William Rieder describes his creation Bananoid quite fittingly as a ‘wall-block-paddle-pill game’ with which he wanted to demonstrate that MCGA graphics work on DOS machines. And that is exactly what you get, nothing more and nothing less: A nice looking Breakout clone – or as the name already implies rather one of Arkanoid. To some this might be actual proof that back in the late 80ies the capabilities of PC graphics were underused and underestimated (most DOS games of that era where still stuck in EGA or even CGA mode), to others it plays like one of the hardest games of its kind.
Steampunk. What started as an original and not entirely unfascinating thought experiment has by now been reduced to stupid costumes primarily consisting of top hat plus welding goggles. It's hard to imagine why a new game would jump on that sad train in 2016. What is even more surprising, however, is that this game then actually doesn't use its self-proclaimed theme after all. Mysterious.
Steam Sky is probably best described as a turn-based Elite. Not that it takes place in space. The player navigates between floating air-bases. In a ship which is probably running on steam and consists of parts whose names don't give the impression that such weight could ever fly. Though that is the whole idea of steampunk, isn't it? That's it thematically, though.
