Team17 Digital and Sarepta Studio announced today a partnership to publish Thalassa Edge of the Abyss, a first-person psychological mystery game, which will be released on June 18.
Players will assume control of Cam, a deep-sea diver and member of the Thalassa’s crew. Cam’s old ship, the Thalassa, now lies shipwrecked and abandoned underwater. Players must explore, find clues left behind by the old crew, and discover the truth behind the Thalassa’s end.
Steel Seed, a dark sci-fi fantasy game developed by Storm in a Teacup and published by ESDigital Games received a new developer walkthrough gameplay video. The game takes place in a world where humanity is on the brink of extinction due to irreparable climate change. The protagonist Zoe must investigate an underground facility that holds the secret to mankind’s survival.
Steel Seed is participating in London Games Festival, as part of the London Games Festival Official Selection in the International Innovators category. The developers made a new video introducing mechanics such as stealth, modular upgrades, combat, exploration, and more.
The game will participate in WASD Live, part of Games London, booths T2.2-T2.3.
Steel Seed will be released on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S in late 2024. For more information, check the game`s Steam page.
Shadow of the Depth is a roguelike action hack-and-slash game developed and published by ChillyRoom. As always, for transparency, I want to say that I received a key for this game. This however will not influence in any way my review. It is also important to say that the version I played is a preview alpha version, that being the case, the bugs I mention here can be fixed in the Early Access release, some things can change, and things that are incomplete or missing can be added in the launch version.
The things the developers confirmed to change in the release version are:
Refine Nightmare difficulty
Better BGM
Include an introduction for every character
Game completion cutscene
More passive skills
Better help manual
That being said, I will now share my experience.
Gameplay
Shadow of the Depth has a top-down view, and, as the roguelike genre requires, the levels are generated randomly. Each time you die you start from 1-1 and advance towards new levels and regions. At the end of each dungeon, you face a boss. Each dungeon, at least in the version I played has 3 levels. So for example, at 1-3 end you fight a boss to reach 2-1.
The game has 5 unique characters, which is already great, since 5 characters means 5 different playstyles, thus adding more replayability. Every character can attack, dash, consume mana, charge attacks, use an Ultimate, and possess 3 weapon abilities available, depending on the weapon you have at hand. Also, every character can find each other’s weapons in the dungeon and use them as a secondary attack/skill (this is an unlockable perk). Every character however has a unique skill exclusive to them, besides having exclusive abilities, an exclusive main weapon, and different stats.
Arthur is a melee fighter with high defense, but lower speed. He uses a sword and shield, that being the case, he has the block skill, which consumes mana to block enemy attacks
Arya is an assassin with dual daggers, with high damage and survivability. Her unique skills allow her to spin her dagger while attacking if the player keeps pressing the skill button.
Stephaine is a sorcerer that attacks from long range using a magic orb, however, she has a slower dash and low survivability. Her unique skill allows her to charge mana.
Phyllis is an archer, she has a limited amount of arrows and has to stop attacking to reload. Her unique skill allows her to summon animals to help in combat.
Ginzo is a swordsman that wields a katana. His unique skill allows him to counter enemy attacks and projectiles.
It is also worth mentioning that each character has many different combo routes that you can unlock. They work by pausing your attack string at certain moments and then attacking again. I didn’t use this much since I found it to be too slow, but I played mostly with Ginzo, maybe this is more useful for ranged characters.
Another important thing is that your dashes/evasive give you I-frames (Invincibility Frames), which means you can dash into attacks and not take damage, maintaining pressure on the enemy.
Exploration
As I mentioned before the levels are randomly generated. The players also spawn with a random main weapon for their chosen character. For example, if they choose Phyllis, they will spawn wielding a bow with random stats, a random weapon skill, that, in Phyllis’s case, can summon a bear, a wolf, or two eagles, and also random passives that are too many to mention.
