When the Steam Summer Sale returned on the 11th June, I was expecting to buy games. Many games. However, I was not expecting to be able to play one in order to get deals.
But that is just what Steam did. The Steam Summer Monster Game plays a lot like Clicker Heroes and other idle games (which I can't believe is now a genre of its own!) in that you have to click enemies to do damage, buy upgrades (including click damage, DPS, critical hits, more loot and health) and wait for the enemies to die.
But it's not just a solo pursuit anymore! That's because, in the Steam Summer Monster Game, you team up with a varied amount of other people, depending on the how many people are online at the time, in order to defeat three lanes of enemies and progress to the next level. Each level increase bags you a new level on your badge and every 10 levels gets you a new badge. Going up levels also gets you Trading Cards (foil and normal) based on the game's enemies, to use on another badge (warning: once the sale ends, your Trading Cards will disappear so make sure you use them!). The enemies themselves appear to be based on various characters of video gamingdom such as Payday and Half-Life. Oh, and the enemies can fight back, so watch your health (although death only incurs a 5 second penalty).
The last thing you earn from going up levels (well, actually, for beating bosses) are special points to spend on one-use abilities to use in the game. These range from giving you 100k to increasing your max health to knocking an enemy's health down to 1%. You can also buy other, permanent, abilities (such as Tactical Nuke and Medics) with gold.
As well as just playing to go up levels, you are also trying to fulfill certain milestones that gives you extra daily deals in the Steam Summer Sale. So, basically, play games to get games. I wish every sale was like this...
The game resets every day at 9am Pacific Time and this resets all of the previous day's levels and upgrades (but gives you those special points I mentioned earlier) and, so, you need to start a new game (or join a friend's if they are doing well). Because of this, I'd recommend not being too stingy on your use of items and gold.
The game does have its weak points, of course. These are mainly to do with lag, the fact that the servers struggle slightly and that the damage you do only accumulates to the other players (generally far superior - at least for me) damage. However, with a bit of polish, I wouldn't mind if Steam kept this game going past the Steam Summer Sale. Now, excuse me while I go and attend my wallet's funeral...
Goodbye for now, Harry
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