What the Hell is Happening to Steam?

I love Steam, the convenience it brings along with the insane sales that it does is amazing.  I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression either, despite what I'm about to say I still love Steam and I have absolutely no intention to stop using it.

However, something weird has been going on recently with the games that are being released, probably mostly the fault of Steam Greenlight but more and more the latest release list is making me unhappy.  There used to feel like there was some degree of quality about the games on Steam.  Not that every single game was good but there was at least some degree of quality control when it came to which games got put on the market and which were not.

But then Greenlight came along and shit started to get weird.  Now there's all these weird fucking indie games which look like they have 0 production value put into them and they cost about 40p to buy.  Not only that but there's lots of fucking RPGMaker games which by itself isn't a bad thing but I'm so sick of clicking a title only to find it's been made in that.  RPGMaker is fucking game development on easy mode, hell, I'M in the process of making a game in RPGMaker and I'm a fucking idiot.  If I ever finish it I sure as fuck won't be charging any money for it and I'm not using any of these original assets but games made in that engine feel cheap and shitty, at least to me. 

The one thing that really gets me though is the fucking visual novels.  I don't mind a good visual novel, I've played and enjoyed a good handful of them (not on steam) but the ones that get released on this platform are the fucking lowest kind of crap.  All about fucking anime girls doing bullshit or created by westerners who got their hands on Ren'Py.  I know this is an extremely shallow case of judging a book by it's cover (almost literally) but I'll happily eat my fucking shoes if ANY of them even come close to the levels of quality of games like Kamaitachi no Yoru and 999.

The weirdest thing of all when it comes to this shit are the censored porn games that are available.  Shit like NekoPara and Hunnipop which you can buy on Steam but are censored so that all the nudity and sex are left out.  Why would you even play a game like that if not for the gratuitous anime porn that's available as a reward for putting up with it's cringe-moe BS.  NekoPara is a particularly interesting example of this because if you want it on Steam with the censoring removed you have to buy the fucking game TWICE!  At that point why even bother with the Steam purchase at all?

And before I finish, let me just take a minute to bitch about Early Access again because it's fucking awful.  Stop charging for early access because you're asking for money for an unfinished product which is just lazy bullshit.  I don't care if your game plays "like it's finished" (lookin' at you Necrodancer and Darkest Dungeon), the fact is that it's not and your trying to charge me money for it and that's not on.  If you want to drum up interest for your game then make a fucking demo instead of charging full price for your shit and then just promising that you'll do it.  Just have the end of the demo link to your kick starter or whatever and then you don't need to clog up steam with all this unfinished yet expensive bullshit.

Anyway like I said, Steam is still great and there is a lot of great stuff being released.  That said, finding the good stuff is getting progressively harder thanks to them allowing all this stupid crap clogging up the market lists.  I guess this is why they introduced Steam curators...

Estranged: Act 1

Estranged Act 1 was a game that just popped up in my Steam store one day and it's price was £0, so what the hell reason do I have to not at least try the damn thing out?!

Well OK, Estranged isn't exactly free since it's a mod for Half Life 2.  In case there is anyone reading this post who isn't aware of what that means; it means that you have to own a copy of Half Life 2 to play the game, otherwise it won't work.  Then again, Half Life 2 was released 10 fucking years ago, so if you're a avid Steam user and you DON'T own this game, then really what the fuck are you doing with yourself?

Anyway, I didn't know anything about this game going in, and I'm glad I didn't so if you want to experience it the same way I did, then stop reading this post, go beat the game, then come back and read the rest.

The game starts with an unamed protagonist in a boat.  You get a call on a radio about an island that's been overrun with something nasty and then your boat explodes for some reason and the game starts.  From the few screen shots I saw I thought I was going to be playing either a walking simulator or a puzzle game, but oh how wrong I was.

Estranged is a rather well made first person survival horror type of game for the most part with a bit more focus on action nearer to the end of the game.  The game isn't going to blow anyones mind in terms of innovation but what is here is really well made.  It controls well, the level design is solid, there are some original models, characters are fully voiced, there's a sort of interesting plot going on with a bit of mystery, the level design is good and it's the atmosphere for the game is really nice.

All the limitations that come with every Half Life mod are present, but that's more the engines fault than that of the people who made it and it doesn't really spoil any of the enjoyment of playing the game.  I suppose you could argue that the game is a little short, I beat it in one sitting in about an hour and a half, but for £0 that's pretty good value for money.

So go and give Estranged: Act 1 a go, you have literally nothing to lose in doing so.  Personally, I can't wait for Act 2 and I'd even be willing to pay for it as long as they made it a bit longer (unless they only charged like £1 or £2 for it).  You can tell that the creators put a lot of work in here and it would be a shame if they didn't get at least some recognition for their game.

Race the Sun and Indie Whining

Race the Sun is a strange game I was told about last night so let me give you the story.

I was sat in my room playing Ultima 1 yesterday and while I was moving around the lands of Sosaria trying to vanquish Mondain and his orb of immortality, I heard my facebook chat go off.  I go to check it and it's a good friend of mine saying that he had discovered this game called Race the Sun and it was really good.

So I go and check the trailer and it's this cool looking infinite running game where you control a ship dodging all sorts of stuff at high speed, collecting power ups and trying to stay alive long enough to beat your high score.  The cool thing about this game though, at least the way I understand it, is that every 24 hours a world is randomly generated and the leader boards are reset.  From there you have 1 day to get really good at the stage and top the daily leader boards.  It's a cool idea and would definitely keep me coming back, factor in the hard mode that comes with the full version of the game and you've got something pretty good.  A little different from every other infinite running game on the market and a good way to try and kill some time during lazy afternoons by the sounds of things, right?

But then my friend messaged me again this morning telling me that Flippfly, the company who made the game are in a spot of bother.  They can't get green lit on Steam.  So while looking around the website for the game I came across this article written by one of the developers.

http://flippfly.com/news/race-the-sun-a-month-after-launch-losing-steam/

Now I get they are upset about their game not doing very well (2 copies sold last week) but there seems to be a lot of finger pointing and whining in this post.  Whining about how they can't share the same success as Mojang, whining about how the interest for it on Steam Greenlight isn't all that good and whining about how Indiecade basically dismissed it as a mobile game.

My problem with this article is they don't really have any place to whine like this; the lack of success of Race the Sun is entirely their own fault.  Yes, the game looks cool and yes, they managed to get me interested but just by watching the trailer and playing the demo on Kongregate, it's nothing more than a bog standard infinite runner.  The problem with your game being one of those is that there are already loads of those damn things on the mobile market and almost ALL of them are free.  So why would I throw down $10 for your game when I can just pick up my iPod and play Temple Run for nothing? 

Now judging from my friends reaction to the game, it's better than your standard mobile runner game, and I'm willing to believe him.  If it doesn't get a Steam release soon, I'll pick it up off their website and show some support, because it looks they have made something that's pretty fun, so show some love.

But really, drop that whiny "wahh, our game is so good why won't it sell?!" and re work your trailer and make sure people KNOW what sets it apart from every other game in the genre, because there are reasons to want this thing, just no one can tell from what you've put out already.

Go give them a thumbs up on Steam Greenlight too, I'd like to buy this using my steam credit.