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House of 1000 Doors: Family Secrets Collector’s Edition
Developer: Alawar Five-BN (Dniprodzerzhynsk, Ukraine)
Publisher: Alawar Games (Novosibirsk, Russia)
Within the crowded hidden-object haunted-house field, this one stands out. You play Kate Reed, a supernatural fiction writer invited by a dead relative’s spirit to visit a spooky house that appears and disappears in different places. The visuals are exquisite; the play environments have exceptionally high resolution and detail, and the cutscenes are enthralling. When you search using the mouse to find concealed items, everything is crystal clear. Your fun exploration yields a large inventory of items that you have to figure out how and where to use. However, it’s unusual that there’s a convenient map allowing instant navigation around the premises and showing you where there’s more to do. There are entertaining mini-game puzzles set at just the right level of challenge for casual gamers. The Collector’s Edition adds a strategy guide, concept art and wallpapers, and a bonus chapter that doesn’t reuse previous locales.
Bastion
Developer: Supergiant Games (San Jose, Cal., USA)
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive (Burbank, Cal., USA)
This action role-playing game has two key features that set it apart from the pack: a truly riveting narrator conveying the story and reacting directly to it, and exceptional customization concerning where you go, how you play, what level of challenge you face, and which qualities and skills you have for your frequent combat. You play a young man who awakens to find his surroundings devastated by catastrophe. He heads for a sanctuary called the Bastion, where he meets an old man needing assistance. You proceed on a journey to find key items necessary to restore order and to figure out what actually transpired in this mysterious, immersive world. The nice cartoon-like hand-painted visuals and the engrossing music (often featuring the guitar) perfectly set the mood. This single-player game, blessedly DRM-free, offers a widescreen view and tight, responsive play using either a gamepad or a keyboard.
Steel Storm Burning Retribution
Developer and Publisher: Kot-in-Action Creative Artel (Del Rio, TX, USA)
Are you a fan of frenetic top-down shooting action? Then Steel Storm should suit you perfectly. While flying overhead in the 25 campaign missions, you attack enemy vehicles and turrets below while collecting weapons, health, upgrades, and data and gate keys. In the midst of the nonstop combat, you face tons of enemies operating with decent artificial intelligence within deformable environments. The rousing music and in-game sound effects (particularly the booming explosions) create even more of an adrenaline-pumping experience. You get to engage in the action from a widescreen perspective with nicely customizable camera angles. There is intuitive support for both gamepad and mouse-keyboard input. In addition to solo play, you can engage online in multiplayer co-op, deathmatch or capture-the-flag action. It’s even possible to create or modify and share new missions using a real-time collaborative mission editor.
Pirates of Black Cove
Developer: Nitro Games (Kolka, Finland)
Publisher: Paradox Interactive (Stockholm, Sweden)
If you love pirate games, as I do, then check out Pirates of Black Cove. This engrossing adventure combines all of the most enjoyable role-playing, real-time-strategy and action elements in one place. Set in the Caribbean during the golden age of pirates, your mission is straightforward: unite the three pirate factions, defeat the Pirates of the Black Cove, and become the Pirate King. To accomplish this, you need to develop and manage three strongholds, and win battles using outlandish weapons on land and sea (with ship-to-ship combat being the most fun). You can choose to become one of several different pirate captains, each with their own unique abilities. The graphics, music and sound effects are enchanting and spectacular, as this release is very well produced. The spirit is lighthearted, with humor laced throughout. Pirates has PhysX support and widescreen resolutions.
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Neat article! I love these kinds of informative little tour guides..I’d never heard of a single one of these games. Its ironic that the most powerful gaming platform sees very few releases which take full advantage of its superior hardware – including mouse and keyboard – but without requiring you to be online. The few we’re still getting seem to be mostly casual titles like ones in this piece. My hope is that over time we’ll start to see the cream of these smaller developers producing more serious and elaborate projects while staying hungry enough to keep the quality and innovation levels above average. Regardless, I can’t foresee a future where hard-core FPSs and strategy games are only made for consoles, so the ever-impending death of PC gaming should continue to remain exaggerated.
I played the demo of Bastion on Xbox Live and now I have it on OnLive. I’ve played the first half hour or so and it’s charming, but with a little touch of dread. The combination of the catchy background music and the clever narration makes it a unique and fun game. You should definitely at least check out the demo.
Also, the developer of Xotic just gave away 1000 copies of it on their website the other day. They apparently had many more players interested than they had copies to give out, so that might be worth a look too. Can’t say any of the others in the article rang a bell for me, but they’re worth a look based on what Bob had to say about them.
Nice job again this year, Bob. Glad to see these kinds of games get a few minutes in the sun.
I think the casual game market continues to be successful because of the Independent Game Developer. The major platform developers have budgets that rival major motion picture producers, but they all seem to be locked on the same concepts needing to create bigger special effects that are more visual and spectacular.
The Casual Game Developer can concentrate on story, plot and puzzles, and provide the player a good time in a smaller window of time; I know because I am one. We have smaller budgets, but even in the hard economic times we have to look for creative ways to generate funding to get our projects done. Since we do not have a big return on our projects we are not pursued by the big money entrepreneurs.
Nonetheless, I expect casual games to continue to be successful in this market.
Thanks to all of you for your thoughtful comments on my annual awards feature! It makes all the incredible work of testing all the games worth it.
The death of PC gaming, both for hardcore AAA titles and for small indie titles, has been grossly exaggerated by those who have become enamored with console and mobile platforms. I found that this year there were far more worthy contenders for my awards than ever before, yet I keep reading uninformed reports in reputable print and online sources that the only casual PC games being released these days are hidden-object games.
The biggest joy for me in doing this series year after year is to be able to show our readers that there is a treasure trove of really high-quality but-not-so-visible offerings out there, involving high production values, great gameplay, and considerable innovation. They provide a very welcome respite from the “me-too” releases we see today from the well-publicized AAA titles….
Bob
thanks! this is one list that i look forward to every year from avault.
Another fantastic value-filled entry from Bob Mandel. We need to hear more often from you, Bob. Full fledged reviews of some of these games would be more interesting than yet another SoE awarded review for the latest Call of Duty.
Good games, but some of these aren’t very casual…..
Hi Bob
I’m Federico, one of the creators of The Balbarian.
I sent you two emails with the promo code but I think you didn’t receive them. So I decided to post a comment to tell you that.
Did you check the spam folder? I already had the same problem with other people.
I hope to find a way to send you the promo code!
And great article, it’s good to know that there are people like you supporting the indie developers. Thank you!
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