Steam Pack 12

Well! Time for a few more.

While I was playing Undertale for my review (which mercifully ended last week), I would sometimes switch to different games, mostly the short ones in my Steam collection. Throughout 2016 and 2017, I have collected a large amount of games, in no small part thanks to at least two large Humble Bundle… well, bundles. The advantage is that I’m not running out of games anytime soon. Problem is, with my job, my time for gaming is severely limited.

I could just delete every game that I got from those bundles that I’m not sure I’ll like, but then I’m passing judgment on games I’ve never even touched yet and that’s not right. I then used some website that tracks the average length of games, as dictated by various users, and decided to go for the shortest games in my collection - today in particular, those that were also gained through bundles.

Let’s get this started!

Potatoman Seeks the Troof

In this game made and released by Pixeljam, you are a little character on their quest for the TROOF. What’s TROOF? It’s TROOF misspelled. It’s never spelled in any other way as TROOF. Weird TROOF though. Can you handle the TROOF?

Did this cactus just jump and multiply in the air??

This retro-styled platform game is… um… special, but in a good way. Like all the games today, it’s fairly short (only four levels), but it does things in a different manner. On your first playthrough, all bets are off - everything will try to kill you. By which I mean, a LOT of objects on your way will behave in completely unpredictable ways. This guy does nothing to attack you? Wait till you jump past him, then he shoots. These are just normal cacti? Look, this one jumps too! And that one over there, it springs out multiple copies that fly off!

Are these birds pooping eggs at will?

Oh, and surprises such as these are just the common element of this game. From a desert, we move to a jungle with banana-tossing monkeys and egg-pooping birds, followed by a city populated entirely by people exactly like your character. Following that, there’s a level taking place on an alien world, and then it ends in a large room and, in order to find the Troof of the title, Potatoman has to gather meaningless pyramids around this level. Once that’s done… uh… That’s an ending I’d rather not explain. Mostly because it’s inexplicable.

Is this a city completely populated by clones of... ME???

The game plays really well, staying simple with nothing to worry about aside from moving around and jumping. The catchy music and the nice graphics are a great throwback to the 8-bit era. As for the difficulty… oh boy. As I said, your first playthrough will be one surprise after the next, with loads of moments where you wonder what the Heck just happened. It doesn’t exactly become easy on the next playthrough, but knowing the surprises makes the experience much easier.

Where are those dumb meaningless pyramids?

It’s sold for 3.99$ USD, which I would argue is a bit much for how short it is. But hey, it can give you about an hour of content, I guess that’s not so bad. Depends how much time you spend raging at the various bizarre moments this platformer has to offer.

But what is the Troof anyway? Is it that there is no universal Troof? That everyone has a different Troof? Is it that the universe at large would rather keep the Troof hidden from you? Maybe the Troof, after all, is that you’re just a lil’ potato in a big world.

Quiplash

These are no ordinary board games!

Some games have no single-player mode and can only be played with others. I’m not big on them, but some of them are fun. Especially the Jackbox ones.

Jackbox games are a unique concept; from your app on Steam, you can invite others to join your game, then you all connect on your phones to play. The game can be on a single screen if everyone’s in the same room, or shared through a streaming website that everyone watches and plays along to. These games are known for their comedic tone and the sheer amount of fun you can have by playing them with plenty of friends.

...double trouble?

Quiplash is fairly simple: You’re given a few questions or lines to complete, and you type in your own responses on your mobile. Then one prompt shows up with the two answers given by random players and all players (as well as any audience members) vote on their favorite. The winner gets points. This goes on for two rounds. Then, the third round has a single prompt and everyone gives their own answer to it. At the end of the game, the player who has the most points wins.

Pick your favorites!

Obviously, the funnier you and your friends are, the better this game will be. Of course, you can play a round and discover that you and your friend wrote roughly the same answer. It happened to me a couple times. It’s also much better to play Quiplash with more players and an audience, which means it’s a perfect party game if you’ve got a lot of guests and they’re all carrying smartphones (which is very likely). You can also set up a game through Twitch or any other streaming website, if your friends are all over the world. However, like all games that are improved by streaming them (like Choice Chamber, reviewed in a previous Steam Pack), it’s more than a little boring if you can’t gather more than 3 players and at least a few audience members to watch and participate in the voting.

And of course, your fellow players and the audience
can rocket you to the top!

There isn’t all that much to say as far as the music and graphics go. The smiling avatar characters look good, and Schmitty, the announcer, will frequently throw in little jokes between rounds, which is par for the course for a Jackbox game. In the options, you can turn on a family-friendly filter, increase the length of rounds (if you’re streaming Quiplash), go fullscreen, enable/disable the audience, or demand that all players are logged on to Twitch.

And much like every Jackbox game, the system may be confusing if it’s the first time you’re playing any of these, so there’s a handy how-to guide explaining how to get into the game with your smartphone and get this party started. Good stuff! I wished I could have long, fun games of Quiplash with up to 8 players. I need a bigger Twitch audience, I guess.

