Steam Pack 16

Might as well do a couple more! Why not?

Note that due to the ongoing Steam winter sales, some prices here may be inaccurate.

gravilon

Released to Steam on March 30^th, 2015 (there is, oddly enough, no information on the Store page about the developers and publishers), gravilon is yet another puzzle platformer in a wide family of indie games in that genre. This one appears to have a plot, as the store page says, but it’s only going to be of any interest if you can go far into it. I personally gave up rather quickly.

A lot of greys. Also, you can see the levsl in the background,
and some stuff in the foreground too.

gravilon (yes, without a capital letter) is minimalist in style, as you follow the travels and tribulations of a little square spinning its way around various floating platforms, looking for its way through. The square has the ability to reverse gravity whenever it touches one of the pixel-wide white power-ups scattered around a level. You can’t jump; only hop by the effect of accumulating speed from moving on platforms, and of course fall off the platforms themselves, whether it’s towards the bottom, or towards the top (when gravity is reversed). The game is said to encourage exploration and trial-and-error, which is a game dev shorthand for “You’re gonna die a lot”. But don’t worry, you have infinite lives.

It’s interesting, as you must take into account the various platforms in order to make your way to the exit of every level. Platforms are merely lines, though there are vertical and diagonal ones too. Those can be great in order to control your flights upwards and downwards – as I said, you can’t jump, so you better plan for your safe landing after you hit the pixel that reverses gravity.

Hop.

Why is all this stuff in the foreground?

And so we run into the three main problems of the game, all of which made me lose patience fairly quickly. First, the levels are superimposed, as getting to the exit of a level takes you to the next, located behind the one you just completed. It’s a nice effect, but sometimes the background lines (those of the upcoming level) are distracting, and so are the ones from the previous level, still visible at times. Second, the pixels that shift gravity are very small and easy to miss, and if you pass by one that is required to beat the level, there’s no way to come back (unless you land on a platform and re-reverse gravity), so you lose a life and must start the whole level over. Third, the levels get pretty big, even early on, so it’s difficult to come up with a strategy and a pre-planned path in order to reach the exit. There are no zoom-out options to view the entire level and plan a strategy either, as far as I know. So yeah, trial-and-error it is! Sure, you can press Space to go in a slow-motion mode, but it doesn't help as much as it could.

How am I gonna get to that big blue entrance??

I wasn’t a fan of this one. The idea is commendable and interesting, and I would have loved to see what’s in future worlds and levels, but there isn’t much to do or see. I don’t even think there’s any music in gravilon! So, yes, I was underwhelmed by this one. I don’t even know who to blame, either, there’s not even some Alan Smithee Studios that I could point to! Anyway, the game is available for about 3$.

Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox

Let's add some life to this barren wasteland!

I got this game on Humble Bundle, and hadn’t had a chance to play it until now. Well, here goes. Developed and published by Pill Box Interactive to Steam on May 12^th, 2017, this is a “God Game”, meaning you’re given lots of control over an environment and can modify it as you wish. Or, rather, in this case, you are a corporation landing on this featureless land and proceed to create plants, herbivores and carnivores in order to fabricate an ecosystem.

These plants sure are growing faster than the ones
in Viridi.

So this is a strategy game, in which you manage your environment, making sure the balance remains. You can then create collectors that will gather biomass, which can then be used to purchase more buildings or upgrade existing ones, and laboratories that increase knowledge of this new environment and how to improve its creatures and assets. As your research progresses, your three main types of creations will become better-known, and you can then modify the genetics of these monsters and create your own custom plants, herbivores and carnivores. Careful, though; once you’ve toyed with nature this way, it may be difficult to undo the changes you’ve created…

How long are the days in this world? Has anyone ever played
throguh an in-game year of time?

This game claims to be created in such a way that you must figure out various elements by yourself. Among others, the traits that you can modify on custom lifeforms aren’t always clear, many aren’t explained to you. Thankfully, even as you become able to summon plants and animals with more customizable features, you can still create lifeforms with randomized traits.

I’d also add that there are issues here and there. Genetics and evolution being what they are, you can end up with unexpected plants and animals. Not that you would notice a difference unless you dig deep into the game’s mechanics, since the game uses simple forms to depict plants and animals, so it can be difficult to tell them apart (they all look like tiny slugs on the ground!). Of course, if you’re interested in such things, the game actually keeps track of all the data and will create documents for you to read, if you feel like digging deeper.

All those warm color creatures on the ground? Carnivores.
We're running out of herbivores around here.

It’s not terrible, even pretty fun and decent for a few hours, but it’s not the type of game I see myself playing for long periods of time. I’ve played it a few hours and it is enjoyable to see your world evolve and change, but in the end there’s not much else to do. No goal to speak of, outside of keeping balance. Well… Okay, there is apparently more plot than we might imagine, as the store page implies that there’s a hidden story focused on discovering who has been hiring you to breed life into this empty world. And hey, we need to find out who these people are. After all, nobody in their right mind would let an irresponsible like me play God! I can’t even write articles without going on hiatus!

So yeah, I feel you can skip this one, but if you’re intrigued, it’s available on Steam for about 7$.

Mad Combat Marines

I’m pretty sure I would be singing a completely different tune if I was better acquainted with the Shooter game genre, but this one… well, obviously it’s not amazing, it looks like some asset flip game. But it could have turned out a lot worse.

