Steam Hype Weekly - Issue #18

We're at November's last big sprint! Next week is looking to be a little more restrained, as the juggernaut that is GTA 6 is finally starting to scare away even the indies. But for now? We've still got SO many great games that came out this week to cover. Even after trimming back a lot of this week's duds and so-so releases (just for lack of manpower), there's still dozens of exciting games this week I've barely had a chance to look at. So let's take a closer peek before the weekend hits, eh?

If you're a first-time reader, that backlog is where the Steam Hype Weekly roundup comes in. While a few games (especially those with rougher launches) didn't make the cut, here's almost everything we wanted to cover in depth this week, but didn't have the mortal moments to dedicate to. But because we don't like to miss anything, here's a paragraph on each!

As usual, demos and updates at the top, and then all the week's other notable launches in alphabetical order. Let's rock:

Update: Kumitantei: Old-school Slaughter - A second episode of Danganronpish Murder

The second of six planned episodes is finally out for this heavy Danganronpa-inspired murder mystery adventure. You know what you're getting here - a larger-than-life cast of anime weirdoes, a sinister mascot character, and plenty of arbitrary death and paranoia. Point and click your way until you have all the evidence, then confront the culprit with the truth, or die. While the first episode was very popular, initial responses to the second one are more mixed, but some of the critique has the feel of people misreading stuff.

Update: Selaco expands with its second episode - Machines of War

Selaco is one of my favorite shooters in years and it's not even finished yet. Like a fusion of FEAR and Half-Life, with a bit of Die Hard spirit. The first episode alone was a lengthy 10+ hour campaign with huge replayability thanks to a New Game+ mode that turns the whole thing into a looter-shooter. The developer estimates the new chunk of story content will add another 7-8 hours to the game on a first playthrough, featuring new guns, enemies, weapons and mechanics, plus the original campaign has been heavily updated too. I'm playing this one immediately after work.

Out Now: After the Wane - Interactive ballet drama graphic novel

A fascinating-looking game here - a branching, interactive visual novel style adventure following the fate of a prestigious dance studio, with a mix of traditional comic-style art and rotoscoped segments for the dancing itself. Obviously niche within the broader gaming space, but so far, 100% of the people who have picked this one up seem to be enjoying it.

Out Now: Cardaire: Eternal Aces - Yu-Gi-Oh inspired card RPG

Not the most original concept, but Cardaire pins the simple but compelling combat of Yu-Gi-Oh with an open world explorable RPG adventure, where fights reward boosters, cards and upgrades, letting you open up new strategic avenues to beat people senseless in A Children's Card Game. This one hasn't sold big this week, but almost everyone playing it seems to be having fun..

Out Now: Dawn Aerowar - Ace Combat Fanfic: The Movie

This one's not a game! And I don't mean that in a 'visual novels aren't a game, debate me bro' sense. I mean this is a 2-hour movie (part 3D animation, part comic animatics) split into 12 smaller episodes. What makes it interesting is that it's from the co-writer and composer of the excellent Project Wingman, and tackling much of the same alternate-earth air-war drama that did too. Folks really seem to be enjoying it too.

Out now: Deadboot - Twitchy roguelike FPS

Looking more than a bit like Turbo Overkill (one of my favourite indie FPS games of the past few years), this one looks like good fun. A fast, aggressive movement FPS buildcrafter with semi-retro textures and environments. Plus, you can punt your enemies (and other things) around the arenas, with plenty of traps just waiting and hungry to be fed some random cyber-goon. This one just launched yesterday and hasn't found much of an audience yet, but looks to be doing stuff right.

Out Now: Drawquarium - Adventures in doodling fishies

Less of a traditional game, more a stress-busting tool. An easygoing desktop aquarium where you design the fish, either drawing them by hand or piecing them together out of bits of clipart and googly eyes. Just an adorable little concept and a potential oasis of calm in the middle of a crowded, action-heavy week in gaming.

