Steam Winter Giveaway 2015 (D14 - Giveaway Epilogue)

50 on Gunpoint.

50 on Long Live the Queen and 50 on To the Moon
~!

Oh hey you know what would be cool? If people can give recommends for games they've played, because I don't recognise the bulk of the titles on here. Also because my laptop has a graham cracker for a graphics card so anyone in a similar predicament might want to know what they can actually run.

Ones I've tried:

• Bastion is a top-down hacky-slashy rpg with a fun selection of weapons and pretty art. Earlier work from the game studio that made Transistor.
  
• Cave Story+ is a pixelart platformer+shooter and it's bloody good. Come to think of it, there's a lot of weird parallels with Bastion.
  
• Don't Starve is Tim Burton-styled survival/crafting/resource-gathering. You'll probably starve.
  
• FTL puts you in control of a ragtag crew on a spaceship fleeing from a rebel fleet. You also manage power to the ship's systems and find/buy weaponry, drones, new crew members, and die a dickton of times. You can play and pause the game making it quite strategic when you're locked in combat with an enemy ship.
  
• Mark of the Ninja chugged a bit on my computer; it's a stealth/platformer with loads of sneaking, running up walls, grappling hooks, and other ninja stunts.
  
• Monaco is a top-down co-op game with a cast of misfits, trying to scoop up all the gold through a series of maps. There's a conspiarcy unfolding as you replay maps in story mode through the eyes of a different character.
  
• Risk of Rain (with buggy co-op if you're game) is a platformer/shooter on a hostile alien planet, again with a bunch of different classes with different playstyles. You run around picking up loads of horrific augmentations cool upgrades and eventually turn into a killing machine if you don't die (you'll die).
  
• To The Moon is an RPGmaker game. I cried. It was very sweet and more story than game. If you don't know what you want to spend a lot of time grinding through and want a sad story, bid on this one.

oh my god how am i supposed to decide between all of these.

its like a candy store, and i am the kid.

umm... to start off... 25 on Dust: An Elysian Tail.

ill decide where the others go later i guess.

• Euro Truck Simulator 2 is a game where you drive a truck across Europe, shipping stuff. You start off having to use other people's trucks as you get hired as a driver, and then you buy your own truck, and then you buy more trucks and hire people to drive them. But that's not important. What's important here is it is a fantastic game to play when you've got podcasts to listen to. Or if you just want to chill. It's got a selection of European radio stations built into it if you want to hear what the latest pop hits are in Germany/France/wherever
  

that's all i got
edit: actually no lemme gab about the swapper for a moment and i'unno more as i think of things to say

• The Swapper is a sidescrolling platforming puzzle game. Not enough of that genre out there, I know, but listen up. It functions on some very simple mechanics, and I think it does some of the best mechanics teaching in any game I've ever played. It gives you the very basic controls on how to play, and then after that doesn't tell you how to do any of the advanced techniques that are required to progress.
  All it does it take you to a point where what you were taught isn't enough.
  
  

ahhhhhh im looking at the trailers for these games and theres just so many decisions ahhhhhh

so what im going to do is im going to put 25 on the first four games i want, then put the new 25 i get each round on each subsequent game.

25 on MIND: Path to Thalamus
25 on Really Big Sky
25 on Antichamber

...along with 25 on dust from earlier. okay now maybe one of those games will get uplifted.

Hmm, I don't really want to write a huge wordwall right now, so here's just a short list of games that I've both played and enjoyed:
Antichamber
Bastion
Cave Story+
Don't Starve
Fallout: NV
Frozen Synapse
Gone Home
Just Cause 2
Long Live The Queen
Mark of the Ninja
Monaco
Shredded Please
Psychonauts
Skyrim
Spec Ops: The Line
The Swapper
Thomas Was Alone
To The Moon

Games that I've played and strongly did not enjoy:
Dear Esther
FEZ

If anybody has any questions about any of these in particular, I'd be glad to share my opinion on them. For now I think I'm going to hold onto my points and then later go after whichever one of Divinity/Euro Truck/Far Cry/Oddworld that I think I have the best chance of winning.

I would like to put 100 on Planetary Annihilation because fucking Planetary Annihilation

what's wrong with fez, coldblooded?

my reviews of games i've played

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Bastion- lovely game, it's 2D topdown as Schazer said (sort of, it's an isometric view side-top view) where you walk around with WASD and left/right click to shoot or swing your melee weapon at the mouse! Lovely story!

Cave Story+: haven't actually played the + version, but I played the original which had less powerful graphics but they were cute nonetheless. Platforming where you mash X to shoot! Lots of different choices to be made but you might not notice at first. There's a couple of different endings, and the story is wonderful and it's great

FEZ- a puzzle game, The main gimmick is that you play as a 2D platformer but push a button to rotate the camera 90 degrees around the protagonist character. It's a good mechanic. There are two different languages in the game, one of them is just english but all the letters are symbols and the second one are just a handful of symbols representing the 7 buttons you use to control the player character. There might be a third language but i don't remember. Disappointingly, about half of the puzzles in the game are just figuring the code and then entering it (as in up/up/down/down/left/right/left/right/b/a/start kind of codes) and that's half the game. Also the developer is notorious for being rude or something.

