The Kids We Were
Set in the late Japanese Showa era (the 1980s), it’s a nostalgic journey through a unique time in Japan’s recent history. Take on the role of Minato, a young boy who sets out on an unexpected and incredible summer adventure.
This game is an award-winning adventure game originally released worldwide for smartphones in February, 2020. Selected as one of the top 3 titles at the Google Play Indie Games Festival 2020, it has also won the Special Award, and been chosen for the Best Indies category of Google Play’s Best Games of 2020.
To celebrate the release of The Kids We Were on Steam, we’ve added a bunch of brand-new content. If you want the full experience, look no further than this, the Complete Edition!
The Complete Edition includes the full story available in the app, in addition to a new bonus episode set after the events of the main game. There are also brand-new collection items to find!
[Game Details]
・Unravel the secrets of the Seven Mysteries notebook to save your family and fix a broken future
・Collect over 90 retro items hidden in the nooks and crannies of a Japanese town in the 1980s
・Unlock over 20 original Steam achievements
・Play through a bonus epilogue episode that takes place after the events of the main game!
[Story]
Our story begins with Minato arriving in the small town of Kagami, an exceptionally ordinary sort of place in a sleepy suburb of Tokyo.
But there’s more to this simple trip than meets the eye. Minato has a secret objective: he intends to find his missing father, who is supposedly living somewhere in the area.
Our young sleuth Minato wastes no time getting started, and soon finds a puzzling clue to his father’s whereabouts. A mysterious notebook left for him with the portentous title “The Seven Mysteries.”
With this notebook as his guide, Minato sets out on a long and difficult journey, not through space, but through time. For his destination is none other than 33 years in the past—the day his father and mother first met!
Read More: Best 1980s Drama Games.
Linda & Joan
Linda & Joan is a forthcoming narrative game about a British family. You play as Russell, Linda, and Joan — son, mother, and grandmother — switching between them to help the family cope with a series of traumatic events. Based on a true story.
The main game is scheduled for release in 2022. It will be part two of the Linda & Joan story. Part one is Prologue: “Four Months Earlier” which is available now.
Players experience the events from the perspectives of Russell, Linda, and Joan through exploration, conversation, and tasks designed to give emotional insight into the themes of caregiving, dying, bereavement, and homeland.
What sets Linda & Joan apart from other branching-narrative experiences is that while the player has many choices to make, nothing can change the core events that follow — there is only one ending.
However, actions, dialogue choices, and task completion, do affect the characters’ perception of events. By spending time with happier memories, taking care of themselves, and choosing the right things to say to each other, the characters — and therefore the player — will find themselves able to deal with the impossible.
The characters’ emotional states will be graphically represented in the game. The player will have to carefully balance the needs of the characters to progress, sometimes requiring difficult zero-sum tradeoffs.
These mechanisms attempt to mirror the real-life feeling of being powerless in the face of looming trauma, when you realize that no decision can affect the outcome, but you can affect how you and others feel about it.
Even when life’s story feels like it’s on rails, we still have some power over our own realities. There is still room for dignity, compassion, honesty. For fear and for love. There is a time for self-care. There is a time for duty. The choices we make will define the memories we hold for the rest of our lives.
Read More: Best 1980s Choices Matter Games.
NMNE
Atmospheric horror in psychedelic entourage. The game bribes with a breathtaking gameplay with a good study with a small required disk space for installation.
In something even crazy because of its features. The chief hero will be fighting with monsters in his own dream and only to wake up.
There are also Easter eggs and references to other games.
In general, a fit game, but it is suitable for those who love something psychedelic.
– Real player with 4.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best 1980s Singleplayer Games.
Simple and therefore great horror. The author surprises us with a whole story, which, is revealed in a small apartment. A plus for me is also the presence of in-game achievements.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Moonglow Bay
A really fun and relaxing game.
I’m a bit sad it has such a mixed review score.
There’s not really a big challenge to anything you do ingame, however to me this was perfectly fine.
I wanted to play a really laid back game, which is exactly what Moonglow Bay seemed to be.
And I got even more.
You can just chill, catch a few fish, cook, collect pieces of the story behind your character and the citizens of the bay.
You’ll progress through quite the variety of biomes and there’s lots of interesting fish to find, that all have nice little myths the people of the bay affiliate them with.
– Real player with 30.4 hrs in game
I really can’t recommend the game in it’s current state. There’s just too many bugs ranging from small visual things to currently unfixable softlocks. I’m currently stuck, unable to progress through a bossfight because it simply won’t continue. I see too many other issues like this in the game’s discord as well. Keyboard support seems like a very last moment addition; on launch, the controls were wonky and you couldn’t even save your game. They updated the controls, but there’s still no way to rebind anything. The game also doesn’t use the mouse, which is strange for a game with analog input in sections. I really wish this game had had some sort of early access/open beta period to iron out the more obvious and game-breaking issues before launch.
– Real player with 24.6 hrs in game
Bright Lights of Svetlov
Виртуальные забавы отправляют нас в самые разные миры и очередной вояж на Марс едва ли вызовет какие-то особенные эмоции. А вот Огни Светлова - внезапно - отправили в мир детства, где все знакомое и родное. И это круто, это вызывает какие-то совершенно новые эмоции, непривычные для игр.
Очень приятно видеть экранизацию советской действительности в самом ее приземленном и обычном виде. Без клишированных камрадов, ушанок и вот этого всего. В общем, сеттинг удался.
И нарратив, кстати, тоже. За свои полтора часа игра успевает рассказать историю, причем делает это неплохо. Приемы подачи сюжета стандартны - но они работают. В какой-то момент ловишь себя на той мысли, что погрузился в это все и на самом деле интересно что будет дальше.
