It's that time of year again, friends. What have you picked up/what do you recommend for the Steam Summer Sale?
For me, I recommend DAVE THE DIVER. A single-player RPG about a guy who scuba dives by day, then brings his catch to work at a sushi restaurant by night. It has beautiful, colorful pixel graphics, and tons of minigames popping up in unexpected places. I haven't finished it, but so far, it's even faintly based. It openly mocks Dave for being fat, as well as making the save-the-whales Greenpeace standin a bunch of evil, drooling morons that Dave regularly dunks on and has to fight. It's on sale for $18, it's rated Overwhelmingly Positive, and it's a big thumbs up from me.
I also picked up Card Survival: Tropical Island. It's a game about, well, surviving on a tropical island using cards. Click on locations to explore them, and find cards like Palm Tree, Stone, or Heavy Rock. Drag the Stone onto the Heavy Rock to get a Sharpened Stone. Drag that onto the Coconuts from the Palm Tree to get Cocount Milk, Coconut Meat, and Coconut Shells. You now have a little something to eat and drink, but be careful: too many Coconut products will give you diarrhea, which could be deadly on this remote island.
Don't be fooled by the dated graphics. Card Survival is clearly incredibly deep and made with a lot of love and care. It's on sale for $17, and it's rated Overwhelmingly Positive. Full disclosure: despite liking card games and the theme, I didn't care for the actual gameplay and ended up refunding it. Still, I really do think that's a "me" problem, and feel very good about shouting it out.
Not new (to me), but I always recommend Rimworld without hesitation. An incredibly good colony management game with a ridiculous mod scene. In past years, the dev has refused to put it on sale, but it's currently going for a minor discount of $28, it's Overwhelmingly Positive, and it's worth every penny.
In a similar vein, Against the Storm is a very good title that combines a city builder with a roguelite. You are sent out to build a new village, each of which will have different resources and options available. You must take those options and combine them into a thriving new city. Once you've scored enough points (by making your people happy, producing manufactured goods, sending resources back to the capital, and so on), you've won that round. Your city will appear on the map as you are sent out to start a new city. But beware! After every five cycles or so, the Storm will wipe the map clean, leaving only the capital city safe. Against the Storm is rated Overwhelmingly Positive, and it's currently on sale for $20.
Another good older one is Noita. You play a wizard in a roguelike where every pixel is made out of a simulated material. Fight monsters and find loot, new wands, and spells as you descend into the earth, but be careful! That puddle of Oil will light on fire if a spark lands on it. Noita is Overwhelmingly Positive, and currently on sale for just $10.
Still another game I picked up earlier is War of Rights. It's a first person shooter that literally tries to be a Civil War infantry simulator. Designed around relatively large multiplayer battles, you will be handed a musket and expected to stay in line with the rest of your unit, obeying your officers orders (you won't accomplish much running off with your single shot anyway.) It has incredibly realistic graphics for an indie title, using CRYENGINE, and at least one server has had a battle going every time I logged on. My only minor complaint is that you don't necessarily want to play it constantly; being a Civil War infantryman is more of a mood than a lifestyle these days. It's rated Very Positive, and it's currently 50% off at $15.
Those are some of the titles I recommend this year. What about you?
I can join the chorus recommending Against the Storm. It's a extremely well crafted colony management game that does a marvelous job of making you approach things differently each time, and grapple with competing contingencies, and with a mammoth and interesting difficulty scale to keep challenging yourself against, great vibe for a quiet evening. For the summer sale specifically it's technically not their lowest discount ever, but I expect you won't see it that low again for a while, since the price went up a few months ago in preparation for leaving early access.
Another newcomer this year I can (and already have) heartily recommend is The Last Spell. A turn based base defence/survival game with excellent art tastes and a fantastic few Vs many game style that really makes you get imaginative with the many tools and weapon skills available to eeke out as much carnage as possible every turn. Again not the lowest price ever because of a release price jump earlier in the year, but it's a new record low since release. The vibe on this one rip and tear, but with nerd glasses on.
Another indie recommendation that punches above its weight is Troubleshooter: abandoned children (stupid name, I know). A very Korean manga style turnbased strategy that looks like nu-XCOM on the surface but is far more detailed. There are absolutely mountains of character perks and builds to mull over between missions and 100+ hand made missions to go through (with easy replayability and good reason to do so). The vibe on this one is happy go lucky with a weird weeby accent.
Obligatory Hunt: Showdown reminder. It's still the rootin tootin-est cowboy era exploration of the horrors of eldritch powers and human greed. It's what ETF could have been if they didn't hate fun and love masochistic ball torture. The stakes are high but not crippling to the not sweatiest, the mechanics are deep and the setting is beautifully realized. The vibe on this one is holding your breath waiting to murder your fellow man.
And a bit of a curveball recommendation here. For Honor is now just a few bucks for the basic pleb version. It's still ubisoft and obviously fuck those guys. But the game itself was pretty well made and hasn't been competely gutted of merit by microtransactions. IMO the combat mechanics are far more fulfilling than Chivalry or Mordhau were. The single player alone is worth a few bucks, but the multiplayer isn't dead and obviously it's sweaty as hell in there by now, but as long as you don't mind seeing yourself getting disemboweled constantly it's still pretty fun. The vibe on this one is begrudging enjoyment.