Imagine my surprise when I launch Steam and am greeted with Steam’s Next Fest, a demo filled celebration, showcasing games that are currently in development. Rife with developer streams and more games than you can shake a stick at, I thought it would be fun to showcase the 5 games that caught my eye.
Quilts and Cats of Calico
I question the naming choice of the digital implementation of Calico. I suspect any board gamer who knows of the analog game will be looking in the ‘C’ section of their library only to roll their eyes when the search features reminds them that this game will be sorted in the “Q” section. Nevertheless, developer Monser Couch is doing much more than a straight port of the physical board game (which I love, by the way). Quilts and Cats of Calico does feature the analog game you expect, available to play by yourself, with friends, or with others via online play.
The two big features in Quilts and Cats of Calico are the Create your own Cat mode, and the story mode. The demo only offers the first 3 levels of the campaign, which serve as a very basic tutorial for the game. I’m mildly annoyed that they didn’t show off something more interesting in the demo, instead using it as a baby step tutorial to some of the nuance of the game. It’s not a good showcase of what to expect when the full game drops.
I know how to make buttons, I’ve played the game before.
That said, Quilts and Cats of Calico is very colourful, as you might expect. The accompanying music is calm, and while you lay tiles on your quilt, random cats are roaming around. And before you ask, yes, you can pet the cats as they wander by.
Wishlist Quilts and Cats of Calico on Steam
Finely Diced
What caught my eye with Finely Diced was simply dice + food. Look, I’m a simple guy who loves board games and used to be a professional cook, that combo is going to grab my attention. I know designer Yuriosity doesn’t know me, but damn does it feel like this game is made for me!
Finely Diced is a chefcore, die building, order fulfillment, roguelite game. Your dice start off with blank faces, and depending on the food you buy and slot into your grid, will affect the die faces on each cube, and the types of orders that your customers will demand from you.
Each round, a number of customers make an order, which you need to fulfill. You roll your die, apply them to each specific order, then move along in your day. You must fulfill at least one of the orders per round, but you don’t need to fulfill them all. Heck, if you apply dice to an order that doesn’t get fulfilled, those die faces get locked on the order, and you’re available to re-roll the dice.
I hope you wanted 5’s for dinner
Assuming you make a profit in the day, you have the opportunity in between each round to buy new ingredients and slot them in, changing your available orders. As the days go on, the amount of money you need to earn to ‘stay alive’ goes up and up.
I loved the roguelite nature of this game, but I will say the difficulty balance feels really off. The first few days are brutally hard, as you can only afford a handful of ingredients, leaving most of your dice blank. I also didn’t really like the dice rolling physics, it really didn’t feel like the dice were randomized. At least once, I swore I watched a die with a single 6 side fly up into the air, then land directly back down with the 6 side facing up.
I adore the idea of Finely Diced and am so looking forward to how this game will develop with a little more time in the oven. I’ve wish-listed this game and will be keeping my eye on it.
Station to Station
I haven’t talked about it much, but at the start of covid I played 200 hours of a game called Train Valley 2, where you connect various stations via rail track, then push trains from one place to another, delivering and manufacturing goods.
Station to Station is a gorgeous voxel-art game about building rail networks all over dreary little countrysides to bring the blossom of industry and revitalize the land. You place stations next to production and manufacturing centres, then connect them with train and watch the profit roll in
Listen, I’m making Station to Station sound way more capitalist than it sets out to be. I loved playing Station to Station, it was relaxing, it was beautiful, and it was satisfying watching the green wave wash over the mountains and valley when a building’s requirements were finally met. If Station to Station has as many levels as Train Valley 2 does, then I can see where my next 200 hours of free time are going to go!
Wishlist Station to Station on Steam
CrossOver: Roll for Initiative
Alright, this is a ‘don’t judge the book by its cover’ situation. The intro art and graphics look like they’ve come out of some free 3d graphics bundles. The menus are ugly in that “My first game attempt” kind of way. The story is laughably bad, and the concept of “monsters from my computer game are invading the real world” is the kind of fanfiction-esqe material that every 8-year-old writes. I shouldn’t be so harsh, because none of these things really matter. DAMN, I enjoyed the gameplay of CrossOver: Roll for Initiative.
It’s a match 3 game crossed with an action strategy game. Set on a TTRPG character sheet, you have weapons, spells, and items that use various dice. To get dice, you need to match them in the dice tray that’s off to the left. At the same time, waves of enemies are in real time invading your character sheet and attacking your stats. WHAT? You need to flip back and forth from generating the resources you need to fight (gaining dice by matching 3) to selecting your weapon and spells to blast those pixel enemies to oblivion!
I was annoyed by the “random encounter” in between combats, because it felt arbitrary. It gives you a scene, asks you to choose between 3 options, with no way of knowing which way any of those options will shake out in the end. It’s the illusion of choice that rubs me the wrong way.
I would love for the graphics of CrossOver: Roll for Initiative to improve over its development, because this is already a BANGER of a game. I’ve wish listed it, and I am looking forward to its full release.
Wishlist CrossOver: Roll for Initiative on Steam
Sea of Stars
A small anecdote to start this section off, I soft-locked myself in the tutorial menu because I simply couldn’t figure out how to back out of the menu. It’s left alt, by the way.
Personal preference, with WASD being the movement, and space bar being the ‘select’ button, making the left alt the back key feels awkward. I don’t like curling my thumb under my palm to hit that button, and I kept forgetting that was the case for the entire demo.
Control gripes aside, I really enjoyed this demo. The characters seem full of charm and personality, at least from my short time with them in the demo. From a seemingly scrawny man bursting his shirt to reveal magical muscles to a double eye patch wearing pirate, I’d love to get to know more of all these characters.
Did… did Keenathan just flip up both his eye patches?
The tone of Sea of Stars feels light-hearted and goofy, not dark or brooding. The exception to the interesting characters so far are the two lead characters, Valere and Zale. Both appear to be trying to fill the stoic hero role, and without any kind of back-story or motivation for the characters, I’m left not really caring about them or why they’re out and about in the world. Of course, this is a demo, and I don’t have the whole story, or even the real start of the game, this is just a teaser.
I adore the art direction. I’m a sucker for pixel-y art. It’s bright and vibrant, sways in the wind, and there are charming touches and flourishes all over the place. The dynamic lighting looks fantastic and magical, making the magic skills stand out even more. The music in Sea of Stars is utterly top-notch. The serene woodwind music right in the first section start was great and calming. The battle music was reminiscent of MegaMan X, which is a huge complement, because MegaMan X’s soundtrack is absolutely full of bangers.
The battle system is turn based, but active, much like Super Mario RPG or the Mario & Luigi games. If you press the button at the appropriate time during your action, it’ll get a little boost. I’ve always loved that kind of system, and I was happy to play with it again here.
As someone who identifies as a JRPG lover, I’m so excited to play more of Sea of Stars when it releases. It feels like the best parts of the games of my youth, and I can only imagine the shenanigans that are in store for this cast of characters.
Meeple and the Moose 