A Day of Maintenance
You’re a distant blip amongst the sands around New Port City; It’s been a long few shifts, but you’re almost done with doing your sweep of the guidance stations for the docking spaceships. Take your Massive Self-Sustaining Installation Repair Truck (or MSSIRT for short); & travel the landscape to fix the last few on your list for the day with your trusty multi-tool crane.
A Day of Maintenance is a new, unusual kind of exploration game, taking cues from In Other Waters, 17776, Signal from Tolva, and Euro Truck Simulator 2
If you’ve ever found yourself thinking:
“I want a kind-of-technical driving game with a little gay romance but also some discussion over robot worker consciousness. (With crane operation gameplay)"
This game is for you.
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Around 8 hours long
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This game is deliberately slow-paced. Enjoy the drive, sip a cup of something warm, fix sites in the distant future.
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Chat with your Robot Boyfriend, 6 workmates, & a couple other characters along the way.
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Best played with a gamepad. But there’s mouse & keyboard bindings for everything.
Chat with Orby about cool stuff like databases, satellite software, and the possibility of having your mind overwritten by a routine check-up.
As you drive the open desert, your crew of fellow maintenance robots will chew the scenery; debating over trains, spaceships, philosophy, and hats.
Oh! You might also uncover a conspiracy.
Read More: Best Exploration Driving Games.
Queerskins: ark
NOTE:
Unfortunately, Steamworks has decided to inexplicably censor this 6DoF interactive VR. If you want to support queer content and voices, please let Steam know of your displeasure. And, head to Viveport to download this woman produced and directed interactive experience, part of a Peabody award winning series! https://www.viveport.com/bcbd1d54-ac06-4b2e-a393-3851e6173440
Queerskins: ARK is a 6DoF interactive virtual reality experience. Reading a diary left by the estranged son, a Catholic mother (Hadley Boyd) finds a way to transcend herself and her grief by imagining him alive and in love. With heart-wrenching performances by Michael DeBartolo and Christopher Vo in volumetric video and the storytelling potential of spatial sound, Ark allows you to enter her imagination and co-create the lovers’ intimate dance through your body position and movements. An Intel Studios Original co-produced with Cloudred.
The Attic
The viewer finds herself in a dimly lit attic bedroom, a place that seems to be stuck in time, heavy with memory. Here, you assume the passive role of an observer in a 360˚ environment. Unable to move, you can examine the memorabilia-laden surroundings and begin to get an idea of time, place and what the story might be about. Mary-Helen begins reading her son’s diary.
El Matador
As Mary-Helen begins to imagine her son’s world, you are transported to a beautiful beach at dawn. Sebastian and his lover Alex appear, like a daydream nearby in the landscape. We allow Sebastian to break the 4th wall and directly implicate you in the scene. We position you quite close to the two men, just outside their personal space as you listen to their conversation. As Mary-Helen finds freedom in her imagination, you too now have the freedom to move around the beach as the experience transforms into 6DoF.
The Memory
The scene crossfades to an abstraction of the beach. Sebastian and Alex begin an intimate dance. Depending on how you move in the space, the dancers appear to respond to your presence. The performance has been choreographed as a series of segments, each visitor sees only 5 out of possible 24 combinations within each play session. Replay it to see other potential variations, follow the blue glowing lights to hear Mary-Helen reading Sebastian’s diary entries. Raise both arms to gain a new perspective, point your arms forward to fly!
Back in the Attic
As the lovers fade away, you are now back in the attic. It is the magic hour. The room is lit with a flat, golden light, reminiscent of the light on the beach. With a return of detail and color, it feels like the room has come back to life. Mary-Helen contemplates her new found sense of self.
Note
Queerskins: ARK is a room scale experience. It can be adjusted for available space:
— Small (10’x10’ / 3x3 m)
— Medium (20’x20’ / 6x6 m) — Default
— Large (30’x30’ / 9x9 m)
Subtitles are available in English, Spanish, Italian and Polish. Subtitles can only be set at the beginning of the experience by using your controller or by pressing corresponding keys on your keyboard. Please see the experience splash screen for details.
