🎮 Andre's Gaming Odds & Ends: February 2024 Game Hype Rankings, More Steam Next Fest Demos, Game Playthrough Schedule
February 2024 Game Hype Rankings, More Steam Next Fest Demos, and Andre's Game Playthrough schedule.
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My Game Hype Rankings:
February 2024
Balatro (February 20, 2024) 🆕
📈 = Hype Rank Increased
📉 = Hype Rank Decreased
🆕 = NEW to List
GAMES ADDED
#9 Islands of Insight (February 13, 2024)
Islands of Insight was one of the demos I played during the Steam Next Fest. I found myself getting lost in the demo, in a good way, finding it hard to put down. The open world and multiplayer aspects of the game makes it unique and sets it apart from others in the genre. The puzzles are interesting enough to grab my attention, plus the way the game is designed with all the various trackers only makes you want to complete every puzzle you find. It doesn’t hurt that your character gains experience and has a skill tree either. Islands of Insight is definitely a game I can see myself playing later in the year.
#10 Balatro (February 20, 2024)
Balatro is another game I played during the Steam Next fest. It felt like I was playing a cross between solitaire and poker in roguelike form. It was extremely addicting and felt relaxing and casual to play. I never would have discovered the game had I not played demos during the Steam Next Fest. Balatro is easily an example of a game that I know I would have been interested in had I just known about it, but having played the demo it made me like it enough to get into my hype rankings. This is another game I can see myself playing a lot of later in the year.
Other Games on My Radar (no particular order)
Games in BOLD represent February 2024 releases:
Outpost: Infinity Siege 📉, Stormgate, Nivalis, Replaced, 33 Immortals, Defender’s Quest 2: Mists of Ruin, Ultros, Beastieball, Legendary Hoplite, ZeroSpace, The Spirit of the Samurai, The Plucky Squire, , Creature Keeper, Infest, Baby Steps, No Rest for the Wicked
📃NEW to Radar ⏩ Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior, Pepper Grinder, Chicken Police: Into the HIVE!, Coridden, Breachway, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, Undisputed, South Park: Snow Day!, Sand Land
More Steam Next Fest Demos:
Breachway (March 22, 2024)
Breachway was a really interesting demo because it has a similar playstyle to a much older game I really enjoyed, FTL: Faster Than Light. This is a turn-based roguelike deckbuilder that was fun, but a slow starter with the tutorial. Combat in Breachway has a much different feel than FTL because in this you are drawing and playing cards to use weapons, defenses, or gain resources. The power management game is in Breachway, but you don’t have ship crew running around like in FTL. The name of the game in this is to allocate your power to whatever resource generator systems you need to be able to play the cards in your hand. Each ship also has crew with special abilities that can only be periodically used depending on resource cost and cooldown.
One of the key elements that you can see in the last part of my gameplay below is the faction system. You can choose your own ships that are all unique, but each ship has its own faction reputation rating connected to the crew of the ship. When you embark on your journey with your ship. you will see multiple factions on the map that you can choose to avoid or pass through that may be allied or not allied with you. Sometimes you have no choice but to collide with a nemesis faction. Players have a lot of control with where they choose to move on the map, plus upgrades for their ship that can include new weapon cards to use. Breachway has a lot of promise that provides a fresh spin on a game many gamers already played.
Epic Auto Towers (2024)
Epic Auto Towers is a nice side scroller tower defense game that involves stacking towers to defend your Royal Tower. I haven’t played many side scroller tower defense games, so this one took me by surprise. This is pretty good because it’s not that hard to understand, but hard to master. Stacking towers of the same kind and placing towers adjacent to specific other towers to achieve bonuses is the strategy of the game. I’m a fan of tower defense games, but what this one does really well is its “pick up and play” design. This would be a very good mobile game. I just recently discovered this game, but I’m gonna keep tabs on it for when it releases. I won’t go out of my way to play this, but I would play it if you put it in front me.
Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior (February 13, 2024)
Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior was a somewhat unexpected experience for me because I remembered I was looking forward to the game, but I forgot what the game was. This is a very action-packed game that involves hack n’ slash combat and rewinding time to fight alongside your '“remnant” copies of yourself to complete puzzles. I can’t recall ever playing a game like this, a game that records multiple copies of your previous combat to fight alongside you to complete a level. It took me a while to get used to, but eventually I got the hang of it and pre-planned every attack to coordinate my remnant copies with present combat in order to complete puzzles. You do get different abilities to choose and switch between but the demo felt very controlled with the items, so I’m actually unsure whether the pace of acquiring abilities in the demo mirrors the actual game. I did run into a wall at the end of the my playthrough because I kept letting an enemy stay alive, something I found hard to keep track of as far as location.
Lysfanga is a game I might try out eventually.
Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior on Steam
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is one of the more inspirational games I’ve ever played. The game is inspired by the grief Abubakar Salim (developer) experienced after his father’s passing from cancer in 2013. Salim founded Surgent Studios in 2019 to make his own game after already working as a voice actor in other games. The story I experienced in the Tales of Kenzera: ZAU demo is a very spiritual one. as an apparition often pops up to mentor ZAU, the main character. It’s a metroidvania platformer, but I would say the story and spiritual backdrop of the game overpowers the gameplay.
The gameplay wasn’t the sharpest, but the metroidvania progression walls and backtracking methods were a little less obvious than other games in the genre. There was a point in the demo (below) where I had to figure out if I was going the right direction or if I had hit a progression wall, but it wasn’t really clear. The combat itself involves switching between fire/ice abilities to kill enemies and solve puzzles by overcoming obstacles. For example, using your ice ability on a waterfall to jump in between to jump up back and forth between the frozen water and another wall in the level.
Parts of the gameplay and level design in the demo weren’t the greatest, but the story, setting, and circumstances of this game being made is enough for me to keep it on my radar.
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU on Steam
Did you miss my first issue of Steam Next Fest Demos February 2024?
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Stream and Game Playthroughs Schedule
Here are direct links to the playlists of my most recent active YouTube Playthroughs
Most Recent Playthroughs being Updated on YouTube
Undisputed Boxing - Career Mode - Today I just finished playing my career mode playthrough on stream, so this playthrough playlist will eventually be completely uploaded within the next couple weeks. I will talk more about this in my next issue.
Persona 3 Reload - I started the playthrough on release and I’m enjoying the game. I have some content that still needs to be uploaded. I plan on continuing this playthrough to finish the game either in March or April.
Palworld Early Access - Not a high priority at the moment for new gameplay because it’s still in Early Access, but content is still being uploaded periodically of gameplay I already have. I will likely play this randomly throughout 2024.
February has been a very stacked month for me as far as games I’m interested in playing. One of my 2024 New Year’s resolutions as a gamer is to focus on completing more games this year. Unfortunately for my Persona 3 Reload playthrough, it will have to take a temporary backseat to two games I had on my game hype rankings list: Last Epoch and Pacific Drive.
Last Epoch version 1.0 releases February 21 and Pacific Drive releases February 22.
I’ll be streaming and recording Last Epoch as my first priority, Unlike other 2024 playthrough games on my YouTube so far, I plan on playing Last Epoch offstream and recording it.
I will split time between Last Epoch and Pacific Drive once I’ve progressed far into Last Epoch and want a new game. I don’t know what my Pacific Drive experience will be, but if it turns out to be unenjoyable then I will shift back to Persona 3 Reload as the 2nd game.
NEXT ISSUE
Andre’s Gaming Odds & End: Undisputed Boxing (Career Mode) thoughts plus more…
COMING SOON
More From Andre Shortcast #03
Discussing My New Workflow More
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