Thomas Was Alone- a cute, simple game about a bunch of quadrilaterals. It's a platformer about colorful little computer rectangles in the computer world helping each other with their unique abilities (such as a jump high rectangle, a rectangle that's good for being staircase for other rectangles, trampoline rectangle). It's a puzzle platformer and there's narration throughout the whole thing revealing the characterization and thoughts of all the rectangles. There is a free DLC that's automatically included in the Steam version with some bonus chapters, but I didn't like those as much because it introduced a rectangle whose ability is to fly with a jetpack that is very hard to control. At that point it was no longer a puzzle game and a frustrating test of frame-precise finger tapping. Fortunately you can skip individual levels?

Wow, my statements about stuff I like were about one sentence long, and the little tiny thing I didn't like about Thomas Was Alone was half the paragraph! Maybe I should consider a career as a professional critic, it'll be a great fit for me!

i can't believe i've only played four of these games :o

what's wrong with fez, coldblooded?

The puzzles are frustrating and unfun, and about half of the game is spent backtracking through places that you've already been because apparently adding a quick-teleport option to the world map was too hard or something.

It wasn't completely awful though, the graphics were cute and and I really liked the music, but music and graphics alone can't save a massively boring game. The perspective swapping mechanic was interesting though, and I think I would have enjoyed the game a lot more if the game had focused a lot more strongly on that instead of just using to pad out the boring platforming sections as you shuffle your way from one awful puzzle room to the next. That all being said, I know I'm probably in the minority with this opinion, so don't let me stop you from playing it if you happen to think it looks playable at all in any capacity. Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones, who knows.

Dear Esther, on the other hand, is irredeemably bad and I would not wish the experience of playing it on my worst enemy.

25 points each on gunpoint and Divinity.

Vote: 100 on the Long Live the Queen!

Played:

SpoilerShow

Antichamber
Bastion
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
Bioshock
Dear Esther
Dust: An Elysian Tail
Fallout: New Vegas
Far Cry Blood Dragon
FEZ
Gone Home
Gunpoint
Just Cause 2
LIMBO
Mark of the Ninja
Monaco
Ms. Splosion Man
Shredded, Please
Psychonauts
Risk of Rain
Skyrim
Spec Ops: The Line
The Bridge
The Swapper

Own but haven't touched yet:

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AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Cave Story+
Dead Space
FTL
Garry's Mod
Long Live the Queen
Natural Selection 2
The Cat Lady

Recommendations:

First off, if you can run it, bid the hell out of Far Cry Blood Dragon. It's like playing the equivalent of every cheesy action movie from the 80s and it's goddamn hilarious.

I wouldn't say Gone Home is bad, but it's not really good either. It's certainly not worth the $20 asking price on steam so if you really need to play it go for the bid and save yourself that crummy "ripped-off" feeling.

Monaco: I've bought like ten copies of the game so far so if that's any indication I'd say it's pretty legit. Super fun playing with friends and causing wildly chaotic heist malfunctions.

Ms. Splosion Man: Sequel to Splosion Man, a puzzle platformer comedy where your only ability is to explode. Ms. Splosion Man ramps up the content, the challenge and the puzzle variety for more splosions than you can even splode at. Some references to the prequel, but should still be playable standalone.

Spec Ops is another one I wholly recommend if you can run it. Standard military shooter with a very dark and engaging storyline.

That's all the commentary I have at the moment, but I can definitely go into more detail if requested.

For now, Imma put 100 on Costume Quest and poke around for any rec's from you guys.

If you guys actually want descriptions/recommendations I have played, watched someone play, or similarly experienced a chilling majority of these games and could do a quick thing for most any games people are curious about.

All in all I can't think of any game I would outright say is terrible and didn't enjoy at all, but there are definitely a few that cater towards certain people over others and that didn't necessarily do it for me.

EBWOP: Also, I've made a mistake regarding one of the games. Red Faction: Armageddon was always secretly One Way Heroics.

I'll put 30 points on Planetary Annihilation for now

I have no idea what I want, especially because I have a good chunk of that list already.

What's Hero of the Kingdom? That's a generic fantasy-sounding name that could be anything.

A game where you press a button to proceed through the story.

