Saṃsāra

Saṃsāra

Overview

SAMSARA® is a next-gen action-adventure RPG that fuses elements of Buddhism with souls-like gameplay — challenging players to meditate on their philosophy, life and death to help them find meaning through discourse, conflict and exploration.

Description:

Saṃsāra is a souls-like that challenges players to meditate on overcoming loss, failure and death through a core mechanic of reincarnation as 9 different avatars. The game is a 3D, third-person, action role-playing game (RPG) in the vein of the ‘Soulsborne’ (FromSoftware, 2009-2019) genre/series, taking cues from the older, shorter but still epic action-adventure game, Shadow of the Colossus (Team Ico, 2006-2018).

In Buddhism, Saṃsāra is the cycle of death and rebirth to which all life is bound. The players goal is to find a way to escape this cyclic existence, to escape Samsara. They will achieve this through discourse, conflict and exploration within the beautiful, deadly and dynamic Desire Realm (Kāmadhātu).

Gameplay Pillars

Core gameplay pillars include:

  • Conflict - physical, ranged and magical combat encounters with NPC’s who become enemies depending on which avatar form the player assumes.

  • Discourse - impactful, choice-based narratives delivered by cryptic, resolute and wandering NPC’s who are partially based on historical characters and represent Buddhist, Stoic and Daoist worldviews.

  • Exploration - uncovering ancient secrets and witnessing spectacular vistas, the player will traverse the Desire Realm: from the isolated circular edge of the Cakravāḍa mountains that encompass the world; across the Four Great Continents of scorching sand, glistening ice, dense tropics and serene lakes, to their penultimate destination; ascending the sacred five-peaked heights of Mt. Meru to reach the Gods domain, or descending beneath to the fiery, dark, gold-laden root of the world where demons reign.


Read More: Best Souls-like Mythology Games.


Saṃsāra on Steam

Story

Story

Really interesting project, even if you just walk for the most of the time, the number of endings is quite impressing, but i can’t find out how i should get this many endings. It’s kinda weird the interaction with the objects, you can just watch them so it’s hard to tell if something changes when you “use” them. I’m waiting the update that should be released in these days.

Real player with 0.8 hrs in game


Read More: Best Souls-like RPG Games.


Good visuals if you remove the gray filters that make it hard to make out objects, more obstacles in the infinitely long pathways and also the controls are very bad also cinematic mode is weird also the skeleton looks funny running and also the enemies die in 1 hit and also the skeleton bowl doesnt accept my ball so i have to rule the tomb until judgement day

Real player with 0.5 hrs in game

Story on Steam

Undead Pixel Monks Adventure

Undead Pixel Monks Adventure

Fight dangerous and terrifying enemies, explore a dreamlike world, interact with its strange inhabitants, and uncover the truth. Undead Pixel Monks Adventure is a 2D action-adventure game set in a fantasy world inspired by Japanese mythology and philosophy.

Welcome to Mushin Monastery. Deeply respectable monks once lived here. I expected they would enter Nirvana after their physical deaths, but it does not look like they found peace.

Their bodies still roam this place today. What’s worse, something is stirring in the caves under the mountain. I fear that even the ancient mummified monks have started moving.

These creatures are mostly driven by instinct. But in the case of these monks, they had so much self-discipline in life that their old daily habits are still ingrained now. I believe that’s why they still light the lanterns at night and sit in the meditation posture.

Don’t underestimate them. They’re skilled fighters.


Read More: Best Souls-like Action-Adventure Games.


Undead Pixel Monks Adventure on Steam

Quant

Quant

“The biggest obstacle to understanding Quantum Mechanics, is that we have no intuition of it in our everyday life” - says every Physics teacher. Let’s change that!

Quant is a colorful adventure game, that will teach you Quantum Physics!

Follow Atom, in the quest for independence. Guided by Professor Svobodan Randov, he will uncover his Quantum powers, and free himself from the oppressing world!

Features:

  • Learn real-world Quantum effects, and use them to progress in your adventure.

  • Be the subject of famous Quantum experiments!

  • Solve puzzles that will give you an intuition of Quantum Mechanics.

  • Escape from oppressing molecules, win your liberty.

  • A profound narrative, philosophically engaging.

  • Endearing characters.

  • Fun mini-games!

  • Appeasing atmosphere.

Leap into this fantastic journey!

  • A geek Physicist
Quant on Steam

ReCurse: Eternal

ReCurse: Eternal

ReCurse: Eternal is a virtual reality sword-fighting single-player game that is combat-focused featuring only boss-level characters which will be fought one at a time as the player progresses from one stage to another. IT IS NOT AN OPEN WORLD RPG. The game’s progression will work like traditional fighting games such as tower mode or arcade modes where you fight each enemy in a ladder-style progression. The actual combat is inspired by souls-like games that encourage strategic gameplay by punishing rushed and spammy movement and rewarding rhythmic dodging, blocking, parrying, attack patterns.

