Steam Wishlist Scanner: The games that matter by Jakub Remiar

Speaker 1 Warhammer IP is quite strong. Of course, we're all waiting for that Energy Cavill series that will make it even stronger.

Speaker 1 But yeah, this looks pretty good, as I said.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, they can put in some more twists into it. It's not just like one-to-one Warhammer style reskin.

Speaker 1 But yeah, looks pretty good. Looking forward to it.
Again, these things can translate very well on mobile.

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Speaker 2 Hello, hello.

Speaker 1 This is again another solo episode from Twin and a Half Gamers.

Speaker 1 Today we're gonna talk about something a little bit more off-platform because

Speaker 1 as you know and you may have noticed that we're doing a Steam Scanner or Full full steam ahead how do you want to call it basically tracking some latest promising releases on steam also we're doing some pc game reviews pretty much the new hits that we see all over the place especially from the indie community on steam today i want to talk about a little bit different of you scanner side of things basically

Speaker 1 So the games that we show off in the Steam scanner are basically based on like new releases that we see promising in the last quarter.

Speaker 1 But this time I'll be looking looking actually into wish lists because wishlists are quite a good indicator of success of some of the games, especially their traction and engagement. And it's

Speaker 1 not,

Speaker 1 you know, unheard of that, again, some of these things translate very well to mobile.

Speaker 1 So, again, thank you very much from our friends from VG

Speaker 1 Insights, Video Game Insights, for helping us with this and giving us a curated list of some of the top wishlist games that are currently wishlisted on Steam, especially WIC sending regards.

Speaker 1 So, how do we do it and what we do and talk about today?

Speaker 1 So, as we see here on the screen, there's the

Speaker 1 top games by last month changing wishlists.

Speaker 1 So, you see some traction here with like again new stuff that's been announced or put on Steam, and some of the things that we'll be talking about today is directly from this list.

Speaker 1 But, of course, as always, we are kind of omitting the triple-A or pretty much the super high-budget stuff. So, for instance, Gatekeeper here, which is had just in last month nearly 200k wish lists.

Speaker 1 Yeah, THQ Nordic is a big publisher behind it. So,

Speaker 1 this is pretty much like a first-person, nearly AAA RPG. So, yeah, we're not going to talk about that one, but still, nonetheless, we are going to talk about some of the games from the list.

Speaker 1 To give you the best example why this works and why this is important to track and look at,

Speaker 1 there maybe is this game that you never heard of called Donut County that was actually released seven years ago.

Speaker 1 But if you look at the mechanic here and what's happening, maybe you have seen this game. It's actually one of the biggest hyper-casual games on the planet, which is Whole IO by Voodoo.

Speaker 1 And they actually did the game before the release of this game because, again, just by the trailer, you can see the mechanic quite perfectly, how it works, how it's done, how it's pretty much controls, all these things.

Speaker 1 It's very satisfying to watch even from the trailer. And there you go.
Suddenly one of the best hyper-casual games on the market just by checking strands on steam. So that's why we're doing this.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's start then. We have has a lot of games to cover.
So let's get to it.

Speaker 1 So number one.

Speaker 1 By the way, this is not in order as for the wishlist or something is basically just game by game, game, but again, we'll read the numbers. Rules of engagement, the grey state has 300,000 seventy-one

Speaker 1 371,000 wishlists. And what it is, it's basically,

Speaker 1 if I understand correctly, player versus environment shooter with some nice crafting and rogue glide mechanics.

Speaker 1 Again, we cannot even assess the gameplay of these games that properly because all we have are basically trailers.

Speaker 1 But again, as seen here, first-person PV shooters are still kind of trending, so that's one thing. And I don't think so, we've seen like the big popular one on mobile.

Speaker 1 Maybe this is not the genre for it again.

