The Steam Thread

[Thomkal]

Book of Demons, a card based fighting dungeon exploration game is free to claim at GOG.com over the next couple of days. I have this one already and I think its worth checking it out.

[Thomkal]

Steam is having a Deckbuilder sale all week-most have a good sale on them right now

[thesloppy]

I buy and play a ton of sub-$20 indie games these days, and a couple that have stuck out of the churn recently:

Balatro
see its own thread

Mortal Glory 2
Mortal Glory 2 on Steam
You manage a small gladiator company, with a maximum party size of 4. Combat phases are x-com light, played out on a small relatively bare arena map with a few obstacles & take about 5-10 minutes per fight, with about 30 fights (or random events/store nodes) per run, selected FTL branching map style.



Slice & Dice
Slice & Dice on Steam
Tactical dice-rolling roguelike. Take control of 5 heroes, each with their own unique dice. Fight your way through 20 levels of monsters and try to take on the final boss.

[Thomkal]

Millenia now available for sale on Steam, elsewhere. A lot of my regular YouTubers have been playing it, I think its worth a lot of the hype.

[GrantDawg]

I need to watch some videos. Interested but hesitant.

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[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Interested but hesitant.

Similar, though I'm more mildly interested & pretty fn hesitant.

Criticism seems pretty consitent: a lack of meaningful differentiation between nations/civs, and the absence of flavor that comes with that, plus lackluster combat and diplo facets.

I'd have to have a major change of heart to pull the trigger until several patches most likely.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Similar, though I'm more mildly interested & pretty fn hesitant.

Criticism seems pretty consitent: a lack of meaningful differentiation between nations/civs, and the absence of flavor that comes with that, plus lackluster combat and diplo facets.

I'd have to have a major change of heart to pull the trigger until several patches most likely.

I suppose that there isn't a lot of differentiation/feel for each civ other than the cities and towns being from your chosen culture/nation. You get to choose when you start a bonus for your kingdom which no other kingdom starts with. Then when you enter the second age, you get access to National Spirits, like Mound Builders, Raiders, God-King Dynasty which again sets your kingdom apart from the others.



Combat is lacking, especially with the animations they use for combat.

[Thomkal]

Evil Genius 2 is 95% off or $2 right now on Steam

[Bobble]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I need to watch some videos. Interested but hesitant.

I watched DasTactic stream it. I wasn't impressed and really, neither was DasTactic. And, he's usually upbeat about the game he's showing. Combat seemed very meh.

[Flasch186]

I have been playing Football Coach: College Dynasty, and I think as I play it and click around and advance a stage, "Is this game perfect?"

[GrantDawg]

Is it?

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[Brian Swartz]

I have played it, and I have a significantly different opinion. The developer is a great guy who regular communicates and updates, etc. Just good people.

Still quite a ways to go in EA, so it's not to the finish line yet or close to it, but if it were a released game I would consider the current balance unacceptable. Recruiting AI is quite bad, the school updates are OP (less so after a recent patch nerfed the biggest offender Facilities a bit, but still an issue). Scheduling is still bad, conference prestige never changes, and so on. There's a lot of good things about FCCD. It has a decent chance to get there, but as ever there's a lot of voices in the user suggestions wanting to weigh it down with what I would consider far too much complexity, or various spurious ideas that don't affect the core of the game. A lot will depend on what the dev chooses to say yes and no to.

[Flasch186]

Look and feel is perfect

I can’t tell you about the deep dive into code that is being mentioned or ways to game it

But for a regular player I’d say the look and feel is literally perfect for the genre


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[Thomkal]

Free weekend on Steam-Texas Chainsaw Massacre-yes its a game

[GrantDawg]

I forgot I bought this. There was reason that I didn't get into it, but I can't remember what it was.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I have played it, and I have a significantly different opinion. The developer is a great guy who regular communicates and updates, etc. Just good people.

Still quite a ways to go in EA, so it's not to the finish line yet or close to it, but if it were a released game I would consider the current balance unacceptable. Recruiting AI is quite bad, the school updates are OP (less so after a recent patch nerfed the biggest offender Facilities a bit, but still an issue). Scheduling is still bad, conference prestige never changes, and so on. There's a lot of good things about FCCD. It has a decent chance to get there, but as ever there's a lot of voices in the user suggestions wanting to weigh it down with what I would consider far too much complexity, or various spurious ideas that don't affect the core of the game. A lot will depend on what the dev chooses to say yes and no to.

I'd say this does a better job of articulating the feelings in my house than I was willing to invest the time into doing.

