Somniphobia
Been waiting for this since watching the great MARKIPLIER play the demo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jo8ArlWEZY
‘I think this is Dope! Very good. I like it a lot. Very very good.’
When he gets jump scared, you know it’s jumpy!
But it’s much more than that. Caught the first play thru on youtube, and couldn’t stop watching!
(4 videos - spoiler alert!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjG5dCHTyFM
Unique art style. Haunting story. Unforgettable ending.
Ok, now it’s my turn…..Wish me luck, I’m a bit nervous lol.
– Real player with 16.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Lore-Rich Difficult Games.
Although disappointing for it to turn out as a Fnaf “clone”, this game is still very good and has many great tricks and moments up it’s sleeve to elevate itself above most others and leave it’s own unique mark. The art style and quality of the in-between night sections are enough to distinguish it and make me wish there was more of them rather than the fnaf-styled gameplay. I’ll be looking forward to whatever this developer might make next.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
All the King’s Men
The King is kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night without a struggle. The royal militia specifically seeks out Topher’s father for his help, citing suspicious indiscretions in his past. Leaving him with many more questions than answers, and no remaining ties to his home, Topher decides to make his way across the nation on foot to meet up with his father in the capital city and put the pieces of his life together into a full image that makes sense. Along the way, meet allies and enemies alongside Topher on his journey across the land to save his family and, in turn, the Kingdom.
On-Screen Enemy Encounters / Battle System
Never feel like you’re leaving the action of the game with a random encounter! All enemies are on-screen and battles take place right where you found the enemy on the map. The active-battle system keeps fighting dynamic and allows the you to follow the action in real time in order to best strategize your next move.
Complete Control over Stat-Growth
Instead of gaining random, arbitrary stats based on some RNG behind-the-scenes, control your own destiny and customize each play-through with your own personalized leveling board. Every play-through can be different, based on the path you take to improve your party.
Fully Original Soundtrack
A truly dynamic, original soundtrack to fully immerse you within this open world adventure. Every track in the game was created specifically, and exclusively, for All the King’s Men by idea composer, Andrew LiVecchi.
Multiple Difficulties
Choose your fate before the game begins, based on the level of challenge you desire. Standard mode still offers challenging gameplay, but you’ll have access to saving whenever you desire, simply by accessing your menu, inn and item prices will be much more easily accessible, and enemies of all types will present less of a challenge. Professional mode is not for the faint of heart. Your save access will be restricted to the save crystals throughout the map, inn and item prices will be more of a stress on your wallet, and enemy battles will require careful strategy and consideration to win.
Both modes will offer the same access to the main plot of the game and the quests related to that, though some side quests will only be found in Professional Mode.
Flexible Controls
More detailed information about controls still being confirmed.
Read More: Best Lore-Rich RPG Games.
Insomnious
The Story
You just brought a brand new AI assistant designed specifically to help with insomnia, now it’s time to try to sleep. . . But something isn’t quite right about tonight. Maybe getting to sleep is the least of your problems now.
SleepCo’s brand new Sleeping Assitance Machine is making headlines as it sells out globally only weeks after being released. Alongside their specially crafted medicine to help with insomnia, SleepCo seems to be ready to put the whole world to bed. After setting up your SAM beside your bed, taking your medicine and getting into your pyjamas, SAM wakes up to help guide you into sleep. But tonight something is different. You don’t feel as tired as you usually do after taking your medicine. You hear noises all around you. SAM says to ignore it, but should you? Maybe a good night’s rest will sort all of this and you won’t have to worry about it in the morning. If you make it to the morning that is.
Manifestations of your worst nightmares, creatures of pure horror trap you in your small bedroom, there is no escape, even closing your eyes you see the hands of the beast coming for you. What will you do? Will you ever get to sleep? Maybe it’s just all in your head and you should just ignore it like SAM keeps telling you to.
The Gameplay
Insomnious is a survival horror game inspired by Five Nights at Freddy’s, however with the added feature of being able to move around the room and get close and personal with the monsters to push them away.
You are trapped in your room for the night, run around the room and hold back the night terrors while trying to get enough rest to fall asleep. These night terrors could come from everywhere, the window, the closest, the painting and even your bedroom door. But just confronting your fears by getting close enough to push them back will keep you safe for the night.
Each night the monsters get more and more aggressive, on top of this the amount of time you have to sleep for increases each night. You have to manage defending yourself against the monsters of the night and getting sleep by making yourself vulnerable and resting in your bed.
The main story mode will take you through 3 nights of progressively more and more difficult scenarios as you listen to your SAM try to get you to sleep.
The challenge mode introduces a collection of 3 unique challenges to try to beat, it’s similar to story mode just without any additional lore.
