Demos—post game demos here

[ZedClampet]

Songs of Silence Demo
Planned Release Date: May 23, 2024

Phenomenal artwork in this hybrid, which has elements of 4X, RTS and RPG.
"strategy game set in a fantasy world threatened by the all-devouring Silence. The game features a mix of turn-based kingdom management, auto battler, and hero development, contrasted with intense real-time battles"
Peter has a 9-min video about it.

Conclusion

I gave it 30 minutes and the initial feel is great, despite the RPG and fantasy malarkey which usually dissuade me. Wishlisted for some future sale, I won't be surprised if the presentation alone gives me a few hours of enjoyment before the rot sets in. Text is a bit small, but otherwise UI looks great. Recommended.

Here's the initial map:

Specs
Ran fine on my 2017 PC with i7-7 and GTX 1060.

"RECOMMENDED:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: 64-bit Windows 10
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-7700T CPU @ 2.90GHz or better
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1070
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 5 GB available space"

Contents

Demo has Campaign and Skirmish for SP, with Multi greyed out—so I assume available at release, Co-op not mentioned that I saw.

I tried the Campaign start for a bit of lore and action. I'm Queen after my parents are killed in the sacking of our capital, so I must lead survivors to a nearby ally. Voiceovers are good, small battle on the way, made it to ally's capital—their king is under siege in one of their other cities, so next job is to go and lift that.

Movement is standard 4X-style—click unit(s), r-click destination. I had 6 movement 'points', ie I could move 6 'spaces' in one turn.

Resources

3 resources—gold, material, divine favor.
In capital, can rest and heal troops, recruit new units, and something with buildings—not sure what, I didn't find any agency in that The Cap had some attributes already in place, each giving some benefit to eg defense, healing, storage.

Military

The military setup is interesting. Check this out:

3 sections, with 7 slots in each column. The central Army section has 28 slots—I assume you can recruit 28 units when you have enough gold, I bought Infantry and Archer squads which went in 2 of the 28 slots, joining my 4 surviving units. You choose from the cards at the bottom of the screen.

Interesting bit are the other sections, especially the Reserves. Any troops there are not available for battle, so good place to heal or keep specialist units—I currently have only 3 groups of surviving civvies there, with 1 Health and 2 Cowardice if I recall correctly Also place for wagons, eg supply and loot. The Garrison section is for troops and wagons you want to stay behind when the rest of your forces leave—apparently some troops can get a Garrison perk.

You can drag and drop units between the 3 sections, and between slots, so both force composition and formation is up to you.

Combat

You don't control units, you issue orders and perform royal actions via the battle cards you have—eg 'All cavalry charge' or 'All wounded healed 20%'. The battle goes on in real time, but you can pause to issue your card-based commands and actions. The cards have a short cooldown period—~10 seconds—before you can use them again.

So it looks like combat will be mainly about setting up your force for different kinds of challenges, and having appropriate battle cards in hand. Seems interesting in theory.

I'm not sure about the battle cards short cooldown, doesn't that encourage immediate usage spam so as not to 'waste' their power—eg to ensure you get to use them 3 times in a battle rather than 2?

I played this last year at some point and put it on my wishlist, but I had completely forgotten about it. I'm in my not buying games from Steam phase, so it will be awhile...

 

[ZedClampet]

Of Life and Land on Steam​

Of Life and Land is a charming settlement-building strategy game paired with a rich simulation experience. Every animal and plant tries to find their place in nature while you lead your villagers to their future. Expand to different regions and trade with local factions to gain needed resources.
store.steampowered.com
April 2, Trailer uses free music, if that’s a pet peeve of yours

 

[Brian Boru]

Battlefall State of Conflict Demo
Demo Release s.g - build 16-83-2824 18:38
I didn't notice this is Early Access, which I usually don't bother with. No ETA on release yet, but alpha testing

Very much a C&C-like RTS, which looks clean and polished.

Main menu:

Options Menu
Fairly limited, eg no choices under Video other than a quality level:

Main Battle Screen

I quite like the battle screen, which has 3 zoom levels—below is at farthest 'up' or 'out', from which you could zoom in twice. Right side has compact selection panels under mini map—main one with 4 columns for Buildings, Infantry, Vehicles, and whatever the 4th does—maybe defense structures or super weapons.

Note the little tabs on the left side of the map & panel—dunno what the map ones are for, maybe fast camera locations. Panel ones are for various 'upgrades', seem like superpowers—the one I unlocked increased something [max health?] and healed units within its large circle of effect.

Mouse is not bound to screen, so I popped onto second monitor when trying to scroll left—but I found a gentler push against the left side stayed in the Battle Map. This and Alt-Tab worked fine, I was able to type these notes into my text editor and pop straight back into the game which had stayed full screen on the other monitor.