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game
this game is so well made! i love the vibe. i felt cozy half the game. and i love the sounds of the birds and the wind used outside. it sounds like outside my house. each country got its own local birds. you rarely hear european nature in games. it made the ambience even more wholesome. anyways…
what started happy and cheery ended in tragdedy and i was shocked. especially when i found out that this whole incident is based on a real event i have never known about before this game.
i hope vladimir cholokyan will make more games.
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game
Narita Boy
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Review by Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam.
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Is this game a masterpiece? Yes. And quite a strange one.
You play a young boy in the 80s, who is sucked into his computer after playing a simple action game for the whole day. You have been summoned by the priests of the Digital Kingdom, a kingdom in the digital realm inhabited by thousands of programs and threatened by HIM. It is a world with quite a few similarities to the world of Disney’s Tron. HIM is an evil program, who sends his minions to enslave the whole Digital Kingdom. Noone is able to fight the minions of HIM, only you, Narita Boy, the wielder of the Techno-Sword, can kill them.
– Real player with 18.2 hrs in game
My playtime: 12.7h (based on Steam, 100% achievement, 2x playthrough)
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (8 missable achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.
Intro
Narita Boy tries to emulate the look of retro games while combining modern elements at the same time. It is a platformer game that will make you think as if you are playing a retro game while not playing it, with combat and puzzle as its focus.
Pros:
- Bosses with different attack patterns
– Real player with 12.8 hrs in game
Football Game
With its visuals, storytelling and soundtrack, Football Game is a stylistic, dark, neat little point’n’click adventure game.
Definitely a recommendation from me.
Apperantly Pros and Cons is a popular thing so:
*Pros:
-A great, fittingly dark soundtrack that is especially pleasing if you already like its genre.
-A relatively short and simple story which is, at the same time, open to multiple interpretations.
-Puzzle elements are nice, since, as pointed out by another reviewer, they make sense, not too hard for just being hard or easy to be easy, you probably won’t get stuck at all and will feel satisfied after solving the puzzles.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Football Game is an engaging point&click adventure and I think you will be happy to get it around $2. I would describe it as a psychological drama. Luckily it was less about the football and more about the characters. For a relatively short game, it has an enjoyable narrative that complements a gloomy atmosphere. You can even interact with few items in the environment that have little purpose to the actual plot. Overall a competent game with a satisfying ending.
Most of the puzzles were very intuitive. I only got stuck once but otherwise, the logic got me through everything else. Sometimes you have to pay attention to the dialogue to get a solution. I am not a huge fan of reading but there was no overwhelming amount of text. You could probably beat the game around 1 hour unless you get stuck on last puzzle like me. The interface worked really well and I did not have any technical issues. Although I would like to see indicators next to borders so I know where the exits are.
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
In The Shadows
I saw this game at a student developer showing at a college in Montreal some time ago and was very impressed so when I saw it on Steam I had to try it out. The game is very good, the story, design and game play are very well thought out. I am a big fan of unique puzzle games, kind of tired of the same stuff so I look for more original designs and this one fits the bill with a nice light and shadow based game play that adds new concepts as you go through the levels to keep it interesting, even to the point where I would have liked to see even more levels with certain mechanics (like the movement of the sun or the shadow mirroring levels). Given this it must also be noted that there are some issues which I am sure could have been polished with more time. The controls are less responsive than ideal (mainly the jumping), there were some glitches where I had to restart the level as my shadow no longer jumped, the respawn points were often off leaving you in an area that forced a level restart plus a few other minor bugs. None of these really were much of an issue though, so I still really recommend trying it out.
– Real player with 8.5 hrs in game
In the Shadows is a little gem of an indie game!
I really enjoyed the pixel art and animation in this puzzle game.
Clearly a lot of time and effort was put into the visual aesthetic and soundtrack and it makes for a very atmospheric experience.
Most puzzles are a joy to figure out, but I did run into 2 or 3 that required too specific a timing and execution to complete for my taste.
Overall however the levels never outstay their welcome, on top of that all of them are nicely varied and beautifully detailed.
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
Martial Law
Martial Law is a game about difficulties that came with Communism in Poland. Game is meant to visualize the realities of Polish families back then, their ways of thinking and understanding the world. The story is shown from the perspective of a man who is abandoned because of his low social status. He tries his best to be there for his daughter despite the difficulties. Game is also meant to be educational. There are many places you can stop to learn more about Polish culture from the communist era.
Martial Law features!
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Many endings!
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Visual Novel
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Learn more about polish culture from the communist era
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Solve family issue
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Get beat up by a “comrade for debating”
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Talk to a grumpy old man!
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Make your kid happy. :)
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Make right choices, or don’t. It’s up to you.
Game originally developed during GameJam Pokamedulski.PL 2021
Slumber Clause
Slumber Clause is a roleplaying, point-and-click throwback to the classic text adventures of the 80s and 90s with modern choice mechanics and a character-driven story about nightmares, death, and ephemera—all in glorious 4:3.
Play as a recently-widowed paramedic mom battling a mean case of sleep paralysis. When you’re not trying to hold your waking life together, you’re navigating surreal dreams of unspeakable beauty and endless possibilities that always seem to end in tragedy. All the while, a hooded figure stalks you. Collect clues to discover who they are and what they want.
Slumber Clause will be released episodically using Steam’s Early Access system, with pricing for the entire game increasing when each new episode is added.
KEY FEATURES
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Customize your mom with a text-based character creator.
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Swap between modern and classic user interfaces.
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Make choices that change the outcome of a novel-length story.
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Choose wisely or it may be game over.
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Take a closer look at the world with investigate and conversation mechanics.