Steam Next Fest

[got_quiet]

There's another Demo event going on on Steam so the gang and I are poking around. So far we've played:

Arcade Party: You just play a bunch of brief and extremely simple little arcade games. You all try to beat them but there's no real coop or competition in the mechanics. Everyone has to complete their version independently. It's stuff like, play some digital labyrinth. Survive a little bullet hell. Complete a puzzle. The better score you get overall the more damage you do to the boss and if anyone fails you lose a life until game over. The games were super fucking easy for the most part, and we were already seeing duplicates within one short playthrough. Meh game. Maybe ok for those who are looking for something easy to play with a group of casual friends.

Super Raft Boat Together: A bullet hell where you're cartoon people on a raft. The enemies break the raft and you have to build it back up while shooting them. It was simple and fun. I don't know if there's much depth but was good for a quick play.

Desynched: My friends were saying it's like a bad factorio. I've never played factorio or any of the games like it, so I can't compare. It's a little janky. The UI was difficult to parse, it was hard to tell if automation was working or if it wasn't why not at times, but I thought it was interesting and had some potential. You're building a base, collecting resources, building stuff and upgrading etc. Maybe I should try factorio since I kind of liked this? It called itself a coop but all that means is being able to control a base together. I might go back and try this solo a little bit.

Void Train: My friends downloaded this, played it, and gave up on it before I had finished downloading. They announced that it was a shitty Raft and they had not enjoyed Raft

Matt and Trey's Puzzle Compound: Up to 4 person escape room. It was actually a decent escape room with some fun puzzles. We all enjoyed it! If they come out with more maps I might buy them so the group can play them.

King of the Castle: This one was actually a lot of fun. It's a big crowd game meant for streaming and 1000s of participating viewers but we only had 4 people and it worked pretty good still. I think that may be the bare minimum. Only one person plays the game and they stream it to the rest. They play a new monarch, who needs to make decisions about how to run their kingdom. The rest of the observers are sorted into three regions, each with their own goals and stats, which are attempting to depose the monarch and become the ruling family. During events there some sort of conflict. For example. Two regions are arguing over who has rights to a mine, or a noble has killed another and is arguing that it was a duel, but the others are pushing for a trial. The decision about what to do is made via a vote from all of the regions, but the monarch can manipulate it by doing things like vetoing, flagging their preferred choice, forcing people to vote for their least preferred option and having the option with the least votes win, and so on. The monarch also breaks ties. After the decision has been made there is some fallout, stats change and so on.

We had a lot of fun doing this, fighting over who should be screwed over, holding grudges over past decisions, and trying to argue against giving one side or another too much of an advantage. When it comes out I hope there are some streamers that play it because I will want to see how it operates in the larger crowds that it's intended for.