The Little Pakeha

Category: games

chrismiller

Cheap distracting games

games

Sometimes it’s hard to stop doomscrolling. One thing that can help is having something else to focus on, like video games! I’m not exactly the most tuned in to the industry, but I follow enough variety content creators to know of a pretty decent range of games that are easy to get caught up in and won’t cost too much money.

Note that I’m not sponsored, receiving any kickbacks, or have investments in any of the people behind these games, so I have absolutely no conflicts of interest. All prices are in NZ dollars because that’s what Steam shows me even when I’m logged out – for US prices, halve it and then add a little, or maybe just click on the link and see what it is exactly.

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chrismiller

Empire of the Ants

games

Windows, releasing 7 November 2024

After those first few super chill games I’ve had bad luck getting Next Fest demos to run on my Steam Deck (no shade – none of them claimed they would and they’re not even finished games yet) but of the couple that have I really wanted to highlight this one. It’s available for pre-purchase so we do know what the pricetag will be – a hefty NZ$70, so I’m guessing about US$40-50 – but the graphics alone are impressive. Empire of the Ants is a tactical RTS in which you play as an ant – if you’re old enough you might remember an early Maxis title (the studio that became a division of EA and was responsible for the Sim games back when games had to work at launch) called SimAnt. SimAnt was a simulation game in black and white released in 1991, and while there were regions of a larger map which contained competing red ant nests that you could conquer, and humans living in the house that would eventually pack up and move if you took over enough of the yard, Empire of the Ants is (as you might imagine from the intervening 30 years of game development) both more, and somehow also less, detailed.

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chrismiller

Three chill games

games

Once again it’s Steam’s Next Fest, the regularly occurring event that highlights demos for upcoming games. It’s always a favourite of mine and I try to always participate by playing through several interesting looking titles. Today I tried three that were all extremely relaxed with no real time pressures involved.

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