David’s 2024 Steam Autumn Sale Suggestions

I don’t normally write lists of game recommendations during the more “minor” Steam sales that take place during a typical year, like the Halloween Sale and the Autumn Sale, but I’ve found myself with a few worthy suggestions up my sleeve now that this year’s Autumn Sale has arrived. I might as well fire them off in an article in the hopes that you might be able to gorge yourself on copious amounts of both hearty food and discounted video games in the spirit of Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. Put down that leftover turkey drumstick for a moment and let’s begin!

Core Keeper | Discount: 25% | Sale Price (USD): $14.99

Core Keeper’s Steam Store page describes it as a “mining sandbox adventure” in which you and up to 7 friends can “mine, build, fight, craft, and farm to unravel the mystery of the ancient Core.” Never before have I become so quickly and so thoroughly immersed in any game like this until I discovered Core Keeper. You and any friends you bring along will have to focus on extracting resources from the various biomes of your newfound environment in order to craft progressively stronger equipment, weapons, and armor that you’ll eventually use to defeat a slew of bosses.

While you’re doing all that resource extracting, crafting, and fighting, though, you’ll also have to do everything in your power to make sure you stay well-fed. There’s no sense in going hunting for powerful foes on an empty stomach, after all. An aspect of Core Keeper that particularly appeals to me is that you can acquire various types of musical instruments that you can actually play in order to open certain doors, behind which you’ll usually find loot. One such instrument is an ocarina, which Core Keeper describes as “a timely instrument.” Puns like that usually win me over quickly.

Vampire Therapist | Discount: 25% | Sale Price (USD): $11.24

I’m going to declare this right up front: As someone who’s had several mental health issues for many years now, I’ve found leagues more comfort, solace, and useful mental health advice from playing Vampire Therapist, a video game in which you play as a vampire who decides to become a mental health professional who helps other vampires, than I ever have from the myriad of real-life therapists I’ve ever seen. I prefer to look at that as a testament to how expertly Vampire Therapist does what it sets out to do as opposed to any other potential perspectives.

Vampire Therapist’s developers, Little Bat Games, worked alongside real-world mental health professionals while developing it, and this fact really shows in the vast majority of Vampire Therapist’s gameplay. As Vampire Therapist’s main character, a Wild West gunslinger named Sam Walls has discovered since being turned into a vampire, you have a lot of time for introspection when you’re immortal. Sam seeks to use what he’s learned about himself and what he’s observed in others to help his fellow creatures of the night work through their centuries-old issues and come to see themselves more positively, even though they can’t see themselves in mirrors.

X-Morph: Defense | Discount: 80% | Sale Price (USD): $3.99 (or $7.95 for the Complete Pack with all DLC and the soundtrack)

X-Morph: Defense fuses gameplay elements from top-down shooters, tower defense titles, and real-time strategy games into a singular experience that I personally find to be a heck of a lot of fun. You play as a hostile force of extraterrestrial beings who are invading Earth in order to harvest the planet’s resources to further the propagation of your race. Annoyingly, the pesky inhabitants of Earth that call themselves “humans” don’t take kindly to this, so they send their combined military forces to stop you. It’s adorable how they think they have a real chance of pulling that off.

You’ll be able to use what I’ve taken to calling a “futuristic fighter jet” and various types of weapon-toting towers to corral the humans to their doom. You can deal with the opposing military forces however you see fit, so long as you prevent them from destroying the harvesting devices you plunge into the planet during each stage of the campaign. What’s more, all my fellow Warcraft fans might like to know that the commander of the human defense forces in X-Morph: Defense is voiced by Michael McConnohie, the actor behind such legendary characters as Uther the Lightbringer and Kel’Thuzad.

80 Days | Discount: 60% | Sale Price (USD): $5.19

80 Days is a retelling of Jules Verne’s 1872 novel Around the World in Eighty Days, albeit with some enjoyably inventive steampunk twists thrown in. You play as Jean Passepartout, a Frenchman who has recently been hired to serve as the valet of a wealthy Englishman by the name of Phileas Fogg. Fogg’s high-society friends have talked him into accepting a huge wager that will require him to circumnavigate the globe and return to London within eighty days’ time. As Fogg’s valet, it’s your job to accompany him on this voyage and handle the necessary logistics, like hotel accommodations and transportation between cities.

I did mention “inventive steampunk twists,” though, so perhaps I can pique your curiosity by briefly firing off some examples of those: You might find yourself with the option to travel between certain cities via such fantastical means as hovercraft, airships, and submersible passenger trains. There’s also an entire national military that’s comprised of steam-powered robots controlled by musical instruments, which you might even find yourself commanding if you play your cards right. If you’d like more information about 80 Days before making a purchase, I humbly suggest you have a look at my review from earlier this year.

20 Minutes Till Dawn | Discount: 40% | Sale Price (USD): $2.99

I’d like to think I’m just as aware as you are, dear reader, of the seemingly endless deluge of Vampire Survivors-like games that have taken Steam by storm for a while now. I admittedly have only played a small handful of these titles, but don’t let that discount the fact that 20 Minutes Till Dawn has definitely earned its spot near the top of the list containing my favorite games of this genre. I don’t think I can pinpoint any one particular thing about 20 Minutes Till Dawn that explains why it has so thoroughly won me over, but that won’t stop me from categorically recommending it.

20 Minutes Till Dawn’s title is quite apt considering that, in each run of its core gameplay loop, you’ll find yourself fighting off hordes of nightmarish creatures that will only stop attacking you when the first rays of sunlight reach the horizon, which, as you might expect, will happen in twenty minutes’ time from the start of each attempt you make to survive that long. Will those twenty minutes constitute the longest one-third of an hour your chosen characters have ever experienced or the harrowing last few moments of their lives? That question can only be answered by your skill and determination to survive.