that death means you have to start all over again, no saves.

Anyway the big pull of the game is the whole deck building things.  At the start you're given a bunch of basic shit like attacks, blocks and a skill or two and as you progress you get more and more cards for your deck.  However just putting cards willy nilly is a sure fire way to get killed pretty quickly as you have to juggle things such as cost, synergy and deck size.  For example, if you clear a fight and are presented two cards that don't really fit well with your deck it might be better to pass so that you aren't drawing shit from a bloated deck later on.  Cards aren't gone once you use them either (unless it says "exhaust" on it), you just get 5 randomly each turn so keeping your deck well focused is pretty key.  You can also level up cards so they have greater effect and there are also non card relics (or artifacts or something like that, I forget the exact term) which you can equip for various buffs and effects.

While I did have great fun with the game, and the core deck building element is extremely solid, I have two big problems with Slay the Spire.  One is the fact it's early access, but only because I fucking hate early access with every inch of my being.  Granted, the developers are being very good with it and clearly are putting the effort in but I still can't bring myself to buy a game with that label on it.  If you stumble across this post AFTER the full release then disregard this point, obviously.  The other problem I have is the art style and general look of the game.  Now I'm no artist, I struggle to do stick figures in MS Paint but Slay the Spire just doesn't look like a game you'd spend money on.  It looks like the kind of game you would have found on Newgrounds back in the day, like the whole thing has been made in Flash or some shit.

However don't let that deter you from picking it up if you don't mind the early access because it's a pretty incredible game.  I didn't finish the one run I tried, I died somewhere fairly late in game so I'll be watching the updates carefully for the full release so I can have my revenge.

Drunk Like: A Reminder and Rules

There isn't a great deal of time before the live event known as Drunk Like will be happening!  I've been a bit strapped for time to produce content due to a family visit to Japan but I thought I'd outline the event one more time and describe the general rules so you guys know what to expect.

The event will take place on June 6th and will involve me and a group of friends playing roguelike games for 9 solid hours and drinking while doing it.  Here are the general rules for the event.

1)  Each player does 1 run of the currently played game, when the game is over they switch with the next player.  Turn order decided at start of the event.

2)  If a player dies, they must take a drink.  If a player clears the game then everyone else in the room takes a drink.

3)  If a donation is received during the event, everybody in the room must take a drink.

4) If participants start to feel sick they are allowed to bow out.  I don't need people endangering their health for this stuff.  DRINK RESPONSIBLY!

That's it, it's easy right?  Each game at the event will be played for 2 hours and a vote will be cast for which game will be replayed for the final hour.  Each game will also feature specific rules and donation incentives which will be announced at the start of play so make sure to tune in and see if a little bit of charity can turn us all into drunk wrecks.

I'm also considering making a prize avaliable for donators so keep an eye out on the Identity Gaming facebook page to see if any get announced

So, follow at www.twitch.tv/taurinensis and get excited.  It's going to be a long and very very stupid evening.

Introducing DrunkLike!

Today I would like to announce a new event that's coming to the stream.  Currently planned for the 6th June and titled DrunkLike, me and a few friends will be getting together, playing Roguelikes and getting rather drunk all for your entertainment.

Just in case there are people reading this post who don't know what a Roguelike is, let me just explain real quick.  A Roguelike is a genre of game that involves exploring randomly generated dungeons and finding randomly placed items.  Aside from the randomness, the other big thing behind the genre is perma-death.  If you are killed in a Roguelike game then usually you must go back to the very start.  This usually means that games in the genre are kind of short but make up for their length with extremely challenging game play and an ever changing experience.

The basic rules are as follows: each player takes a turn at one of the games and if they die they have to take a drink.  If they succeed in clearing the game then all the other players take a drink.  Of course, this event is being done for charity so if we receive a donation during the event the we ALL take a drink.

The games that I have currently picked for the event are
 -The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
- FTL: Faster Than Light
-Crypt of the Necrodancer

Additions may be made or the list of core games may be changed.  If there is a game you'd like to see then please leave a comment or let us know on stream during the event.  Each game will also have game specific rules that will be announced during the stream and can be donated for over the course of the evening.

Please keep an eye on the Facebook group and my twitter for more updates regarding the event.

Twitter: @Taurinensis
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/identitygamingcharity

Rogue Legacy First Impressions

One of the first things I ever posted about when I started this blog effort was this sort of Roguelike game called The Binding of Isaac, and I gushed a hell of a lot over that one.  But after having burnt myself out hard on that, finally something has come along to fulfil my randomly generate dungeon needs.

Rogue Legacy is a 2D Metroidvania-esque Roguelike game that recently got released on Steam.  I've only really started playing, but from what I can tell the aim of the game is to explore the randomly generated castle and kill a bunch of bosses so you can go fight the big bad behind a huge gold door and then win the game.

You play as a knight who at the start is killed quite easily by pretty much everything inside the castle and when you die you have to start over completely from scratch, so if your hoping to get to that final boss then you really have to pull your socks up and show some Metroidvania skills.

As you play you find gold that you can use to by equipment and upgrades with at a hub screen before you start a run with each new knight.   You may be thinking this is an easy game since you could just spam a bunch of shit runs to get gold, beef yourself up and do the game in one shot but that is not the case.

Upon leaving the hub area you have to give a dude at the gate all of the money you are holding, so if you want an expensive upgrade you have to get the money for it all in one go.  It may sound like an annoying system but it's actually a really cool way to keep the game challenging, but gold drops so easily that it never feels like bullshit to build up the hundreds of gold you might need for those upgrades. 

The final cool feature I want to touch on is the character select screen after being killed in the castle.

You get a choice of 3 knights that have a different class and spell, but the most interesting thing is the trait of your knight.  Traits are special buffs or debuffs that each knight gets given at random and they can have drastic effects on your run.  For example, I was given a knight with the colourblind trait so the entire game was in black and white while I was playing with that character.  I have one friend who had a knight with far sightedness which made his screen blurry and another who had an exaggeration trait where the damage numbers would read huge values instead of the actual ones.  The traits are not only pretty funny but they have a cool effect on the game play that make sure every knight feels a little different each time.

So that's it for now, I'm going to go and play a ton more of this, and with the steam sale still in full swing I'd suggest picking it up while you can get a bit of a discount on it.  It's also extremely accessible so if you've never played a Roguelike and the genre looks a bit intimidating to you, then give this a go, you'll have a ton of fun even if you suck at it.