There's no doubt that Steam has been flooded, for better or worse, by visual novels as of late.

Now, don't get me wrong, Indie titles are great, but amidst the endless stream of "waifu"-bait visual novels (VNs) you'll see here on Steam, I think you'll be hard-pressed to find many decent stories with an intriguing plot that aren't about getting in a girl's pants for an affordable price. That's par for the course when discussing visual novels, but that's also why I tend to trust VNs from well-known studios/devs, because at least you know you'll get plot while playing VNs of acclaim like Clannad, the Grisaia Trilogy, or The Devil on G-String in exchange for their premium price.

But, let's rewind time back to 2012, when Gangnam Style was top of the charts around the world and every tween and their literature teacher was dying to see Shaky Camera: The Movie The Hunger Games. In this archaic age of yore, there were, quite frankly, no good visual novels on Steam, save for one: Christine Love's Analogue: A Hate Story. Back then, I wasn't sure how much story ten bucks could really buy, but boy I was surprised.

Analogue eschews all the teenage high-school setting jazz you'll see in 99.9% of visual novels out there. Instead, it opts to tell the fate of a ruined colony ship, the Mugunghwa, in a decidedly sci-fi setting. It does this with considerable polish.
Analogue's presentation is simple, nothing more and nothing less required to tell its story, letting you explore the lore of the ship's mysterious downfall at your own pace as you literally read through logs like the investigator you are supposed to be. At the very least its more interactive than half the VNs on the market, with a very entertaining minigame thrown in halfway through the story.

Now then, you can hold off on impulsively buying those tempting 11 Anniversary Lootboxes in Overwatch since for those same ten bucks, you get a substantial story and can brag to your friends all about the "Joseon" Era of Korean history.

And at the end of the day, what's more important? Getting yet ANOTHER Tracer legendary skin or knowing what "Joseon" means? You be the judge of that question.

Just uh...don't blame me if your 10 bucks gets you neither of those, in the end.

Pros

• Absolutely riveting plot
  
• Cute AI girls
  
• Different outfits on a whim for Cute AI girls
  
• More game interaction then smashing "ENTER" every 10 seconds
  
• Stop a nuclear explosion with your hacking skills
  
• A feminist game that makes sense
  
• You can achieve the impossible dream every indecisive teenage Light Novel main character wishes they could make by quite literally cheating the system

Cons

• No voice acting, but that's completely fine
  
• Relatively short, but there actually is a sequel so more playtime there too I guess
  
• Learning about how unpleasant people from the Joseon Dynasty could be is disgusting, but that's the point
  
• Not that I care but its based off of Korea and not Japan so you "purists" may have some beef with that.

No but seriously. Play Analogue.