For future reference

[Doc_Brown]

Edit: I originally intended this post to talk about a single upcoming game, mostly so I wouldn't forget about it, but then I thought of another example and realized it could make a useful list for any of us.  So, feel free to add your own.

Deck of Hearts is an upcoming rogue-like deck builder that, frankly, reminds me of the Dungeon Keeper games of old.  Which, seeing as the last one we got was a microtransaction-filled mobile game, may be the closest we'll get to another one of those.  They're not exactly the same thing, mind you, but after watching this video I couldn't help but be reminded of it.  There's also a demo available, which I'll probably give a whirl at some point.

[Doc_Brown]

Static Dread is still seemingly early in development, and thus doesn't have a demo yet, but the marriage of Lovecraft and Papers, Please was enough to catch my eye.  Much like Deck of Haunts above, though, I don't trust myself to remember its name without a post like this to refer back to.

[Doc_Brown]

I was thinking about this thread, and how it can simply serve as a recommendation list of titles that might otherwise go unnoticed, and thought of four little examples in the horror genre:

Do You Copy? is a free title where you play a forest ranger in a fire watch tower.  Gameplay-wise, you're guiding a lost hiker through the woods at night while they're being stalked by a monster.  Not a very long game, but an interesting idea I'd like to see more of.

Night of the Consumers has you playing as a grocery store employee trying to do your job while dealing with psychotic customers.  It manages to strike a very Dawn of the Dead vibe with the whole consumers = zombies metaphor, even if they're not literal zombies.

I'm sure you've heard of Lethal Company, but did you know of the developer's previous title, It Steals?  A single-player experience, it consists of a series of minigames where the monsters follow basic rules such as being scared of your flashlight/camera flash, hide-and-seek, are blind but can hear, etc.  A little something for everyone.

Lastly, Gnarled Hag is a side-scrolling horror game that has a weirdly catchy bit of music for its finale.  I'll randomly find myself thinking about the song from time to time, wondering where it came from, then go, "Ah, right, Gnarled Hag."

[Doc_Brown]

In terms of recommendation bang for your buck, Reddit user DanAgile has been putting out some useful lists of games.  So far, we have...

Deckbuilder Genre: Part 1
Deckbuilder Genre: Part 2
Roguelike/Roguelite Genre: Part 1
Roguelike/Roguelite Genre: Part 2

Some games I'd never heard of that caught my eye include Beneath Oresa, a visually stylish dungeon crawler; Fights in Tight Spaces, a brawler with a Super Hot-esque aesthetic; and lastly Cardboard Town, which is what you'd get if you made Sim City as a deck builder.

[Doc_Brown]

Remember Typing of the Dead?  Well, someone's making a typing based survival horror game called Blood Typers and there's a demo you can try.  Unlike TotD, this isn't a rail shooter, so aside from looking around (though you can use the arrow keys, the shift keys also work so you don't need to take your hands out of typing position) everything you do is via typing.  Movement?  Typing.  Reloading?  Typing.  Restoring health?  Typing.  It's... interesting, I'll give it that (for instance, if you're using a gun and you make a typo, you misfire).  If you do play the demo, here are a few pointers:

• Regardless of how fast you type, I'd recommend setting it to the lowest speed.  This is so that you can move around the level more easily (locations are marked with a single letter, whereas at higher typing speeds you have to enter multiple letters just to get anywhere).  Note that the typing speed setting is different from game difficulty, so feel free to crank that up if you're looking for a challenge.
• You don't have to wait until you stop to enter another location, so if your character is moving through a room and you see a door you want to go through, you can type it in before you even reach your original intended location.
• If you target an enemy and press enter, you'll run towards them.  This means you can preload a melee attack, then charge into battle rather than waiting for them to come to you.  You can also toggle between enemies with the shift keys.
• The game tells you this, but I forgot about it so it bears mentioning.  If you press both shift keys your character will do a quick 180, which might save your bacon if you're suddenly overwhelmed (trying to flee via typing is weirdly difficult and panic-inducing under such circumstances).