Speaker 1 The game is quite interesting nonetheless, especially because of its very specific visual and I guess the mechanics that are again very specific to the environment that these guys are going in because this is something borderline sci-fi,

Speaker 1 realistic, non-realistic stuff. But yeah, looks quite interesting, as i said nearly 4k wishlists so that's that's a lot actually

Speaker 1 moving on there's the game yap yap

Speaker 1 which is having more than half a million wish lists actually and uh lo and behold it's an online co-op horror game where up to six wizard minions go into an archmage tower and then vandalize it and break and steal stuff

Speaker 1 So this is again one of those things that could blow out pretty much because Cob horror games we've seen during the year, they've been extremely popular.

Speaker 1 Stuff like a little company went completely ballistic with their sales. So, this could be again one of the dark horses here.
You see the big traction on the wish list already.

Speaker 1 Cob games, people are always searching for them because they're looking for new experiences with their friends. Is this kind of a very specific audience that is kind of going after it?

Speaker 1 And you see that this is again probably playing a little bit into that usual Magica

Speaker 1 arrowhead vibe of again you going with your friends, killing enemies, and then probably accidentally killing your friends in Free Fire.

Speaker 1 And again, horror is extremely popular on Steam, so let's see how this one goes. But this is like one of the most promising ones.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't say it's probably that much translatable to mobile, but let's see. There are still very good experiences

Speaker 1 or similar kind of social co-op games on mobile. So, yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1 let's see

Speaker 1 car service together more than 200k wish list this on the other hand is extremely translatable to mobile in my opinion because this is a game about you building a car service basically

Speaker 1 and actually if i understand correctly yeah this is co-op based so even with your friends you can go and kind of do these things This has the usual supermarket similar to Vibe, which means it's completely realistic, therefore it can speak speak to big audience and it's very very easy to understand and it's one of those like chore like gameplays which is literally like you're doing work and again we saw it working perfectly in the all the supermarket games and all the spin-offs of those as for their success of course the biggest one being the one from game destroy on mobile but again looking at this This could be quite interesting because as you see, all of these are basically these quick time mini-game event mechanics which is just super satisfying once you kind of do it right stuff like that so those are all kind of quick time events and minigames and yeah you're basically repairing cars and there's some metagame behind it easily scalable stuff like that so yeah this is extremely translatable let's see how this goes let me go on to the fact

Speaker 1 shooter with more than 200k wish list actually a cyberpunk one yeah this seems very solid, but I wouldn't say really that translatable to mobile. But looks very good nonetheless.

Speaker 1 Again, people are shooters are extremely popular on PC, so that works well. And the more twists you put into it, the better.
The more aura-like twist, I guess, even better.

Speaker 1 This looks gorgeous, but again, I don't think so. It's that translatable to mobile.
Anyway, looks pretty good.

Speaker 1 Then we continue with Warhammer Survivors, which I'm guessing will be released together, Boldman's Team and Mobile, if I'm not mistaken. This is okay wishlist.

Speaker 1 This is an official, basically, spin-off of Vampire Survivors with the Warhammer IP. I've seen the name Ponko in the developer or pretty much at the end of the trailer.

Speaker 1 So yeah, it's not the repo for whatever. It's pretty much...
done with the original game in mind and probably done by the team that's also did the original vampire survivors at least to some degree.

Speaker 1 You can see the art, and even the art style is pretty much the same thing. And Warhammer IP is quite strong.

Speaker 1 Of course, we're all waiting for that Energy Cavalry series that will make it even stronger.

Speaker 1 But yeah, this looks pretty good, as I said.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, they can put in some more twists into it. It's not just like one-to-one Warhammer style reskin.

Speaker 1 But yeah, looks pretty good. Looking forward to it.
Again, these things can translate very well on mobile. We've seen that with Survivor.io.

Speaker 1 Moving on, Tears of Metal, nearly 400k wishlists. This is an extremely creative game, one of the best ones in the pack that I've seen here.

Speaker 1 It's literally this kind of army-style simulator, medieval hack and slash cop roguelike, actually. And this is some kind of a Scottish battalion carving their way through lots and lots of enemies.

