#oniria

One day we will all be Steam Next Fest. Until then, here I am.

Dead Watch

Comedy Timeloop Puzzle Mystery

You play as Ben, a hapless loser who wakes up trapped inside a mysterious castle alongside several other prisoners. He soon discovers that someone is out to kill Lumi, the mysterious living internet explorer, and whenever he sees her corpse or dies himself, time loops backwards. Using this ability, he needs to prevent the murder and escape.

I am a sucker for this type of game, but right now it is missing me entirely.

Part of that is a complete lack of pathos. The centerpiece of the narrative is Lumi, but right now she just feels like a flat Cute Anime Girl. I will admit that this game is a pseudo-sequel to the dev's previous game Outcore, so maybe if I played that I would have more of a connection, but Dead Watch as it exists right now doesn't really endear me to her.

Everyone else is a paper thin joke. Literally in the case of Stock Photo Man.

A cast full of joke characters can work, but that requires that the jokes... actually be funny. Most of them didn't land for me. It's either "Our one note gag character sure is doing their bit" or "Ben is a cringe idiot" and there's only so much of that you can stomach.

I will give them credit for the gag of finding an "adult video" and it's just a sock puppet doing taxes and plumbing with sexy jazz music. That joke got me. You win this time.

So without humor all that's left is the mystery and the puzzles. As for the former...it's hard to build intrigue when everyone is doing their bit. There was a reveal at the end that, in a more serious game, would be mind bending in it's implications, but here I'm just going "well we're already doing cartoon logic so that's fine."

As for the puzzles, most of it was variations on finding codes or hidden coins. The steam page mentioned having to follow characters schedules but that so far has barely come up. Maybe it'll get more complex in future chapters but I'm not lining up for that.

So. Final verdict is I need to remember to play The Seance of Blake Manor

Silver Pines

Twin Peaks inspired 2d Survival Horror.

You play as private investigator Walker, heading into the small town of Silver Pines, right as its being evacuated for a massive storm. Your job is to find the enigmatic musician, Eddie Velvet, even as monsters fill the streets and reality starts to fracture.

The game is a pseudo-metroidvania in the style of Lone Survivor. Your character doesn't have enough mobility for it to be called a platformer, but you're still moving back and forth on an interconnected map, using puzzle items, keys, and new weapons to unlock passageways.

The horror comes from classical survival horror threats and friction. These hallways are littered with enemies that hit hard. You have limited ammo, weapon durability, and healing items, so you need to choose your fights carefully. You have a boxer-style weave dodge to get through enemies, but I kind of wish it was less consistent. It felt too easy to sprint past enemies. That feeling goes away when they throw multiple enemies, or throw faster non-humanoid ones at you, but it took a while for the demo to step on the gas there.

The game wears its Silent Hill and Twin Peaks influences on its sleeve. The eerie American small town, the character dialogue where it feels like the people speaking might not be all there, there was even a red room equivalent. It's blatant, but they seems to be pulling it off correctly.

I do like how the storm is pulling a lot of weight in terms of the Silent Hill "They look like monsters to you?" sort of ambiguity. Is the town damaged and abandoned because of the monsters, or was it a messy evacuation? It's clever setup.

I like their take on Resident Evil's ink ribbons. You save via payphones, and each call costs a dollar, but you can also save that money for vending machines. The shared resource creates a nice push and pull dynamic.

I also like that the in-game map doesn't over explain things. It'll mark the main objectives, but keeping track of side stuff will rely on your memory and photos you take with the in-game camera. It leaves a lot of room for clever hiding places.

An enjoyable experience.

Oniria

Spanish Haunted Hotel Horror

You play as a woman named Angie, living in the village of Oniria. After you father's death, you receive a letter from his close friend Fernando, who says he left an important heirloom for you at the abandoned hotel your family once stayed at. As you arrive, it becomes clear that there's something else waiting for you there in the dark.

This is a tone demo. It's a tiny slice of the game that doesn't give a sense of its mechanical loop, just premise and tone. I'm not sure if it's a stealth game or just an eerie puzzle exploration game. The tone itself is good though. The game's intentionally shitty flashlight makes creeping through the dark tense, and the sound design has a lot of small bumps and creaks, where you're not sure if you caused it or if there's something moving nearby.

There's a fun gimmick where the present day is 3d while flashbacks are 2d. The 2d sections are essentially interactive cut-scene, but I like the contrast it establishes, with the brighter childhood palette running straight into violent trauma.

The game still needs to prove itself, but it's at least left a good first impression.

