{"id":39694,"date":"2018-01-05T17:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T17:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/18.134.249.59\/?p=39694"},"modified":"2020-03-28T15:39:53","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T15:39:53","slug":"12-games-of-christmas-honourable-mentions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigbossbattle.com\/12-games-of-christmas-honourable-mentions\/","title":{"rendered":"Twelve Games of Christmas: Honourable Mentions"},"content":{"rendered":"
Hello and welcome to \u2018The Twelve Games of Christmas\u2019, a highlight reel of some of my (Dann Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief) favourite games of 2017. As regular readers will know, we\u2019re extremely eclectic in our tastes here at B3; hopefully these little suggestions, essentially recommendations, will match that. Enjoy!<\/strong><\/h5>\n
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For the final, twelfth, day of Christmas I’m going to break away from the mould of one post for one game and instead drop in some honourable mentions. Notably \u2014 or, curiously, if you like \u2014 the majority of these games actually launched before 2017; however as video games are often supported for extended periods after launch, these have all earned their place here.<\/p>\n

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Caves of Qud<\/h4>\n

Caves of Qud<\/em> has been in early access since the middle of 2015. Already lofty and extensive when it first arrived on the platform, it has only gone from strength to strength in the time it has spent there.<\/p>\n

\"Caves<\/a><\/p>\n

The roguelike and roguelite genres have absolutely exploded over the last few years, with traits from the game they borrow their name from creeping into unexpected places. Caves of Qud<\/em>, however, is much more similar to the first breed of titles which took on the roguelike moniker: RPGs, birds-eye and procedural, each with sweeping worlds and plenty to do within them. Games like ADOM<\/em>,\u00a0 Maj’eyal<\/em>, Hack<\/em> and Stone Soup<\/em>. Games where you could plant and grow crops, or roast and consume the corpses of the fallen, or die by slipping over on bloodied floors.<\/p>\n

Unlike those contemporaries, Caves of Qud<\/em> takes place in a world not just magical, but post-apocalyptic and scientific. As with any post-societal setting, technology, mutations and ruins permeate the rubble and new settlements. Indeed, in Caves of Qud<\/em> you’ll quickly slip from slashing away at giant rats to gunning down lizardmen with your shotgun \u2014 and the game’s systems are so well balanced that it never feels anything less than magnificent.<\/p>\n

Every part of the game takes exceptionally from the setting. Character creation could see you end up as a six-armed, turtle-shelled beast with hooks for feet or a psionic creature who can mind control your opponents. The game’s history consists of small pockets of fallen emperors and locations that fell before the game started, which are all generated when the world is created before players start their voyage.<\/p>\n

The journey through early access, for Caves of Qud<\/em>, has been all about adding in things like the world history (which saw implementation in 2017) and new abilities. Although, as you’ll see on the Steam page, there’s an extensive list of features planned for the game, all to be closed off upon completion of the primary story thread.<\/p>\n

Caves of Qud<\/em>, if you can respect its visual style, is most definitely a\u00a0desert-island-disk\u2013style game, with a depth of content which many will never see the full extent of \u2014 this is a game where you can literally dig through every tile in the game if you are equipped to.<\/p>\n