Here’s what we played during the Steam Game Festival
Being the sole person to wake up from cryo-sleep aboard a huge spaceship, you have to venture off alone to find a way to gather resources, wake the other colonists, and figure out what’s going on.
Developed by 2 Ton Studios, Unto the End is about a father trying to get back to his family – but in order to do so, he must make his way across a dangerous wilderness teeming with all sorts of intelligent creatures, and engage in a series of demanding combat encounters where every wrong move can lead to death.
Sporting delightfully bizarre, Tim Burton-esque visuals, the game takes place in the lucid nightmare of a boy named Lloyd, who’s somehow unable to wake up and must therefore navigate the twisting, turning corridors of his own mind in order to survive.
Taking place in a pixelated version of the 1940s, the game stars John Souza, a private eye and former cop who gets an unexpected otherworldly visit from the ghost of Charlie “Two Angels”, a deceased mob boss – thing is, Charlie wants to go to Heaven, but in order to do so, he first needs to redeem himself by taking out his former associates.
Originally released in Japanese back in May, the game stars a young girl called Hal who wakes up in a strange town without any of her memories – and to make matters even stranger, the only friendly face to greet her is an AI-equipped talking traffic light.
Amnesia: Rebirth starts not entirely unlike its predecessor, although the circumstances surrounding it are quite different. Our protagonist, one Anastasie "Tasi" Trianon, suffers a catastrophic plane crash in the middle of the Algerian desert and wakes up in the wreckage realizing that the rest of the crew is nowhere to be found – what’s more, she also has trouble remembering exactly what happened to them.
The weather is getting chilly, the leaves are turning yellow, and the Steam Game Festival is back – and so are countless intriguing demos waiting for you to try them. Here are our personal picks:
In Vaporum: Lockdown you follow the adventures of Ellie Teller, a scientist just trying to make it out alive from a mechanical tower called Arx Vaporum where all hell seems to have broken loose, with robots, mutated roaches and steampunk zombies attacking everything in sight.
Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, a tale about a man turning into a hideous insect in his own bedroom, is probably one of the most iconic and important literary works of the early 20th century – as such, it comes as no surprise to me that a video game would attempt to use it for inspiration.
What Happened, a psychological horror game from developer Genius Slackers, touches upon a topic that I feel needs more exposure – it tells the story of a disturbed high school student, Stiles, as he struggles with severe depression and anxiety, highlighting his unstable mental health through a series of a surreal, symbolic experiences.