Steam] "Dense" is OK in a game! Special feature: Dense PC games with wacha wacha!

How are you doing, Akiba Research Institute readers?

I am Nero Hyakkabe, a writer who buys too many games. The other day, I played a game called "Tic Tac: A Tale for Two," an escape game in which two people solve a mystery while conversing with each other while talking on Discord with a friend. Nowadays, I spend most of my time avoiding the so-called "three-secret" relationship, and it is difficult to meet up with friends casually, which makes the game even more interesting to me.

So this time, in order to enjoy "density" even in games, I would like to introduce you to a "dense game" in which people and characters get mixed up with each other.

Item
Hidden Through Time", a game of searching for things
Crowd Simulator, a puzzle action game with large crowds
Anarcute, an animal riot action game

Hidden Through Time "

Maker name: Crazy Monkey Studios
Release date: March 12, 2020
Price: 899 yen (as of May 17, 2020)

Have you ever heard of the picture book "WALL-E! Do you know a picture book called "WALL-E! It is a picture book game in which you have to find a character named Wally with a red-and-white striped shirt and round glasses on a page with a large number of small figures drawn. I am from the generation that was directly hit by the boom in my childhood, and I remember that I never got tired of looking for Wally day in and day out. Even now, as an adult, I sometimes recall the fun of looking for WALL-E back then, and "Hidden Through Time" is the perfect game for people like me.

This is a game of searching for objects with colorful, soft-touch hand-drawn illustrations.
The game is a stage-clearing type game, in which players search for targets in each stage and unlock the next stage by clearing a certain number of quotas. The game is designed in a friendly manner, so that players do not have to find all the targets in order to proceed to the next stage.

The themes of the map are Stone Age, Egyptian, Medieval, and Western. Come to think of it, in the "Find WALL-E" series, WALL-E traveled through the Stone Age and Egypt. The "Hunt for WALL-E" series also featured WALL-E traveling through the Stone Age and Egypt. In the same way, "Stone Age" might be the standard for "Find the Objects" games. is perhaps the standard.

In "Find Wally! the basic goal of the game was to find a person, but in this game, the targets are not only people, but also animals, daily necessities, and various other objects. It is relatively easy to find large-sized objects such as dinosaurs, but it is much more difficult to find snails and pebbles. You really have to look for them with your eyes like saucers.
So, let's play the game. Here is the screen of stage 1.

It is just as cute as a picture book!　The still image doesn't do it justice, but in the actual screen, the people and dinosaurs are constantly moving with detailed animations, making the game even cuter and more fun to watch.

Now, as for the most important stage, I could easily find meat and spears, but the eggs were nowhere to be found: .......

But then the author had an overwhelming inspiration: ......!

That's right. In this game, you can click on tents, houses, and other buildings to examine their interiors. This feeling may be more aptly described as a game of hide-and-seek than a mere game of finding things.

As promised in such games, the difficulty level increases as you advance. The number of targets to look for increases, and the map becomes too large to fit on a single screen, making it necessary to make full use of the mouse to scroll the screen and the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. In this way, the screen is no longer as "dense" as it used to be. It is fun to look at, but it is very difficult to find.

However, there is no time limit or penalty for mistakes, and hint texts are provided for each target, so the right way to play is to take your time and enjoy the game. Incidentally, the hint texts are quite amusing, including some funny parodies, so we encourage you to read all of them.

This game is very orthodox in its design as a game of searching for things, and the controls are not difficult, so anyone can easily get into the game. I felt that it would be good to play leisurely with small children. Another feature of this game is its creative online mode, where you can create and publish your own stages, or download and play stages created by players around the world. In other words, the game is practically limitless!　The infinite WALL-E search you dreamed of as a child is now a reality with this single game. ......
So, I made one myself right away. The title of the game is "Search for Cleopatra.

What do you think of how dense it is?
......Well, when I create my own stages for games like this, I just want to put them all in a row. ......I also made a stage full of dotsons in Mario Maker. ....... Yes, I'm working on my sense of style. ......

Hidden Through Time" game purchase page

Crowd Simulator "

Manufacturer name: ZHANG FAN, SHEN JIAWEI
Release date: September 24, 2019
Price: $100 (as of May 17, 2020)

We have previously introduced in our feature that Steam is teeming with various simulator games, such as pottery and hair brush, but now we have found a new and unusual simulator game.

What we are hiding is that it is this "crowd simulator".

This game features simple monotone graphics and 11 different "crowded situations" to experience. Despite the title "simulator," the game is a puzzle action game that requires a bit of thinking.

The character you control is a squishy, physics-based human reminiscent of the popular indie game "Human Fall Flat. The game is quite peculiar, so it takes a while to get used to the controls!

The prepared situations are,

"I'm trying to get into a crowded elevator.
"Getting into a crowded subway" "Managing to get into a crowded subway" and "Getting out of a crowded subway".
"Getting off a crowded subway somehow."
"Getting off a crowded subway train" "Getting off a crowded subway train" "Getting off a crowded street" "Getting through a crowded street"

or "getting out of a crowded subway" or "getting through a crowded street," which could be experienced at Shinjuku Station during rush hour or on Takeshita Street in Harajuku on weekends (or at least I have experienced such situations), to surrealistic situations such as "escaping from a farm by wading through a large flock of sheep" or "defeating a horde of thieves who come one after another to steal sheep.

Let me introduce a few of the stages that caught my attention.

First is the stage where you board a crowded train.

Playing this stage completely reminded me of my days as an office worker. In reality, it was so crowded that I gave up and waited quietly for the next train, but this was a game. I had to get on the train at any cost.

In order to get into the gap between the people, I moved forward, swaying a little to the left and right, and put my shoulder into the train. Never take your finger off the key to move forward, lest you be pushed by the crowd. And finally, .......

