Publisher Reverb announced today that they’re posting five prospective games to the newly launched Steam Greenlight platform- giving gamers the final yay or nay.
Steam’s new initiative Greenlight is all about getting smaller games from lesser known, indie developers onto the market. With that in mind, Reverb has a quintet of games ready for your approval.
Posted to the service right now are Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller, Edge of Space, Exploding Robots,Orc Attack and Wheels of Destruction. I can tell you that Wheels of Destruction is a fun time all around (here’s our review of the PS3 version) and Cognition is looking like a winner too. The other games I’m not all that familiar with- but that’s kind of the point of Greenlight right?
From Phoenix Online Studios, the acclaimed developer behind The Silver Lining, Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller is an engrossing narrative with a truly evocative atmosphere. This chilling point-and-click adventure is a thought-provoking mystery following Erica Reed, a Boston-based FBI agent, haunted by the unsolved case of a serial killer who took her brother’s life. Check out Cognition on Steam Greenlight here.
Having recently been successfully funded on Kickstarter, HandyMan Studios’ Edge of Space is an exploration, crafting, building, terraforming, and survival game; placing players in a dynamic open-world sandbox to build, create, mold, and work to survive in the deepest, darkest, weirdest, and possibly most interesting part of the known universe. As part of the few, proud, and lucky men and women of ArkCo, players must go where no one has wanted to go, or was technically “meant” to go. After an indeterminate time in cryo-sleep, players awake to find themselves in a lonely, Bermuda Triangle-like area in the depths of space. Check out Edge of Space on Steam Greenlight here.
Exploding Robots is a fast-paced strategy game built around a different idea of managing gameplay, and around a different kind of artificial intelligence. Utilizing the latest generation of GolemLabs’ EHE system, the robots and enemy units will learn and adapt to individuals’ play style on the fly. There are no pre-programmed routes or behaviors; units are given objectives, and will dynamically find new ways to meet them. Players will control their units by giving them orders, which they’ll generally follow. However, the units will occasionally break rank, go after shiny things, and might even turn on one another. Check out Exploding Robots on Steam Greenlight here.
Developed by Casual Brothers Games, Orc Attack is a thrilling 3D co-op hack-and-slash adventure that puts players in control of a team of vile, disgusting Orcs as they embark on a mission to crush human invaders. Already a hit with critics, Orc Attack has won the People’s Choice Award at the Develop Conference held in Brighton, England in July 2011, and was runner-up as the most promising indie game for 2012 at the Game Connection, held in Paris, France in December 2011. Check out Orc Attackon Steam Greenlight here.
Wheels of Destruction pits players in an arena of vehicular destruction as they battle against each other online in Capture the Flag and Deathmatch. Five distinct car classes make for cutthroat car combat with a unique futuristic aesthetic – all powered by the Unreal Engine. Developed by Gelid Games, Wheels of Destruction brings gamers together just to tear them apart again in an addictive, easy-to-learn yet hard to master, battle behind the wheel. Check out Wheels of Destruction on Steam Greenlight here.
Good luck with them. According to a Gamasutra article written by Mike Rose, Greenlight is having a rough start with discoverability issues, shovelware, and many ignorant/naive users dismissing independent games. Steam even gave the candidates the option to remove comments on their page. Oh well, I'll look into these when I have some time.
Just a quick look at the Greenlight page and I can tell you're probably right. Still, I hope they do okay- it's a great idea.
I had a look at Greenlight, and I hate to say this, but while it's a brilliant idea, I reckon this thing is going to be useless for developers in the long run. It is being flooded with entries (I guess by default there's no quality control in place), and it's impossible to search through in any efficient way.
Indie developers won't support it if they need to run an expensive marketing campaign just so that people realise it's there for voting on.