ReCurse: Eternal on Steam

Inanis

Inanis

Inanis is a story-rich fusion of bullet hell, boss battles, and deck-building! Will you be the pilgrim to successfully reach and slay the king?

Follow us at Kickstarter! Campaign launching October 5th: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inanis/inanis-0

**Over 15 Bosses.

3 traversable world maps, full of secrets

A cast of Unique characters to interact with and learn the games story from

Over 100 cards, 15 spirits, and endless combinations

A full deck building system, so you can prepare your arsenal for each fight

Replay-ability and scaling difficulty, with each boss available to play on a greater difficulty after it’s beaten**

Inanis on Steam

Godkiller

Godkiller

A heartwarming tale of the will of mankind, and its ability to persevere through any adversity. The game is fun, silly, and an enjoyable 3 or so hour experience. Take it at face value as a satirical, goofy game and not one meant to be taken immensely seriously.

Also, dash in the air to go much faster. It doesn’t always work, but most of the time it does.

Real player with 3.7 hrs in game

Godkiller on Steam

Let It Go - How to realize your dreams

Let It Go - How to realize your dreams

Español:

El juego es corto pero vale la pena jugarlo, al comienzo es frustrante no entender que es lo que hay que hacer, pero con un poco de cabeza y ciertos acertijos entiendes que tienes que hacer y como conseguirlo. Ademas hay que realizarlo en un tiempo muy limitado, El Impotente Meow-Meow te da unicamente 21 segundos pero este lo puedes extender para que te facilite el uso de tiempo.

Pros

  • Tiene un mensaje lindo de perseverancia

  • Gatos!

  • Atmosférico!

  • Puzzles desafiantes

Contras

  • Mi única queja es que el juego me forzó a usar el teclado y el ratón. Correcto! tiene compatibilidad total con el mando pero tiene una sensibilidad muy baja en el joystick al mover la cámara POV y no puede ser configurada en las opciones, intente probar diversas configuraciones desde Steam, pero la sensibilidad persistía muy baja.

Real player with 4.1 hrs in game

Took me a good while to figure out how to do everything, but it was worth it in the end. The dream I ended up realising was amazing (which was “COOKIES”, if you must know)! That speedrun mode is nerve-racking though, goddang, lol.

Really good game overall though, most unique thing I’ve seen in a hot minute! The concept kinda reminds me of Half Minute Hero (which I wasn’t a massive fan of), except everything is 3D and there’s no battles.

Can’t say I’m a massive fan of your progress fully resetting everytime you quit and come back though. New game and load game options would be nice.

Real player with 2.1 hrs in game

Let It Go - How to realize your dreams on Steam

SOULS

SOULS

A good story that can make player’s sticked into it, and keep playing to the end.

Player would probably get complex emotions througout the whole story, from depress, anxious, anger, to relief.

The writer of the story put a lot of afford in descripting character’s psychological thought, which made the character nice.

The BGM of the game is AMAZING, suiting the story very well.

The Graphics of the game isn’t that appealing, but acceptable. Some of the background CGs do actually scared me with the combination of story and BGM all together.

Real player with 19.8 hrs in game

I had just posted a review on this just a bit ago, but after some thought, I think this should only be recommended to people familiar with visual novels and have the patience to overlook the countless grammatical errors and subpar translation.

I did finish the game. In one session even. I engrossed myself in the story enough to overlook the errors. The plot had some good twists and the game kept me guessing til the end. However, there also tend to be some pretty big plot holes/unanswered questions

! like why it seemed like after the father was absorbed, it went straight to an elementary school instead of, for example, his previous place of work? And if it was because of the stench of negative emotion, why was everyone there so miserable?

Real player with 8.9 hrs in game

SOULS on Steam

Soul Recursion

Soul Recursion

The universe is being infected by a digital virus that has the capacity to steal the soles of the sleeping. Dawn, a seemingly regular girl from the 2030s stumbles upon a strange Network while investigating a corporation responsible for the death of her father. After connecting to this network through geometric encryptions, she is summoned to the Parergon, the world in-between world’s. Upon entering this realm Dawn has become a threat to the universal status quo. The Order of Medea seeks to put a stop to this act of rebellion and hires a galactic hunter to end the potential for universal shift. Dawn becomes aware of her fragmented destiny and finds clues throughout her journey that imply her pivotal role in a cosmic prophecy.

  • On your adventure, you will explore five symbolic worlds while engaging in swordplay combat with enemies distributed by the Order’s huntsman.

  • Search for artifacts that fill your inventory. These items provide new magical skills and stronger combat combos, while giving insight into the story.

  • Meet mysterious guides that assisted in your soul’s journey.

  • Come face to face with the Huntsman and declare your opposition and strength to the Order in this third person action adventure game.

Soul Recursion on Steam