Just when it got to the point I couldn’t wait any longer, my new AIO cooler arrived along with a different tower (that could actually hold a giant-sized 4090) – and just in time for Steam’s Puzzle Fest, which has to be the best event of the year for us super geeks.
Well it took a lots of fiddling and many, many test streams but we’re back up and running and have a ton of beautiful brain burners to share with you on this month’s demo round-up. So get your notepads out, your thinking caps on, and prepare to puzzle!
What may look like an unassuming flash game from the Shockwave days is actually one of the trickiest and most bizarre puzzlers I’ve ever seen. The goal of each level is to, you guessed it, poke ALL of the toads. The problem is that they don’t particularly enjoy that and will retaliate by using their sticky tongues to grab your fairies and gobble them up! Use all sorts of techniques to avoid their attacks, feed them decoys (other living fairies), and take advantage of each fairy type’s unique traits to make sure you annoy every last one of those gluttonous green gits. Complex brain-teasers, wonderful pixel-y sprites chock full of charismatic animation, and a whole lot of nonsense; my favourite!
I’m already sold on ‘roguelike deck-builder’ but Shogun Showdown is so much more than that. It is an elegant ballet of well-timed strikes and wiley retreats. It’s about positioning and patience just as much as it is about pulling off deadly combos. Whether its tricking your enemies into hitting each other, charging an archer ready to loose an arrow, or deftly sliding around an elite enemy who’s about to pummel you into the dirt, this game demands you consider every action as well as plan ahead in order to master it. Building up your abilities is important, sure, but it’s more important to be smart in your usage of them. Looking from afar the combat system is relatively simple but as you zoom in the layers of depth reveal themself and they are beautiful.
I’d heard a lot about the Viewfinder demo from some recent gaming events but just hearing the concept, which still sounds incredible on its own, is absolutely no match for getting to try it for yourself. Holding up photographs and then walking into them is an interesting idea but when you start to learn that they can be tilted and used for platforming puzzles or even can be made of completely different art styles that change the very world around you, your mind races with new ideas. Yet the game contiunues to beat you to all of them. I only hope the rest of the game can keep up with the whirlwind pace of its fantastic, ever-evolving demo.
Do you love the questing, exploration, and combat of Dungeons & Dragons but your friends can’t get together to play all the time whenever you want? I may have just the thing for you…
Dem-OH! Dashes
NOTE: Ratings are basically representative of how much I enjoyed the demo and the likelihood that I’ll come back to the title in the future (or even would liked to have continued playing it right then), with regards to gameplay, quality, and (of course) personal preference to genre, etc. A zero represents that the game is too non-functional to really get a feel for it. It is essentially a non-rating.
NOTE: Ratings are basically representative of how much I enjoyed the demo and the likelihood that I’ll come back to the title in the future (or even would liked to have continued playing it right then), with regards to gameplay, quality, and (of course) personal preference to genre, etc. A zero represents that the game is too non-functional to really get a feel for it. It is essentially a non-rating.
