Another day, another cheap indie pack.

[I'm a Puppy!]

bought it. Now, what to play??

[Joe Molotov]

bought it. Now, what to play??

Playing games from a bundle? 

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

bought it. Now, what to play??

I dunno how experimental you want to go, so these are all pretty firmly actual playable games that are fun, with the page they're on to redeem

Super hexagon (page 1) - extremely pure arcade experience high score chaser
Loot Rascals (page 3) - loot 'em up rogue like with some dark souls type online features
Fortune 499 (page 5) - Deck builder old skool JRPG basically. Sort of like the GB pokemon card games.
Beacon (page 8) - pretty much twin sticks roguelite diablo
Minit (page 8) - uhhh imagine a demake of Majoras Mask as Links Awakening
Tonight We Riot (page 24) - It's like... Final Fight mixed with Pikmin and a lets be honest heavy handed political message

[Bebpo]

I really liked One Shot when I played it years ago. It's in a similar vein as Undertale but really short and small. Walking around can get a little tedious at first but it's good.

[Great Rumbler]

Humble has their racial justice bundle up:

https://www.humblebundle.com/fight-for-racial-justice-bundle

[BisMarckie]

Meh. If they were serious about justice, they would have included some Huniepop and Sakura games

[Trent Dole]

That's a lot of stuff, some of which I already have. $30 as a starting point for a pile is high, even if it is a pretty massive pile. I think most if they're gonna throw down that much it's going to be for a specific thing they want not a pile of whatever.

[Bebpo]

Well, I guess my steam sale cart is safe, nothing I was gonna get there is in this. Not sure about this month for my personal tastes. Time to look up these games. I don't know anything about Age of Wonders Planetfall (never heard of it) and already have Void Bastards and Beat Hazard.

I was interested in Yuppie Psycho though, so that's at least 1 game on my wishlist. Never heard of the rest.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

New Humble Monthly is a pretty good haul

• Age Of Wonders: Planetfall
• Void Bastards
• Railway Empire
• Battlestar Galactica Deadlock
• Yuppie Psycho
• Beat Hazard 2
• Sigma Theory
• MetaL Unit
• Don't Escape
• Verlet Swing
• Basingstoke
• Earthlock

Nice spread of genres and nothing that jumps out as a stinker, and Planetfall and Void Bastards are games I was interested in buying anyway

[Bebpo]

Looking up the trailers and steam reviews, Metal Unit and Don't Escape seem cool. Sigma Theory could be interesting (by the dev that did Out There) same with Verlet Swing.

and Earthlock is an indie PS2 jrpg?? That's kinda neat.

Also it turns out I have Beat Hazard 1 and this is the sequel. I vaguely remember enjoying the original.

Not sure what I'll skip this month. Maybe Battlestar Galactica? I've never seen the show so have zero investment and space 4x/rts games don't interest me.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Now I know I can buy all my steam sales stuff I'll make a post in the steam thread with hidden gems at bargain prices if anyone needs to bulk up to a paypoint to get their bonus discount or whatever

Maybe Battlestar Galactica? I've never seen the show

It's really good, even if it doesn't quite stick the landing

[Bebpo]

Also is it just me or is there a train/railroad game every.single.month?
That genre must be more popular than I thought. Or the games are dirt cheap for humblebundle to get in.

With gaming in general I'm pretty open minded and play most genre, but genre I don't really mess with are 4x/strategy/builders/rts because I feel like they require a lot of time commitment to learn them. I think like 1/2 or 2/3rds of humble choice every month are strategy games. But at least there's always a couple action/puzzle/adventure games for me.

[Great Rumbler]

Verlet Swing

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Also is it just me or is there a train/railroad game every.single.month?
That genre must be more popular than I thought. Or the games are dirt cheap for humblebundle to get in.

if you're asking if trains are a thing some people are super into, the answer is yeah, trains are a thing that some people are super into

[BisMarckie]

There are over 100 million German speakers in the wolrd, you can’t ignore that market by not including train games. 

[benjipwns]

June people got Boundless added.

I skipped Battlestar Galactica on purpose and then Basingstroke lost back-to-back RNG's for the last spots.

[Bebpo]

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/jdrf-adventure

I think it was Stoney that was recently talking up the Batman Telltale games. This has both seasons + walking dead seasons + Heaven's Vault.

Note that all the telltale seasons are $3.74 each on the steam sale. So if you only want batman seasons, it's cheaper to buy there. I've had Heaven's Vault on my steam wishlist since launch as I've heard great things and it's still $15 so for me the bundle is worth it since I don't have either Batman season or Walking Dead after S1, but ymmv.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Given Telltales shaky financials, do you think this might be a 'licences about to expire' fire sale?

[Bebpo]

Given Telltales shaky financials, do you think this might be a 'licences about to expire' fire sale?

I thought they went out of business and then someone came in and bought all their stuff and now it's under some stable company.

[Bebpo]

Also Vikings if you subbed last month, and free indie games are Booth and Zodiac XX


Didn't care for Vampyr when played it on Game Pass, and Hello Neighbor isn't my kind of game, will have to look the smaller titles. Wasn't Cthulhu not good?

[Akala]

ign said it is perhaps one of the finest cosmic horror experiences in modern gaming.

i may actually pause on this month, i am getting too much BS. 

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I guess I was thinking of the other Lovecraft game that came out at the same time The Sinking City. Reviews for this one seem ok.

Looking at user reviews American Fugitive & Genesis Alpha One look kind of crappy inclusions. This is definitely the weakest month since they launched choice for my tastes, though if I hadn't played Vampyr on Game Pass it'd be more exciting. I heard Wargroove is both a good Fire Emblem and a crappy Fire Emblem so idk.

I'll probably still grab it for Cthulhu, Coma 2, A Case of Distrust and Booth.

The 2nd free game Zodiac XX...I can't find any information on it on the internet at all lol

[Bebpo]

Wait, they're giving you all 12 games instead of 10 this month if you're on the classic/10 game plan.

Sure I'll take that. 12 + Vikings + 2 indie = 15 games for $12. Can't hate on that no matter what the games are.

[Akala]

yeah I think that's why I give them so much latitude. it's a great deal and worth it even if you only ever try like half of them. I just need to buy less BS I am never going to miss, my steam library is getting obscene. 

[Bebpo]

When I'm between long games, sometimes I'll just play like 20 mins of a couple games a night to try them out. Popcorn entertainment and sometimes I find cool stuff that I stick with. A lot of these bundles are just picking up stuff for that.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Wait, they're giving you all 12 games instead of 10 this month if you're on the classic/10 game plan.

Sure I'll take that. 12 + Vikings + 2 indie = 15 games for $12. Can't hate on that no matter what the games are.

That and the "mystery freebies" both suggest they're aware they're suffering a lack of quality in the majority of their entries recently - is Gamepass actively competing with them by accident just because most devs would rather get a console + PC userbase than a PC alone?

Wargroove was really disappointing to me, because the campaign leans too far into gimmick maps where you're just numerically overpowered and outgunned from the get go to provide challenge and making you use cheese tactics to win rather than just let you play the game as is, although it does have an 'arcade mode' which is just VS AI gameplay.

I really miss Advance Wars 

[pilonv1]

Wargroove was really disappointing to me, because the campaign leans too far into gimmick maps where you're just numerically overpowered and outgunned from the get go to provide challenge and making you use cheese tactics to win rather than just let you play the game as is, although it does have an 'arcade mode' which is just VS AI gameplay.

Glad I never bought this then, I hated those maps in AW.

I really miss Advance Wars 

[thisismyusername]

Given Telltales shaky financials, do you think this might be a 'licences about to expire' fire sale?

Walking Dead is Skybound's IP now (for obvious reasons)
AFAIK, Skybound (or another company) bought Telltale and their "IP"'s are safe and being resold again.

Oh oops, old post by a month.

Anyway, Humble: The only "decent" thing there on that list is apparently Wargroove. Automata is in a genre that has a bunch of other similar titles (Factorio, whatever that Epig exclusive one clone of that was). Vampire is ReadyAtDawn IIRC so pretty much The Order 1888 or whatever just on PC now. Everything else is "LiteralWho.jpg"

Wait, they're giving you all 12 games instead of 10 this month if you're on the classic/10 game plan.

Sure I'll take that. 12 + Vikings + 2 indie = 15 games for $12. Can't hate on that no matter what the games are.

That and the "mystery freebies" both suggest they're aware they're suffering a lack of quality in the majority of their entries recently - is Gamepass actively competing with them by accident just because most devs would rather get a console + PC userbase than a PC alone?

Recently? Humble's monthly bundles bar like 2-3 have flat out sucked since the start.

Pre-"Fix"ing:
Post-"Fix"ing: Shit bundle but at least you know what you're getting with maybe 1-2 titles you REALLY want and a bunch of fodder that you can't even sell because it's against the rules.

Humble's Book Bundles (that focus on tech/electronics) are about the ONLY good thing Humble does post-Mystery Box/Monthly.

[Freyj]

It’s a nice extra 20% off steam key store as long as I can remember to hit pause a day before it autobills

[Bebpo]

Eh, there's usually been a couple good games each month. The bundles aren't amazing but I've found they're worth their value.

[Bebpo]

This month's humble bundle is pretty bad, Yooka-Laylee was free on epic, Forager's & Golf w/friends are on game pass, Catherine is the old version and not Full Body (Though apparently that was never ported to PC, weird).

A lot of the other games in the pack like Generation Zero and Vampire have middling reviews which is odd as the humble choice packs have general stuck to very postive/overwhelmingly positive reviewed games. Evoland is old af and been available for $1 or less everywhere.

Also no free mystery game.

Lethal League Blaze (aka Lethal League 2) is a great pick, and I'm a sucker for FMV games with the shape-shifting detective and apparently Giant Bomb or someone made The Occupation look good.

I got it just because I'm lazy, but yeah not a great month for them.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

yeah, another pause month

[Bebpo]

Fae Tactics is legit really nice looking FFT clone with good reviews $19.99 game that came out 3 months ago. That's a win for me. The Sunless bundle (Sunless Sea & Sunless Sky I presume. I don't have Sky yet and it's $24.99) are legit too.

Will look up the rest of the stuff now but I think this is a good month.

*edit* the 2 DRM-free indie games also actually look good.

[Bebpo]

Ok, looked up the stuff. Tropico is Tropico, Iron Danger looks like another neat tactics game x-com style, Autonauts is more survival/crafting, Shadows is mediocre rpg, Fantasy Blacksmith looks bad, Rachel Foster looks solid Walking Sim, Goat of Duty is lolfps, The Uncertain is mediocre adventure game, Basement looks neat terreria x breaking bad and Lightmatter looks to be a good Portal fps puzzler.

Couple stinkers, but overall good month imo.

[Bebpo]

Also with Fae Tactics, that has to be one of the quickest turnarounds of a new game in a Humble Bundle. It's also published by Humble Bundle. I hope this means that Humble Bundle published games start coming to Choice soon after release. They have some good stuff and if they start pulling a Xbox Game Pass where each Humble Choice bundle features a day 1 new Humble Bundle published indie game for $12 + 11 other games that would be huge.

[Akala]

yeah I wasn't too impressed at a glance, but looking at I think it's better than past few months.

[Freyj]

I’ve heard mixed things about Fae Tactics, mostly UI issues that hopefully get patched, but it’s apparently the FFTA to Fell Seal’s FFT and I’m pretty sure I would prefer a new game in the vein of FFTA than FFT at this point. Mildly interested in Iron Danger and Sunless Skies so I’ll probably do the wait and cancel trick for an $8 month at the very least.

But yeah if you see Humble as the publisher and can wait a month I absolutely would. Almost every one of them ends up on Choice fairly quickly.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

I’ve heard mixed things about Fae Tactics, mostly UI issues that hopefully get patched, but it’s apparently the FFTA to Fell Seal’s FFT and I’m pretty sure I would prefer a new game in the vein of FFTA than FFT at this point.

I honestly cannot sing Fell Seals praises enough if you haven't played it yet; its a really good example of an indie taking an old template, and rejigging it with modern design sensibilities but without ruining what made the original template great in the first place.

[Bebpo]

I tried Fell Seal but I just can't dig it. And I fucking love FFT/TO style tactics games.

There's some ridiculously stupid design decisions that I can't believe after all these years they haven't patched. Like you can't even zoom out to see the whole map at once, wtf is that shit. Plus can't rotate the map iirc.

Like have these people even ever played FFT?

And the art is pretty shit for my tastes. The weird sorta realistic proportions 2d art never seems to work in these types of games. At least Fae Tactics visually looks like nice GBA style spritework. But I haven't tried it yet.


I'll give Fell Seal another shot at some point, but I just don't get how game designers copying a genre can totally miss something as major as visibility. I googled it and there were tons of comments at launch about not being able to zoom back the map and the devs responded they were aware of it...and 2 years later they never did anything about it. 

[Bebpo]

Well Imgur is giving me shit like it does sometimes so I can't post the new humble bundle.

It's two flags ships are Game Pass stuff, so whether you care depends on whether you want to keep them after they're gone from Game Pass in under a year.

-Darksiders III
-Yakuza Kiwami 2

on the smaller stuff, there's some good stuff in there:

-Tsioque has been on my steam wishlist for a while and enough for me to get this
-Little Misfortune is great, sequel to Fran Bow. I already have this and will give my copy away here.
-Smile for Me and Youropa look good
-Townsmen & Darkwood look solid, maybe Crying Suns too
-Imperator Rome & Darksburg look weak
-Rover mechanic builder is well you're into that stuff or not

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

I've had my eye on Crying Suns for a bit, as it looks like a Heroes Of Might and Magic X FTL mashup, which is relevant to my interests.

I do wonder what is going on with their 'tier' plans though; this is like... 4th month in a row where they're just like "fuck it, have the lot if you're an upper level subscriber", when the point of moving to a 'pick and choose' model was supposedly better bang for buck and less 'forced choice' duds.

[Bebpo]

At first was kinda disappointed in this month. Already have Indivisible from the kickstarter, plus reception on it has always been poor, never been interested in Overcooked and I think it's on game pass, and have Frog Detective 1.

But as I went through the list, I think this is the first month there isn't a single poorly reviewed game (outside Indivisible). There's also a ton of rpg/jrpg goodness.

The Zwei games are Falcom retro classics
Frog Detective Series is supposed to be great, short and funny
One Step from Eden & Children of Morta are very well reviewed deck rpg & action rpgs
Shining Resonance well is probably a mediocre jrpg like all modern Shining games, but hey it's a modern jrpg
Still there is kinda neat little story game
Path of Giants has nice art and looks fun
Struggling is one of those co-op physics platformers that's not for me
Tabletop is another tabletop sim, also not for me
The Beast Inside is a positive reviewed survival horror game by the polish devs that make porno games (this one's not porno tho)

Also you get a month of EA Play for free with it. Which if EA Play wasn't just about to come to Game Pass, would be a great deal to play a bunch of EA stuff during the month.

Anyhow, worth $12 for the Zwei games, One Step from Eden, Children of Morta and the Frog Detective 2 for me. I'm ok with this month those it's definitely more low key smaller stuff and very jrpg focused.

[Bebpo]

Also there's 14 games instead of 12 this month (+1 DRM free indie game). But Overcooked 2 has the option of 2 DLCs and each use a choice (so 3 total if you want all of it).

They're definitely trying to cram as much value as they can into these to make up for the lack of big AAA stuff.

[Bebpo]

Ok, done with work. Tried activating the free month of EA Play (since still no official ETA on when in Dec it's coming to Game Pass) and it's not working and just shows a $5 discount so $9.99. Meh, not worth the time to figure out since will be on game pass.

Turns out it's not free and only $5 discount lol

Also I tried to play the non-steam indie game The Corridor and their direct download 7z file is corrupt lol

[benjipwns]

Also there's 14 games instead of 12 this month (+1 DRM free indie game). But Overcooked 2 has the option of 2 DLCs and each use a choice (so 3 total if you want all of it).

They're definitely trying to cram as much value as they can into these to make up for the lack of big AAA stuff.

You actually get all of them, go back to the page and click on "get" for the DLCs and it should give you a key for both.

[Bebpo]

Thanks, more gamessss

[chronovore]

https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/winter-mystery-bundle

Is anyone planning on buying this? I’m curious if it is a different set of games for each person who does it, or if it is a fixed set that somebody will post online.

[archnemesis]

I realized a long time ago that bundles aren't for me. Most of the time I won't even touch the games in the bundle that I bought it for. The other bonus games are just noise.

[chronovore]

I bit, so let me list the spoils:

• DiRT Rally
• Star Wars KotOR
• Tomb Raider Legend
• Kane and Lynch: Dead Men
• Hermes: Rescue Mission
• Hidden Object Bundle 5-in-1
• Anomaly Complete Pack
• Hitman GO: Definitive Edition
• Dreamland Solitaire
• Just Ignore Them

Definitely won't be buying one of these again.

If anyone wants anything other than KOTOR or Just Ignore Them (I redeemed without checking), DM me.

[Bebpo]

Gonna look up some of this stuff, but I tried Pathologic 2 finally a week before it left Game Pass and I really dug it and was planning on buying it, so just that alone makes this for me.

I think I had Tales of the Neon Sea on a wishlist.

[Bebpo]

Ok,

Minora - newer game by Momodora dev - cool
Tales of the Neon Sea - pretty sprite art, reviews are ok otherwise
Song of Horror - 3rd person survival horror Silent Hill/RE indie with good reviews
Not Tonight - sprite art dystopia life sim. I already have this from some bundle.
Ambassador - budget indie twin stick sprite shooter.

Rest is pretty self-explanatory. I'd be mildly interested in Ancestors since it's by the Assassin's Creed 1/2 guy and the reviews are solid, but I just can't play a game where you play as monkeys if you're not in a ball rolling down towards a goal. There's a reason this game bombed/flew under the radar. Why would you spend years making a game where you play as monkeys in a serious stealth sim.

[Akala]

I wanted Chaosbane. 

There is always at least something I don't mind on these, the rest are just added although it is kind of wasteful I guess.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Chaosbane and pathologic 2 I was previously interested in, and looking at the rest total tank simulator looks sort of interesting, and maybe deleveled, although holy shit what an awful trailer

[Bebpo]

Gonna go through and look up some of these. But I never got Valkyrie Chronicles 4 so that works. Also I have Outward from PS+, but would rather play wrpgs on PC so I'll take it.

Trine 4 must've bombed or sucked to be in this so fast. I liked Trine 1/2 back in the day, but never paid attention to 3/4.

[Akala]

if you have plus you may have trine 3 on there, I did.

not a bad month if you don't already have Valkyria. I do. 

the moving game looks kinda fun.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

So they've pretty much abandoned the whole 'select the games you want' aspect for classic planners entirely now, right?

[Bebpo]

So they've pretty much abandoned the whole 'select the games you want' aspect for classic planners entirely now, right?

Yeah, pretty much. You just get 12 games for $12 each month (+extras)

[Bebpo]

Looked the games up. Valfaris looks like a good 2d action game though I hate that garish art style in pixel games. Werewolf has really nice art and I've never played the tabletop so kinda interested in checking out,

all of the games have good reviews on steam except Wild Eight survival game which is mixed and Iris card combat game which is mixed. I think when there's stuff like Slay the Spire & Dicey Dungeons it's hard to care about anything less than great for card battlers.

Train renovation is pretty random, even for the genre. Who thought "man, you know what I'd like to do today? Renovate a train station!" and made a game out of it 

Trine 4's reviews are pretty good and I wouldn't mind playing another Trine game. Lovecraft's Untold Stories is kinda my jam, and Endless Space 2 is good for the 4X people and Moving Out/Boomerang for the party people.

Ok month.

[Bebpo]

Tried Valfaris and seems like a pretty good Contra.

Which got me thinking, why has no one tried making a Contra Metroidvania? I can't think of any. Even just like Contra-like stages & bosses branching from a central hub or something with some replayability where stuff is hidden in levels locked behind power-ups you get from other levels.

[paprikastaude]

Tried Valfaris and seems like a pretty good Contra.

Which got me thinking, why has no one tried making a Contra Metroidvania? I can't think of any. Even just like Contra-like stages & bosses branching from a central hub or something with some replayability where stuff is hidden in levels locked behind power-ups you get from other levels.

Turrican?