Seems like only yesterday that we were posting about Crawl’s spiffy new hot-pink-emblazoned Steam Greenlight page, and that’s because it was. In what has to be some kind of record, it’s already emerged from Valve’s crowd-run dungeon with keys to the Steam kingdom in hand. Why, before you know it, Crawl will probably be learning to drive, graduating from college, and serving minimal time for its first white collar crime. They grow up so fast. Other standouts from this week’s 50-strong Greenlight selection include NIKO: Through The Dream and open-world horror-thon Memories of A Fisherman.

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The infernal Greenlight machine rolls on, devastating the environment and breaking hearts without missing a beat. It doesn’t care what gets in its way. It knows only one pursuit: middling-to-popular indie games. Its main fuel source? People. Well, their votes, anyway. And also some arcane fusion of press reviews, crowdfunding successes, sales on other platforms, angel dust, kitten tears, and a signed copy of The Who’s greatest hits album. But hey, I can’t fault the system’s invisible, probably mutant hand for selecting the likes of Galactic Princess, Ultimate General: Gettysburg, Hover: Revolt of Gamer, and Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries. The full 50-strong batch is below.

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BeamNG.drive reads like someone is attempting to talk after a visit to the dentist, though I’ve no idea what they’d be saying or what the context would be. “Brian, Drive!”, maybe? Now that Brian has the wheel, I can pay more attention to what BeamNG.drive actually is: a game about the joy of realistically crumpling cars. It’s been out for a while, though it still remains an alpha with some big plans rather than a fully-formed game. I think the devs need to sell more to realise that dream, so they’re taking to Greenlight in the hopes of grabbing that Steam bump. Trailer is below.
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Valve’s developer-only Steam Dev Days summit has begun, but that doesn’t mean corrupt, malformed press types like us can’t be there in spirit. And by spirit, I mean Twitter, because this is what my life/career has become. So then, what’s going on behind the iron veil of Valve’s Seattle warfortress? Tons of stuff, honestly. But so far, the biggest announcements concern Steam (it gained another 10 million users in three months) and Steam Greenlight’s slow, probably painful death. Also, Steam Machines, because I will not stop writing about Steam Machines every week until the day I die.

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Every day, approximately 43 billion new indie games spring into existence from mysterious ethers far outside the realm of human comprehension. We approach these portals into The Beyond with great apprehension, then we scuttle away with our bounty, arms and hearts full of excitement and terror. We call this process “game development,” and it will probably bring about the end of the world. Until then, though, someone needs to curate these things, so Valve blasts new finds with its organizational death laser, Steam Greenlight. Yep, that’s exactly how it all works and this is not just me filling space because I’ve written far too many Greenlight posts at all. Anyway, standouts: powerful Twine darling Depression Quest, surrealist Thief usurper Tangiers, and sidescrolling epic Treasure Adventure World.

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Whatever Arranger is, and it appears to be many things, it has something in it called a “Turpato Peeler”. That is such a beautiful mangling of the term that I laughed for about a minute. The rest of this strange adventure game seems no less silly and wondrous: it’s set in a world of music and inspired by classic point and clickers, and a game where you fight not with swords or guns, but with the musical instruments that you’ve collected in your adventures. Your goal is to become the best music arranger the world of Musica has ever seen. The trailer below is quite the thing.
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After a potentially disastrous misjudgment last time around, the Greenlight train appears to be largely back on track. And by that, I mean it’s knocked out another 100-strong batch in a single go, some parts of which are even vaguely recognizable. I’m especially glad to see The Stomping Land, Krautscape, Paper Sorcerer, Stasis, Driftmoon, and The Girl and the Robot get Valve’s lambda-shaped stamp of approval. Also, the greatest news of all: War of the Human Tanks finally passed muster. Can War of the Too Human Tanks be far off?

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Maybe Valve should put a yellow light in front of Steam Greenlight, because it needs to slooooooooow down – for just a second or two, anyway. I mean, don’t get me wrong: I’m all for tons of games getting the go-ahead to drown in sweet, sweet Greenlight green, but this week’s batch included – among a few other questionable/forgettable picks – Neal Stephenson’s CLANG. You know, the one whose development has been mostly halted and may not ever reach completion? Admittedly, Stephenson claims it’ll get finished no matter what… somehow, but maybe Valve should’ve held off until it was in a less questionable position? Or given the slot to a more deserving game? With improvements come new complications. Guess it’s true what they say: it’s not easy bein’ green(light).

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Once upon a website, weary, while I pondered weak and sweary,
Over many a dull and tedious release of forgotten bore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some colleague gently rapping. Alt-tabbing to my inbox door,
`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `emailing about The Last Door –
Only this, and nothing more.’

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak June that Adam last wrote about that. The Last Door is an episodic horror adventure game inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and creepy houses. “Creepy House” is now a genre of videogame, by the way. Adam thought it was pretty good, and it’s now three episodes in and up on Steam Greenlight.
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“This is hard. Hard and stupid.” You are correct, Probably Archery. You are both those things, because that is your reason for existing: to be hard and to be stupid. Probs Arch, as I like to call it, is another of that breed of games that gives you an intimate level of control over bits of your body. In this case, you manipulate both arms independently, while swiveling wrists, and adjusting elbows and shoulders. I think it’s a game of archery, but the ambiguity of the title means I’ll have to check out the demo before making a definitive statement.
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