This weekend, I took advantage of LudoNarraCon 2021, the trade show organized on Steam showcasing narrative games, to test around twenty of the demos made available for free, and I wanted to share my impressions with you, in the form of a top 3 of my favorites, followed by a little pitch on the others, and my feelings. For each, I evaluated in particular: the sound and visual atmosphere, the story, the form of the demo (if it is coherent, and without major major bugs) and the originality.
Check these top 3
Beacon Pines
In a fantasy world where the characters are all animals, the atmosphere is the strong point of this game which is presented as a book. A very assumed artistic direction, where the scenes go from pages with a 2D illustration, to a 3D world. And I was amazed by the concept of "charms". These are quite simply words which are recovered as the story progresses and which are used at a key moment to influence the action. As the narrator explains, all you have to do is change a word in a text for the full meaning to be different. These moments are revisited at will, the opportunity to test new words to see the story completely deviate.
In addition to being magnificent, a perfect playability, for this demo of Beacon Pines far too short, without a release date yet.
Brine
At the end of the 90s, the heroine is a young woman who returns to her small hometown for a few weeks to replace her father, the local postman. Every day, she gets into the white van to bring the mail and packages to the inhabitants, the opportunity to reconnect with old acquaintances, but also to make new friends. Alternating zen phases during which you just have to drive in the very quiet locality, built around a magnificent lake, and other phases of intense conversations. Some game systems still need to be perfected (I had to restart the game to talk to an NPC and I witnessed a few terrible car accidents), but I salute the originality of the game which grabbed me for the 3 demo days.
Scheduled for this summer, Lake in its final version will take place over two weeks. To be continued !
Spiritfarer
I hesitated for a long time to put this game in the top 3 because it has already been released since August and the quality necessarily suffers, compared to the other demos, which aim to present future games. Here, the heroine is a young soul ferryman who travels through a mystical sea. His huge boat, occupied by atypical characters, is full of activities, such as fishing, cooking, gardening... Something to occupy the time of the trip to guide the spirits towards the beyond.
Very dynamic, with a story that unfolds without imposing itself, the 7 extremely positive ratings on Steam are well deserved, it's a real crush, for a game for which I will ask for a key without delay, to find out in its entirety.
The outsider
Do Not Buy This Game
I don't know where to classify this demo... so I created a category for this game because I can't decently place it in the top 3 due to its super simplistic graphics... But there is some ingenuity in the bias that I cannot deny. The demo is a self-contained mini-game. The player finds himself in a room with a red button at the bottom and, of course, like everyone else, I want to press it! But the narrator tries to do everything to dissuade us with, in the key, mini-games and an interesting monologue from the voiceover.
Do Not Buy This Game is up for grabs (it'll be out "when everything's 100% ready so you don't buy it"), weird as it is. I admit that I can't wait to see what the final product will be like. And if you have 10 to 15 minutes, I advise you to do the demo to form your own opinion:
Others (in alphabetical order)
Ambition: A Minuet in Power
Towards the end of the XNUMXth century, a young country girl goes to Paris, thanks to a young nobleman with whom she has an affair. But her young lover cannot be found in the tavern where she was to find him, so she decides to look for him, while discovering society life. Giving the impression of being a bad visual novel, the title does not shine with its graphics, a sequence of fixed scenes, with the characters in the foreground. But it hides under this common appearance a certain depth, a series of parties during which the young woman will be able to progress in several factions, but also to collect gossip that she can resell. Clothing management brings an additional parameter, some factions will appreciate an appearance that others will of course hate!
A nice demo, but which ends a little too abruptly, for a promising game which was not far from getting a place in my top. The final version of Ambition: A Minuet in Power is scheduled for this spring:
Button City
The play area comes in the form of rather cute, stacked mini-maps in a very flashy environment. The demo leads to join the arcade room where you have to gather a team to beat the top team in the area. After a few dialogues to convince three other players (including one for example who wants a fruit juice), the game begins, which takes the form of a mini-game where you have to kill enemies and bring back fruit. A somewhat light story, for a game that left me perplexed by its mixture of genres, the demo not having allowed me to understand the purpose.
Button City, categorized as an adventure game, should be released "soon":
Chicory
Another game that could very well have a place in the top 3, but the story is a bit simple compared to the competitors, as far as can be judged in the demo anyway. However, it started well, with a world that suddenly loses all its colors. In black and white, the hero, a dog that looks like Snoopy, finds himself armed with the sacrosanct brush, which has the power to restore color! It is possible to smear the floors and walls, and to paint the large elements in one go (tree, rock, furniture, etc.). Beyond the creative (or catastrophic) aspect of being able to repaint the world, some mechanisms are linked to the presence, or absence, of colors, making it possible to grow or disappear plants that block the way, or to make grow mushrooms that send through the air. Using the environment, the hero advances through top-down 2D levels with enemies and an ugly boss at the end, in the most perfect style of the genre.