Read More: Best Exploration VR Games.
No One Can Ever Know
No One Can Ever Know is quite possibly one of the best examples one can point to when making an argument for the merits of video games as an interactive medium. This is not a “fun” game in the traditional sense and neither does that seem to be the intention. No One Can Ever Know is a difficult, sometimes frustrating experience because it wants the player to know what its like to be in the creator’s shoes and by extension what it’s like to suffer from gender dysphoria. This is something only games can do, because while films and text can adequately convey emotions and ideas, they can’t quite put someone in the shoes of another individual in quite the same way a game can and I think for that reason, No One Can Ever Know is a huge success despite being a humble little title.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Exploration Resource Management Games.
Open your eyes and close them and open them again….How many are looking through your eye(s)….one….more than one then there is only a number and the number of them is ONE number…. Be glad you are who you are and you are the only unique special person (number) of you that is!!!!!!! Do not lose hope and take your game elsewhere because if you go you will ruin it for me…. I need you to play so that the game of all lives can continue….everybody who ever and what ever and celebrate every precious moment
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
First Response
Welcome to your new job at the Extreme Containment Security Company! You’ve been selected by Malcolm Monaghan himself as the first subject in their brand new learning initiative! Upon your arrival, K.A.R.A. will guide you through concepts relating to Cybersecurity and the important work you’ll be doing as a brand new SOC Analyst!
Featuring an extremely talented full voice cast, First Response is a blend of the concepts seen in the walking simulator genre with simulation elements modeled after real work done by SOC Analysts! And maybe, a few surprises along the way, but we can’t say much more than that!
Lihue
Very good game by a solo dev called “Nehual Pascale” from argentina.
Lihue is a game a narrative adventure about a trans-girl where you have to enter in a psicodelic environment and live his own feelings. if you want to enter in a very beatifull enviroment and history this is the correct game!!
keep the amazing work nehual :D
Best Regards, Maty.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Beautycopter
Another short charmer from the Deity Driving dev; the same good vibe of aesthetic absurdity in the environments and comedic sincerity from the characters, now with a mix of 3D environments and… whatever you call first-person 2D exploration.
When people say “I want shorter games with worse graphics”, this is what I’m hoping for more of (although let’s say “simpler graphics”, for anyone who conflates ‘graphics’ with ‘visuals’.)
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
The game is good especially the music and the text to speech voice acting add to the atmosphere. The story is quite obscure, you explore the world with your Beautycopter, do some missions, and help some guests. The aesthetics add to the weirdness with the use of fake 3d.
The game is short and simple, you cannot save progress so you need to play the game in one go. There are a lot of funny achievements. This is definitely in the veins of Deity Driving in terms of style.
– Real player with 2.8 hrs in game
Pebble Witch
Pebble Witch is more of a thumbs in the middle opposed to a clear recommend. Overall, the game is polished and doesn’t have a ton of hiccups outside of some minor camera issues on the northern part of the map. The level and it’s layout out look great, but the game play is pretty dry even when you take the genre into consideration. You speak to 15 different rocks who mostly contribute mundane observations or seemingly nonsensical outbursts. Although there are a couple profound and comical moments found in Pebble Witch, there are also more memorable micro relaxation games out there.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
cute little gay game. wish it fleshed out the protagonist a bit more though
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Sephonie
Coming early 2022. Wishlist today!
Memories linger across time, deep beneath the island’s surface…
In this story-driven 3D platformer, explore Sephonie Island’s massive cave network, and link with unidentified species using the novel Puzzle Grid system. Explore the island’s depths as shipwrecked biologists Amy, Ing-wen, and Riyou, unravelling mysteries both scientific and spiritual, watched over by a supernatural being who exists beyond human history.
Sephonie is the newest game from Analgesic Productions' Marina Kittaka and Melos Han-Tani, creators of the Anodyne series and Even the Ocean!
Parkour-esque platforming
The caves of Sephonie vary wildly from lush, jade chasms to reddish flora-filled sandstone caverns. Their physical and rocky layouts demand a fitting moveset! Fling yourself over high ledges using the satisfying Teledash Vault, activate the quick-but-risky Sprint when you need to cover long distances, and deftly Wallrun across dangerous outcroppings.
