In A Post-Community Steam Tagging World, Terms Like "Parryslop" And "Friendslop" Are Inevitable

In a Discord unrelated to Giant Bomb, Nextlander, or even the podcast I help co-host, I used the term "parryslop" to describe a game demo I didn't enjoy, and someone immediately got on my case. Because I suspect that person might be reading this post at this very moment, I will make it abundantly clear that 1) I mean no shade or ill will and want you to know our conversation more or less "inspired" me to write this, and 2) I will afford you basic privacy and not directly quote your exact words. Now, their rebuttal essentially amounted to "Hey, ZP, that term is off-putting and is slowly developing baggage that should result in you reconsidering using it so freely." And to a degree, I get where they were coming from, especially if they care about the specific type of jazz that FromSoftware puts out. At the same time, and as I will lay out soon, my use of the term "parryslop" and its related terms isn't usually directed at the cream of the crop, nor is it flippantly used to describe games earnestly or honestly made to relay new worlds or stories to the world. The games that really deserve the "parryslop" label are lazy, sloppy, cash-grabs that play like shit and are clogging up my Steam recommendations. And "friendslop" and "parryslop" games are usually a very specific type of "sloppy" game design that might be hard to describe on paper, but that uses a common "feel" to implement an umbrella of subgenre-approved gameplay mechanics. When I use that label or see it, I immediately recognize what I'm looking at when it is in action.

And terms like these are both inevitable AND helpful. Honestly, have you checked the Steam pages for games these days? Half of the tags are straight-up trolling, despite Valve and Steam saying they are trying to discourage such use of their tags. To this day, you'll still catch games with the "horror" tag, ironically, and with streamer-bait games flooding the platform, it's unlikely that behavior will ever get better. So, we have to make our own vocabulary and lexicon of terms that group games into genuinely helpful buckets. I can't pinpoint when it felt like categorization got lopped onto our plate as consumers, but it was definitely there when the game reviewer circuit boiled down to five to six full-time staffers in the games journalism field. And on paper, I get the resistance from the general audience and professionals to me using "parryslop," and why it opens a slippery slope. But let's not avoid the issue; we are already ten meters down that slope, regardless of the circumstances. Many moons ago, I recall Jeff Gerstmann wanting to avoid separating arcade shooters by default camera perspective (side scrolling, top-down, vertical, etc.) on the Giant Bomb wiki. I always got why he felt that way, as it does seem odd to fixate on a singular design choice to group games into categories, and often there are opposed games in those groupings because you set the categories around something as simple as a camera angle. But that ship sailed decades ago, and that's what most people use to categorize those games, and the same applies to console generations. Numbering console generations ceased being helpful fifteen-plus years ago. Nonetheless, most people still do it because that's how they cognitively process the progression of tech and hardware in the gaming industry. It's just going to happen.

So, yeah, sorry/not sorry for not thinking it's a major issue that people like me use a catch-all term when it is clear that genres that previously didn't take gameplay notes from FromSoftware's works now do. If we can't stop arbitrary community-led groupings of the fundamentals of the gaming hobby, why lose it over genre-based labels? Furthermore, I need "parryslop." With game reviewers now down to a handful and that lack of diversity leading to reviews that are rarely useful to me, I need to wade through the waters alone, and I need as many tools in my toolbox as I do that. Otherwise, I'd play a ton of Soulslikes and roguelike deckbuilders, and neither really is my cup of tea. There was a time when I looked at Oblivion and Skyrim and thought, "Man, in a post-Dark Souls world, this frictionless combat system does not work anymore! The next Elder Scrolls better have combos or a parry system." Then I played my tenth Soulslike RPG, and when the Oblivion Remaster came out, I realized there really is a simplicity to keeping things mashy and uncomplicated. I'm different, and I will be the first to admit that. And again, people who copy From's homework generally do so without honest intentions and with little to no originality. They're giving you the dryest parry systems with none of the upside, and I'm not sorry, but that's parryslop and deserves to be called out as such. It's sloppy game design that deserves a derisive label. But let's also not pretend as if these labels are negative. In fact, one of the most common permutations has been widely embraced by indie developers:

You Joke, But "Friendslop" and Its Related Clones Are Helpful Identifiers

It's important to note that some of the "-slop" catch-alls aren't directed at genres, but instead game types that convey a vibe or general structure. The clearest example of this phenomenon is "friendslop," which you'd be hard-pressed to say Peak, Among Us, Content Warning, Lethal Company, Phasmaphobia, and Repo are all in the same "genre." Still, you can quickly group them into the "friendslop" bucket and immediately get the general idea of their upsides and common pitfalls. These are games that release in Early Access, stay in Early Access forever, are based on teamwork and co-operation, use proximity chat to help players give directions to teammates, have incredibly low entry difficulty, and use low-fidelity graphics. There are other common elements worth listing, but understand that when something gets the "friendslop" label, most of those features are assumed to be in the game, and that's what makes it such a useful term. When you rightfully call something a "friendslop" game, I can immediately assess whether I have the social network or mental bandwidth to enjoy it and understand its vibe. That's pretty incredible.