Then, the player will find enemies, chests that can drop new weapons, support weapons (other characters’ main weapons), and mana and health potions. It is also possible to find shops that can sell passives, Dragon Hearts, that increase the player’s base health, and weapons. There are also teleport points around the map that you can teleport back to at any moment.
The main “objective” of the exploration is to find a door with green flames around it. That door leads you to the next level. If the door has red flames, usually it means you are about to face a boss.
Runes are one thing you will find during your explorations, especially after boss fights. They can be equipped before starting the playthrough and give you unique effects like taking less damage from bosses, increasing health, increasing attack, and more. There are three slots with different shapes. You can only equip one rune of each shape.
When finishing a run or dying you will gain exp to level up, unlock more characters, gain diamonds, which allow you to buy runes, and gain talent points.
Talent points can unlock many permanent upgrades for all characters, such as increased base damage, increased base health, unlock more combos, and more.
Graphics and design
Shadow of The Depth has a unique design and well-made effects. The characters’ animations are also great and fluid.
What really caught my attention was the hand-drawn visuals, especially the character design. Each character has a great design and looks unique. It is a thing that must be appreciated, especially in the AI era, where generic AI art is becoming more and more common. The only thing I could say is that I wish there were more eye-catching skills, maybe in the ultimates. They are not bad, but it would be great to see something more with the game’s art style
The game also features introductions cutscenes for some characters at the moment, but, as I stated before, the developers plan to add a cutscene to all the characters before launching to the public.
Bugs
I only faced one bug that I can remember. It happens when changing scenarios after loading, your character, for some reason, gains insane movement speed and stays like this unless you quit and load again. Fortunately, the game has an auto-save feature, so this bug doesn’t cause much trouble. I expect this to be solved by the game’s launch.
Conclusion
Shadow of the Depth has a good variety of unique characters, plus the weapons, passives, and runes systems I mentioned above allow the players to create different kinds of builds for different playstyles and add replayability. Other than that, the game is difficult, and, from my experience, in an addicting way. It has 3 difficulties Normal, Hard and Nightmare. Just the Normal difficulty is already hard.
Shadow of the Depth is a fun roguelike with a great variety of characters, good progression, and an amazing art style. The game will only launch in Early Access, and I expect the game’s content to grow even more.
Lunar Axe is a point-and-click, puzzle and mystery game, with horror elements. It is based on Brazil’s history and real locations, and through the game, you can find collectibles that unlock references in the main menu so you can read and learn more about what inspired the game. The game is already available for PC. The version I am reviewing is for consoles, PS5 specifically. That version was released on April 18.
Gameplay
The game is from the point-and-click genre, so you control a mouse pointer with the console controller and look for things to interact in the scenario, puzzles to solve, or new places to go.
This game has no repeated puzzles. Every puzzle you do is unique to the situation you are facing. One thing that I must add is that some puzzles felt like a reach to me or just didn’t make much sense. I won’t mention them here not to give out spoilers but, besides that, the other puzzles were cool.
Lunar Axe has 3 buildings for you to explore. You can access them through a map you get after finishing the first building/level. There is however one major flaw. After picking up the map, the building you just finished is highlighted as one of the options to be selected as the next step. If you select it, you will be forced to do level 1 again for no reason. The game should, at least, warn about this fact if you pick the same level.
At the end of the game, there is a boss fight, which works through quick-time events. However, the fight doesn’t work very well, since if you only press the buttons as they appear on the screen, you will fail and get damaged. You need to predict the button and press it as soon as the prompt appears on screen, which is not hard, since the buttons are not random, but that can be frustrating, especially in the first tries. It’s worth mentioning that this game has different difficulties, and I played on Hard. This can be the reason why the boss fight was like this, but either way, it doesn’t make sense.
Graphics and sound
Lunar Axe’s design appears to be handmade art, and all the scenarios and images are well done and detailed.
The final boss fight especially caught my attention, since, being point and click, most of the game is static and the boss fight features a fully animated boss and weapon for your character, both with great design.
