Felipe Pepe
@felipepepe
Brazilian living in Tokyo. Editor of the CRPG Book, a free book on the history of Computer Role-Playing Games:
Scroll of Taiwu is a great example of this... One of the most important "indie" games of the last decade, it changed what Steam meant as a market and created an entire new genre, selling 3.4M copies and spawning countless successors. Anglosphere media had nothing to say about it, zero curiosity.
People who only know me online, posting about obscure CRPGs & life in Tokyo, might never guess this is where I grew up & lived most of my life lol
This data from RoWatcher about Roblox are just mind-boggling... how to even process that Roblox has 8.5 MILLION games? Part of me wants the whole thing to burst into flames, the other laments we'll likely never archive some of the most popular games ever, which an entire generation grew up playing.
Meccha Chameleon sold 15 million in less than a month, but it's now being cannibalized by Roblox clones... We saw similar things with Facebook games, mobile and even Flash to an extent... but the way in which people can now vibe-code a clone over the weekend and reach millions on Roblox is crazy.
A edição de colecionador tinha q ser no estilo jogo de saquinho do camelô hahaha
A fun thing in these cultivation RPGs is they operate under a different concept of what a "hero" is. You're not (just) a DPS machine, you need to study - read books, have mentors, learn medicine, music, astrology, Taoism, etc... and use this knowledge in dialog, debates, crafting & city management.
I wish more people gave Scroll of Taiwu a chance, it's such a unique game I bought a sick chariot and travelled to join the Shaolin sect - now I can't romance anyone & must be vegetarian... but I get cool staff skills and can preach Buddhism! Also, I broke both my arms trying to master a skill lol
I'm enjoying seeing people post their favorite physical games - I'm honestly jealous. Back then, those did not exist in Brazil unless you were VERY wealthy. We just had CD cases full of pirate discs. Super cheap, but no box, no manual... some were just regular CD-Rs... I have no attachment to them.
Pessoal comentando do absurdos q brasileiro faz com comida japonesa, lembrei de quando rolou o contrário. Em 2018 abriram um café em Tokyo chamado Ponde Coffee, q fazia Pão de Queijo de sabores bizarros como Matchá, Nori, Morango, Caldo de Carne... Comi de coração aberto, mas achei bem ruimzinho 😅
Well well well, seems like I spoke too soon! :D Will not spoil it, but love the extra stuff they added to the boss battle here.
Back on my bullshit with Rift Wizard 3: store.steampowered.com/app/4366330/... Played all three games for over a dozen hours, never managed to beat them 🥲 Still love them thought, the 3rd one is really polished.
Ah yeah, it's on the CRPG Book! It's fascinating as a concept, but the dungeon-crawling really sucks... Closest thing I can think of is Sengoku Rance, since it has the whole thing of kingdom management and army battles + dungeons with just the generals.
Agree with Dia, Undernatus is a perfect entry point to dungeon-crawlers. Has many great QoL features without being too easy or streamlined. And it's really stylish: store.steampowered.com/app/1570510/...
I hope it's just an issue with review keys / time, but it's sad how it's been a week since Scroll of Taiwu came out and there's ZERO reviews in anglophone media... The game created a new sub-genre, sold 3.4 million and was a radical shift in what Steam meant globally, ignoring it looks really bad.
Brother, this scene not only kills the momentum, it kinda kills the fun of the game... you are playing a tense mystery game where wild things are happening, then they stop for like 5 minutes to explain everything in the most generic way possible... it's really bad :/
No Players Online is an interesting project... The original free game was a really cool & creepy "found footage" piece on old FPS lobbies. The retail one goes in very different directions and is a technical marvel - a joy to explore! However, the writing is so bad that it drags the game down :/
Limiting myself to 2020s niche stuff that some people would love if they tried: Xuan-Yuan Sword: Mists Beyond the Mountains Fire in the Beastlands Signs of the Sojourner Neyasnoe Mexico, 1921. A Deep Slumber. Caves of Lore Umurangi Generation Hero's Adventure: Road to Passion Many Nights A Whisper
It's a coming-of-age story about an edgy/loner teen. I think it's really effective in helping people re-think their attitudes & mature, partly because it's so sincerely edgy and controversial that it automatically attracts who needs to read it.
The menus are also a vibe... how cool it is that every base Digimon has its own pixel art animations for training? Also the label on your save file minidisk changes based on party leader!
Look who's back on his bullshit, enjoying some of the coolest pre-rendered backgrounds ever
BTW will also recommend this article from Sunny Jie Yang journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "Rather than representing a peripheral or belated version of the Western indie game movement, 66RPG demonstrates how hobbyist communities in China developed independent and parallel creative practices(...)"
I think that brings us to where we are now. Wukong & Phantom Blade Zero get headlines because people are obsessed with AAA & consoles, but we've been seeing the revival & influence of Chinese games for a decade now - and a lot of it is a direct continuation of 30+ years of history we all missed.
Taiwu's success was followed by other Chinese-focused hits - Tale of Immortal, GuJian 3, Chinese Parents, Naraka: Bladepoint, etc. Games that sell millions but have little footprint in the West. IMO, Genshin Impact is a landmark for bridging worlds - mobile, console & PC, but also China & The West.
This is where The Scroll of Taiwu comes in. Released in 2018, it combined open-world RPG + Wuxia Cultivation + Mount & Blade elements in a way that influenced hundreds of games since. It quickly sold over 1 million units - without an English translation. It was a radical shift in what Steam meant.
By the mid 2010s, Steam began to gain popularity among Chinese-speaking players - and developers. As small games like ICEY, Eternal Senia and Rabi-Ribi found success, Steam became a pathway to the global market - proved by the worldwide success and attention that Detention (2017) managed to grab.