Nuclear Monster

  • A few times a year I spend anywhere from 5 to 15 hours digging through some Linux garbage. Deep Sixed is a spaceship management roguelike game in space about managing a spaceship the way we see in movies.

    Tom Chick:

    Deep Sixed also loves that moment in Dark Star. Maybe not specifically that moment, but that kind of moment. Actors pretending to interact with complex avionics. It loves the idea of having to toggle switches before getting to some unwieldy dual arm-twisting dials or levers. Sometimes you have to remember to bring the screwdriver because the retro-booster valve is underneath a panel. Sometimes you have to whack a recalcitrant door with a wrench to get it to shut. Sometimes you have to put duct tape over a leaking coolant pipe. Sometimes transistor boards burn out for no discernable reason. Oh, the inanity of inanimate objects! Sometimes in Deep Sixed, you even have to reinstall drivers, which often requires uninstalling other drivers first.

    Maybe Deep Sixed could replace about 5-15 hours of free time for me. It’s $13 on Steam for Windows, macOS, and Linux if you’ve got about 5-15 hours to get your shit together.

  • Ignore curator

    One thing I find particularly frustrating in Steam is being inundated with curator recommendations from Gamer Gate supporters like Total Biscuit, well the good news is that you can ignore them now. Of course, Valve has made this incredibly frustratingly only accessible from one page, and only when some algorithm decides to recommend that you follow that curator. That’s also the only place to undo ignoring that curator, despite each one having individual curation pages.

    Andy Chalk:

    Ignoring a curator will ensure that Steam will no longer recommend that curator on your home page. You can take that one step further by ignoring all the top curators recommended by Steam, which will cause Steam to stop recommending any curators at all. It’s a fairly small change, but potentially handy for dedicated Steam users who don’t especially care what other people think. A Valve rep described it as “part of our ongoing efforts to refine the services and features of Steam.” 

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcAwzusZUrQ

    The husk of 3D Realms has published a new BUILD-engine game, Ion Maiden, developed by Voidpoint. In Steam’s Early Access program, It has the atrocious Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison character from 3D Realms’ twin-stick shooter, Bombshell. I completely forgot about that game before it was even released.

    Rock Paper Shotgun’s John Walker has impressions of what you get with the early access version of Ion Maiden:

    It’s a game about screaming around at outrageous speeds, hammering the Use button on any object or wall that looks out of place just in case, and of course spreading enemy gibs about the walls and floor. It feels so fluid, so natural, and such a blessed respite from the bum-following misery-trudge that is so much of modern first-person shooting. It’s ludicrous in every way, enemies aiming with ridiculous skill, and you tasked to work out how to deal with that.

    Ion Maiden’s Early Access preview campaign is $20 on Steam for Windows and Linux. As good as it is, I’d be unlikely to get it without seeing the finished game, which is scheduled for late this year.

  • Dean Dodrill’s Never Stop Sneakin’ has finally hit Steam after being released on the Nintendo Switch late last year. It still looks like a brilliant, but perhaps too repetitive, satirical reduction of Metal Gear Solid minus all the complex controls. I’m so glad that this is a thing in the world.

    Never Stop Sneakin’ is typically $15, but it is on sale for $10 on Steam for Windows and macOS until March 5th.

  • Subset Games’ FTL was a huge hit for anyone looking to get into the realm of managing spaceships in difficult times. Their follow-up, Into the Breach, looks a bit closer to Final Fantasy Tactics or Advance Wars, which are all the good kinds of wars.

    Alex Wiltshire liked it a lot:

    If you’ve played FTL, you’ll remember the very particular kind of clammy-palmed panic it’d conjure as you’d face another seemingly no-win situation. Into the Breach will bring that feeling right back, and it’s wonderful.

    As a bonus until the 6th of March, Subset is offering a copy of FTL if you buy Into the Breach through gog or Humble instead of directly on Steam. It’s $15. Subset has also planned that the game will hit other platforms, but right now it’s only on Windows.