My Singing Monsters
This game opened my eyes to the greater questions. Why are we here if not just to play My Singing Monsters? If there is any meaning in life I think I’ve found it. When the Fwog proclaims, “Wa wa wa wa wa wa,” I think I understand further why life was granted to us. Our whole purpose, was to create My Singing Monsters, and play it. The only thing we should have done, and the only thing we should be doing, is playing My Singing Monsters. I got choked up when the Maw said “De de, de de de, de de de, de de de, de de de, de de de, de de de, de de de.” It forced me to think, to open my mind to the bigger picture. Friends don’t matter. Nothing matters as much as My Singing Monsters.
– Real player with 207.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Colony Sim Casual Games.
Shortly before My Singing Monsters was released on steam, my life was spiraling out of control. But then one day a friend of mine told me that My Singing monsters was on steam. I couldn’t believe it, it was true, it had just released and it turned my life upside up again. The second I heard the noggin gracefully slap the top of his head repeatedly to the first time I heard the mammot seductively say “Bummm”. I cried tears of joy, Every time I feed my monsters I feel proud and genuinely feel like my monsters care about my well being. I talk to my monsters every night and tell them about my problems. All I talk about is my singing monsters and my friends blocked me on discord because I only talk about My Singing Monsters. Thank you Big Blue Bubble. Thank you for bringing a purpose to my life again.
– Real player with 194.0 hrs in game
Scary defense
best defence game for $1
– Real player with 16.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Colony Sim Tower Defense Games.
I got a 50% on this game and it was worth it
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Fear Equation
I find it somewhat baffling that this mostly excellent game seems to have been released and then forgotten by most. While most games at least have a reddit sub dedicated to them, there is nothing for this game at all. Very few comments on indie game sites as well. Which is a shame, since it seems that, as a forgotten game, the chances of ever getting a sequel with enhanced mechanics is slim.
My only complaint with the game is that the social/faction mechanic is simply not as fleshed out as it could be. That whole aspect can be almost ignored with no consequence. Do they like you? Are they going to revolt? Meh…no matter most of the time. I would have liked to see some more interaction with the passengers themselves; in terms of maybe getting more detailed information by clicking on an individual passenger (relationship graphs to other passengers and to you. rumours, etc…) and perhaps be able to take more actions to affect their behaviour (ie. craft an edict. make a deal to send someone in with propaganda, etc…)
– Real player with 28.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Colony Sim Roguelike Games.
Overall, a visually beautiful, slower-paced game that reqiures you to manage the resources on the train, assign passengers to carriages based on their factions to prevent internal conflicts, and build defenses against the fog. Once you reach a destination, you can send passengers out to search for items/food/fuel, either through a random lottery or by rigging the lottery to send your stronger passengers.
It’s not a reactive game, like Deadnaut, instead you plan ahead and then watch it executed. Personally I prefer this style, but I tend to like management games anyway.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
Bird by Example
What is Bird by Example?
Bird by Example is — and I say this with great passion — an RPG sandbox where all the occupying NPCs are grotesque birds who mimic your behavior with deep learning algorithms. Nothing is scripted! Everything is emergent! Be the bird you want to see in the world!
Steam has asked me to be more explicit with the game’s features:
-
world
-
objects
-
jump
-
crawl
-
punch
-
squawk
-
bite
-
physics objects
-
other*
-
stories??**
It’s an artificial intelligence sandbox acted out by birds with concerning musculature! Help them see, help them love, help them eat a big fat bug! Right now at this very second, the metaphysical bounds of this game hold a throng of hungry birds who wish nothing more than to be like you! Like Mama!
_*: Imprint psuedo-neurologically upon independent bird agents, using recurrent neural networks, gradient descent, and a custom-built system of semiotic metadata evocation (to afford transferrable behavior between distinct objects and agents which share characteristics along an n-dimensional space).
**: Isn’t life a story? Aren’t we all little stories, flying on this crazy rock?_
You said this was a game? Who’s Mama? I’m Mama? Who are you again?
Please pay attention. These birds are equipped with artificial neural networks that optimize themselves against your own actions! Using trendy deep learning algorithms found in a black box at the bottom of the sea, and something called ‘gradient descent’, they will try to become mathematically perfect distillations of you! It’s very computationally expensive and very math!
But what do you actually do?
Explore, follow self-imposed rules, and cultivate your flock! Tutor a bird to act just like you! By simply doing things, they will learn from you by witnessing your play! Bite an orange and you may start to see other birds doing similarly! Squawk at a another bird and watch your flock erupt into squawkage!
Oh! That’s interesting. So they have brains!?
Woah, strong word! Let’s avoid that word!
Have you ever played a game, and thought: “This is fun, but I live in such fear that I cannot enjoy it…”
Yes, I do live a life of fear! And thank you for blowing off my silly and ethically challenging question!
Yes, you do live in fear! You’re like any brain-wielding creature! But in Bird by Example there will be nothing to be afraid of! In bird world there is nothing to be afraid of! Nothing to be afraid of! Turn that brain off!
Okay. And the game is fun? It’s a game?
You must teach the rest of the birds basic life skills! If not, they will all starve to death!
Wait, you coded these birds to feel hungry but didn’t teach them how to eat?
That feature was out of scope! Please!!! Hungry!!!
Hold on… What’s a bird?
A bird is a fictional creature which came to me in a dream on a particularly cold night in February. I woke up in a sweat the next morning and quickly tried to recreate the apparition from memory. The results? Remarkable.
Earliest known footage of a “Bird” from that morning.
They were perfect. All they needed was a name.
The word ‘Bird’ is a mix of the word ‘word’ and the letter ‘b’ This is because I needed a word — or “wird” — to describe the birds. Sadly, a word using ‘a’ was already taken. It’s like gamertags!
I experimented for many weeks with flight, but no matter how much I stretched out their arms they would not.
Whatever. Doesn’t matter.
Water Bears VR
When writing this I have just finished the last challenge levels, 100% completion. I have to say this was the first VR game among the 40+ I had that I really wanted to come back to and finish. In total it took 1.8 hours more or less, it includes some short demo time for friends.
Difficulty: The game itself is quite varied and goes from super simple to mind twistingly hard at the final challenge levels.
VR Implementation: I imagine it was fun even on a screen, but in VR it just works perfectly. You move around the entire level, place pipes in 3D, watch the seemingly volumetric fluid flow. All interface parts are moved into world space and works really well, the water bears can be interacted with using your controllers, there is nice coherent graphical style making the world believable, it runs without issues on a rec spec system.
– Real player with 42.8 hrs in game
So I bought this game for my daughter who is about to start second grade. She likes the Vive and I figured that I would get something that would make her use her brain. Obviously I had to test it out to make sure it was age appropriate and so that I could explain to her how to play in case she has problems. So just one puzzle, maybe two.
Yeah, an hour later of playing and I’m already making plans to finish out all the levels while she’s at school so I don’t lose my progress when I reset it for her.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game