When the obstacles become insurmountable, use the plants and animals of the environment to unlock powerful new abilities like soaring high jumps and swift grapples.
The Relaxing and Casual Puzzle Grid System
The trio must research the island’s unknown creatures by Linking with them. Using the one-of-a-kind “Puzzle Grid” system, you’ll rotate and place a series of multi-colored puzzle pieces onto the board, and connect large, same-colored islands. Each creature has different challenges to overcome!
There’s no ‘right’ solution to Linking: use your intuition to react to the creature’s moves and what appears on the board, and you will soon be on your way to success!
The caves are full of both small and massive creatures, each with their own importance to the cave’s ecosystem.
A Research Trip Gone Awry
In the near future, three biologists are on a joint research trip to use their ONYX implants to research the creatures of the uninhabited Sephonie Island. However, a mysterious phenomenon destroys their ship, leaving them shipwrecked.
Amy Lim, Taiwanese-American and bold leader, hails from the midwestern USA town of Bloomington. Riyou Hayashi, an analytically-minded Japanese-Taiwanese researcher, calls the bustling Tokyo his home. And Ing-wen Lin, a kind and considerate Taiwanese scientist, lives in Taipei.
The trio will find their motivations and loyalties put to the test as they navigate Sephonie’s caverns, facing not only rocks and creatures but also their deepest memories and dreams. As they grow more intimate with each other and the island, an ancient force, brewing deep in the island’s abyss, may threaten their newfound relationship, and the world…
Features
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A deep, emotional story about the close bonds of a trio, the priorities of nations, and the delicate connection of humans and nature, spanning beyond human history.
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A human experience crafted entirely by the IGF Grand Prize-nominated duo of Marina Kittaka and Melos Han-Tani, behind works such as Anodyne 1 & 2, Even the Ocean, and All Our Asias.
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Master a parkour-esque moveset to sprint, wallrun, jump, and fling yourself through Sephonie Island’s rocky and physical caverns!
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A novel and accessible Puzzle Grid System that will stretch your brain in fun ways.
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A beautiful and varied cave system filled with all manner of large and surprising creatures, visually brought to life by Marina Kittaka.
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A lush, melodic and ambient soundtrack by Melos Han-Tani.
Join us on Discord to chat about the game!
Or, join our newsletter to stay up to date on the game’s news! https://analgesic.productions/
Sephonie does not support square resolutions (Less wide than 16:10). Sephonie will run fine with these resolutions but some UI may be cut off, which you can fix by using the in-game UI Scaling option or by running the game in a 16:9/16:10 windowed resolution.
The same goes for UWHD resolutions in fullscreen.
Sephonie only officially supports certain controllers (PS4/5, XB1/XB360). Other controllers may work but functionality not guaranteed. In particular the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is NOT supported. See forum for details.
This Is Crying
What’s Your Gender?
This is a lovely, wholesome, informative and short game about gender identity.
The player walks through some kind of museum or art exhibition. As you explore, you come across various terms related to gender identity and expression. From time to time, a pleasant voice will ask questions, like: How do I know what gender I am? Or: What makes me feel euphoric? There is a room, where you can try out different pronouns for youself to experience how you feel when they are used for you.
I recommend playing this game. It’s sweet, fun, wholesome… but also, I recommend forwarding it for educational purposes. I think you can safely recommend it to your friends and family. To people who might have mentioned they’d like to learn more about gender identity.
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
I’m a genderqueer YouTuber and I highly approve of this game!! This is an amazing first-person experience exploring gender, gender expression, and sexuality. The concepts are really interesting, definitions are clear, and overall the space makes you feel the experience. I played this on my channel, DaintyTank, for Trans Awareness Week as this game is a perfect way to get an introduction to different concepts in gender.
Definitely think it’s worth spending the $2 to support the developers and for you to play this yourself! You can see my playthrough below but this game is much more impactful to play yourself. Love you all and your feelings are valid!
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game