Steam Sales!

It’s time once more for the annual backloggening, and the root cause of why this blog exists in the first place- Steam Summer Sale is upon us for 2018. And, since the BBacklog Challenge is all about unearthing hidden gems and playing great games that might otherwise go unplayed, I wanted to share some BBLC faves that I would highly recommend you pick up if you can.

Tadpole Treble (60% discount at $1.99)

I can’t praise this one highly enough, and months later I still catch myself singing the final boss song in my head (YES MA’AM). You’ll be smiling ear to ear all the way through, and there’s a decent amount of content for completonists. If you only buy one game in this year’s sale, make it Tadpole Treble.

Shuuten / Retro Game Crunch (90% discount at $0.99)

A dollar for Shuuten is a total steal already, and you’ll get 6 other interesting games along with it. Shuuten is a neat little STG that will take a couple of hours to get through (longer if you’re less STG-inclined). The other games might be of interest, but Shuuten is the star of the show personally.

KLANG (75% discount at $3.74)

It’s the second rhythm game on this short list, but it couldn’t be further removed from Tadpole Treble’s cute charms. Klang is stylish, rockin’, badass, and HARD. But once you get the rhythms down everything just seems to work and you’ll feel like the coolest tuning-fork-swordsmonkey that ever lived.

Tadpole Treble

image

What an utterly, utterly lovely game.

If you look through the reviews for Tadpole Treble, one word appears repeatedly- charming. It absolutely oozes charm- from the little background details to the music to the subtle way Baton’s facial expression changes, every asset will bring a smile to your face. It was spearheaded by Matthew Taranto of Brawl In The Family fame (which is every bit as charming as the game he made) and the love he puts into his work is stunningly apparent.

The game has you dodging the notes of the background music as they appear on a stave, with a dozen extra challenges thrown into the mix to afford replayability. The music is all catchy and enjoyable and there’s even a few actual songs to play through too. Thunder Creek is the standout stage, seen above, with all the graphics being rendered in silhouette as lightning rocks the stage.

Fin or Bin:

I’m having a great time here, and I’ll be Finishing as many of the extra challenges as I can to spend as much time with Baton as possible.

Steam link is here and I’m not even gonna put it in smalltext ‘cos I want everyone who sees this to go buy it.