Out Now: Fat Goblins - A tribute to PS3 multiplayer gem Fat Princess

An early access launch, and doing well so far. While I never got to play it that much myself, I know a lot of people swore by Fat Princess on the PS3 as one of the most slept-on multiplayer gems of its day. It's a bit like Capture The Flag, only the flag is a goblin monarch, and you can feed them to increase their size and to make it harder for the other team to capture them. Playable with bots or online, but as with the original, this one seems like it sings when you've got a full slate of 32 players.

Out Now: Football Manager 27 - It's Football Manager

It's Football Manager. I will admit that I do not watch, or particularly care about football. But even I can appreciate an arcade football game. A spreadsheet where you buy and trade famous names boiled down into stat blocks? Not for me, but the series is enormously popular, so you should probably know if this one's for you!

Out Now: Go Next! - Megabonk-esque high mobility 3D Survivors

Similar to last year's hit Megabonk, this one's a more mobile, aggressive take on the Bullet Heaven/Survivors-like style, with characters able to multi-jump, bound and wall-run through complex environments to grab powerups while chipping away at an endless swarm of monsters. So far this one seems to be doing well with people, but isn't a breakout hit or life-changing hit.

Out Now: Handmancers - Rock Paper Scissors deckbuilding

Another early access graduate, and one I've been meaning to dig into for a while. Handmancers is much less rude than its title suggests, and is in fact about playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with an assortment of magical weirdos, with all manner of tweaks two be made to your playstyle through deckbuilding shenanigans. Even if the core mechanics are relatively simple here, the art is gorgeous. Every monster is a treat to behold.

Out Now: Hell Wait - Manga-inspired Balatro-style Mahjong

Heavily inspired by the manga Washizu: Lord of Mahjong Hell (a spinoff of the popular gambling anime/manga Kaiji), Hell Wait is a game that's fascinating to watch played, but not one I can comprehend. At least, not understanding the notoriously arcane rules of Riichi Mahjong - Japan's native alternative to Poker. But the fundamentals are very Balatro - beat the dealer, build a deck of jokers to maximize your score, and wiggle your way around play-restricting boss rounds.

Out Now: Hope in the City - Teen detective mystery adventure

A really interesting looking one, this, and well-reviewed so far. Hope Song's parents have gone missing and her apartment is ransacked, so it's off into the streets to investigate what the heck went down. Looks relatively lightweight mechanically, but with the fun twist of Hope being an artistic sort, doodling all of the evidence and ideas she's piecing together in her journal to be used as key ideas and threads to pull on in the greater investigation.

Out Now: Icy Tower - A freeware classic remade... and less free

25 years out from its original release, Icy Tower has somehow returned. A very simple score-attack platformer where you ricochet your enthusiastically babbling hero up the screen and off the walls to ideally multiply your score through chained jumps. It was good, compelling fun back then, and looks like it's a hit with the modern-day crowd too, even if a quarter-century has passed. We're ALL old now, it seems.

Out Now: Imperial Grace - Courtly drama and romance in a fantasy world

An Otome game for a slightly more mature crowd, following a crowd of fully-grown adults at the heart of a fantasy monarchy, their political shenanigans, romantic decisions and day-to-day dramas. Really good art, a diverse cast, and options to cozy up with whichever gender your choose your customizable heroine prefers. Great user reviews so far on this one, and optional free DLC to make it a little spicier, although not enough to classify as smut.

Out Now: Main Sequence - Interplanetary mining and factory-building

Looking like a fusion of Space Engineers and Satisfactory, Main Sequence is a factory-builder set in deep space, which means as well as constructing your main refinery platform, you'll also be crafting modular ships to handle the mining, exploration and even a little combat. This one just rolled out into early access but has been broadly liked, with some small gripes. Plenty of room to improve, at the very least!