Mad Combat Marines, a creation of FreezeNova Games published to Steam on July 13^th, 2016, is about, well… mad combat marines shooting at each other. You have the option to play online against other players (however few there may be), or offline against AI characters. After which you pick a terrain to play into (a green neighborhood, a greyer city area, or a park) and then you can start shooting at each other all you want.

Ah yes, I get blood over my screen when I get shot.
Totally never seen that before.

It’s definitely a low-quality, low-price game, but it could be worse. It works, after all. It’s functional, even if it might not keep your attention for very long considering it’s got nothing special to differentiate it from better shooters. I haven’t encountered any glitches, so that’s already a big plus.

Every player has access to five weapons: Pistol, Machine Gun, Shotgun, Sniper Rifle and RPG. Mind you, as I played I didn’t find any ammunition, so I guess you need to use the better weapons parsimoniously since your number of bullets with those is limited. As you play around the map, you kill enemies that appear, shooting at them from a distance… y’know, usual shooter stuff. Find places to hide, find ways to kill enemies more efficiently.

Stupid car, I can't even run over people with it.

Every once in a while, an event pops up on the screen, requiring you to kill as many players as possible within a time limit, or drive a car for a period of time, or gather coins around the map… Okay, about those last two: Every car in this game is a Pinto or something, as they all explode way too easily from gunfire. On top of that, while they drive just fine, they cannot run over players, instead treating them as solid objects. The car reacts like it has hit a wall. Also, I have never seen a single coin on the maps I played. That’s weird.

An event in which I must kill as many opponents as possible?
Wasn't I supposed to do that already?

The characters and maps feel pretty nondescript, but at least there’s some level of detail put into them.  I quite enjoyed climbing the buildings in construction in order to snipe enemies from a height. I would argue that the enemies take too many bullets to go down, but that’s the guy who doesn’t know much about shooters speaking, maybe it’s normal. Or maybe it was a conscious design choice.

So yeah, it’s really not that great, but I guess it’s higher-tier among the passable asset-flip games on Steam. There’s been many more, there will be many more, but at least if they were all as okay as this one is (instead of being buggy messes of assets that don’t fit together), maybe asset flip games wouldn’t get such a bad rep… Pfft~ Okay, I can’t say this with a straight face, sorry. But yeah, this game is okay at best.

Tiltagon

Can't be going too fast! Unless you want a high score...

You know that “Just one more” feeling, when you’ve got a fun game and the levels are really short but crazy difficult, and you keep telling yourself you’ll do just one more, and then you end up playing for yet another hour? That’s the kind of game Tiltagon is.

This addiction in game form was developed and published by Kiemura Ltd, and released to Steam on March 29^th, 2016. The concept is simple: Roll your ball across the level’s hexagonal platforms, avoid the pits and the obstacles, and reach the end of the level as quickly as possible. I do mean quickly; each level can be completed in, at most, 30 seconds. Then again, considering the game keeps track of your time on every one of the ten levels, you might try to get to the end in record time.

Must avoid these obstacles...

It’s not like you can afford to waste your time, either, as the platforms disappear one after the other while you make your way around. Don’t get stuck on a hexagon! Learning the levels and speeding through them is encouraged, too, since you get up to three stars per level depending on how well you did. You get one star for completing a level, regardless of time, because these levels are friggin’ tough and you deserve that star!

There are three options for controls: The arrow keys, the mouse or a controller’s joystick. I personally found the mouse to work best with my set-up, though it didn’t make the levels any easier, oh no!

Must collect those little cubes...

But hey, at least there’s some good techno music playing in the levels. I think it’s pretty cool that you unlock new balls for each star you get on every level. And if the ten levels aren’t enough, there are endless modes available too, where the goal is to go as far as possible without falling off… Yeah, good luck with that. The first one is Hard, with all kinds of traps, but in the second one, Hard +, you're not even allowed to come into contact with any obstacles, it's instant death!

...Must not fall off!

Among the games reviewed today, it’s probably my favorite! The sleek design of the levels, the recurring motif of the hexagons, the short length and high difficulty of the levels… it all gets so addicting! This is really the kind of game that makes me go “One more… I gotta try again… it’s just 20 seconds… I can do it!” There’s something innately addictive in games like this one, or Super Hexagon… I’m sensing a theme there! The extra mode and the wide selection of playable balls adds to the fun. Some of those unlockable balls look great, too; some have awesome designs, while others are nods to pop culture. One of them is even colored like a Pokéball!

...Oops.

But as I said, the difficulty is really kicked up to eleven. Merely completing a level for the first time is very tough… so imagine getting three stars on each level! It’s almost a good thing that there are only ten levels, eh? On the other hand, if you’re good at the game, ten may actually feel pretty short, making the endless modes much welcome. There’s definitely a learning curve to be had, as you meet new hexagons with special elements (such as ones with moving hexagonal blocks that get in your way, or others that have mountainous surfaces, or ones with holes in them).  However addictive it may be, the difficulty level may eventually turn you off. But other than that, it’s overall a pretty great little title on Steam.

Alright then, I hope to see you next week for… um… maybe a movie review? No wait, it’s going to be the end of the year, and midway into the sixth year of this blog’s existence, I feel like I should do something special.

P.S. This blog now has a Discord server. So when the untimely death of Google+ comes, there's another place to talk about video games!