Progress Report #5: One Indie Stand Sitting
Special Edition
Preface:
Here it is, the fifth progress report that I made (woot!).yass I won against procrastination I was inspired to make this post because of the last Spring Cleaning Event. As you can probably tell, I have a shamefully massive Steam backlog consisting of games I have accumulated over the past few years. I still have the time to play, but the sheer size of my library just overwhelms me at times. Even if I successfully drag my butt to play games I hadn't touched, my desire to get the cheevos usually hinder me to quickly move along to another game.
Fast forward to the Spring sale event, the system rolled Portal 1 as a game which I haven't played in over 2 hours. Initially I was planning to play Portal after playing the HL1 trilogy (still stuck on Blue Shift since 2016 lmao. Haven't played it ever since.). But I played Portal 1 anyway cause why the heck not. Then I proceeded to beat it in one sitting. While I do hope it was longer, I was still glad I could put one game off the list from my backlog. This made me decide on playing other shorter, indie games before moving on to longer games. This was a sensible shift for my backlog assassination plan because I spent the past few months beating all Dark Souls almost back-to-back and playing some FFXIV. Overall I'd say this plan of mine ended in a good note. Ten games successfully driven out of the list!
I realized I might not be alone in this, so I compiled some lists on short indie games I played in the past month which are worth (or not worth) playing in one sitting or two for some of you to clear over the course of the week.
The Good
First off on the list we got Ethan Carter. A narrative walking simulator which doesn't hand hold you. For the longest time ever I actually held back from playing walking simulators because I thought they don't offer much in terms of gameplay. I know Ethan Carter was going to be a beautiful game, and since I was tackling short games I soldiered on and played it as it was only 3 hours long on HLTB. And boy was I surprised by how unique the narrative of this game was.
While I don't mind the 'no handholding' approach, I feel like the game would benefit by explaining what it wants me to do with the multiple words with a "?" symbol. It seriously took me a whole lap around the island, including backtrack to the start, then reading the Steam Guide before I know what to do with the focus button. Apart from that, the game also uses a lovely head bob and motion blur combo, the perfect recipe for a sweet motion sickness. Fortunately you can disable the motion bob but the head bob still gives me the dizzy feeling. Get past the downsides though, and this is one narrative experience you should… um, experience.
Contrast has one of the most interesting aesthetics and premise in a game. In it you play as Dawn, a woman who can shift into shadows and vice versa. You perceive other people as shadows, and you can't even be seen by anyone else except by a little girl called Didi. You help Didi out with her family matters and perhaps learn a thing or two from your past. The shadow shifting mechanic brings unique flavors to the puzzle platforming genre. Think the real world hinders your progress? Utilise shadows and create new pathways which are otherwise physically unreachable.
The game made by the creators of We Happy Few was unsurprisingly created in a very tight budget. The collision detection sometimes glitches, resulting you in falling and having to redo some puzzle or platforming sections. Other times the camera decides to toy around with you. The game also has a limited replayability value, which I think could be remedied by adding a level creator feature via the Steam Workshop. Nonetheless by cutting corners they managed to create the game's iconic art style. The music was up my alley too! Contrast was truly a breath of fresh air that you should play.
I'm pretty sure most people have already known the drill with this one. Go blind or go home. The experience I get from playing it was totally worth all the hype. I also liked how the game acknowledged the fact that you 100%ed the game in their own way.
This is one indie game that most people probably have missed. It plays like SoulsBorne, it looks like Bloodborne, and the atmosphere is a mix between Resident Evil and Eternal Sanity; if that makes any sense to you. I really liked how they presented the atmosphere, I feel unnerved when I kill the enemies and explore the nook and crannies of the mansion. The game's titular sanity system is also a quite neat touch as well.
My two biggest gripe with the game are the enemy variety and the music. Upon a prolonged playthrough, you'll start to realize how small the enemy variety is. And I don't think there is much music in the game, sadly enough. Despite the short length though, I really had fun with this small Souls-like indie game.
This is one game you definitely can clear in a single sitting. The premise of this game is simple. You step on an uncolored block, the block becomes colorful. Step on all of them and you clear the game! Sounds simple? Yes. Is it boring? Not in the slightest. Now do your wallet a favor and play this game if you haven't cleared it already.
Note: Slight warning for 100% achievement hunters out there, the last 5 achievements which I haven't unlocked are really grindy by nature. You can use Workshop word set with only 'A's in it but it still doesn't help much terms of the grindiness.
This game is all about books, paper origamis and words. Epistory marries the narrative of Bastion (albeit slightly mediocre) with a semi-open world RPG-lite system. You battle enemies by typing words. "But what if I can't type fast enough?" you say? You later unlock magic in your disposal which either slow down or stop enemies, or destroy the words you need to type. By typing a word, you'll build up a chain to rack more points, which you can later use to unlock closed-off area of the map provided your accumulated points are above a certain amount.