Finally the custom mode allows you to set your own challenges to try to survive. In custom mode you have the ability to change each monster’s difficulty (or even disable each monster), change the amount of time you need to sleep before surviving the night and even change the amount time it takes for the nightmare to kill you.
Read More: Best Lore-Rich Horror Games.
And All Would Cry Beware!
A neat little FPS Metroidvania romp through an alien and dangerous world of polygons and stark colors. Short but with intriguing lore, And All Would Cry Beware evokes the spirit of going beyond the veil that marks games like The Dig, Axiom Verge, and Remnant: From the Ashes.
The player takes the role of an unknown survivor of a ruined future Los Angeles, who ducks into a building in the hopes of evading a “kill gang” only to find that the building belonged to scientists who found a means to travel beyond Earth via portal. Finding a pistol and the means to activate the portal, there seems to be no way to go but through. On the other side is a world we know only as “Xanadu”, and the scattered log entries left behind by a previous expedition make more then a few references to the poem by that name.
– Real player with 2.4 hrs in game
Cute for what it is, but 10 USD is a rip for around 2 hours of content, much of which I spent trying to glitch myself up walls and sequence break. This is about the quality you might expect from a good, free itch.io game or the like. Some neat ideas, but not long enough or polished enough to really be anything great. Particularly the game suffers from sections being hard to navigate due to the limited textures used. In the caves and forest areas, the floors and ceilings look almost identical, and it makes navigation a pain. Once I found better ways to navigate and just jump over all the entire map, it felt much better. Other major note is that the volume has a tendency of resetting to full when you load back in to a save file, and the controls option menu looks like it was just a base default of whatever engine this is on, really throws me out of the moment. On the positive side, the enemies and bosses were all very creative and had good, simple patterns that made fighting them feel fair and enjoyable. The music was catchy but nothing memorable.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Campfire Tales
*Note that this is a review for version 1.0.2
Playing status: 3x playthroughs, bad endings
Intro
Campfire Tales is a GB Studio game about three people that tell their stories on a camping trip. Three stories will be told by each person to make your camping trip worthwhile.
Pros:
- Different endings on each story
Cons:
-
Clues for getting a good ending are too hard to find
-
Game over by choosing certain options in dialogues
-
Your save will be wiped right before you finished the game
– Real player with 2.4 hrs in game
Dreams Of The Elements
Met the dev at a convention, purchased the game before returning home to play it. So far I am having a blast, but I will make another review or update this one after finishing it :)
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game
Siege of Avalon: Anthology
Really fun CRPG, as others have stated. Setting/Atmosphere is pretty on-point for representing a desperate band of defenders in an elongated siege, which only appears to be going further downhill. There are a lot of characters to speak with, most providing backstory or supplementary lore, with a few providing quests/offering to join your party after a certain point
IMO, you really have a good feel on your characters growth. Starting out as a complete amateur you have to take on what is essentially a suicide mission, which would have ended quickly had I not acquired the heal spell & prepared in advance, that sees your character fairly rapidly gain in proficiency in order to survive the coming perils. The AI companions have quirks (looking at you mage NPC that ran into a corner :P) but they do generally provide valuable assistance in engagements which would otherwise be extremely complicated, if not impossible
– Real player with 136.6 hrs in game
Imagine my emotion when i found this jewel in the Steam Store. Let me tell you it was a wonderful surprise. Even if the game has some issues about the combat pathfinding, let me remember to you all that this game has been released in the early 2000’s. I recomend this game to everyone who loves long epic adventures with a lot of interesting characters, and days and hours of fun. This game can be played with three different styles to choose, either you can be a warrior mastering the combat skills, or a scout and specialize in stealth and archer skills or a magician dominating all kind of spells. You will also find companions along the story that you can also equip and provide with items and armor and weapons and all sort of gadgets, they will be valuable partners in your adventure. Im very happy that i found this game again 20 years later after trying it’s demo version in the early 2000’s. I was starting to loose hope about finding it again. But now that i found it here, remastered and reforged i just cant’t stop playing it. it’s very similar to Diablo II, but let me tell you, this game is a masterpiece of is time, More dialogues, more stories, the characters and merchants you will find in this game are so numerous and complex, with stories to tell, gossips, and stuff. It’s very rich in every aspect. Please allow yourselves to play this game. It’s a rare wander.
– Real player with 61.3 hrs in game
Red Laser Z
An incredibly fun game, almost in its own genre.