Burn With Me

Demon Summoning Puzzle Deckbuilder

On a frustrated whim, a professor at an arcane university teaches his students a forbidden magic: The art of demon summoning. While most were afraid to dig deeper, a select few students were willing to put their souls on the line to fulfill their dreams.

This is a balatro-esque point scoring deckbuilder, where you have to reach ever increasing point quotas per round. You do so by placing cards on a pentagram. Each card has a base value, and most have effects that synergize with other cards on the table. For example, you can get cards that boost when there's other cards with odd numbers nearby.

The game is generous with adding cards between rounds, and you can't turn them down, so you trend toward big unwieldy decks. You have to balance the immediate puzzle of scoring this pentagram with the long-game puzzle of deck control.

You either luck into a card that has a card-burn effect, or use the draw system to get rid of cards in your hand. If you want a new card from your deck, a card in your hand is burned at random. This can be done at any time, so you can keep cards safe by putting them on the board, but you're still making a controlled gamble.

There's a narrative aspect, the story presented as an anthology of each student and their problems, but what's in the demo right now feels kind of barely there. Hopefully it builds up over chapters.

The Granny Detective Society

Cozy Panopticon Deduction Game

You play as an elderly woman whose hobby is professional busybody, watching her neighbors through her window and meticulously documenting her findings. Soon her thorough investigations catch the eye of the Granny Detective Agency, and her entertainment turns into a new life of detective work.

It's another fill-in-the-blank detective game a-la golden idol. The player is shown an active scene with several characters moving about the metaphorical stage, and the player then needs to follow their actions and movements to fill in answers on the case.

There's some fun theming going on. Once you confirm things on the conspiracy board, the info is presented in a scrapbook. Each case has its own set of hints in the form of a crossword puzzle.

Two complaints. First, the game needs a fast-forward button. You can jump around on the timeline, but if you want to track a specific moment or character throughout the entire scene, you're stuck at 1x speed. Second, the camera needs to do more than be a glorified viewfinder. Right now the only thing you do is take photos of characters for the conspiracy board, which feels like a perfunctory step.

Still, an overall fun experience.

Meaningless Random Numbers

Stylish Satanic Dice Incremental

You are a fallen soul, cast into hell. You're supposed to be beyond redemption, but money can open doors, even to the pearly gates. With your soul on loan, return to the surface and pay the devil his due, by any means necessary.

My first impression was that this game is dice Balatro. Each round you're given a quota you hit in a certain number of turns. You do so by rolling dice, and the money you get is the sum of the dice plus multipliers for matching dice. Get further fear multipliers through a Russian-roulette style killing minigame. Spend money on upgrades to try and hit the deadline.

This impression is only half right, though. I was expecting a harsh push-your-luck game with stark fail states, having the death and damnation imagery be reflected systematically. But the incremental game stuff gets in the way of that.

Running out of turns isn't an instant game over, it just starts throwing zeroes into the dice pool, and your cost-to-roll will outpace the expected value. The bullet minigame's failstate doesn't feel harsh enough, just temporarily turning off a UI element. There's not even a strategic consideration of ending a round early versus trying to hoard extra resources. If you go too high over the quota it just shunts you forward early.

It's less shutting you down and more nudging you to prestige, resetting the run with new permanent bonuses.

This is the idle/incremental loop. It's what people who like that stuff come for, and I've enjoyed it in its own contexts before. The trailer shows off that the growth you'll create will go into ludicrous billions territory, and there's a big enough upgrade ladder to reach for that. If you go into the game with the right mindset and tastes, you'll enjoy yourself.

Oniria

Demo Trailer(English)

And... here is the teaser of my very humble webcomic : "My daily life as Morpheus' assistant" ! I really hope you will like it (even a little) 🥰

Meet Oniria, she is my original character in The Sandman Universe ! I'll tell you more about her in the future !

(This scene takes place during the episode in Hell)

Stay tuned !

(/!\please do NOT repost on another website without consent/!\)

-----------------------------------------------

Et... voilà le teaser de mon très humble webcomic : "My daily life as Morpheus' assistant" ! J'espère vraiment que vous l'aimerez (même un tout petit peu) 🥰

Voici Oniria, c'est mon personnage original créé pour l'univers de The Sandman ! Je vous en dirais plus sur elle dans le futur !

(Cette scène se passe pendant l'épisode de l'Enfer)

Restez connectés !

(/!\Merci de ne PAS reposter sur d'autres sites sans ma permission/!\)