Speaker 1 This literally seems to me a little bit like Mountain Blade, the big PC game where you have like giant battles i haven't seen this for a long time on pc other than mountain blade and then there seems to be some elaborate metagame on top of it so yep this looks pretty good if they can translate the stuff like like this for instance like the action and these kind of mass battles this looks very very satisfying so again as i said very unique concept is

Speaker 1 These things are either like, you know, either they work or they're completely fail on mobile translation.

Speaker 1 But on on pc this looks very very interesting as i said steam is the best source of creativity these days so you can find really unique concepts if you're browsing through these new trends and new games definitely looking forward to this one hope it kind of blows up and we have star sand island which has more than 300k wish lists by seed lab

Speaker 1 and it's a cozy game literally in the let's say the tagline it says tired of the city grind, escape to the star-sand island and embrace a peaceful Chinese-inspired pastoral life, befriend adorable animals, enjoy relaxing fishing trips, and explore the enchanting moonlit forest.

Speaker 1 So it's one of those cozy games, or I think even Isekai Life is the name, which literally means like slow life

Speaker 1 for people that just want to relax. And of course, there's some really nice visuals and probably some menial chores in the style of Stardew Valley, I'm guessing.

Speaker 1 This seems like Stardew Valley, pretty much to begin with, honestly, with some more building mechanics and 3D instead of 2D. So, yeah, let's see how this goes.
Yeah, quite promising wishlist numbers.

Speaker 1 Let's move on. Then there's Zieverland with K

Speaker 1 wish list, which is a survival zombie game, if I understand correctly.

Speaker 1 Actually, it's like a

Speaker 1 chibi style, comicy style style survivor zombie game, which I guess plays into its favor because we have so much realistics and zombie games lately. So

Speaker 1 that's, I guess, good. And if you move a little bit forward into the gameplay, you can see that, yeah, this is literally a lot of survival mechanics.

Speaker 1 You building stuff, literally, looks like Minecraft a little bit. And then you build your base and look with your friends and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Yep, I really like the chibi art style with zombies because this reminds me actually

Speaker 1 as the art of Last War Survival, which is one of the best kind of low CPI art styles on the market that everybody is using, like Tile Survive from Fun Plus, they're scaling the game these days.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, this could work very well if done on the mobile. Probably will work also very well on PC.
But let's see. Looks quite interesting, good to follow.

Speaker 1 Then we have P-O-N with nearly 300 wish lists. And this is another

Speaker 1 horror. And actually from the criminal's perspective, we have these two characters kind of

Speaker 1 breaking into a building. And I'm guessing there are some mini-games and some stuff like that where,

Speaker 1 again, you need to go and escape and do stuff as usual.

Speaker 1 And then if I understand correctly, then comes the monster in the end. Yeah.
That's there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Horrors. They're just like very prevalent.

Speaker 1 Like you saw with the funny take with the Yap yap game now we have a realistic take with the pom pong game so yeah uh could be quite good again i don't think so it's that translatable to mobile but again the horror cop trend is quite good and that should be definitely translated to mobile as the genre itself not probably this specific realistic execution then we have project shadow glass with pk wish list and this is really puzzling because there isn't much to be shown as the game just that it's stealth-focused, immersive sim, set within Dark Fantasy Kingdom, blendering heists, infiltrate forbidden locals, and escape with priceless artifacts featuring this amazing D art.

Speaker 1 Looks really, really, really unique. I must give it to them.

Speaker 1 And the world has actions and consequences, but this seems that this will be even released like in two years to begin with, because it seems very bare-bones for even the trailer.

Speaker 1 But again, it it seems more of like a PC. Be working only concept, but yeah, let's see.
The art is very, very interesting, but I can't imagine it would work on mobile. Let me move on to Lulan.

