Steam Game Festival 2020 – Grounded, Pendragon, Sarawak and Skate Bird

Steam is currently holding their Summer Game Festival with hundreds of playable demos. Here’s some of the best you should check out.

Grounded

In Grounded you’re shrunk to the size of an Ant and have to survive in a micro-world of a regular back yard. If you have ever seen the movie ‘Honey I Shrunk The Kids’ then you’ll instantly get the premise of this game. This is a survival and crafting game, where you start out with nothing and have to gather resources to survive. When you start out in the back yard you have to gather resources, investigate mysterious objects and avoid vicious spiders to survive.

Grounded provides a mix of environmental and narrative-driven storytelling. The sandbox is huge, versatile and feels very handcrafted with players allowed to craft their own experience. Players can play either solo or with up to four players in co-op.

Throughout my playthrough, I found pebbles and fought off ants and gnats. I found a device on the floor, which was covered in computer chips, but I needed to investigate more. I managed to find some food and drink some water droplets hanging from plants. Be careful of that dirty water in puddles, you don’t want to drink that and get sick.

The Spiders are truly terrifying. Be careful not to stay out too late and craft somewhere to sleep because huge spiders are on the prowl, and they’re not afraid of attacking and killing you. So craft what you can for defence and be careful out there. I enjoyed what I played of it. We don’t have long to wait with Obsidian releasing the full game in July. Check out the 30 mins demo on Steam now.

Check out Grounded on Steam and wishlist now.

Pendragon

Inkle are renowned for their narrative adventure games with 80 days and Heaven’s Vault and they’re back with Pendragon. It’s AD 673 and Camelot has fallen. Sir Modred has broken the fellowship with the Round Table with hatred and lies. King Arthur faces his final battle.

Pendragon is a character-driven narrative strategy game. It’s your job to rally the Knights of the Round Table to reach Arthur before he meets his fate. Some will make it to Camlann but others will fail. Will Sir Lancelot be reunited with Queen Guinevere? Will spurn him or embrace him. What happened to Merlin and Excalibur?

This is a unique mixture of strategy and adventure narrative game. You fight in turn-based battles that have strategic combat, where every win and loss shapes the narrative ahead. The story and gameplay is mixed in together weaving a great story as only Inkle can.

The demo is a few levels long taking roughly 30 mins, but everything is here. Gorgeous hand-drawn graphics, the music and the turn-based strategy combat. I’m already a fan of Inkle and their writing, and I’m looking forward to what they do with this great historic story.

Check out Pendragon on Steam and wishlist now.

Sarawak

Sarawak is a narrative adventure game set in Oxford and Borneo. It plays similar to reading a mystery novel with game comparisons like Over The Alps and 80 Days. It mixes classic narrative adventure with puzzles and there’s 2 chapters available at the moment.

The illustrations are beautiful and the story is engaging and draws you in. Players need to pick locks, discover secret rooms and hack into police equipment as well as enjoying the ride through the narrative adventure.

In the story, a university professor is found dead near the protagonist’s hotel where you and your mother are taken into police custody under suspicion of murder. The professor left a trail of secrets to solve. The more you unravel, the more conflicted you’ll become on the trail to solving the murder.

This is a really striking game with beautiful graphics and exciting story, if you’re a fan of narrative adventure games then this is one to check out.

Check out Sarawak on Steam and wishlist now.

Skate Bird

Skate Bird is a skateboarding sim where you play as an array of tiny birds on skateboards. You can jump, flip and do tricks in this skate sandbox game. It’s fairly simple at the moment with the alpha build, but it’s certainly fun. I did find the tricks a little restrictive and this one is going to have some competition with Tony Hawk coming back later on this Summer in September.

Check out Skate Bird on Steam and wishlist now.