Just yesterday I remarked that, of the 500-plus games on sale on Steam this week (including the excellent Hotline Miami and They Bleed Pixels), a fair few of them are cutesy anime games. Apparently "a fair few" wasn't enough to satisfy publisher Degica Games, who today added dozens of other cutesy anime games to the list via Steam's Midweek Madness sale.
Degica's massive sale runs through 10 am Pacific (1 pm Eastern) this Friday, November 10 and boasts discounts north of 80 percent. And while the bulk of the publisher's library is distinctly Japanese, the sale does include more than visual novels, dating sims and inordinately pink shoot-'em-ups—if that's not your thing.
RPG Maker, the entry-level, do-it-yourself game engine, is arguably the star of the sale. Both the VX Ace and MV versions of the engine itself are heavily discounted, and there are also dozens of media packs (like this one) up for grabs.
RPG Maker VX Ace is considered the 'greatest hits' edition of the engine by diehard fans. At 80 percent off, it's available for $14. The MV version, meanwhile, is the latest version and the first to feature tools for mobile development. At 70 percent off, it goes for $24. Both are excellent tools for prospective game developers or artists who want to dip their toes in the industry without spending a lot of money or burying themselves in code. (It also has a surprising and colorful history, and saw a huge uptick in popularity this year in particular.
Naturally, quite a few RPG Maker-made games are included in Degica's sale—too many to count, frankly, so allow me to instead point you toward the criminally overlooked OneShot. At 33 percent off, it isn't the sale's biggest discount, but $6.69 is still a steal for such an evocative adventure game. As Luke said last month, it's a bizarre, fourth wall-breaking romp that its two developers call a "metaphysical puzzle game."
