February is slowly crawling to an end, and I am excited about the coming of Spring. Even now I already feel much better about the lengthening days. What a delight to wake up early in the morning and it is NOT an eternal darkness outside. Time flows, but one thing remains unchanged - Sunday's DEMO DIVE! Another collection of cool demos to look into, so let's roll!
PEPPERED: AN EXISTENTIAL PLATFORMER
Now, usually, I do not enjoy 2D platformers that much, (mostly because I just suck at them and have very little patience) BUT from time to time one game pops out that piques my interest. PEPPERED: AN EXISTENTIAL PLATFORMER is one such game. This one had been on my radar for a while now but I never got around to playing the demo - until now.
Do you want to stop the God of Death from returning to the world? Even though nobody asked you to do this (and in fact will try to stop you at every step)? Do you enjoy seeing people being tortured with bureaucratic red tape? Do you want to feel the paranoia of knowing that the game keeps track of each of your choices and how much you suck at playing the game? Do you keep staring wide awake at the looming shadows on your ceiling during one of your never-ending insomniac nights while your thoughts keep looping around the billion life choices that you could have taken instead? And felt the crushing existential dread – that you could maybe have been a HERO (in a platformer) – if you only made the right choice at the right time – instead of wasting 55 years of your life in an office?
Also do you like dramatic bunny officers who are determined TO CATCH YOU, no matter what? If the answer to all of the above is yes, then play the demo. If you are not sure yet, play the demo! If you said no, PLAY THE DAMN DEMO – or GO BACK TO WORK! Yupp this one is going to be a must-buy in my book if the game is as stellar as this demo was. My only gripe so far with the demo was that I found the controls on the controller a bit confusing. Especially for the ground stomp. I could never get it continuously to work (but that might be just me).
Extra points for cute gaslighting robots. Oh, and the gameplay was also fun.
Written by Börbo - our newest writer slash contributor
DUCK DETECTIVE: THE GHOST OF GLAMPING
The sequel to DUCK DETECTIVE: THE SECRET SALAMI follows the broody, bread-addicted titular ducktective with the surprisingly deep voice waddling into a new (spooky?) case to solve. With an old friend(s)? and new suspects this demo showed already a lot of promise. Unlike the surface similarities to the FROG DETECTIVE series with its cute art style and characters, DUCK DETECTIVE is far more down to earth and surprisingly gritty in its depiction of its characters and world than you might initially think.
But that is also the point of every detective game, there is always more under the surface to discover. You do this in the game mainly by analyzing evidence or people with your magnifying glasses and jotting down everything in your notebook, ready to deduc(k)t the parts together to solve the case. I was curious if the ducktective will have new tools for his deduc(k)ting abilities in this new game, but so far from the demo it looks to be more of the same. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, the mechanics in the first game were solid in my opinion.
So far I love the demo and I am really curious to see if there will be a bigger environment to explore and maybe new mechanics in the final release. But even if not, I am very excited to play a new case with the Duck Detective. With a cute 2D art style for the colorful cast, pleasant isometric backgrounds, and a jazzy soundtrack, reminding me a lot of Detective Conan, this is sure to become a perfect game for one afternoon. If any of this sounded interesting to you, check it out! BUT- Before you jump directly into this demo, I might suggest you play DUCK DETECTIVE: SECRET SALAMI if you haven’t yet, I can wholeheartedly recommend it. It is on the shorter side though, you can finish it in around 1-2 hours. But maybe that's exactly what you are looking for in a relaxed evening after work.
Written by Börbo - our newest writer slash contributor
FLOWERBOTS
A chill rogue-lite about bots planting a patch of soil? Yeah, that's about it. FLOWERBOTS is not aiming to break any new grounds here, despite being - roughly! - a gardening game. Its presentation is very rudimentary, with simple shapes dominating the screen, and a chill tune on repeat keeping us in a soft focus. I'll be honest, I was ready to dismiss this title quickly, based on its extreme simplicity and rather unexciting visuals... But the game managed to hold me in until I began to jive with it. It has some little clever twists and ideas, making it a peculiar experience that is hard to directly compare to any peer on the market. It feels like a very smooth blend of a roguelike formula with an idle clicker, of sorts.
You see, your handy bots are pretty automated and will bounce aimlessly around your small plot of land, doing their thing. However, you need to collect the shards of goodies yourself (at least until you unlock an update to let the harvesters do it for ya) and you can directly aim and sling any of the bots yourself. This isn't merely an afterthought, some sort of spicy little extra - it is a crucial bit of fun to speed up your progress. Good handling of your bots will greatly cut into the time needed to breach the threshold of the next level up and the spawn of an anomaly - a "Boss" of the level that will give you a point for the Prestige upgrades, which are the driving force behind the game. There are many upgrades here, expanding the game, making it way more dynamic and engaging - with new bots being unlocked, with expanding areas to bounce'm around. As the complexity grows, so does the fun in the game, feeling minute by minute as a great little 'number goes high' chaser of a title.
And so, the game has a little rough start, where it feels a bit... scrunkly. Cheap and small. But if you give it a bit of time, start unlocking bits and bobs, get a bigger field, more bots... It flourishes and becomes quite a solid bit of fun! If I have any advice for the devs, and hopefully something we'll see in the full game, is that the level-up upgrades need to be much more varied, otherwise, each start of a session looks and feels crazily similar.
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