The game was ultimately too easy to keep either of us around more than a handful of seasons. Things like the scheduling, the conference prestige issue, and so on, those just added up to back-on-the-shelf TFN.

I like the bones in places, but it feels like a very long way to go before it warrants more than a very occasional dabble to see if its getting any closer.

[Thomkal]

Hamerting, a dwarven vertical mining colony RPG which has been on my wishlist forever is now free to claim at GoG.com over the weekend.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I'd say this does a better job of articulating the feelings in my house than I was willing to invest the time into doing.

The game was ultimately too easy to keep either of us around more than a handful of seasons. Things like the scheduling, the conference prestige issue, and so on, those just added up to back-on-the-shelf TFN.

I like the bones in places, but it feels like a very long way to go before it warrants more than a very occasional dabble to see if its getting any closer.

Recruiting is far too easy. Being able see exactly how many points each school has spent and is spending on a player makes it easy to calculate how much attention I need to give.a player to land him. I honestly don't know how you balance recruiting without it feeling overly frustrating.

One thing nearly every college game gets wrong is the big schools don't have nearly enough pull with recruits. If Alabama is involved with a player the only competition they're realistically getting is from similar prestige schools or, sometimes, the hometown school.

It's also way too easy to build up prestige and then it doesn't drop off fast enough. Generally all schools have a prestige level that they're going to rubber band back too after prestige gains or losses. Very few schools over the past 40 years have actually changed their baseline prestige level in college football. Every game gets this wrong.

[Brian Swartz]

It's worth keeping in mind the whole realism vs. fun aspect here.

There's a significant number of people who don't want FCCD to be realistic in terms of how hard it would be to make a small school a national champion. I think this is really quite highly related to the discussion recently had about sims in general here; How could a computer sports sim replicate real-life urgency? - Front Office Football Central

So at a certain level it's not about getting it right or wrong, but how much realistic difficulty/mechanics are 'fun' for the most players. That's also not just about the challenge IMO but the complexity issue I referred to. If you actually modeled everything involved in running a college football program, I'd estimate conservatively that upwards of 80% of that would really frustrate a typical person trying to play.

[sovereignstar v2]

I still can't get past the very mobile interface of FCCD. It drives me nuts how everything takes up so much space. Give me TCY any day of the week. Sure, logos and prettier graphic elements would be nice, but not at the expense of a very bad layout.

[Brian Swartz]

I think this is a good example of how subjective some things are, especially UI. In most ways, I don't think 'good UI' is even something that exists objectively. Flasch isn't wrong for liking the look and feel, and sovereignstar isnt' wrong for not liking it ... it's just a case of what your expectations/preferences are. No game can hit the spot for everyone.

[Thomkal]

Free weekend of hearts of iron IV, and ARK: Survival Ascended on Steam-also looks like a lot of turn-based games are on sale, and could be some good deals/bundles on the various pathfinder games

[Thomkal]

If you still don't have the original darkest dungeon, it is currently 90% off or $2.50 thru the weekend on steam

[INDalltheway]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

I have been playing Football Coach: College Dynasty, and I think as I play it and click around and advance a stage, "Is this game perfect?"

I love it too. I haven't been playing for about 6 months, but look forward to picking it back up and seeing all the improvements.

[Noop]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

I have been playing Football Coach: College Dynasty, and I think as I play it and click around and advance a stage, "Is this game perfect?"

It's a great game. Fun and fast with customization.

[Thomkal]

for lovers of Monster Train, the developers of that game have a new one now out of Early Access: Inkbound:


Save 10% on Inkbound on Steam

[Thomkal]

in honor of the masters this week, PGA Tour 2k23 is free to play thru the weekend.


EDIT: Fallout76 is free for a week

[JonInMiddleGA]

Infection Free Zone released today in Early Access on Steam

10% off at the moment, so like $22 or something.

[Carman Bulldog]

If anyone takes the plunge on News Tower, I'd like to hear some thoughts.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by Carman Bulldog

If anyone takes the plunge on News Tower, I'd like to hear some thoughts.

Very unique game and a hell of a lot of fun for a short period of time, but not more than $10-15 of value in it right now. The base game is scripted for a few hours of play, they bolted on an unlimited mode but it gets repetitive very quickly.

If they deliver everything in the roadmap for $20 you are getting a very good game, but it didn't stick with me after I'd played through the scripted stories once and reached the end of the time period.

[Thomkal]

Golf with your Friends is free to play thru the weekend on Steam. There also seems to be a lot of good deals on the various Fallout games right now most places in honor of the new TV show I guess.