the illustrious IRIS JAYFeb 25
for this steam nextfest demo review thread, i will be tapping into Apollo's divine gift of prophecy and attempting to scry how people will be talking about these games in eight to ten months, when they are out. i'm partaking deeply of the sacred fumes and i'm attuning myself to the whispers of a phantom chorus
Show threadthe illustrious IRIS JAYFeb 25
FORBIDDEN SOLITAIRE: your classier breed of streamer will enjoy this game, as will aging millennials who played a lot of CD-ROM games growing up (like yours truly). there will be UNHINGED discourse online over whether this counts as "an Inscryption-like". unfortunately, rinky-dink mobile knockoffs of this game that remove the unique graphics and narrative framing device in exchange for More Microtransactions will make approximately $1,000,000,000,000 more than this game https://store.steampowered.com/app/3414580/Forbidden_Solitaire/
Steam：Forbidden Solitaire

Forbidden Solitaire is a card-slashing horror game about unearthing the contents of a cryptic 1995 CD-ROM that should have never existed. From the creators of Ancient Enemy and Home Safety Hotline.

Show threadthe illustrious IRIS JAYFeb 25

ZERO PARADES: FOR DEAD SPIES: ohhh my god. the ratio of people who have An Opinion on this game vs. people who have actually played it will be fucking unreal. by pandering hard to Disco freaks (none of whom trust ZA/UM by this point), all of this game's positive aspects-- its clarified stat system, its more in-depth health mechanics, its intriguing John Le Carre-influenced burnt spy plot-- will not matter in the face of one question: is this Art, or just a Product?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863680/ZERO_PARADES_For_Dead_Spies/

Steam：ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies

優れた才能を持ちながらも苦悩する主人公となって絶望的な任務に挑む、ストーリー重視の諜報RPG。壊れたネットワークのピースを拾い集め、「歴史の終わり」で絡み合う残虐な陰謀を解き明かし、自らの価値を証明せよ。さもなくば…再び、すべてが水の泡となる。

Show threadthe illustrious IRIS JAYFeb 25
unfortunately the only definitive way to really determine this is to play it while critically comparing it to Disco Elysium, other texts ZA/UM's current and former creators have written on the topic of games and of the relationship between creativity and capital, and possibly just theory in general on making entertainment our current hyper-capitalist death spiral. congratulations. you are now officially a paranoid academic leftist with a broken heart. this is Disco's final, fatal gift to you
Show threadPerfect Butterfly AngelFeb 25

@irisjaycomics I think it's gonna be really, really funny when the game made by a bunch of desperate people trying to claim they are THE REAL DISCO ELYSIUM because the shithead finbros in charge of their company stole the ip are doomed to medicority because regardless of if their game was good or not nobody can stop comparing their game to disco Elysium, which is one of the greatest games ever made, period

At least, that's my prediction

Show threadthe illustrious IRIS JAYFeb 25
@junebug this is really the main issue. no game is gonna be As Good As Disco, and the large part of that is because Disco came into being in a world where Disco didn't yet exist. it's the catalyst for an entire zeitgeist, of course it's always going to stand head and shoulders above every other title it spawns. if ZA/UM wanted to avoid this they would've made, idk, a pick-three card battler or something as their next title
Show threadthe illustrious IRIS JAYFeb 25
@junebug we're also going to be in the annoying situation of, like. TECHNICALLY Zero Parades has writing that's better than like at least 90% of other AA games out there. but is it as GOOD as Disco, or is it too pandering? are its references to ideology actual artistic statements, or is this the hand of the market puppeting the studio's corpse? the problem is that it genuinely might be the most thought-provoking game we're gonna get all year, just... not in the way ZA/UM probably wants...
Show threadGoodNewsGreyShoes🔞(on hiatus)

@irisjaycomics @junebug

"Fuck, that game was extremely thought provoking."😳

"That good, eh?"🤔

"What? No, no no no, ha, wow - no."😌

Feb 26 at 8:44pmWeb