Midwintar

Midwintar

Midwintär catches you at Khazar’s Pass.

You shelter in a cave as the days and nights grow long and cold,

as the snow seals you in and as the world darkens.

Midwintär is a narrative-driven stealth action game inspired by medieval horror folklore that combines careful tactical planning with fast-paced arcade execution and innovative gossip mechanics. Play and switch between three protagonists - a werewolf, a vampire, and a moon witch - to exact your revenge on a vicious religious cult.

Off-Kilter Sunny Horror On the outside, Midwintär takes place among sunny, medieval villages populated by friendly, hard-working, and devoted inhabitants. Stay overnight, though, and you might be horrified to reveal the true nature of their sacred rituals. The world of Midwintär is gruesome and dark but also funny.

Sun / Moon Gameplay Cycle Midwintär features a 3-minute day-night cycle that changes your abilities. You must use your daytime skills such as lock-picking or spreading rumours among villagers to best prepare the terrain for the night-time havoc when you transform into a bloodthirsty, overpowered monster.

Gossip Mechanics Each villager in Midwintär has their own suspicion-meter you can influence by gossiping and spreading rumors about other villagers, and there is also a panic-meter that changes the AI behaviour of all villagers on the map. You can use this against villagers - hide the firewood to lure the lumberjack into the night, kill him near the chapel to incriminate the priest, and later spread rumours on seeing him covered in blood. He’ll be hanged in no time!

Three Playable Characters You will be able to choose, play and switch between three playable characters - a werewolf, a vampire, and a moon witch - each of whom possesses a distinctive skillset and boasts a different playstyle.

Non-linear Skilltree You will be able to customize the skillset and playstyle of each character by opting to complete alternate missions in levels, which will reward you with a special bonus skill of your choice. Will your werewolf hone his terrifying howl, or will he become one with the wolf-packs of the forest?

Co-Op Multiplayer Midwintär will feature a split-screen and a local multiplayer for up to three players, enabling all three characters to fight together.

The corrupt and self-righteous religious institution Oblique Order is attempting to destroy the peaceful cohabitation of people and magical creatures in the pagan world of Midwintär, and enforce their order by uniting people against the powers of the wild. You must stop them before they exterminate your kind…

Midwintär starts off as a revenge story that slowly shifts into an exploration about our relationship to the unknown, and about the limits of what we can hope to control or understand.

WEREWOLF

The main protagonist is the werewolf, a former disciple of the Oblique Order, disillusioned and out for vengeance. During the game, he is guided by the voice of Midwintär, an ancient force of nature. His skills revolve around spreading panic and using brute force.

VAMPIRE

The vampire, once a powerful force of the night, his might now reduced by the spells of men. He cannot cross running water nor enter houses uninvited, but his power is in his allure - he can enthrall people to do his bidding, or forge blood links to ensure undying loyalty.

MOON WITCH

Then, there is the moon witch. Saved just before she was burned at the stake, she had felt on her skin the terror of order, and wishes to rid the world of their influence. Her skills revolve around misdirecting suspicion at others and using concoctions to alter their behaviour.

“Attending the Masked Meeting, you overhear their plans - they have already set all things in motion.”


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Midwintar on Steam

Creature Lab

Creature Lab

Become a mad scientist in search of the ultimate mutagen!

Creature lab sets you on a difficult path of a genius scientist with a very liberal approach to test subjects and official procedures. Establish your hideout and let the experiments commence!

Take stock of your inventory. There’s no use hoping for government funds so you’ll make do with anything you can find or even steal. Prepare your laboratory, obtain basic reagents, and see what happens when you mix them together. Analyze your results and see if your mutagens have any practical use or if they’re only useful as ingredients for more powerful concoctions.

Apply your mutagens to test subjects and observe how they react. Grow entirely new bodyparts and attach them to the creatures you create. Discover tens of different interactions between mutagens and body parts as you slowly assemble an army of mutants.

Running low on resources? Need more test subjects? Send your creatures into the city! Find whatever resources you need. Spread panic in the city to scare off anyone trying to find your hideout. And if the military starts looking for you, you can infect the citizens to delay the army as you prepare a more permanent solution. Let no one stop you in your search for the ultimate mutagen!

Features

  • First-person mad scientists simulator

  • Complex resource and inventory management

  • A strategy element - plan raids on the city and prepare for encounters with the military

  • Dozens of different mutagens to discover

  • Unique body parts to grow and attach to your test subjects

  • A fear mechanic that lowers the chance of your hideout being discovered

  • Infection strains that delay military response to your experiments

  • Singleplayer campaign mode


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Creature Lab on Steam

Shadowbane

Shadowbane

First of all, this game is absolutely worth playing if you are into oldschool PvP MMOs. No other game allows such in-depth character customization. Sandbox elements are present but are not annoying to the end of being “chop trees to gather lumber”. “Sandbox” here is actually building cities and demolishing your enemies' cities in sieges, hiring AI mercenaries to craft items which is another good part of this game, crafting isn’t about gathering 10 dragon scales and 1 mummy dust by repetitively killing monsters, it’s more about having mercenaries of right races placed in your forges and having resources from right zones in general, even city building (if you happen to own / manage one) is as simple as placing the building on the city grid and waiting several hours for it to go up in one click.

Real player with 1573.7 hrs in game


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Overall an exceptionally poor experience.

So why do I have so many hours you ask? 1) nostalgia and 2) I played with friends, but neither of those points are positives to the game in particular. And also do not be mistaken, for an RPG 80% of this playtime was sitting afk while leeching experience from macro-bots which is what everyone uses.

So this game is mislabeled as a PVP title. It isn’t. It’s actually a zerg v zerg title and those battles are decided by sheer numbers. If it was a pvp game, you’d have skills which synergize with each other to allow for good and creative builds. Builds which later you can learn to play and get better as you get more accustomed to playing your toon. Not the case here. At first glance you have SO many races, professions and disciplines to combine that the options eem endless…until you realize that every profession has no more than 2 ways to build it if you want to be in any way viable. Yes, you CAN be a minotaur that uses unarmed fighting, except due to weapon skill restrictions (built into the races) and stat caps you’ll never be more than 20% of the strength of a proper polearm minotaur.

Real player with 1121.8 hrs in game

Shadowbane on Steam

Dreadful Shadows

Dreadful Shadows

Looks super promising, cant wait to see where it will end up!!

Real player with 309.0 hrs in game

The Victorian style really caught my eye the monsters seem decent and the game play looks compelling, its really nice to see so many indie game devs these days breathing fresh air in an otherwise stale market, keep up the good work

Real player with 91.8 hrs in game

Dreadful Shadows on Steam