Quiplash is 9.99$. Be sure to check out the other Jackbox games too!

ROCKETSROCKETSROCKETS

Speaking of games that are much better in multiplayer… this one at least has a single-player mode in which you can battle against CPU opponents. ROCKETSROCKETSROCKETS (yes, that’s the title) is a game developed by Loren Bednar and Radial Games Corp, which is also the publisher.

Shiny. Pretty.

ROCKETSROCKETSROCKETS is… um… okay, let’s go for simplicity. It’s a game in which you control a rocket flying around an arena, shooting missiles and rockets at opponents. It’s a competition. You control the rocket with WASD if you use a keyboard (but the game really, really recommends a gamepad) and use weapons with X and C. You have a nice choice of arenas with colorful obstacles, and the music is some good ol’… er… recent techno. Is there dubstep in there? I think so. I’m a prog metal peasant, I don’t know those newfangled music genres. Each rocket has three Hit Points and the goal is to take down every opponent by shooting at them and bringing their HP to 0. I think it’s also possible for CPU characters to regain HP even after they’ve died, if they manage to hit one of the remaining players.

Lights across the dark, the most colorful Space ever.

That’s the best I can muster for gameplay. The controls annoyed me pretty quickly. I personally thought the rocket was a pain and a half to control. The computer opponents, having a better grip of their flight, seemed also to be much better at aiming than I was - basically, if I hit anything, it was out of sheer luck. I generally was not a fan of the experience even if, admittedly, the graphics look really nice (the rockets leaving a trail of light behind them is a nice touch), the music is bearable, and there are more modes and options than you’d expect from such a deceptively simple concept.

I'd play with friends, but they'd have to be at home.
BTW, I am using official images, because my recording
of the game s all blurry.

Might as well talk about the various modes and features this game has to offer to justify its 6.99$ price tag. You can mod a new mode for yourself, but there’s a single-play mode, a tournament mode and a Zen mode in which you can roam freely. You can play with teams, and the game is compatible with just about all the controllers you can think of. There’s only one problem: The multiplayer? It’s local-only. No playing with friends across the Interwebs.

It’s not for me. I’m not sure I’d recommend it either, but if you want to try it out, go ahead.

Thirty Flights of Loving

Looks like an action game. Sort of.
More like an action walking simulator.

Blendo Games presents what’s basically an interactive short film known as Thirty Flights of Loving. Three friends in a world of cube-headed people are planning the greatest heist of their lives. They’ve spent the longest time planning their robbery. It involves, among other steps, driving a plane, infiltrating a wedding, and fleeing in a busy building. Oh, and there are staircases involved here and there? To justify the title, I guess?

In order to mimic the aesthetic of a movie while still being interactive, the game is cut into “scenes”. It may feel jarring at first, as you are going through a scene at one point and then you’ve shifted to a different location, different piece of plot. It’s a bizarre mix of “In Media Res” and time-shifting narrative with flashbacks and such.

Carrying a wounded guy in public and getting no help.
Fair enough for the big city.

A heist that needs a confectioner? I'm sold.

There are scenes that favor watching over interacting, such as the wedding segment where a drunken protagonist watches the ceremony unravel, with the other guests suddenly floating in the air… somehow. There’s another segment that mimics a shootout against drones, but you can only move around while your wounded ally, whom you’re carrying from the crime scene, is shooting back. It’s still possible to visit most rooms and find various details on the larger story.

After the final scene proper, you are now free to visit a museum area containing important pieces of the short, allowing you a closer look at some elements of the plot. On top of that, beating the “game” a first time unlocks the Developer’s Commentary, which means you can read many interesting observations from the maker of this interactive fiction, how the floating guests came to be, why an orange is peeled at one point. Details like those matter, you know? The advantage of that second mode is that you’re no longer bound by timing and you can spend as long as you want in each scene - though, yet again, the museum at the end is one of the most interesting areas as a result.

Also, so many stray kittens.

It’s not a bad concept, but it’s very short and doesn’t offer much in the way of gameplay. It’s like an action-packed walking simulator in the end. I personally preferred the Developer’s Commentary mode. The animations, the music and the graphics are pretty nice. The cube heads are a weird idea at first, but you get used to them. I also feel the need to point out that you won’t get the full story unless you bother looking into every scene for the extra information. Also, the scenes are presented in disorder and it can get confusing if you try to figure out what’s going on.

I don’t believe this is worth the price tag of 4.99$. It’s far too short, even if you beat it twice to read the Commentary. Still, there are good ideas in here and I would like to see a similar concept in the future, another interactive short film. But I don’t recommend it at its full price.

Well! This covers all for today. Next week, I have four more games to talk about, and it will be the 13^th Steam Pack! I can already feel my luck slipping away at the mere mention of that number…