Blendo Games announce full Steam Deck support for stealthy shooter Skin Deep

I tried the demo during the last Next Fest (it's still up, too, which is good). Good stuff.

OK, the phrase "insurance commando" piqued my interest, and the rest of the trailer convinced me to download the demo. I'm not sure what I just watched, but I'm definitely curious.

It does look interesting. I won't get it because I go far beyond abysmal at that kind of game, but in theory I like it.

There's a certain level of absurdism that video games can reach that makes me go, "Now that's a game." Games are arbitrary collections of rules, and while some games try for a ruleset that simulates reality to some degree of fidelity, other games are happy to leave reality behind in the dust while still maintaining internal consistency. Skin Deep is one of the latter; the premise is already ludicrous ("insurance-mandated commando sent along with cargo to foil space pirates"), and it only gets wackier. You (and the pirates) are human, but the crew of the spaceship is…sapient cats? And while humans have high-poly textures and mostly-realistic (if slightly caricatured) proportions, the cats look like they came straight out of Minecraft, made up of a series of cuboid shapes. The demo does not address this at all, and I kind of hope the full game doesn't either because playing it straight without addressing it gives the world that delightful je ne sais quoi of unfamiliarity, keeping the player on their (mental) toes. I guess what I'm saying is, playing that demo was quite the experience, and I look forward to seeing the final game.