The game’s horror elements stay more in the sound and design fields. The game has eerie music playing in each scenario, which causes a sensation of discomfort and mystery. Also, the game features some scenes with ghosts, distorted screen effects, and weird noises. However, there are other focuses.
Narrative
Lunar Axe has a narrative based on real historical facts of Brazil and creates its own narrative. In the game you must gather three scattered pieces of the Lunar Axe to defeat a beast that was asleep underground and now, after centuries, has reawakened, and only the Axe can defeat it.
Longevity and Replayability
Lunar Axe is short. You can beat it in less than two hours easily, considering you don’t get stuck in any puzzle. Technically you can replay it to gather collectibles to unlock references and know more about the game, but there is not much.
That being said, it is a good and enjoyable short game. It’s not rushed and being short makes sure that everything you do is interesting and not forcibly long. It is a matter of what you seek in a video game.
Conclusion
Lunar Axe combines good puzzles, a good narrative, and a good point-and-click experience. If you are a puzzle enthusiast that seeks extremely complex and challenging puzzles maybe this game isn’t for you. The same can be said for someone looking for a deep and diverse history. But the game gathers the elements well and will be a good experience for almost anyone.
Gladiator’s Arena, developed and published by Afil Games is an indie top-down arena shooter rogue-lite where you play as a gladiator in an arena and defeat enemies that come in waves. Its base game loop is similar and probably inspired by Vampire Survivours. I want, in benefit of transparency, to start this review by stating that I got an early review key for the game. This however will not influence in any way my analysis. I would like to thank the developers/publisher.
Gameplay
Weapons
You start the game by choosing between 7 different weapons, such as a sword, bow, crossbow, lance, and more. From the start, you only have a sword and a shield. To unlock more you need to reach certain feats in-game, for example, defeating 100 enemies without being hit. Then you are put in an arena where enemies start coming from every side in waves.
Upgrade System
Like other games from the genre, there is an Upgrade System. Every time you kill an enemy you gain coins. When the wave reaches the end, you will be able to choose between three upgrades to buy. I don’t know exactly what triggers it, but sometimes the store will allow you to reroll. I think the game should be more clear about that.
In the main menu, it is also possible to purchase new upgrades to appear at the store.
Enemies
There is a good variety of enemies. Most of them are just the same with a new design and more hp, but others introduce new challenges to the game. Certain enemies can: dash, run faster, deploy other enemies, and throw projectiles. However there are no bosses, and every enemy gets two/three shot in the mid-late game.
Abilities
At the end of some waves, in the same stores where you buy upgrades, you will be able to buy Abilities instead. There are only passive abilities. Some of them do damage, while others are scalable, like giving the player 0.1 attack speed until a max of 3.
Gameplay conclusion:
Gladiator’s Arena can be fun when experiencing it for the first time, however, it is lacking in some important gaming aspects that make the experience less enjoyable.
The game has 7 weapons but none of them really make a difference. Some have more range, others have more attack speed, but none add new experiences to the game. You don’t feel like testing a new weapon because, in the end, it is the same as the weapon you are already using. Besides they are far too easy to unlock. I unlock almost all the weapons, missing two in my second run, without even trying.
The game also has only one character and one map, losing the chance to add a bit of progression and the playthrough seems endless. At least I played until wave 50, which took something like half an hour or more and nothing special happened.
The enemies are added progressively as the waves advance, and while enemies have new designs, as I said before, most of them are redesigns of the old ones with more hp. Now, to be fair, some enemies do some things differently as mentioned above, but even then I feel like the challenge is too easy. In the late game your money basically never goes down, you have all the abilities and there is nothing for you to do.
The upgrades are also a bit lackluster. While Vampire Survivours and many other games of the same genre have upgrades that add new weapons, visual effects, sounds, etc. this game’s upgrades are usually just stats, so you don’t feel you just purchased an upgrade. The abilities are more similar to the above-mentioned game’s upgrades, but there are extremely few of them.