Speaker 1 FK wish list, a Chinese style RPG,

Speaker 1 action RPG, where you play as this kind of a skeleton/slash sand warrior. And it seems that, again, from the get-go,

Speaker 1 of course, pretty good graphics and like all the production values. But if we scroll into the trailer, basically, it seems that

Speaker 1 under the hood of a typical RPG or action RPG the combat system seems quite outstanding as I was looking into it because you have some of these sand abilities that are literally unheard of and quite unique like here for instance this kind of sand shuriken that you literally kind of transform shoot throw again it's from the sand because there's the sand team so it yeah you see wall heck stuff and like similar things so very, very unique, and the combat looks amazing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, let's see how this one goes. I'm guessing it will work pretty well on PC, but don't know if this is really translatable

Speaker 1 to the mobile. But yeah, let's see.
Then we have Haunted Pause,

Speaker 1 which is actually the game with the biggest wishlist score here, which is nearly 550k, so more than half a million. And again, it's a horror call game.
Why not?

Speaker 1 but actually you are playing dogs that are trying to save their human companion or master or how how yeah you play as two puppies trying to rescue their human friend in a haunted mansion create your puppy explore spooky environments and defe defeat evil creatures in action pack adventure this looks quite simplistic but again Don't be off-butted by the simplicity of it because it seems that it's quite good execution.

Speaker 1 So let's see how this one goes. But again, the theme is very, very interesting because again, dogs, this kind of a comicy, easy to digest, low-poly team.
How this could probably even work on mobile.

Speaker 1 This definitely has traction.

Speaker 1 So let's see how this goes later because we've seen what happened with stuff like I am a cat with the

Speaker 1 the VR game that was ported into mobile that Estoti did gloriously.

Speaker 1 So so again this could work also pretty well let's see even in its current sense you see that yeah this will be quite intense even though these little puppies seem so cute anyway really looking forward to this once it's released and then we have our last one

Speaker 1 is animal nuke

Speaker 1 with more than 150k wish lists and again it's one of those cozy games this time the twist is:

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 1 you're small. It's literally in the theme of the movie that I always bring up, The Honey, I Shrank the Kids.
We've seen this being tested with

Speaker 1 some,

Speaker 1 if I understand up, for fun games or fun pass games, one of the other ones.

Speaker 1 They were testing this as a Forex theme where you would like build your base in the grass on the backyard of a house or stuff like that.

Speaker 1 So here we have the cozy iteration where again, you build your character. She's extremely cute of course,

Speaker 1 and then that character pretty much lives in a room.

Speaker 1 The size of the room is pretty much human-like, and the character is very, very small.

Speaker 1 So, everything is pretty much giant as you walk through the environments. And again, there are some cute pets, but again, the scale and the size is the USP here, which seems pretty interesting.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 seems that the team was tested already, as I said, with the Forex guy.

Speaker 1 So maybe there's something to it that we don't know because there hasn't been really games doing this theme of like you being extremely small.

Speaker 1 Also, the I'm the Cat game is kind of close to this because the CAD is from the Cat's perspective. That worked very well.
So I guess there's probably some demand from this theme.

Speaker 1 And the game looks gorgeous. Yeah, let's see.
But I can definitely imagine some kind of mobile version of a game using this kind of a setup. As I said, I'm CAD is doing basically that already.

Speaker 1 Could be quite interesting. Anyway, that was it for this, I would say, quarter

Speaker 1 of wishlists. Let's see how this goes.
My bet is that stuff like Yap Yap with more than 5k wishlists will go very well.

Speaker 1 And then stuff like the car service together.

Speaker 1 will go probably very very well and then my last bet as for the game will be tears of metal but again i don't think so this is translatable to mobile that well it's just like extremely unique but yeah there's definitely stuff to be taken out from these as for a direction that you could follow and use the usb to kind of go mobile but again we'll see how this goes and we again cross-check the results anyway um thanks for staying and see you next time join the slack let us know in the comments if you like these if you want to see more or if you have seen kind of more specific here we're definitely on the lookout for for the latest trends, Steam games, indie games, and stuff that's trending, because again, it's extremely important, and studios are really turning to Steam lately to take it as some kind of a source of creative inspiration.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there we go. Anyway, see you around next time.
Ciao.