Jay Costello over on Aftermath wrote a piece about the discourse on "friendslop," famously saying the term "isn't real," and while there's more to their article than that, it's safe to say that take hasn't aged well. The subgenre has a Wikipedia page; Aggro Crab openly embraced the term when Peak overperformed expectations; and indie developer Panic Stations openly advertised their game Frog Sqwad as friendslop. The people who were salty about the ubiquity of "friendslop" have lost the war, and more importantly, they weren't against the idea of using a term to group all these games together; they had a different one in mind. "Friendfarming" was a common term on Twitter before the industry opted for "friendslop," and let's not pretend we haven't been around this rodeo before. Remember when the gaming hobby lost its collective shit when "metroidbrainia" was being used to describe Blue Prince? The issue was an open rejection of that specific name, largely because everyone felt they could propose a better name. No one disputed the fact that there was a label in the first place for Blue Prince, Antichamber, and The Witness; the real issue was that the name we all liked was on the tip of our tongues, and it wasn't "metroidbrainia." Nonetheless, when we can't quickly agree on that alternative, we end up with portmanteaus that are hard to understand or unkind to the human eye, and we hate them forever.

And look, calling some of these games out for being "sloppy" is necessary. As heartless as that sounds, the inundation of Among Us, Lethal Company, and Peak clones has led to a wave of cheap cash-ins that exist only to copy and paste better, more well-intentioned games to make a quick buck. Yes, this issue is not unique, and I'm not claiming it is, but this again underscores the usefulness of the "friendslop" label I appreciate: games in this subgenre should be approached with caution. I mentioned earlier how often friendslop games rely on Early Access these days, and that's not a lie. I genuinely would say more friendslop games release via Early Access than not, and the genre lives up to the latter part of its name even with the cream of its crop. Lethal Company and Phasmaphobia were straight-up busted in their early forms. Whenever a new biome was introduced in Peak, it took Aggro Crab months for it to not feel punishingly difficult or infeasible. I ended up jiving with Burglin' Gnomes and its surrealistic world when its demo dropped during Next Fest, but that demo was straight-up broken, with teams able to fall into impossible death spirals within the first five to six minutes. Shit just straight-up didn't work as intended, and I went into the game knowing that and still appreciated it. Similarly, when you see "friendslop" attached to a game, you also know that if you don't have a network of friends willing to play the game with you, you might as well pass on it. Even if you saw someone have a blast with it on a Twitch stream or it got a glowing review, if you don't have friends to play games with, none of these games "work" as single-player experiences.

"Parryslop," "Rogueslop," "Cardslop," Et al. Are For The Shameless Clones; NOT The Good Shit!

As many of you already know, I'm not a fan of Dark Souls. I don't enjoy the vast majority of FromSoftware's modern works, but this article isn't a reiteration of why I feel that way. I mention it as a concession of why I might feel an affinity for a term like "parryslop." Nonetheless, you're never going to see me in a million years claim that a game like Elden Ring isn't a work of art or lacks creative or mechanical depth or merit. It's not my jam, and I shouldn't use a derisive label to demean the works of an entire studio and the community that supports them. But the Soulslike clones that continue to ride on the coattails of From's success without any of the mechanical depth of your average From game and only have parry mechanics to fill a bullet point on their Steam page to sucker people into buying their shit? Yeah, that's "parryslop," and I'm not going to stop using that term to call those games out. It's hard to describe, but the way combos and dodging in games feel seems like a lurch toward homogenization. Character action, Arkham-likes, and Musous still exist, but the From school of thought on how to avoid getting killed or taking damage is winning; there's no doubt about it. And if that's going to happen, there needs to be an easy way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Some of these parryslop games on Steam don't even have a drop of game juice. Instead, they are stiff as fuck, have punishing windows, and no alternative tools beyond dodging and parrying that make many of From's works even remotely fun to play in the first place. Some will even lazily drop you into arenas, with next to no worldbuilding or attempt at lore, and expect you to bang your head on a boss for an hour before you finally get vaguely signposted attack windows. And parrying isn't your plan B, it's often your only tool. These parryslop games are happy to borrow one mechanic from Soulslikes, but completely lose sight of why that mechanic holds any water with fans of From's games. And before you ask, yes, I do think big AAA games from the more prominent players should be held to a different standard than indie developers. As generous as it might be, Assassin's Creed Shadows having a parry and dodge system for its combat, on top of low-rent Estus flasks, is the laziest shit and a sign that this specific mechanic is no longer being approached honestly; it's become the designated mechanic for studios to differentiate their product from a crowded field or genre that has tried and true design templates.

