Game Theory: 5 fascinating games to sample from Steam’s latest buffet of demos
Steam's "Endlessly Replayable Fest" offers a lot of free games to sample right now; which ones are worth your time?
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Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off the weekend by taking a look at the world of gaming, diving in to the ideas that underpin the hobby we love with a bit of Game Theory. We’ll sound off in the space above, and invite you to respond down in the comments, telling us what you’re playing this weekend, and what theories it’s got you kicking around.
Although there have been any number of deeply depressing trends that have cropped up in gaming over the last 10 years—endless tides of remakes and remasters, the creeping of live-service bullshit into every walk of gaming life, and most especially the increasing specter of abrupt and heartless studio closures—there are a few we actually love. That goes doubly so for the “Fest” model of video game promotion, as embraced heartily by online retailer Steam: A take on spreading the news about games online that goes light on trailers, press releases, and bombastic pronouncements, and heavy on giving people something they can actually put their hands on and play.
As obsessive followers of the “roguelike”/“rogue-lite”/“video game genre names are a curse and there is no cure” genre, then, we were especially excited to see Steam’s latest such offering: The Endlessly Replayable Fest, which focuses on that increasingly wide swathe of games that follow the basic “Play, Die, Unlock Mild Improvements That Forestall Dying By A Few Extra Moments Next Time” template. Because roguelike games both a) vary widely and b) rely on their basic gameplay loops to ensure you’re actually willing to stick around for their endless iterations, being able to sample them before committing money, time, and energy to that climb is a great prospect. Spending an hour apiece on a bunch of game demos might not be the ideal way to experience the full breadth of games aspiring to “endless replayability,” but it’s an excellent way to see where the field is at these days, and whether you’re on the cusp of your next Balatro-esque obsession.
Which is exactly what we did this week, dipping into the “Most Downloaded Demos” tab from the festival, and trying to figure out which of these up-and-comers was actually worth the 1,000+ hours we’ve committed to roguelike titles like The Binding Of Isaac. The result was a fascinating mixture of big ideas, interesting aesthetics, and the occasional baffling choice, as exemplified in the following 5 demos, all culled from the Endlessly Replayable Fest, and ranked from our least to most favorite.
5.Tower Factory (Gius Caminiti)
What’s the 5-second pitch? Blend the automation/optimization gameplay of Factorio with cutesy tower defense gameplay.
How’s it play? First off, let’s acknowledge that Tower Factory has a great basic concept, and applies some very adorable visuals to what is normally a pretty hardcore genre, i.e., endless automation games like planetary conveyer belt simulator Factorio. That being said, we’re not sure that inceasingly popular style of gameplay is a great fit for “Die,” “Rebuild,” “Die again,” at least not at the 10-minute timespan that Tower Factory is operating at. (Compare it with something like Against The Storm, which compresses a similarly expansive genre to an hour or so of gameplay, instead.) Games in this style this mostly work best as their complexity increases, and having to start over from scratch with a few small upgrades every time adorable mushrooms blew our tower to hell got frustrating pretty quickly. Still worth checking out, though, especially if you already have that “I love to watch resources move along on a conveyer belt so that I can turn them into other resources” itch.
4. Mullet Madjack (Hammer95)
What’s the 5-second pitch? Race through corridors in first-person, desperately killing enemies to refill a rapidly dwindling time limit; also, everything’s meant to look like ’90s anime.
How’s it play? Mullet Madjack goes heavier than any other game on this list on aesthetics, committing intensely to its effort to recreate the look of old-school anime like Fist Of The North Star. The actual play, meanwhile, pulls heavily from the rising “boomer shooter” genre, which acts as a throwback to the twitch-y days of Doom or Quake. Unfortunately, this is another case where the basic conceit of the game works against some of its more interesting impulses: By forcing players to race exhaustedly through each level, Mullet both disincentives clever play and interesting strategies, and makes it clear, really quickly, just how limited the current gameplay on offer is. (A good comparison might be Neon White, which also forces you to desperately race the clock, but which steadily trains players to widen their perspective, instead of tightening it.) Limiting players to a single weapon at a time only narrows the choices, and while the core gameplay loop—run into a room, kick and shoot everybody, race to the next—is undeniably exhilarating, it’s also something that’ll need a ton of fleshing out to make work as an “endless” experience.
3. Feed The Cups (Vambear Games)
What’s the 5-second pitch? The devil hires you to run a drinks stand, forcing you to manage lots of step-by-step tasks while also keeping your customers (sentient cups, hence the title) happy with their beverages.
How’s it play? Like a less chaotic, more “Oh no, trapped in capitalism!” version of Overcooked. (Or cooking simulators like Vertigo Gaming’s excellent Cook, Serve, Delicious! games.) The roguelike aspects of Feed The Cups mostly exist at the margins, as you’re encouraged to tackle trickier and trickier locations in order to keep profits up for your satanic endeavors. But the core gameplay loop, of taking orders, making drinks, and fulfilling all the little chores that keep your job afloat, are the fun here—especially as the stress and complexity of getting everything done starts to mount. The version of Feed The Cups available in the demo is still a little on the simple side, but in those moments when we were having to juggle 5 different tasks while impatient customers waited, we could feel the solid core of something we’d want to keep playing for hours—especially if its multiplayer modes are as stressful/fun as the single-player experience.
2. Rabbit & Steel (mino_dev)
What’s the 5-second pitch? Cute anime girls are forced to battle bullet hell shooter bosses (a la the long-running Touhou) games, but with a focus on online multiplayer and steadily building upgrades.
How’s it play? The heavy emphasis on multiplayer is what makes Rabbit & Steel really work: Teaming up with other players online to dodge bullet patterns, synergize skills, and improvise around each other makes this very cute-looking title incredibly satisfying in the hands. (Notably, multiplayer adds a mechanic where attacks will be centered on each character, forcing you to adjust spacing between you and your teammates on the fly.) We’ll admit to finding the game’s classes a bit hard to come to terms with in the moment, and the basic gameplay (basically, alternating between a few different attacks while putting most of your attention on avoiding being hit) was a little on the simple side. But when our team of witches, dancers, and warriors was flying around the screen, avoiding increasingly elaborate patterns of bullets while beating down our giant foes, it was hard to really care. One of the must-samples of the Fest.
1. Galactic Glitch (Crunchy Leaf Games)
What’s the 5-second pitch? Take the top-down space shooter DNA (and neon-colored visuals) of Geometry Wars, add in a bunch of different interesting weapons and a rising level of challenge, pour into the basic roguelike mold.
How’s it play? Like cosmic butter. Already in Early Access, Galactic Glitch is the most polished game we played during our time with this particular Fest, an incredibly slick space shooter with lots of enemy variety, weapons to employ, and interesting upgrades to slam into our little space fighter. (Our favorite: A reprogrammed enemy that help us take down its former comrades—as long as we didn’t get a little too indiscriminate in our firing patterns and blow it up.) The demo got us undeniably hooked, pushing through the game’s first level multiple times at increasingly high difficulty settings, and always finding something new to like. (The added complexity of enemy attack patterns is a great way to keep introducing surprises into the standard replay model.) This one is just pure fun, and while it might not be here for a long time (we can imagine an upper ceiling on the complexity of the gameplay), it’s incredibly fun while it lasts.