XTHRUST
An excellent example of “easy to learn, difficult to master” gameplay.
You pilot a rocket-powered drone using only two buttons - one for each engine. The challenge comes from alternating, combining and timing the use of these engines to skilfully navigate through the various single player and multiplayer tracks competing for the best time.
The current amount of single player content isn’t spectacular, with only 4 tutorial levels and 6 other levels. However each level offers a bonus objective that can be challenging and adds to replayability.
– Real player with 10.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Experimental 3D Games.
TL; DR: A game with easy to learn but very difficult to master controls is bogged down with a dead multiplayer, a grindy XP and coin collecting system, and a very minimal amount of effort in singleplayer content (a grand total of 15 levels you will get nowhere near the top time on, some you won’t even be able to complete the extra “achievement challenge”, because they, too require a ton of grinding). There’s also microtransactions for coins but with a dead multiplayer I don’t really see the point of purchasing them.
– Real player with 8.8 hrs in game
Nucleares
This game is amazing and shows a lot of promise!
– Real player with 9.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Experimental Early Access Games.
you only get a couple mins of play until you need to change fuel then game shutdowns
– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
Watch Your Helmet
You still could not even imagine how difficult it is to control a spacesuit with a jet engine in space. Thanks to this game, you will realize how interesting and exciting it is, especially if you need to escape from moving asteroids, dodge moving planets, collect fuel and minerals, and complete a rescue mission.
Test and then improve your spatial awareness and rocket management skills in zero gravity at 45 levels full of minerals, dangerous asteroids, planets and abandoned cats in space that need rescue.
Read More: Best Experimental Space Sim Games.
Chionophile
While this game is tiny (the trailer honestly shows you most of the game) it’s stunningly pretty in a way you can’t quite define. Like other walking sims from the dev we are outside, this time in winter. Kind of like Bottle, but with a more upbeat tone and fresher graphics. It is short, especially if you use your right mouse button to act as a sort of heads up display and track down flowers and platforms quickly.
But there’s also a lot more to explore once you’ve checked all the achievements off your list. Honestly, yes, it’s short. I clocked in at 45 minutes, and I got terribly lost too. But it is also like Bottle in that you can make your own fun. Go back in and take a lovely walk in the gorgeous landscape. Let your worries go and just be.
– Real player with 1.6 hrs in game
In a similar vein to “Pluviophile”, it’s a nice looking environment, but with a number of strange design choices that mar its potential to be a nice peaceful walk.
To start, there are still, for some reason, flowers that you need to pick up and take to stone circles to open the path forward. There isn’t anything inherently interesting about the mechanic, so it just detracts from the experience by arbitrating certain places where you must go, making you less inclined to explore elsewhere on your own.
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
Brutality club
Good for a quick laugh, maybe a giggle, and if it were a $1 or so game i’d say its alright but not for the $8 price range. You have very little control over your actual dude so you just flail your character around and hope to hit your opponent. Chances are that you’ll play it for maybe half an hour and be bored of it.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
I thought i’d give it a go because its hard to find a decent fighting/mma game on steam, i knew it was physics rag-doll based but i wasn’t expecting it to be just random flailing with little to no control over your character.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
BLACKBODY THEORY OF MOTION
This game is still in early stages, but it is addictive and genuinely scary.
There are some much-needed improvements, including
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Better controls for up/down, a function to reset to the “normal” plane where most asteroids are located,
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View distance that doesn’t look unnatural (now the objects just spawn out of blackness),
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Saves,
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Goals, achievements,
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Softer sounds, current ones are way too harsh.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
10mg: SNAAAK
It’s a solid game on it’s own right, but gets a lot more meat around it’s bones through the achievements.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
An interesting combo of snake game and metroidvania, with a desolate, Jumper Redux-esque atmosphere.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Black Hole Simulator
The simulation was a bit more complex than I anticipated, of course it would probably have some details but I wasn’t really expecting to see general relativity showing up at the left of the accretion disk this gorgeously. After waiting for a minute or two without feeding the gates of hell, the event horizon got empty blank and the radio noise obviously stopped. All that just to start glowing back again very faintly="" a couple seconds later.
So, the simulation could have a simple on-screen log event (it could be optional), it would even help if someone is using the application to explain how a black hole works. I know people can just go to Youtube but why, if there is a beautiful simulation spinning for you at will? /very
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
Note: The developer, PanGuoJun was kind enough to supply this review copy to the Sturgeons Law Curator group.
Black Hole Simulator is an early access 3D rendered black hole simulator, just like it says on the box. You’re presented with a reasonable facsimile of a black hole, which you can spin around to get different views. You can increase or decrease the size of the thing, alter the gravity model between Newtonian and Relativistic, and you can have it absorb a star and watch what happens. You can also choose between a number of different backgrounds to see how the gravitational lensing makes things look. At this stage of development, that’s all there is to it. To say this is rudimentary bare bones is a massive (geddit!?) understatement.
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
dogpet
pet the dog. make more dog. ascend into the stratosphere sometimes. do back flips ‘cause there’s no camera lock, and you get a little height bump when you go all the way around. 10/10.
– Real player with 19.1 hrs in game
This game has it all: dogs, picturesque hills…hands. I pet over 200 dogs at once, which is way more than I’ve ever pet in real life. I’ll pet my actual dog until I can play this again. I love it!
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Pull
a low stress physics based game where you swing the moon around to hit targets.
“Still” game mode: the moon steadily accelerates toward the mouse cursor during gameplay. use this effect to swing the moon at other planets that appear on screen. after each planet is hit it will disappear and reappear in a new random location.
“Drift” game mode: the moon steadily accelerates toward the mouse cursor during gameplay. use this effect to swing the moon at small moving planets that orbit the earth from different random angles. after each small planet is hit it will disappear and reappear to start a new random orbit.