#nextfest

meaningless random numbers is all the shit i love in indie games. it's going ALL in on the style in a way i fucking adore. it gives you like just enough control over stuff to make the random stuff fun give you enough control to make good plays when you level up. this feels like an entire game that i played for 2 hours, how the fuck is the full game gonna build on this? instant wishlist, good shit, expect the review someday after it drops

i have a headache

so this game has an interesting gimmick that has an uphill battle. indie games are like short stories in that they live and die by how much the concept grabs your attention. whenever people talk about all summers in a day, nobody gives a shit about if it's well written or what the prose is or whatever, they care about the concept of losing your childhood's only sunny day. obviously, you can still fuck it up by being bad at it, but as long as you're fine then people won't really care about the little details. he who controls the left field controls the world, so just stick the landing and you're fine

so if you live and die by your concept, you have to commit. and by god does this game commit. its all about trying to play a first person platformer while also playing the same game as a 2d platformer. if that sounds disorientating, that's correct. i kept the screen in the corner and even then i felt like i was getting motion sick from having to see all the secret hidden shit. like powerups mandatory for progression

i respect the fuck out of this commitment. its like how cruelty squad makes my brain bleed, but that's cuz it's not for me, it's for cruelty squad fans. if you've a newtype or whatever the fuck then give the demo a shot

the presentation on this one is kind of shit. like, it feels like it was made in like, another game's level creator. i remember seeing people make machinimas in smash brawl and trying so fucking hard to make the drab ass stock ass three blocks they give you work. the areas look like that, just browns and greys in kinda arbitrary shapes

but the gameplay itself is pretty solid. it's another incremental game, tower defence flavoured. the thing is, your upgrades make you stronger, but in a way that makes you rethink your strategy. getting another flamethrower means you have to reposition your old one, and making the flames last longer means you have to move them far apart. it's an easy trap to make your upgrades TOO overpowered and i feel like this does a good job of still needing you to think. wishlisted, i'll keep an eye on it

i'm gonna be real i was expecting this to be lame as hell. i thought it was going to try way too hard to get in on zoomer brainrot writing, everything would be quippy and unserious, you know the kind of thing i mean. but it was actually kind of cute. the dialogue between the main girl and the skeleton was just normal comedic stuff without being too meta and irreverent, and the comedy knew when to take a back seat and let things be serious with the boss

the gameplay is pretty fun too. i always get thrown off by dungeon crawlers, it always felt like the best way to play em was with a flightstick or something, it's hard to click. but i got this one down pretty well. plus the rpg stuff is just straightforward fun. the flirting mechanic makes you get into the enemey's head and consider what they actually like, like how the slime girl gets dysphoric about her skeleton not being fully dissolved. this extends to the inn mechanic where you get to talk to them, and work out how the bee princess (one of the cutest fucking character designs i've ever seen in my life) likes talking about politics and history. also it has siffrin but a badass biker chick, wishlisted

i've seen plenty of ps1 throwbacks, i've even seen a few ps2likes, but i think this is the first time i've seen a modern indie game embody the muddy and gritty vibes of ps3 shooters. the good news is that it does what indie games do best, picking all of the good shit to make better and leaving all the bad shit in the dust. so instead of being a cover shooter where you play as a normal army guy with the hustle of a hot air balloon, it's a movement shooter with shit like bullet time and reflector shield abilities. your health doesn't regen, and- fuck it, it's a new-doom-like. it's like the post-2016 dooms, nudoom

i dig the ammo system a lot. which is no. there's no ammo. reloading is always the worst part of any shooter, you totally lose your momentum and just kinda wait for it to end. that said, i respect it as an important part of balance and friction, so what do you replace it with? well, just give every gun only one magazine, and give the player a fuckton of ambient guns. if you need one, there's like three nearby, just gravity gun that shit and you're rootin tootin baby

gotta complain though, jesus christ people don't know how to shut up. you'll be minding your business solving environment puzzles and going from one shootout setpiece to the other, all while some insane cultist's podcast is playing on loop on every speaker in the city. i get that it's probably important lore stuff, but so are the datapads and you're not rubbing them in my face about it

one last bit. i like how when you hit the "show me where the objective is" button, it shows up in the middle of the screen before floating into the actual direction. i've been playing a shit ton of abiotic factor with my buddies recently, and whenever they ping i've gotta do a gay little pirouette playing marco polo with their locator icon. it's the little things that go a long way, i didn't even realize how much the default sucked until i knew about the alternative. i'll keep an eye on the reviews when it launches, i liked this way more than i thought i would

gonna end this one on a low note. you know i hate shitting on indies, but i'm really not feeling this one

it feels too random? like, okay, peggle, right? you have really fine control over each individual ball, and level-based powers that give you even more control over your shots. this game just has you spew a million balls out at once, and sure you can kinda control the angle, but it never seemed to matter to me where i pointed it. there's too many pegs and too much up to random chance

you can get items, but it feels like they're not strong enough to do anything to your run on their own. a good roguelike, the genre classics, all have kinda shitty normal items, but each item still brings something to the table. like, all the normal guns in gungeon still do a lot to help you out and build your run up. in pop pachinko, i got items like "makes your pegs wet" and a coin that makes you luckier. it was stuff that only works if you get a combo going, making each run feel samey and making getting a good run way more luck dependent. even luck be a landlord, a slot machine roguelike, isn't this strict about combos