Oh it was so much worse on so many levels, I'm not going into that mess. The writing was never good in any Dying Light game, and it was never important despite Techland hyping DL2 up soo hard it was comical. The signs of trouble were alarmingly clear even before Chris Avellone was yeeted in the age of Me Too when two women accused him of sexual abuse, they later retracted this and paid a seven-figure settlement for libel.

The writing has had some ups and downs over the years and though has been on upwards trend. Original Dead Island wasn't that memorable plotwise, the memorable things are more on environmental storytelling side. Dying Light was bit better, though not that memorable still. The Following DLC was more memorable and had better ending.

Dying Light 2 is again more ambitious with several moments were choices matter. Side quests are much worse, there's way too much filler and there's just handful good ones.

But still, can agree on that there's better writing out there, even in games.

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If this holds up, The Beast could be godlike. Please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good...

Also make you wonder, if they could make this the entire time then why the holy hell did we get the dead sock puppet DL2 at all. emoji

Dying Light 2 was largely rewritten in middle of development and was then rushed to the finish. I haven't heard anything similar happening with The Beast. So there's chance that it will actually be good.

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I have playing it with gamepad too. What's great with the interface when played with gamepad is that the radial hotspot thing eliminates the traditional pixel hunting. Downside is that there's sometimes so many things around you that important things are easy to miss. If there's many things to interact within the screen, the furthest things away from you might not be in the list.

It gets bit intense, so the save and quit after each chapter is usually welcome option. Luckily game keeps notes about interesting things, so refreshing your memory is always possible.

So far it looks like it really was worth the wait. I might have played the demo back in 2024 or so, e.g long time ago.

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In the devlogs they are testing with Steamdeck, but haven't watched the few last devlogs yet. Should be somewhat playable at least. Some ProtonDB comments suggest turning shadows to low.

I'm not sure if they plan on still doing some additional fixes or is things up to people who have the game files (available through Steam DLC or Blender Studio subscription).

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I'll add few more: Universe Horizon. Store page says that target is to travel across the whole universe.

It's an incremental idle game. It does few things right. There's several minitargets you can accomplish once you unlock them, which gives bit of a sense of purpose in addition of just watching numbers go up. Unlocks are varied, so they change the game a bit. Game progresses also while it's closed

Could use better UI design though, but otherwise solid.

Another simple one is Suika Shapes. Basically you combine smaller items into bigger items while trying to not to have an overflow. Like Tetris, what you get is randomized, so have to make compromises now and then. Usually what you want to combine with is buried underneath of something else, so you need to play smart.

Craze for these kind of games was apparently many years ago, but I missed it. This variant has all kinds of shapes and modifiers. Different shapes stack bit differently. There's even multiplayer, but I haven't tried it.

If you have a Netflix subscription, they have Underwatermelon Fruit Merge, but Suika Shapes as native desktop game feels more responsive, though the Netflix game has nice ideas.

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In my list 8 games that are not free and and released are not sale. Out of 195 in total that can be on sale. Though noticed that some games are on sale for a week. Could be that they were on sale before the event started.

If somebody wants to protect their wallet, just buy Balatro and start it up. Might take your mind away from the sale for week or so.Though downside is that Balatro is not free, so you have to spend money in order to protect your wallet.

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I have been too playing demos. Some of them don't necessarily deserve a mention, but might mention them still if somebody else has reviewed them. Have been watching videos on Youtube with event overviews, which now and then have gems that I have missed.

Into the Grid (Native): Cyberpunk netrunning deckbuilder. Basically a dungeon crawl in neon, but it looks very nice. Plays well too. A bunch of different directions to build your deck and the card art is good. Recommended.

It's nice, but I didn't feel urge to get back. Hard to say what it was lacking.

Thysiastery (Native): Another "Linux" game that has no Linux executable. Runs with forced Proton. Legend of Grimlock style dungeon crawler with monochrome pixel art. Runs quite well and the vibes are immaculate. Some oldschool roguelike elements, randomly generated characters and maps, turn-based, and permadeath, but not things like mystery potions and the like. Closer than most in that regard. Recommend.

Somewhat unique world building, but again missing something that would pull me back into the game. Probably there wasn't anything that would indicate progress during my run. Might have been back luck.

Witchy Business (Native): Cute magic shop management sim. Surprisingly hectic as soon as the tutorial is over and generally needs balance, but otherwise fine. Cat character kind of annoying.

Cat indeed is realistic and demands treats all the time. Needs maybe bit more polish and balancing. For example potion brewing is very picky where you drag the ingredients from. Game like this needs to feel rewarding, but this feels bit too much like collection of repetitive tasks.