Not "don't win," but "win!　...... Well, the Japanese translation is unnatural, which is a charm!

But even though it's a game, it's just like getting on a crowded train in real life: "I want to get on, but it's too hard...... hard, but I have to get on, otherwise it won't end......Oh, I wish this time would pass by as soon as possible! I wish this time would pass as soon as possible......." I experienced that indescribable feeling. In that sense, this work is still a simulator.

Then, the opposite. This is the stage where you have to wade through the crowd and get off the crowded train.

The trick is to find an open space and twist your body toward it. If it's real, you say, "I'm getting off!" to get a space and somehow get off the train, but this is not possible in this work.

Next, here is a picture. It is a little difficult to see in the image, but this is the stage where you have to kick out the hordes of thieves that are coming for the sheep in the center of the screen one after another. I don't think there are many game screens where the word "deadly corpses" fits so well.

Questions nonstop arise during play, such as why the thieves want to steal so many sheep, why they are coming in such large numbers, and why they blow up at the slightest touch!　This stage was interesting because it was different from the stages we have introduced so far, where you have to wade through crowds of thieves.

The last stage I would like to introduce is here. The "Oshikuramanju Death Match" stage takes place on an isolated island in the shark-infested ocean. Compared to the previous situations, the size of the crowd is smaller, but the seriousness with which they push each other is maximal. This is because losing means instant death!

Basically, it is important to keep the center of the island in mind, but if someone is about to fall off the edge of the island, it is important to turn on the offensive and push aggressively. However, beware of the huge whales that appear regularly!　When the whale leaps up from the sea and jumps over the island, the impact will move you significantly.

The stage seems simple, but the game is surprisingly hotly contested, and I felt that this would be fun if I could play it with friends online.

Crowd Simulator" is a mini-game that captures the frustration of crowds and the exhilaration of breaking through and conquering them. The game has many surrealistic and funny elements, so it would be fun to broadcast the game on YouTube or Twitch.

Crowd Simulator" game purchase page

Anarcute "

Manufacturer: Anarteam
Release date: July 12, 2016
Price: 1,480 yen (as of May 17, 2020)

Atsumare Animal Crossing" is very popular right now, and the author feels that one of its charms lies in the strange anthropomorphism of the "animals" mentioned in the title. There are countless cute and catchy anthropomorphic animal characters in the world, but the oldest Japanese anthropomorphic animal character is the Choju-giga (caricatures of birds and animals), which is also a national treasure. Many of you may remember seeing brush drawings of rabbits and frogs in textbooks, but the fact that these works were created more than 800 years ago makes us realize the depth of anthropomorphic animal culture. Thus, this work, "Anarcute," is a game in which anthropomorphic animals play a major role.

The setting of this work is a world that has been taken over by the dreaded brainwashing police. The story is about a group of animals who gather their friends and stand up to defeat the evil brainwashing police and restore peace to the world. Anarcute" features cartoonish visuals throughout, including the design of the characters, stages, and game UI. Despite the serious theme of a riot to defeat brainwashers, the game's atmosphere is bright and pop. Cute and catchy background music also enhances the play.

This title is a 3D action game with a look-down view. The player controls a group of animals to achieve the objectives set for each stage, such as "take the flag from the enemy" or "destroy the construction," to clear the stage, but to do so, the player must collect friends to increase their strength. Some of your friends may be standing around the stage, sleeping, or trapped in a cage, but you can join their group by approaching and rescuing them. The more they are rescued, the larger the group will become. This feeling is similar to that of the classic "TODOMOTODAMA," which has also been remastered for the Switch!　For me, it reminded me of my favorite game, "Demo March" in the PSP classic "Byte Hell 2000" and "The Last Guy" on PS3, which made me nostalgic.

The way your group grows bigger and bigger by gathering friends is visually impressive and a point of tension when playing, but it is also the most important part of the game's biggest strategy. The number of people in the group is directly related to the player's physical strength, and if all the animals in your group fall while you are in a poka-poka fistfight with the brainwashing police, you will be defeated. The group can also lift one object in the stage per person, such as a police car or a vending machine, and attack them by throwing them from a distance. Furthermore, when the number of players reaches a certain level, they can perform special actions such as sending out shockwaves and knocking down buildings. In other words, the number of people = physical strength, and at the same time, the number of people = attack power. It's like "numbers are power.

The sense of growing stronger by enlarging your group and the pleasant sensation you get when you successfully defeat your enemies are pleasant in this game, but my favorite point is the slightly surrealistic background text. In the stage set in Tokyo, Japanese is used for building signs, and the choice of words such as "wonderful," "perfect," "lethal dose," "favorable nitric acid," etc., which have too many peculiarities, caught my attention during the game. You probably won't see "favorable nitric acid" anywhere else in your life except in this game. ......

If you are not a fan of action games such as the aforementioned "TODD SOUL," but you find the cute, surreal, and slightly poisonous worldview of "Anarcute" appealing, you should definitely give this game a try.

Anarcute" game purchase page

Let's enjoy the game on your home time while keeping a tight rein on "density!

So, these are the three games that have the appeal of being "playful" and "playful.
The other day, I received the so-called "Abenomask," and once again, I strongly felt that we are in a situation where we need to avoid being "dense. Let's enjoy the game at home time for now, praying that the day when we can rest easy without having to refrain from "density" will come as soon as possible!

Author：Nero Hyakkabe: Freelance writer who buys too many games. I currently have more than 300 games in my stack. I am also a novelist. He is the author of "Goaken Unrated Edition" (Kodansha) and "My Mother's Lie" (in "Malicious Kaidan") (Takeshobo).