Red Laser Z stars a bounty hunter of sorts, Janine Potts. Across 10 levels you’ll be introduced to what I can only call, a ‘precision retro shooter’. The feeling of all the models and gunplay is not dissimilar to that of say, Rise of the Triad. But that’s wrong, because every shot you make is a one hit kill for the enemy, if you hit the right target. Focusing on one aspect of shooting that’s not always covered, aiming, you’ll have to peak corners, hit weak spots, and most importantly: don’t hit the wrong targets. That’s right, if you hit certain objects or NPCs enough, game over, restart stage. It’s an incredibly addicting combo, and the creator (who’s just one guy) knows it. Tracking each shot, taking score, it’s possible not to miss a single shot in a level. I never could do it, but there’s a definite score-chasing arcady side to the game. There’s also traps and secrets you can find to increase said score, and they’re pretty hard to find. Good luck to anyone that tries.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
Pretty fun, easy to pick up and play. Only gripe i have with it is how easy it is to accidentally destroy something, gotta be accurate.
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
Scrabdackle
Scrabdackle is a hand-drawn action/adventure game about going exploring, with non-linear progression and a unique mix of skill-based challenge and accessible gameplay. It features a vast, intricate overworld, tight and responsive combat, cheeky banter, and pages of lore to discover – all under a coat of playful charm.
You’ll discover secrets, meet the land’s curious inhabitants, master new spells, study magical creatures, and overcome challenging bosses.
Inspired by classics like Link’s Awakening, An Untitled Story, and Hollow Knight, Scrabdackle is a project designed, animated, programmed, and scored by one developer wanting to make a world worth getting lost in.
-
Expansive, non-linear world allows for high replayability. The map can be navigated in any order on any playthrough. Try a different route every time!
-
Secret characters, areas, storylines and oddities hidden where you least expect them. The more you explore, the more you’ll be rewarded with unexpected and delightful encounters.
-
Tough-but-fair bosses with tight, challenging combat. With some practice, you can walk away from any fight unscathed. Or, toggle assist settings to define your own challenge.
-
Unique storybook visual style made with hand-drawn line art and a pixelated brush.
-
Optional dialogue that doesn’t take control away from the player. Just walk away mid-conversation, and characters will wave you off.
-
Fill out your official wizardly notebook by scrying new creatures and documenting your findings! Review your field logs any time to see the world in closer detail!
-
Charming original soundtrack with new tracks for every corner of the world.
-
Tons of spells and relics to master. Swap magic powers on the fly to face any type of challenge any way you want!
Legends of Crystal
“Long, long ago, life can be balanced because of the Crystal, a core of the universe, which holds massive power. This leads the Demons to fight over the Crystal for the sake to be the strongest in the whole world. The war made the Crystal shattered and flung to all over the ages and timeline. It caused the universe to be in chaos. By chance, the fate of the world has been placed in the hands of a young man. Join an exciting journey through the storied lands across the timeline dimension. Discover a living, breathing world rich with lore and history, for assigned the Nusantara Legendary figure with summoning a creature from the power of crystal and to help defeat the demons who desire to rule the world in the future."
Legends of Crystal combines the best parts of Japanese-style roleplaying games with the best parts of western RPGs, as well as including elements of visual novels and adventure games to create a truly unique experience. Atmosphere, emotion, and surprise lie at the forefront of Nusantara’s story, driven by deep and accessible characters, each with his or her own past, their own desires and their own motivations. Relive the golden age of the RPG with a game that both pays homage to the past greats, as well as blazing its own trail.
The game progresses through missions where the player gathers their characters around different timeline dimensions on maps to defeat opponents, collect the parts of the Crystal, rescue civilians, and complete many other interesting objectives. While fighting, characters can gain experience and level up, allowing the player to build their units over time and grant them interesting abilities with various characters include diverse role-playing classes.
Combat in Legends of Crystal is done in classic turn-based style, allowing you to read the flow of combat and think a few steps ahead. unique mechanics with brings a target skill to the summoner. If used during combat, the Summon acts on behalf of the summoner. The target becomes an ally, may become a target and may be damaged and/or killed. Strategy is crucial as carelessness is heavily punished even against the most common of enemies. Boss fights take this to another level, pushing your tactics, team composition, and character customization to the limit, each fight demanding deeper mastery of the battlefield than the last. Harder difficulty levels are also available, turning boss encounters into intricate deadly puzzles for you to solve.
-
Immersive Realm: A world with a classic storyline that will play with advanced interactions, visual effects, and a variety of dungeons.
-
Awaken The Summoning Power: Collect Summon creature from the power of crystal and awaken summoning skills with defeated boss and the hidden boss monster inside the adventure.
-
Classic Old School Adventure: Your quest will be packed with adventures, puzzles, and secrets to discover.
-
Discover Combination Skills in Combat: Recruit Characters from adventure to discover powerful combination abilities, each with their own effects.
-
Strategic Planning: Configure your characters’ skills into a combo with some state effects that reaches their maximum potential inside the battles.
-
Classic Turn-Based Gameplay: Classically inspired turn-based combat with random enemy encounters, made amusing
-
All Playable Characters Follow the Typical “Job Class” Style: Customize heroes with unique stances and techniques