Wirelight (Native): Right away the music is a groove. Weird little puzzle dungeon crawler with a low-res pixel art aesthetic. For some reason movement is on arrow keys, but that does play into precise directions as a mechanic so I'll allow it. Very cute, puzzles are intuitive, and commands are always on the screen so you don't have to keep track of everything. Recommended.

There's some mechanical complexity in learning the moves. I still got bit bored and couldn't finish the demo. Might need some drastic changes like transforming it into rhythm game. It already kind of leans into that direction.

Growmancer (Steam Play): Kind of an incremental game, but not about automation. You play as this Groot-lookin' dude running around a desert, and grass springs up where you walk. The trick is you have to run over it a second time to turn the grass green, which in turn spawns flowers. Green grass and various kinds of flowers becomes your currency, and all the upgrades revolve around becoming better at growing stuff. Very short ~40 second runs, with upgrades that add fractions of a second onto that total. Recommended but it does get a bit old so restrict it to short playtimes.

I can agree on short playsessions. It's practically incremental game at heart and requires bit of grinding to unlock everything. There were some fire related upgrades, but couldn't see any mechanic that would burn things. Still, oddly satisfying.

MIO: Memories in Orbit (Steam Play): This one's really good. An action platformer where you play this tiny android exploring a gigantic spacecraft in ruins. Very Hollow Knight vibes in the sense that your opponents are other bots gone mad, but the style veers off in a much different direction of grandeur gone to ruin. The intro sequence is stylish as hell, and the attention to detail in environments and animations is amazing. Highly recommended.

I got stuck and gave up. Though what I was able to play was intriguing and world building alone was pushing me forward (once I was able to clear bit boring tutorial). Maybe I was supposed to die some more to feed the machine or something. But I guess it's usual metroidvania problem as the games don't tell you exactly what to do.

OFF Prologue (Steam Play): What can I say? A surreal classic that's inspired a wealth of other games, most notably Undertale/Deltarune. The story of The Batter and his holy mission to purify the land, and the weird things he encounters along the way. The demo is basically the tutorial and Zone 1, so a decent amount of content. And did I mention the music is ridiculously good? Recommended.

The tutorial had bit boring guess the sequence puzzles. Zone 1 at least pushed the world building forward, but I wasn't intrigued enough to finish it. Kind of almost there.

Isles & Tiles (Steam Play): Puzzle/City Builder where you draw cards that have a variety of resource costs to construct buildings, and create the land to put them on as well. Pretty frustrating early on because it's hard to get your industry running due to not having the resources that industry is meant to create. Also got a BAD case of that Unity jank, so be prepared for that. There's the bones of a good game in here, just needs a few tweaks here and there.

Don't remember the jank, though there is some learning curve at least. Buildings require certain kind of land and I think tutorial doesn't go through all the land types clearly enough. Seems like you're supposed to grind upgrades to solve the problems you're having, though demo ends before you get to utilize the terraforming cards properly.

Word Play:
Another form a word from letters roguelite. Simpler than Watchword and it seems to be a benefit. The upgraded letters were bit on the boring side, but full game at least has more of them. It has lot of hype factor from developer being bit famous already, but still would give it bit hesitant recommendation.

Cleared Hot
This one seems to scratch the itch for good followup for Desert Strike followup than Megacopter. Compared to original there's physics also. You can pick up enemies and throw them around or pick up objects and them ram then into enemies. There's also machine gun and missiles too. Demo has varied selection of missions, so it doesn't feel so it doesn't start to feel repetitive. Liam made a review about it maybe week a ago. Can't do proper link, but here's one anyway: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/nostalgic-helicopter-shooter-cleared-hot-has-funny-physics-and-a-demo-worthy-of-your-time/

Probably fun for also people who are not familiar with Desert Strike.

CloverPit:

If Spinny Dungeon feels bit flat, CloverPit is in 3D. It leans on you actually being there, though restricted movement maybe isn't a good decision. Otherwise all the upgrade and odds manipulation systems are there. The upgrades are physically on the table and things start to look cluttered once you hit the limit. Having the odds visible is nice touch.

Tries to be it's own thing, though 2D variants are way more readable. Kind of hesitant recommend.

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I tried the demo much earlier and back then the map was bit small (the shroud of mystery at beginning suggests something bigger and more dangerous). But there was clearly fun game in there and it sounds like it has only gotten better.

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By the way, what version of Proton will be set as default in this state? For those familiar with Linux and Proton, it's not too much trouble to switch to the latest stable Proton version with each annual update. But for users who aren't aware of this, couldn't they potentially get stuck with an outdated Proton version a year or more down the line?

If it works like before it could be just what's stable at the time. Then you have to remember to update the choice once the default Proton version starts to be bit stale.

Hopefully they have better system in the update, but based on the screenshot looks like they don't.

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Just finished the demo (though it lets you grind more if you want to). It sure is fun. Unlocked all three characters in the demo.

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