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Alright so the day's gonna end in about 23 hours, here are the votals:

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Divinity - Original Sin: 205 (Pagan - 80, KatoHearts - 50, Vancho1 - 50, Paranoia - 25)
Long Live the Queen: 200 (Gnauga - 100, Crowstone - 50, yappy111 - 50)
Bastion: 200 (bigro - 100, speedchuck - 100)
Shredded Please: 170 (Schazer - 100, Mecha_Goomba - 50 KoH - 20)
Antichamber: 145 (ChrisClark13 - 75, Druplesnubb - 45, Garuru - 25)
Gone Home: 140 (amosmyn - 90, Sanzh - 50)
Cave Story+: 130 (icanhasdonut - 50, Carnegie - 25, Druplesnubb - 25, Demonsul - 20, Terrabalt - 10)
Planetary Annihilation: 130 (AgentBlue - 100, Rivenforge - 30)
FEZ: 124 (Shredded - 99, ChrisClark13 - 25)
Thomas Was Alone: 120 (Raptarion - 100, Demonsul - 20)
Mark of the Ninja: 120 (TehPilot - 100, Demonsul -20)
Dust: An Elysian Tail: 115 (Terrabalt - 90, Garuru - 25)
Costume Quest: 105 (Granolaman - 100, Druplesnubb - 5)
To the Moon: 100 (Crowstone - 50, Mecha_Goomba - 50)
Don't Starve: 100 (OzTheWizard - 100)
Paranautical Activity: 99 (Excalibur - 99)
Gunpoint: 75 (cyber95 - 50, Paranoia - 25)
Batman: Arkham Asylum: 70 (KoH - 40, Demonsul - 30)
Eidolon: 50 (yappy111 - 50)
Risk of Rain: 25 (Carnegie - 25)
MIND: Path to Thalamus: 25 (Garuru - 25)
Really Big Sky: 25 (Garuru - 25)
Psychonauts: 25 (Druplesnubb - 25)
Fallout: New Vegas: 20 (KoH - 20)
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee: 20 (Pagan - 20)
King of Fighters XIII: 10 (amosmyn - 10)
Interplanetary: 10 (Carnegie - 10)
Monaco: 1 (Shredded - 1)
Skyrim: 1 (Excalibur - 1)

Also of note: I didn't realize that Deadbreed was free to play so we've replaced it with HOARD, sorry about that.

Let me know if I've made some sort of mistake!

I guess I'll put the other 50 also on gunpoint

In the interest of making Antichamber happen, I'd like to move 25 points each from Really Big Sky and MIND: Path to Thalamus to Antichamber, making a total of 75 in Antichamber.

Also, does anyone know if MIND: Path to Thalamus is any good? Seems like a very interesting concept but it could just as easily flop.

Twelve Hour Warning, get your bids in now!

SpoilerShow

Bastion: 250 (bigro - 100, speedchuck - 100, Vancho1 - 50)
Divinity - Original Sin: 205 (Pagan - 80, KatoHearts - 50, Vancho1 - 50, Paranoia - 25)
Long Live the Queen: 200 (Gnauga - 100, Crowstone - 50, yappy111 - 50)
Antichamber: 195 (ChrisClark13 - 75, Garuru - 75, Druplesnubb - 45)
Shredded Please: 170 (Schazer - 100, Mecha_Goomba - 50 KoH - 20)
Gone Home: 140 (amosmyn - 90, Sanzh - 50)
Cave Story+: 130 (icanhasdonut - 50, Carnegie - 25, Druplesnubb - 25, Demonsul - 20, Terrabalt - 10)
Planetary Annihilation: 130 (AgentBlue - 100, Rivenforge - 30)
Gunpoint: 125 (cyber95 - 100, Paranoia - 25)
FEZ: 124 (Shredded - 99, ChrisClark13 - 25)
Thomas Was Alone: 120 (Raptarion - 100, Demonsul - 20)
Mark of the Ninja: 120 (TehPilot - 100, Demonsul -20)
Dust: An Elysian Tail: 115 (Terrabalt - 90, Garuru - 25)
Costume Quest: 105 (Granolaman - 100, Druplesnubb - 5)
To the Moon: 100 (Crowstone - 50, Mecha_Goomba - 50)
Don't Starve: 100 (OzTheWizard - 100)
Paranautical Activity: 99 (Excalibur - 99)
Batman: Arkham Asylum: 70 (KoH - 40, Demonsul - 30)
Eidolon: 50 (yappy111 - 50)
Risk of Rain: 25 (Carnegie - 25)
Psychonauts: 25 (Druplesnubb - 25)
Fallout: New Vegas: 20 (KoH - 20)
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee: 20 (Pagan - 20)
King of Fighters XIII: 10 (amosmyn - 10)
Interplanetary: 10 (Carnegie - 10)
Monaco: 1 (Shredded - 1)
Skyrim: 1 (Excalibur - 1)

Regarding MIND: It's one of those games that's more about the art than the game itself (though unlike Dear Esther, which is probably the first example to come to mind, there is actual, decent puzzle gameplay involved instead of just walking around). The most notable/stunning part of it is the visuals, which are legitimately incredible.

100 on Long Live The Queen!