To me the narrative is the weakest link of the game and the story mode is better off without it. Despite that the aesthetics of this game is absolutely breathtaking and it is worth playing this game just for that alone. Remember when I said you can unlock closed-off areas? When unlocked those areas will look like paper being unfolded and screenshots certainly won't do that whole process justice. This game can also be used to train your touch typing skills to some degree, just don't play this game to measure your WPM cause it is terribly inaccurate.
Frustrating in a good way. That's probably the best way to describe this game. The control itself isn't actually confusing like Octodad, but this game just pushes your mind to its limits to do multitasking. I really enjoyed the game's humor and premise.
Similar like Manual Samuel in that it is frustrating on a good way. You play as an octopus who try to "fit in" with the human society, so you can imagine just how absurd this game will be. I enjoyed Manual Samuel's humor more than Octodad's however, and the controls still confuse me even now lol. But it still is worth at least a playthrough.
The Bad
I'll be completely blunt here, this is jsut another "Hurr durr I am a hard gaem" kind of game. As if memorization isn't already bad enough, there are some parts which are frustratingly RNG dependant. To be frank I don't enjoy difficult games which are made just for the sake of being difficult and not fair.
Uh... yeah, I actually played this game to find out what it's all about.
There are two kinds of meme games. Those which are unexpectedly fun, and ones that are only good for Twitch/YouTube streamers. I think this one fits the latter. The story mode part of the game reminds me of Stanley Parable, but once the novelty falls off the game feels somewhat boring.
Next Up:
I'll most likely do a write-up on the four longer games that I finished on the first half of the year: Shadow Warrior, Dark Souls 1, SotFS, and 3.
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Shadow Warrior
18 hours playtime
53 of 92 achievements
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DARK SOULS™: Prepare To Die Edition
58 hours playtime
29 of 41 achievements
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Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin
118 hours playtime
35 of 38 achievements
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Dark Souls III
44 hours playtime
30 of 43 achievements
Ah, ‘Contrast’…I agree, a truly superb game with great atmosphere. Glad you liked it too :)
Yep, I truly enjoyed the game. I was just surprised by how little exposure the game has. People know indie puzzle gems like The Swapper and T.A.L.O.S. Principle but Contrast is seemingly missed by many.
I haven’t heard people talk about Contrast in a while! It’s a hidden gem. I completely forgot that this team went on to work on We Happy Few.
Has We Happy Few actually been released, or is it still stuck in Early Access, or - ? I LOVE the setting and story of that game, but I’ve been hearing conflicting reports about its status
I know right? One thing I noticed from following indies over the years is that people seem to barely mention this game at all. Glad that a list I swiped off the internet years ago brought this game to my attention.
I didn’t know We Happy Few team worked on this game tbh, and I’m aware of that game way longer than I know Contrast lol. Just learned this fact after I play the latter. I know those two have similar art styles but I never tried to piece two and two together for some reason.
Apparently they’re planning to release We Happy Few out of Early Access on the later half of this year. For this occasion they disabled the purchase of the game since February so I haven’t bad the chance to check it out yet.
I agree with most of your reviews! Also Potatoman seeks the Troof is my worst enemy. I tried beating that game so many times but I’m terrible at it. I just wanted to clear it from my backlog because of how short it is, but it turned out taking hours and hours. I think I deleted it from my library lol.
Also your layout is beautiful! I especially love your “good” and “bad” section. It looks very organized.
The first few sections of Potatoman can be handled with some memorization. But there’s one notable RNG heavy section with the rocks in the fourth level that I despise lol. You can still clear the game if you run out of lives, as you’ll restart from the beginning of thr evel you’re in and not from the beginning of the game. But that is if you can handle restarting over and over again.
Thanks for your compliment! I was actually planning to go for something a bit more original for the game sections, but due to time constraints I only used the BLAEO Generator from the Steam Group. Gonna have to start fiddling around with bootstrap though.
The rock level is where I stopped playing. Couldn’t stand it!
Ah, exactly the same thing with what I hate then lmao. Tell you what, after you clear that level, there’s only one more level before you clear the game. Can’t blame you for quitting though, I was also on the verge of rage quitting when I reached those rocks. Then on my final attempt I got through that level. The final level is actually more tolerable than that part so I question the design philosophy of the game lol.
I will never touch that game again to attempt for the no continue achievement. Ugh.
Nice batch of games.
Shrouded in Sanity is in my backlog. Hope to play it soon. ^^
Nice, hope you’ll enjoy it!
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I found playing Souls games in succession makes each next one easier and easier….and of course they are all awesome, so worthwhile experiences regardless. Now you just need to jump back to console and wrap up Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne. :)
Funny thing is, I played DS1 for a while on my old laptop last year. After I got myself a rig, I started DS2 and had to do a play style change to accommodate the gank enemies. I completed it first before any of the other two actually. Now I can handle any ganks coming at me lmao. But yeah, these games mostly get easier if you have some Souls knowledge. I suck at DS3 though. BB speed on a Dark Souls game rips me apart, especially when facing those damned dogs. I hate DS3 dogs.
I really want to play DeS and BB for the complete experience, but I have no intentions on getting a PS4 in the near future to be honest lol.