My issue here goes beyond Soulslikes, by the way. Have you seen some of the bad Balatro clones on Steam? You've seen these games because there was a hot minute when they flooded everyone's Steam recommendations, and many of us got burned on a couple. Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers is one of the more blatant examples, with its major deviation from Balatro being that it revolves around blackjack rather than five-card poker. The problem is that it lacks Balatro's game juice, and the luck-based swings feel terrible. Your decks are either murdering everything that stands before you, or you're getting your ass handed to you; there's rarely any middle ground. The game was impossibly hard at launch, and it took multiple months of constant updates from the developer before most people even unlocked half of the decks in the game. So, yeah, I have called it "Balatro slop." That game took aesthetic choices from a better game under the impression it would help sell copies, despite not inheriting any of the game's genuinely addictive gameplay. It was sloppy. The same goes for Slots & Daggers. That game is fine at $8, except it taps out after two sessions. The game's slot machine-based combat is very easily broken, and after you achieve a certain damage threshold, nothing in the game can touch you. In my case, it took me about 2 hours to reach the end, and the developer doesn't seem to be planning any future updates.

So, What's The Big "Lesson" Here? (i.e., I'm Tired Dawg)

Peak clones and games adding parry mechanics to their gameplay, with mixed results, aren't going to stop. People tend to say that gameplay mechanics and genres rise and fall out of favor, and while that may have been the case in the past, I don't think that's happening anytime soon with the examples I highlighted. OG Rogue Legacy was over thirteen years ago, and the roguelike Renaissance doesn't seem to be slowing down. The original Slay The Spire was seven years ago, and deckbuilders still seem to be in the early phases of their "Golden Age." So, I feel pretty confident in saying FromSoft's pioneering work with parrying mechanics isn't going to become passe overnight, and you'll still see indie or AAA games mix key tenets of the mechanic into non-Soulslike genres. After giving parrying a shot the first two or three times, I'm open to any label that helps me identify what will and won't be a productive use of my time. Because I've settled how I feel about parrying mechanics in non-Souls games and am pretty firm about how I feel about FromSoft titles in general, I need to do game recommendation sorting on my own. The aforementioned five to six people still reviewing games full-time love Soulslikes, and I don't trust them when they say a game from the subgenre serves as an effective on-ramp or foil for Soulslike critics like me. I feel as confident about that as some of you feel exhausted when you watch a trailer for a cool indie game only to feel betrayed when you discover it's another roguelike deckbuilder; I'm done with at least one recurring gameplay mechanic or subgenre; you're done with at least one recurring gameplay mechanic or subgenre; we are all done with at least one recurring gameplay mechanic or subgenre.

And am I really the villain in feeling mentally exhausted that there are too many games coming out with card-based combat or parries? So what if I'm using kitchy, gimmicky terminology? There's nothing any individual game today or tomorrow can do to change how I feel about some of the mechanics I have ranted about; I've made up my mind, so don't bother trying to sell me on something. I'm going to be honest with you all again. Last week, I realized I still hadn't published an actual 2025 GOTY list on the site. And as I assessed the games that likely would be on my list, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 came up, and I realized it didn't crack my top ten, but the Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake did. I get that Expedition 33 has a better story with more fully realized characters. Still, by the midway part of Expedition 33, I really came to dread the gameplay sections and wanted them to end as quickly as possible. By that point, it felt like it didn't matter if I was fighting against a random mook or a boss; I was getting lopped into a 30-move-long parry sequence for every goddamn attack, and there were days, usually after work, when I did not have the mental bandwidth to do that. Yes, I know that mobs have pretty much no HP, and if you stack damage, you can one-shot them. Nonetheless, something just didn't jive with me the way that game jived with the rest of you, and that's okay.

And in those cases, as I oscillate between consciousness and sleep in an office chair, scrolling through a menu and selecting "Attack" works so much better.