Out Now: Marvel Cosmic Invasion - The Siege of Castle Doom DLC

The second bit of DLC for the solid (if mechanically simplistic) Marvel arcade brawler, and significantly more fleshed out than the previous Cyclops & Thing character pack. As well as two more characters (Sue Storm and Victor von Doom), it adds a whole pile of replayability to the game through a roguelike challenge mode. Castle Doom has you fighting waves of enemies and then picking one of three themed doors to the next arena, similar to the mode in the Streets of Rage 4 DLC from a while back.

Out Now: Monster Train 2: The Punished DLC - Fallen Angels go Choo Choo

The second expansion for the excellent roguelike deckbuilder sequel. This DLC adds a new playable faction - the Punished - a rather stylish-looking group of fallen angels that channel their own suffering and angst into damage done. Some interesting new strategies in play here, with lots of opportunity to hurt or otherwise constrain your own units in exchange for power boosts. Plus, some fantastic new music.

Out Now: Moomin: Midsummer Madness - Coziness in the face of chaos

There has been a whole swarm of Moomin games recently and they've all been charming as heck - it's really hard to go wrong with Tove Jansson's world of anxious, weird little forest-dwellers. While the other games have been largely telling their own stories with its familiar characters, this one looks to be more like an interactive retelling of some of the original stories, with some absolutely gorgeous art and animation to match.

Out Now: Nocturnal 2 - Arabian fantasy metroidvania by torchlight

The original Nocturnal was a well-regarded metroidvaia, if a bit short for its price tag. The sequel looks to be evening the scales by launching at a steep discount, which is a bit weird considering that it looks gorgeous, with slick combat, great lighting effects and - if initial user reviews are to be believed - some very slick level design too. Too many dang good metroidvanias!

Out Now: Novus Orbis - Combo-chaining, time-looping deckbuilder

Another one graduating from early access after quiet critical (if not commercial) success. It's classic roguelike deckbuilder stuff, but with a cast of weird and wonderful monsters to fight, and a focus on chaining together lengthy card combos that can sometimes be interrupted mid-turn by counterattacks, that in turn, you can counter and deflect. The whole aesthetic on this one is refreshingly weird. Very good user reviews too.

Out Now: Oboro no Ichi - Low-intensity moonlight marketplace builder

Another cozy town-builder, this one has you building a spiritual marketplace, selling goods to passing souls on their way into, through or out of the afterlife. Gorgeous-looking stuff, low-intensity mechanics, cute characters. Even in early access, this one has near-perfect user scores too, making for a very strong debut that will likely only improve in time.

Out Now: One More Adventure - Tabletop inspired traditional roguelike

Low-fi, big scale. One More Adventure is a fully open-world roguelike in a hex-based procedural world, with a massive overworld to explore as well as more detailed, zoomed-in dungeons. One that I'm hoping to carve out some time for soon, but seems to be hitting the right notes for the classic dungeon crawler crowd, user-reviews wise.

Out Now: Pocket Legend: Inventory Roguelike Deckbuilder

The latest in a growing number of Inventory Tetris roguelikes, where you're constantly shuffling around items in your character's backpack in order to automatically attack, defend and do other roguey puzzley stuff. Not had a chance to play this one yet, but got sent an early key, and it looks gorgeous. Sharp art, weird monster designs and an interesting mix of playable characters. Good user reviews so far, too.

Out Now: Project Tomorrow - Riftbreaker-esque base defending action-RTS

And another in the growing list of action-RTS games that ask you to run around on foot, building a self-sustaining fortress and defending it against increasingly ornery waves of space monsters. This one's in early access, but doing well review-wise so far, and likely to improve further over the coming year or so. There's other competitors out now, but at under £5 at launch, Project Tomorrow seems like a low risk pick.

Out Now: Rasen - Cinematic third-person swordfighting with rollback

This one JUST launched a few moments ago, so not got any deeper thoughts on it, but it sure looks slick. Third-person, free-movement fantasy samurai swordfighting action with up to 8 characters at once, but with full rollback netcode for extra slick online play. Not sure how well that'll work with more than two players (if at all), but it's something I want to see more smaller-scale multiplayer games doing.