To sum it all up, the game doesn’t encourage the player to continue replaying, which is crucial for these kinds of games, since there isn’t a progression system. Vampire Survivours, for example, encourages the player to keep replaying by unlocking new maps, new characters, and new secrets.
You can unlock new things in Gladiator’s Arena, but they are few, don’t really matter and, in the end, the game, aside from being easy, doesn’t have an ending or goal whatsoever, which is a shame, in my opinion
Graphics and sound
The game has a minimalist, pixelated design, which is fine. In my opinion, especially these top-down rogue-lite/roguelike games have more liberty when choosing the game’s design style, which is great.
The sound is pretty generic, all the enemies’ deaths have the same sound, which is fairly common since they are all “normal” enemies, and weapons also have the same sound, changing only between melee and ranged.
The background music appears to be short and loops over and over, nothing memorable really.
Conclusion
This game uses a good genre and concept, but does it poorly with little content and an almost non-existent progression system. This is the type of game you will play for 30 minutes and never touch again.
OutRage: Fight Fest is a 16-player beat-em-up game that will be released for PC via Steam. The game will allow the players to punch, kick, and use weapons on each other in short sessions Battle Royale, Free For All, and Team-Based game modes. Hardball Games, developer and publisher, released a demo on Steam to let the players have a taste of the game before launch.
The demo allows the players to participate in a 4-player Survival match, where there can only be one left standing. There is also the 8-player, team-based Domination, where the players must capture control points. For last, players will be able to go into the training area to improve their skills.
There isn’t an official release date for OutRage: Fight Fest. The demo is already available for anyone to download on Steam.
Wardens Rising, an RPG, hero shooter, and base defense game developed and published by Big Moxi Games, allows the player to be the last line of defense against interdimensional threats alone or Co-Op with friends. Your mission is to protect energy cores from enemies by building defenses and placing down towers, traps, portals, and more.
There are five heroes to choose from, with distinct abilities. The player will also be able to upgrade and customize their gear.
The game will have 24 maps and four bosses in the story campaign. In the Co-Op mode, there will be 12 maps with random invasions.
Wardens Rising will be released for PC and consoles later this year, 2024. For more information, visit the game’s official website.
S.O.L Search of Light, developed by Trigger the Monster and published by Firenut Games, is a fantasy adventure management game, with tower defense mechanics. The player will be able to explore The Underground to hunt for resources, customize their character, and defend their base from enemies.
Firenut Games confirmed the release date to be April 25, 2024. S.O.L Search of Light will be released for PC via Steam, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch. For more information, visit Firenut Game’s X or YouTube
Kill It with Fire 2, a first-person-shooter, sequence to the first game, from the developer Casey Donnellan Games and publisher tinyBuild, is already available on Steam via Steam Early Acess with a 10% launch discount for two weeks.
The game will bring a new potion-brewing mechanic and multiplayer options with two game modes: Campaign Co-Op, up to three players, and Spider Hunt, a human vs spider PvP mode.
Kill It With Fire 2 costs $14.99 and supports English, French, German, Spanish (Spain), Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. For more information, visit the game’s official website.
The Open Playtest for Project Warlock II: Reworked Chapter 1 is live. Starting today, April 15, until Monday, April 22, every Steam player can participate by downloading it from the game’s Steam page.
The changes in chapter 1 reflect on player feedback and set the stage for chapters 2 and 3. Such changes include fully revamped upgrades, perks, and skills systems, new weapons, adjusted weapon enchantment, and more.
During the open playtest, both Project Warlock and Project Warlock II will participate in a Steam FPS Fest, receiving, respectively, 80% off and 33% off until April 22.
Sweet Transit, a city-building game with a rail network system developed by a single developer Ernestas Norvaišas, and published by Team17 Digital, will receive its 1.0 update, coming out of Steam Early Access. The new update will bring new Civic Buildings, Production Chains, newspaper stories, a new population, bug fixes, and quality of life improvements.