Control groups like C&C by 'rubber banding' Ctrl-X'—X being a digit 0-9]—and then pressing X to select group.

Definitely worth a Follow on Steam, this feels good to a C&C fan.

 

[Brian Boru]

Masterplan Tycoon
demo_v1.2.111

Not my cuppa, but worth a look for Satisfactory or Factorio fans—it's a Supply Chain builder—who want a less stressful version, no timers or enemies, just chill. Very minimalist presentation which I like—you can easily find stuff in the UI.

Here's the main map:

Blue = water, Green = trees, Grey = stone.

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And here are a few resources linked up:

I stopped at this stage as I was supposed to build a Farm but couldn't find a way to do so—I had already built a few other structures, so it may not be down to my intrinsic blindness.

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If idea of this appeals, there are plenty more—eg Shapez and AutoForge.

 

[ZedClampet]

Masterplan Tycoon
demo_v1.2.111

Not my cuppa, but worth a look for Satisfactory or Factorio fans—it's a Supply Chain builder—who want a less stressful version, no timers or enemies, just chill. Very minimalist presentation which I like—you can easily find stuff in the UI.

Here's the main map:

Blue = water, Green = trees, Grey = stone.

---

And here are a few resources linked up:

I stopped at this stage as I was supposed to build a Farm but couldn't find a way to do so—I had already built a few other structures, so it may not be down to my intrinsic blindness.

---

If idea of this appeals, there are plenty more—eg Shapez and AutoForge.

I'll give it a try. Looks too minimalist for me, though. Looks like you are working an office job. I like to have more of a world and some context and purpose. Like in Shapez I'm thinking, "But why am I building squares?" "So you can cut them into rectangles" isn't enough motivation for me. I guess you could say I need more RPG

 

[ZedClampet]

Masterplan Tycoon
demo_v1.2.111

Not my cuppa, but worth a look for Satisfactory or Factorio fans—it's a Supply Chain builder—who want a less stressful version, no timers or enemies, just chill. Very minimalist presentation which I like—you can easily find stuff in the UI.

Here's the main map:

Blue = water, Green = trees, Grey = stone.

---

And here are a few resources linked up:

I stopped at this stage as I was supposed to build a Farm but couldn't find a way to do so—I had already built a few other structures, so it may not be down to my intrinsic blindness.

---

If idea of this appeals, there are plenty more—eg Shapez and AutoForge.

Actually, that was pretty fun. To build the farm, you had to click on "Tier 1". Everything to that point was "Tier 0". But I eventually got stuck on pillars. It just said to build a pillar, and I didn't find that option anywhere.

Logistics lines get a little odd after awhile, but I had a good time. If I weren't boycotting Steam, I'd probably buy the game, assuming someone on the forums answers my question about how to build a pillar.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'll give it a try. Looks too minimalist for me, though. Looks like you are working an office job. I like to have more of a world and some context and purpose. Like in Shapez I'm thinking, "But why am I building squares?" "So you can cut them into rectangles" isn't enough motivation for me. I guess you could say I need more RPG

I had the exact same problem with Shapez. I find it a lot easier to keep engaged if there's some kind of story or world building you unlock as you go. This holds for board games as well, a good theme makes the entire game much more enjoyable for me than a game that's completely abstract.

 

[Brian Boru]

Islands of Insight Demo

[wouldn't let me capture text, maybe background confusing?]

Blame @Colif for making me possibly interested in this 10,000 puzzles game! Yeah, ten thousand—had me very skeptical too, but devs have a couple of earlier games with high ratings, so…
TLDR: Intriguing, wishlisted, give it a look if puzzles do it for you.

Apparently there's an always-online situation/requirement, altho there's no multiplayer—so comments say, I didn't look into it, but that's silly and suspicious if true.

I see influence of The Witness in the starting puzzles—I only did the first ~10 while messing around for ~30 minutes. I'll be amazed if there isn't a lot of repetition and minor variation in 9,000+ of these, but presentation quality is high, so maybe gameplay is too—what I met had repetition indeed, but also some neat ones, so so far, so good.

Slow to load on i7-7 & GTX 1060-6GB, fullscreen 1080p;
Alt-Tab works;
Minimal character creator, M/F choice;
Beautiful graphics and very colorful;
Toggles for Sprint and Crouch;
Z to Undo.

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Here's the screen you meet after launch:

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Options screen:

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Character Creator:

You can have FPP or TPP.

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Starting to play:

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Hidden Arch discovered:

 

[Colif]

i think you can see other people in game but maybe not party with them.

i think the types of puzzles repeat but they get harder as you go along and some areas aren't reachable without doing other things.