Since last Friday, two domestic titles have been on the chart of popular Steam novelties — Necrosmith from Novosibirsk Alawar and Stones Keeper: King Aurelius from Moscow SK Team and Valkyrie Initiative. Both games have high scores. We tell you about the projects.
At the time of publication of the material, both games were in the top 3 popular new products on SteamNecrosmith
A pixel strategic bagel, reminiscent of Majesty, Iratus and the most recent Vampire Survivors at once.
Necrosmith
The basic gameplay looks like this:
- the user plays as a necromancer sitting in a black tower;
- there is a map of the world, in the center of it is just the necromancer’s tower. The task is to explore a huge world with the help of units, closed by the fog of war and full of enemy creatures;
- units are assembled from body parts in an alchemical circle (the type and characteristics of body parts affect the characteristics of the future unit, for example, a warrior with a skeleton body and a hand holding a crossbow is assembled, get a frail shooter);
- units study the world on their own (that is, no framework and direct control, however, it is possible to take control of up to one unit at a time);
- if waves of enemies destroy the tower, the “race” ends, but, as in any bagel, defeat is not the end of the game, but an important component of it;
- for the gold collected as part of the “races”, the player pumps a tower, the improvements of which affect the strength of units.
Players note the wide variability and adictivity of the gameplay. Necrosmith has 81% positive ratings based on more than 750 user reviews.
Given the low cost (around $2.69 in the US at the start of sales), there is a suspicion that marketers are guided by the experience of Vampire Survivors when promoting. That is, they expect that a replayable bagel with an inexpensive production will be able to become a viral product on a good “sundress” and at a very low price and gather a significant audience.
Stones Keeper
A two-hour prequel to the turn-based fantasy strategy of the same name.
Distributed for free.
Stones Keeper: King Aurelius
The game has a lot from the Heroes of Might & Magic and Disciples series.
However, it is impossible to deny her original solutions.
The gameplay is as follows:
- the player controls a flying castle that moves around the global map (moves are spent on this);
- the castle is hiring troops and pumping them;
- each warrior is a separate hero with his own skill tree, leveling points are common to the squad;
- each point of interest to which the castle flies is a combat mission;
- fighting is a turn—based tactic on a large field (you can’t hide behind obstacles, but some of the objects are destructible).
The gameplay of the project looks interesting, but visually the game, unfortunately, resembles a prototype. The latter, however, does not prevent her from collecting good grades. On Steam, the project now has 87% positive ratings based on almost 100 reviews.
The developers hope that the free prequel will increase the number of people who have added the full version of Stones Keeper, whose release is scheduled for this fall, to the wish list.
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A year ago, the rise of Russian indie was observed — then more than a dozen high-class camera projects were released on Steam. This year, there have been no high-profile successes among domestic developers, apart from the extremely successful launch of Diplomacy is Not an Option, until recently. Necrosmith and Stones Keeper are the first Russian releases since the beginning of the crisis that have achieved a certain visibility.