In Sweet Transit, players start with a single warehouse and build an interconnected world as they expand their railing network and evolve their society. The game passes through distinct eras of the railway and the player should plan the most economical expansions using the technology at hand.
The game also has full modding support via Steam Workshop, allowing modders to create structures, locomotives, in-game rules, progression markers, and graphics. Sweet Transit also has support for Steam Deck.
Sweet Transit 1.0 will be released on April 22. The game is already available on Steam Early Access and will also come to Epic Games along with the update. For more details, check out the game’s Steam page.
Lotus Lantern: Rescue Mother is a rogue-lite action game inspired by Chinese mythology. The game was developed by Unstable Games and published by indie publisher 663 Games. The protagonist must part in a quest to rescue his mother, battling using martial arts skills from Sun Wukong.
The game has various styles of martial arts factions, over 20 magical artifacts, and Nuwa’s blessings, which allow regular attacks and skills to carry additional elemental effects. Players can combine these powerups and create their own builds as they advance in the game.
After beating the main story, players will have the freedom to adjust difficulty settings to their preference for added challenges.
Players should encounter many famous Chinese mythology characters, all fully voiced.
Lotus Lantern: Rescue Mother is now available on Steam for $9.99 with a launch discount of 10%. Check the game’s Steam page.
Omega Crafter, an open-world, survival-crafting game, developed by Preferred Networks, got its plans for Early Access revealed. One of the additions is biomes, adding more variety and life to the game’s world.
One of the main focuses of the upcoming updates is automation features. Players will be able to access coding blocks and code Grammis in a way extremely similar to how Scratch, a programming tool designed for beginners, works. Besides that, you will be able to customize them with new appearance options.
Omega Crafter will receive a cartography system to document cleared areas and ways to level up characters further and test skills in the form of a Battle Simulator.
Alongside these updates, there will be quality-of-life improvements, updated UI, full controller support, and support for more languages. Currently supported languages are English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish (Spain), Thai, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.
Omega Crafter is available on Steam through Early Access for $24.99. For more information, visit the game’s Steam page.
Startenders, developed by Foggy Box Games and published by Yogscast Games is an intergalactic bartending VR game already available for PSVR2 and Meta Quest, however, it`s now also coming to Steam on April 25.
The game has many recipes and liquors, allowing players to craft up to over 2 million beverages, according to Foggy Box Games.
The game has a Story mode and a Free Mix mode, which are pretty self-explanatory. There is also Pass the Headset mode, a mode to be played locally with other people, in which one player goes through a level, gets a score then passes the VR headset to the other and this goes on until the last person decides who gets the best score. For last, there is the Daily Run.
Startenders is playable either standing or seated.
Startenders will arrive on Steam on April 25, with a 50% discount on its normal price of $14.99. For more information, check the game’s Steam page.
Slapshot: Rebound, a free-to-play, physics-based 3v3 ice hockey game developed and published by Oddshot Games, received today, April 11, its 1.0 update, leaving Steam Early Access. The new update also brings a new virtual hangout spot, a new ranked season, and a season pass.
The Pond, the before-mentioned new hangout area, was previously only available to be joined in custom lobbies. Now it is accessible to all players, directly, or while in queue for a match. With the new patch, Season 1 started. Along with it, there was a soft ranked reset, and the Season 1 season pass is now available with new items on the free and premium tracks.
Oddshot Games also stated some additional features, such as Quick Play, where the player gets matched against other players of their region to improve their ranking, a Practice Mode, and Custom character customization. The player will also be able to continue their progression along the Pre-Season Pass.
Golazo! 2, a game inspired by old arcade soccer games, now has a boxed Deluxe version, available for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. Meridiem Games, an indie game publisher, is responsible for designing and manufacturing the boxes.
The boxed version will include a different holographic card for each console, besides including three DLCS, one being available first for players who purchase the physical version.
Golazo! 2 Deluxe – Complete Edition, developed by Purple Tree and published by Meridiem Games, is now available in physical format for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. Purchasable in specialist stores throughout Europe. For more details, check Meridiem Game’s official website.
