New games appear on Steam every day, but many of them are completely lost, usually rightly so. In some cases, however, a true pearl emerges from this flood. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus found such a gem – with the help of YouTuber HandOfBlood.
I’m actually spending all my free time at the moment in the new patch for World of Warcraft and – unfortunately once again – League of Legends. At least if there isn’t a pen & paper evening coming up.
But on the evening of November 16th, I just needed something new. A casual game that I can play and stop “at any time”. Even though I was already tired, I still wanted to play something.
Through a video by HandOfBlood, who is active on YouTube again after a long illness, I came across a fairly new game that is supposed to be a lot of fun for little money: Slime 3K: Rise Against Despot (via YouTube).
The game has been in early access on Steam since November 2nd, is available for just €4.99 and weighs a slim 275 MB. Bought, downloaded, lost 4 hours, almost missed work. And today after work we’ll continue straight away.
The trailer for Slime 3K: Rise Against Despot
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A bit like the Powerpuff Girl of indie games
HandOfBlood roughly describes Slime 3K as a mix of Vampire Survivors, Reverse Bullet Hell and Deckbuilder. For me the game is more similar to Enter the Gungeon, only a lot busier.
You play an experimentally created slime who turns against his creator, an evil AI that rules the world in the year 3,000. The aim of the game is to complete different levels and defeat bosses.
To do this, you slaughter your way through endless waves of enemies, climb the levels, buy new weapons and upgrade your skills – until either you or the boss who appears later finally dies.
There is a meta progression between levels that allows you to improve your slime and build decks. For example, he gets more life or gets special properties that strengthen certain builds.
You build decks from cards that you unlock over time. Only cards that you have equipped appear in the shops in the individual levels. This way you can influence which skills you can get and plan builds before a run.
Haha, assault rifle goes ratt-att-att-att
What made Slime 3K so exciting for me, just watching it, were the crazy possibilities and the completely crazy humor. The slime is constantly smiling, even when he is slaughtering his way through thousands of people – which, according to the description, he also enjoys.
The description of the assault rifle is simply “Ratt-att-att-att” and its frequency of use. Nothing else. The already somewhat questionable “eye thrower” is even a starting ability.
Builds tend to get absolutely crazy quickly. Already in round 4 I destroyed entire screens full of enemies with flame jets, gas cans, rockets and burning tires. But there were still more and more of them.
This unlocked new skills that have to do with food and finances. Yes, there are builds like that too and I don’t know where the journey will take us.
What sets Slime 3K apart from other games of its kind are cursor weapons. Depending on the build, you don’t shoot automatically, but have to actively aim – or you simply have zombies and small blobs that do the work for you in a summoner build.
There will be a great headline here, honestly!
With its crazy humor, the game also flirts with the fact that it isn’t finished yet. Slime 3K is in Early Access and whenever a level is completed, the game reminds you of it. Then it says something like, “This is going to be an amazing rewards screen. With lights and stuff. Until then, here’s it.”
Even the tutorial says that you will “only” get a (very detailed) explanation until there is “something better”. But to be honest: as a casual gamer, I don’t need much more. I’ve already had a lot of fun and want to keep playing.
Surprisingly, Slime 3K is “only” mostly positive on Steam at 79%, albeit with just 327 votes. But I can already see a rating somewhere between 80 and 90% on the horizon.
Surely Slime 3K won’t be a game I play every day for the next two years, but I’ll probably play it every now and then. Great for just slaughtering a round as a smiling slime – er, switching off.
If I’m looking for a new game again at some point, I might come back to Schuhmann’s tip:
Nobody knows about the new strategy game on Steam that is highly addictive – despite 92% positive reviews