• While there are keys for the blue and gold doors, the red doors require you to take the computer out of safe mode.  I was obviously quite stuck until I figured that one out.
• The objective is to load five tapes into the TV.  In exchange, you get an elevator control panel which goes at the very start of the level.  Be warned, though, that once you grab it the level will be flooded with enemies, so check the map first so you know the way back.  You can also just run past enemies if you're quick.

[Doc_Brown]

White Knuckle is an interesting title focused on first-person climbing in a nightmarish industrial setting.  The controls definitely take some getting used to, but the gameplay finally clicked for me after I watched a speedrun of the demo and realized you can make much faster progress by jumping upward off of most handholds.  I'm not sure just how much substance the concept can ultimately deliver, and I'm not sure I'm onboard with the whole 'rising tide' thing (why divide the world into discrete sections if you're just going to make falling eventually fatal anyway?), but I'll be curious to see how the final product turns out.

[Doc_Brown]

Remember how I mentioned Fights in Tight Spaces?  Turns out the developer is working on Knights in Tight Spaces.  It's exactly what it sounds like.

Also, in the spirit of this list, I wanted to bring up 2020's At Dead of Night.  Back when I reviewed Barrow Hill, I loved the fact that, despite being a point-and-click adventure game, there was an actual enemy moving around as well.  At Dead of Night takes that idea and runs with it, to great effect.

[Doc_Brown]

A trailer for Quite a Ride just dropped, and it's certainly caught my eye.  It most explicitly reminds me of bicycle-based Pacific Drive (a game I haven't gotten around to quite yet, but still...).

[Doc_Brown]

Oh, remember how I mentioned DanAgile's useful Reddit lists?  He's posted a couple more since then:

Puzzle Genre (games like Portal and The Room)
Party-based/Squad-based RPGs (games like Dragon Age and Knights of the Old Republic)

[Doc_Brown]

I recently found out about Last Train Home, and man does it hurt that I bounced off the demo because it seems right up my alley.  Based on real events, you play as the Czechoslovak Legion making their way east by train through Russia post-WWI.  This is because they're being blocked from going west (by those who oppose Czechoslovakian independence, which the Legion fought alongside Russia in exchange for), so they have to reach the Pacific to take a ship back home.  What complicates matters is that Russia falls into a civil war, and neither faction is happy with the presence of a foreign army. 

So you end up with a game that feels part The Last Express, part Oregon Trail, part This War of Mine, part Frostpunk, and part XCOM (though real-time rather than turn-based).  Half of the game has you dealing with managing the train--juggling supplies like fuel and food, sending out squads to trade in towns or gather resources, etc.--and the other half has you managing a squad on combat missions (interestingly, one of your train cars can be an artillery car, allowing you to call in airstrikes during these missions). 

Unfortunately for me, I took issue with aspects of both sides of the game.  For the missions, I think I just prefer turn-based combat to real-time (I find controlling multiple characters stressful as it is).  For the survival side of things, the game comes off as more complex than it needs to be, something I felt XCOM strikes a better balance at.  But like I said, conceptually the game is incredible, so maybe (if you've never heard of it until now) you'll find it more to your tastes that it was to mine.

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Update:  I may have spoken too soon.  This one's gotten its claws in me.  I kept going back and watching videos, gradually picking up on things ("So that's how that works...", "Oh, that's where that is...", etc.), until I decided to try the demo again.  Part of the issue, I think, is that the recommended difficulty setting (Commander) is meant to leave you hanging by a thread.  I tried again on the easiest mode (Road Trip) and found the combat missions more palatable--though the management side of things was too easy (I was overflowing with supplies). 

In addition to Custom difficulty, there are two others that provide hard management/easy combat (Quartermaster) and easy management/hard combat (Tactician).  So I played the demo a third time on Quartermaster, and I think that's the one for me.  Just because the combat is easier doesn't mean it's a cakewalk (judicious use of freezing time helps, though), while the management feels appropriately dicey for a survival situation.  I'm probably going to pick this one up during a future sale.