Streets of Rogue 2, an open-world RPG sandbox adventure game from solo indie developer Matt Dabrowski in partnership with publisher tinyBuild, received an Official Gameplay trailer at today’s Trile-I Initiative Showcase.
A sequel to the first game, Streets of Rogue 2 invites players to embark on an endlessly replayable adventure in its crazy, immersive, and unpredictable open world, solo or co-op with friends.
Check below the game’s highlights:
Dozens of unique and quirky playable classes (i.e., Ninja, Werewolf, Investment Banker, Alien…)
Seamless, procedurally generated open world with a map 100 times the size of a single level from Streets of Rogue 1 and multiple unique biomes from bustling cities to creepy forests
An absurd amount of intertwined gameplay systems in the best tradition of immersive sims: destructible environments, hacking, smart NPC AI, mind control, farming, building, vehicles, etc
You can pet the dog. And also ride the dog!
Wreak havoc with a vast arsenal of items and weapons: shrink rays, bear traps, rat-summoning ocarina, Necronomicon, landmines, firearms, rocket launchers, and many more
Matt Dabrowski stated:
“Streets of Rogue 2 is the culmination of nearly 10 years of ongoing work on the series. I’m looking forward to giving a sneak peek with the demo, and getting more content into everyone’s hands via Early Access later this year!” said Matt Dabrowski, creator of the Streets of Rogue franchise”
With more than 300.000 wishlists on Steam, Streets of Rogue 2 is one of the most anticipated indie games of 2024.
Streets of Rogue 2 will be coming to Steam Early Access in 2024. The playable demo will be available on Steam during Next Fest in June 2024. Check for more details and updates on X
Global indie publisher Grindstone and developer Games Farm announced Jötunnslayer: Hordes of Hel, a new roguelike horde-survivor game set in the dark realms of Norse mythology. The game puts you against waves of creatures to earn the divine blessing of ancient Norse Gods. Grindstone also announced that a demo for Jötunnslayer: Hordes of Hel will be coming to Steam in May.
Peter Nagy, CEO at Grindstone stated:
“We are thrilled to announce Jötunnslayer: Hordes of Hel and to be working with the talented team at Games Farm.With Games Farm’s proven track record in creating immersive and challenging game worlds, we are excited to introduce players to this brutal horde-survival experience.“
Embark on a hazardous quest through the dark realms of Norse mythology. Select a fallen soul condemned to suffer in Helheim and wield your blade against legions of foes in a relentless quest for redemption. In this desolate domain, divine blessings are scarce, earned only through the spilling of rivers of blood. Navigate through the hostile realms of the Norse underworld, invoking mighty bosses through ancient rituals only to sever their heads in pursuit of salvation.
Check below some of the game’s features:
Engage in intense and adrenaline-fueled battles against relentless waves of enemies, all while under the pressure of time. Each encounter is a test of skill and reflexes as you fight to survive against the overwhelming odds of the Norse underworld.
Embark on challenging tasks and missions within each run to test your abilities and add depth to your journey through Nine Worlds. These quests may require you to complete specific objectives or overcome additional obstacles for greater rewards.
Progress and improve your character with meta-progression systems that offer unlockable perks and upgrades. As you continue to upgrade, you’ll unlock new abilities, enhancements, and bonuses to customize your playstyle and enhance your chances of survival.
Choose from a variety of diverse characters, each with their own unique set of skills, abilities, and weapons. Experiment with different combinations to find the perfect match for your playstyle and adapt to various challenges and scenarios encountered throughout the Hordes of Hel.
Confront powerful boss enemies that pose increasing levels of threat as you progress through the game. Employ strategic kiting tactics to outmaneuver and defeat these formidable foes, utilizing the environment and your skills to gain the upper hand and emerge victorious.
Jötunnslayer Hordes of Hel will be released for PC via Steam Early Access this autumn. Check the game’s Steam page.
