• RiotDoll [she/her, she/her]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Beneath A Steel Sky was abandonware for years and years, and is now technically just freeware. it’s so free that it’s just straight up downloadable on steam. It’s a very strange sci-fi adventure game with a tone problem that makes it one of my favorite games ever. It’s not the best adventure game, but it doesn’t have too much “moon logic” for its puzzles, and the art direction is so grimy in a way that’s really lovely and kind of unique compared to most dystopian fiction. I feel like it’d be best to just point you to it to go experience it than detail it too much, but you are a guy forcibly brought in to a dystopian city after your village is attacked, and the rest of the game is a kind of descent into this highly industrialized, capitalistic fascist dystopia. It’s neat.

    It has a sequel called Beyond A Steel Sky. It’s pretty solid, but it’s also, imo, a completely different game. There is exactly one level that evokes the aesthetics and sensibilities of the original, and it’s got these “HEY REMEMBER THE FIRST GAME?” bits bolted into the story, but you could excise all of it and lose nothing, so it’s hard to recommend it as a followup-in-spirit, but it’s a solid sci-fi adventure game with a lot of modern amenities (read: no soft locks, no impossibly obtuse puzzles, regular autosaving), and it has interesting stuff to say along the way so vOv I’d recommend it, even though it isn’t necessarily abandonware