The Chicory coloring game is planned for this spring, mainly if you like the top-down genre:
Game director story
We are going here on the simulation more than on the narration, which explains why I did not consider it for the top, despite a demo with well-designed game systems that put you in the shoes of a Game Director in charge of the creation of a game a few weeks before E3. You have to manage the problems of the studio on a daily basis and ensure the demands of the different stakeholders between the team, the publisher, the game, the money and the press. So there isn't really a story as such, but more stories, the daily life of each developer, with their aspirations and fears.
Planned for 2021, interesting if you like the simulation aspect, and a large amount of text without a lot of action does not scare you:
Genesis Black
Another game that I have trouble classifying because the atmosphere is perfect, in a world full of nuances. The shots are linked, with a controlled camera at each moment, between film noir and comics. Music is critically important, arguably the best soundtrack on the list. The character is atypical, all in length, with a very expressive tiny head. But I had trouble seeing where the demo was going, and even understanding what I was doing. I clicked all over the place, things started happening, for an atypical experience but one that leaves you a bit unsatisfied.
It is good to know that the demo is only a truncated preview. Genesis Noir has been out since March 2020, and is rated "Very Positive" on Steam. From the little that I could see, it is clearly worth the detour if the whole is more coherent (as the comments suggest):
Minute of Islands
The young heroine in the yellow parka lives on a strange island, powered by four titans who suddenly break down. The environment is quite gloomy, although very colorful, with lots of organic elements, such as tentacles that serve as pontoons or fluids to power the mechanisms, which gives the impression of being in the bowels of a monster . Outside, it's not much better, with birds with bloodshot eyes puffing up I don't know what. With a platform side that got tired of me pretty quickly, the story is told through the environment, with of course the objective of understanding why the titans fell asleep.
You will be able to accompany the young handywoman of Minute of Islands very soon:
In the Longer Home
The demo begins with a long, slightly depressing discussion between two people sitting on their chairs, before meeting them a few months later, in their apartment. The atmosphere is also melancholy because their studies are over, they can't find a job, and all their roommates are packing up. Despite the graphics that intrigued me, the pace is very slow, too slow, for pure and hard point & click that leads into a semi-biographical story of the two developers.
No Longer Home, a nostalgic game, which would undoubtedly benefit from being tasted as a whole, rather than being wasted in this stretch that is this demo, which did not allow me to vibrate for its heroes.
Out There - Oceans of Time
Another game that I would not place in the narrative, at least for what the demo presents, which takes you aboard a spaceship to explore the galaxy. Each solar system has its resources and its telluric planets where it is possible to land, to explore them. What little narrative is presented is limited to a few discoveries made on the surface. The bulk of the gameplay is closer to survival, between oxygen, fuel, hull condition and crew morale. But also once on the surface to the life points of the crew members, in order to avoid game over!
Space exploration will begin in 2021:
The Invisible Hand
A new simulation, this time of a trader, which puts behind the desk of an equity manager. An omnipresent black humor, and some snippets of history by the intervention of the NPCs, but above all a simulation therefore, which lost me a little by all its figures.
The Invisible Hand will undoubtedly appeal to amateur traders from May 7:
Tunic
Cute action adventure game, but not really narrative. Not to mention that the demo does not support the keyboard (controller only). The hero is a little fox, who sets off to explore the world, with a very classic gameplay, leading to killing monsters to recover small hearts, to finding treasure chests to amass loot, and to kill bosses. Besides, the last boss surprised me so much, that I died... and that I found myself at the beginning without understanding anything!
Tunic isn't really my style of play, really too console oriented, but it's cute!
Unpacking
Without a fuss, now comes the moving-in simulation! The concept is super simple and fun, so much so that I wondered: why has it never been done? Boxes are waiting in a room to be arranged, with all the person's personal items. It begins with a child's bedroom, before becoming a small three-room studio.
And this is what it looks like afterwards:
Planned for 2021, not really narrative, but clearly fun!
Wayward Beach
And finally, Wayward Strand, which takes you to an airship/ship/hospital where the heroine is the daughter of one of the nurses. She plans to take advantage of her coming on board to write a book, and goes to meet the residents to learn their stories. A very promising game where, unlike the others, movement is limited to visible places, which can be visited by clicking on a kind of bubble in the world, which therefore works a bit like a map. But the demo is very short, too short, and doesn't really give you the opportunity to immerse yourself in the rather special world of the title.
Small note for the end screen which gives an overview of the narrative framework on the developer side!
Scheduled for 2022, a game still in draft, and it shows, but to follow because it could become very interesting once finished:
