Death Trash:
Death Trash is a title I’ve been following for awhile so I was excited for finally get my hands on a demo. It’s by Crafting Legends, a studio based in Berlin, and is their first title. You are cast out of the society because you’re infected, meaning you are free to roam the wastes. On your travels you fight bandits and mutants. After adventuring a little bit you are able to craft bullets, lock picks, health tubes, as well as some other stuff. You are able to level your character and upgrade different stats and skills such as being able to talk to the little meats as well as your standard ones like weapon and lock picking skills. The demo was a tad longer than I thought and lasted about close to 2 hours for me. You are able to explore the first 4 areas, one being a town of sorts. The combat isn’t too difficult on the controller and plays really well. Stealth plays into advantage by being able to backstab for more damage which is perfect for the more armored enemies you’ll encounter later on. There is the option for local co-op which would be fun to experience a game like this with someone else. I love the gritty aesthetic and it’s a breath of fresh air in the indie game world. The ambient soundscapes really set the mood for the game and at times creeped me out which was awesome. The demo gives you just a little bit of story but from what I’ve played so far I’m curious to see where it goes. I got to the end of the demo wanting more and I’m excited for the early access release on August 5th.
Terra Nill:
As someone who loves city building games this one caught my eye instantly. Terra Nil is from Free Lives who brought us games such as Broforce and Genital Jousting. It’s also published by Devolver which is usually an instant play for me. In Terra Nil you start on a barren plot of land with only a few tools to boot. Instead of destroying the land with pollution and humanity you have to reclaim the planet’s ecosystem. You have one that makes the land fertile, another to grow grass, one to create water, and one to create rocks which are used to plant a wind turbine. Everything must be able to connect to this turbine obviously and trying to maximize the spread of greenery is fun. Once you unlock the second tier you must create different biomes. One to make a forest which needs a solar panel and a fire starter to work as you can only build a forest on burnt land. Another creates meadows and another forms wetlands. Finally to finish a map you must recycle all the buildings you built. This is by using a drone that rides along the water and collects the materials from loading docks. I love this idea and at times it was almost like a puzzle trying to remove everything. The music is calming as you’d expect from a game like this. Overall I really liked this game and I could see it expand a lot from where it’s at right now. The devs have been responsive and have been patching the demo constantly. I only ran into one bug where when trying to place a structure it would over the wrong piece of land, thankfully this was fixed with a game restart. This game has a truly original idea behind it and I totally welcome it. There is no announced release date as of yet.
ProtoCorgi:
For anyone that knows me they know I love shmups and especially cute’em ups. The ProtoCorgi was developed by Kemono Games and published by Ravenscourt. The demo comes with one stage and shows quite a few of the different weapon combos you can get. The stage was a nice length and wasn’t that difficult on normal, I blame my deaths on my recent lack of sleep. You are Bullet, a C3 class, or Cute Cybernetic Corgi puppy. I thought that the tap attack was cute as it spells bark and is actually customizable in the game. Also included in the game is an example of a stage creator. Now I’ll be honest, as much as I love messing around in stage makers in games I never have enough time to finish one. Something like this being included in the game is really cool and I would love to play what people make. There are also leaderboards so you can compete in rankings if that’s your thing too. The art is fantastic and the music is really fitting for this genre and I enjoyed it. I can never say no to a shoot’em up and this is one I will definitely follow when it comes out on August 26th of this year.
Written By: Chris