It's been a while since we've talked about actual games. So let's talk!
NextFest is going on right now, it's Steam's way of highlighting indie games before the holidays consume us all. There's far too many games for any one person to play, but I came across three I wanted to share with the world.
Before we begin, a quick disclaimer: Antlion Audio is not affiliated, compensated, or connected in any way that we know of to these games or their development teams. We just like supporting cool indie games.
Let's begin!
Tarnished Blood
Tarnished Blood is a turn based combat game where you control 4 (or fewer) humans fighting gigantic monsters. The hook is a mechanic that is so under-used that it feels brand new: A timeline. Not just the standard you go in this order, but closer akin to mixing music where you can move time forward or backwards, adjust all of your characters at any time, and see exactly what your opponent is doing and react accordingly, creating a symphony of movement in each turn of combat where you turn certain doom into slick dodges and counter-attacks. Each weapon in the game has a unique set of mechanics (think Monster Hunter) in combat and each faction has a unique set of abilities and equipment as well.
Between each fight you have very limited resources to use to try and upgrade your equipment, humans, and village in order to keep yourself ahead of the danger curve.
Each run of the game consists of 6 fights currently, which I typically spread out over 3-4 sessions, as the fights can get pretty long (~30-60 minutes per battle early on in the runs I found).
I have enjoyed my time with the game immensely thus far, but it's not all roses. Like most early access products it's not fully fleshed out yet. Many mechanics that are in the game are under-explained, often to the extent that I didn't use them because I couldn't figure out what they did, and other questions remain as to how many monsters, tribes, equipment, and so on will be available at final release.
That all said, it remains one of the better games I have picked up this year, and for a game that is clearly still early in development that says a lot for its potential. While I wouldn't describe the game as hard, it does make you think strategically each turn to find your path out of what looks like impossible scenarios. There's a certain joy and catharsis to it all.
Finally, a word of warning about the game before anyone clicks the link. This is a grimdark world with a lot of strange bare-breasted monster and body horror. It's certainly not "adult themed" but I'd also say it is likely to raise some eyebrows if your significant other walks in at a weird moment. If that bothers you, skip now.
To Kill a God
This is the game for my fellow Path of Exile fans out there. The gimmick of this action-RPG is that in each run a "skill web" is generated randomly. Select your hero, each with unique starting abilities and stats, and then use the randomly generated web to create a broken build before the boss reaches you.
Currently there is only one hero, one boss, and you have to survive 20 combats to get there. However, the different skills to try and lots of random equipment, nodes, and level up bonuses have made my three runs all feel pretty unique. Based on the graphics I have seen it looks like this is going to have a lot of replay value.
The combat feels solid, nothing quite as smooth as Hades, but movement and attacks have a certain weight to them that comes across nicely. It's a fun romp and well worth the download if you're at all a fan of ARPGs.
Seer's Gambit
Every time I think I'm done with auto-battlers another comes along and surprises me. Seer's Gambit is a funky semi-auto battler (you can optionally control when you ult) where you progress through each stage of a level gaining equipment, resources, levels, and fight the forces of evil. After each stage you're presented with an overworld map where you pick your next destination. At each of the cleared stages you can upgrade that place giving permanent benefit that persists through each run, making this a semi-autobattler, semi-roguelite.
As you build a team of heroes, each has a rarity as well as a set of attributes, such as "Defender" or "Spellcaster" and each hero is looking for unique combinations of these attributes to unlock additional powers and abilities. On top of that, they also each have unique level based skill upgrades. Build the best team you can, position them intelligently on the battlefield, and defeat evil.
Easy right? It's a surprisingly challenging game. The demo consists of 5 out of the 7 'days' planned for the final release and I was honestly sad that I was not able to continue my first run any further. Multiple times in my runs I have come close to defeat, meaning the devs have the difficulty already well dialed in despite being quite far from completion.
There are some downsides of course. The biggest in this title is the sheer amount of stuff you need to keep track of. Each character has 3 types of attacks (Attack, ability, and ultimate). Each character has 3 potential abilities to unlock with combos. Each character has a variety of other stats, such as armor, health, move speed, and one equipment slot. Then multiply all that by six characters to keep track of and it can get a bit overwhelming. The cherry on top of this "more is less" sundae is combat it can get absolutely chaotic even with the speed set to 1x. It can be very challenging to figure out if the changes you just made are having a positive impact, so there's something a bit janky about the information feedback loop that will need to be resolved before launch.
Still, despite the chaos and having to flip back and forth between characters for several minutes determining if I am better off getting a nature attribute or a spellcaster attribute, I can say I had a very good feeling about this one. With a little streamlining of the UI and UX and some changes to ensure there's more than a few optimal styles of play this one could be the hidden gem you were looking for.
That's all for now from the indie game lovers here at Antlion Audio. Big thanks to all the hard work from the various development teams and we wish them the absolute best of luck in the coming months leading to their launch.