October Next Fest, Day 1
Coming out Blastin
A NOTICE: I am traveling, and therefore limited to playing [and recording] on my Steam Deck, which is an impressive little machine, but, uh, not flawless. Any issues I mention with performance or graphics should be considered in that context, which isn’t to say they aren’t problems, but that they are problems that might not exist on a full rig. Also I mostly fixed the resolution problems from Day 0, but not entirely. You’re just gonna have to deal with it, I’m tired.
Disciples: Domination
I must have played hundreds of hours of Disciples 2 back in the day, if you include all the expansions. That game was a strategy RPG much in the vein of Heroes of Might and Magic, but with a bit more focus on all three of those things, and a little less in the way of strategy. It is therefore with slight befuddlement that I started this game up and immediately started doubting it was actually from the same ‘Disciples’ series I had assumed it was.
Indeed, it appears that this game is a sequel of Disciples: Liberation, which itself is a sort of spinoff based on the IP after being acquired by Kalypso. This new format is much more like the King’s Bounty games than anything else – you explore the world from a top-down view, running around the overworld map and dungeons, clicking on loot and fixed encounters, which then play out as small hex-based tactical battles. And, honestly, the fact that it reminded me so much of King’s Bounty got me more excited than if it was still true to D2.
After a short tutorial, you get the ability to teleport to your upgradable capital, which also lets you recruit new troops, assign them to your questing party, buy new spells for your hero unit to learn, and so on. The combat itself seems decently complex, with almost every attack and ability applying some sort of buff or debuff, or triggering additional effects off of those if applicable, and many that affect positioning and movement. Each unit type even has a unique ability it executes automatically if kept in the ‘backline’ position instead of deploying into direct combat, like lobbing in fire blasts with impunity or spamming light heal on your most wounded troops.
Balance is a big question mark, as you might expect from a demo for what is supposed to be a game stretched over tens of hours, but it didn’t seem overly trivial or obnoxiously time-sinky from what little I played. Story is another open question – I obviously skipped through most of the dialogue, which is very voice acted and very wordy. But the idea of riding around gearing up my Death Witch hero and her stable of Dwarf warriors and undead spider chimeras like a grimmer King’s Bounty seems pretty appealing. While I’ve never head of Disciples: Liberation until just now, and it appears to have had pretty mixed reception, if a little investigation reveals that players think this is a significant step up and the negativity really is just people upset they don’t have another Disciples II expansion, I might pick this up. I mean, come on guys, Disciples 3 sucked too.
Vindilis
Another 2D Souls-lite, and by that I mean it has a dodge roll and a parry. The hand-drawn sketch-like art and animation is a lot better than I expected, but the combat, exploration, and character progression were all less inspiring. It reminds me a lot of 2018’s Unworthy, which was another 2D Souls-lite that put a lot of weight on its art and it didn’t really carry it. If this game’s more than a couple bucks I really can’t see myself bothering, but it had enough small flashes of inspiration that I could possibly circle back on it.
G-Rebels
Did not run. Disappointing, as I was hoping to check this out.
Questing
Did not run. Appears to have not even actually installed any files. Unclear if this is a Steam Deck issue as I appear to have been the only person alive as of the time of writing who attempted to download this.
The Shadow Cosmos
This is a crap 3D platformer that is so thoughtless you don’t even have a shadow, and I immediately realized this because the only way to progress seems to be to jump onto tiny moving platforms over an instant death pit that itself is concealed by a water texture. Unfathomable that you would get this far in your student project and not realize you needed to add something that’s in the fucking title.
Darby Is Here Forever
This is a style of game I call ‘spike dodger’ rather than any of the more usual terms [precision platformer, maso-core, ect] because whether or not they’re hard or have tight controls, they’re all the same shit at the end of the day. Darby isn’t particularly difficult, and I don’t hate the core movement, but a lot of the elements feel half-assed and the checkpoints are frustrating for multiple reasons, including the fact that you have to pay for them with collectables. Hard pass.
Eternal Voyager
Unreal engine asset swap with some really hilarious voice acting and animations. This is easily the most I’ve laughed at a game in a little while. Your buddy Blast comes out strong, telling you a lie that you’ve picked up a plasma rifle, then trying to be a hardass and short you on the Credits you earn for completing the tutorial. The checkpoints even have the Unreal logo on them. My favorite part is this line from the game’s Store page:
Throughout the story, you’ll be faced with various choices. For example, you’ll have the choice of going right or left. If you go left, a different battle awaits you; if you go right, a different battle awaits you.
Quite impressive.
I will say, I thought that it ran relatively well for the stock UE graphics quality, but then I went into aiming mode and it shit the bed all the way down to single digit framerate. Well, keep working on this, guys, you only need totally overhauled gameplay, distinct art assets, and squadmate VAs that aren’t Russian college students sitting 20 feet away from their mic. Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I’m pretty sure my own AI squadmates were hitting me in the back with friendly fire the whole time. So that was cool.
Cursemark
Cursemark is an action RPG with a twist – it’s also a roguelite. Well, kind of. The world isn’t actually random, and you keep some of your progression on death, but return to the starting point and lose all of the upgrades for your special attacks, as well as the modifier gems you slot into them. These modifiers do things like cause your fireball to split into multiple projectiles, and the core combat is… well, it’s fine. You do have to do a lot of dodge rolling because enemies seem to have little in the way of hit-stun, although they do have full telegraphing markers before they do any attack, so it’s not a total crapshoot.
Structurally reminded me a lot of 2019 platforming Souls-lite Dark Devotion, which also was in a fixed world that you had to ‘clear’ in a ‘run.’ A lot of what will make Cursemark worth playing or not unfortunately comes down to things that won’t really be clear from the little bit I’m going to play of it during this event, like how interesting the exploration of the fixed map actually is, how satisfying and meaningfully different the spell and ability options are, and how much the game makes you want to punch a wall when you die. This is definitely the kind of thing I am on the lookout for in events like this, and I’ll be keeping an eye on it as it enters Early Access in a few weeks.
Not a lot of winners, not a lot to say. I was holding off on a few more promising demos because I didn’t think I had enough time to give them yesterday - I’ll probably be trying a few that I actually already have on my wishlist from here on out, and I hope those are better.