Summer is coming to an end, the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting cooler. It’s the perfect time to catch up on some older games before the September rush starts with Star Wars Outlaws‘ Start next week.
It is also a good time to make room for lesser-known publications that deserve more attention but are not always included in the flood of high-quality publications that are now the norm on a monthly basis. One of them is Born of dusta great road trip game about bandmates. Another is Archa pixel-art style tactical RPG that’s easy to miss but unlike anything else on the market.
“This game is a masterpiece,” wrote Reddit user QubitsAndCheezits. “More importantly and impressively, I’ve never played anything like this in ~40 years of gaming.” But even as a group of indie developers stressed the importance of getting out the same three genres that have been hugely successful on Steam, Arch Co-creator Franek shared a brutal discovery.
“‘Make. New. Stuff.’ is fun advice until you have to sell your game without an audience and pay rent,” says the developer. tweeted. “We did something new. Our game was well-received by critics and players, but it sold poorly.” There is no longer a magic formula for selling a good game, if there ever was one, except perhaps Pokemon.
Greg Rice, lead curator of Day of the Devs, recently emphasized this during the Brighton Develop keynote in July“Back then… maybe if you had a really good art style or maybe a really good game mechanic, it was enough,” he said. “Now there are so many games that in most cases you have to be outstanding across the board.” [You need to have] a really beautiful art style that stands out from the crowd and is instantly recognizable. Try to incorporate mechanical gameplay elements that are unique and different, and have a personality behind them that feels like it comes from creativity and passion.”
Surviving the gauntlet of modern Metacritic ratings, Steam visibility, and ignorant online mobs also requires a lot of luck, so maybe take some time this weekend and play something that’s fun, fresh, and different. Here are six games we’re excited to play this weekend that take a different route.