Out Now: Sonic Pico Park - Sonic Spinoff of the indie multiplayer hit

Is it indie? Is it mainstream? Eh, that's for someone else to debate. But it's pretty easy to see that this is the latest in the minimalist and popular Pico Park series. Simple puzzle-platformers that require large groups of players to coordinate to reach the exit. This one adds a few extra mechanics to the mix, including rings, loops, springs and spin-dashes, with some guest characters required to clear certain obstacles.

Out Now: Stormforge - Breath of The Wild-ish survival crafter

Another week, another third-person survival crafting sandbox launching into early access, but this one does have some very slick cel-shaded graphics, some fun monster designs, and some very Breath of The Wild-ish gliders. So far, doing well reviews-wise, and with a focus on exploration and adventure more than tree-punching, there's still a long road ahead of this one, and it's a tough call when Enshrouded just left early access so recently.

Out Now: Tanuki: Pon's Summer - Small-town magical postal adventure

This one looks adorable, and is racking up great reviews so far. You're a little Tanuki (magical raccoon-dog) postal worker, trying to revitalize a small Japanese town and keep the grumbling local gods off your back. This involves stunting and drifting around the place on your BMX bike, grinding rails, power-lines and anything else with an edge to slide on. Reminds me a lot of Promise Mascot Agency, without the yakuza angle. And both games are bundled together, too!

Out Now: Tape Man - Measure twice, puzzle platform once

A fun looking little puzzle platformer that rolled out this week, where all of life's problems can be solved with creative applications of an extending tape measure. It reminds me a lot of Öoo in its Metroid-ish world structure, and it seems like the focus is learning new tricks and features of your existing tool, extending it rather than unlocking radically new powers.

Out Now: The Great Sassanelli - Circus management drama during WW1

A fascinating one. A dramatic narrative management adventure where you're the ringmaster of a world-famous circus. Unfortunately, a little squabble (World War 1) has broken out and that's obviously biting into profits, so it's going to take some smart management, movement and diplomacy to keep your business afloat as you investigate broader mysteries against a dark historical backdrop. There's some fantastical/magical realist elements too. Very few user reviews so far, but the concept is great, and the art gorgeous.

Out Now: Towers of Babble - Word game tower defense

A genuinely creative-looking tower defense game, and a hit with just about everyone that's tried it. All of your defenses and resource-generating structures need to be constructed out of Tetris tiles, with the game basing the stats and abilities of it based on a dictionary lookup. There's more to it than that, but I've not had a chance to play this one myself, but I definitely want to. I'm good at words... I think?

Out Now: Wall World Strategy - From action-roguelike to colony builder

An unusual pivot after two twitchy action roguelikes with 2D pixel art, but Wall World Strategy is clearly having some fun with the concept of its setting - a surreal obelisk-like world where people live on the side of the structure, drilling into it for resources. Judging by initial responses to it, it's pretty standard sci-fi colony builder stuff with defensive combat, but (for better or worse) building a vertical town requires some additional planning for maximum efficiency. Patches are already rolling out to address initial issues.

Out Now: Warota: I Live Next to The Demon King's Castle LOL

Now that's a title and a half. Looking more than a bit like Dragon Quest Builders, but with a wackier sense of humor, this is the latest from the oddball Japanese indie studio behind Earth Wars and Lost Epic, a pair of deeply underrated platform hack n' slashers. There's a pretty big RPG combat focus here, and people seem to be enjoying it so far. Oh, and the Demon King you're up against is a pop idol, using her monster fandom to kick over your town. Rude!

And that's another week in PC gaming! As ever, if you think we missed something great that deserves some time in the spotlight, shout it out in the box below, and we might just dive deeper into it next week. Plus, expect more releases over the weekend - casualties of Valve's problems with Steam's release queue. It's becoming a really major problem - at least ten games we tried to cover this week have seen delays!

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that I didn't take the week off, too! Well done, if you did. Due to rescheduling of stuff, I'll be absent from November 25th to the end of the week, so you've got me here without delays for a while yet.

But until next week: Have a good one!