Some Steam sales are wide open things: Any game can take part in one of the big four seasonal sales, for instance, as long as they're on sale during the relevant season. There are also more specific sales, like the third-person shooter fest, or the political sim fest. Few, though, are as narrowly defined as the current event, the Steam Box-Pushing Fest, which as the name indicates is all about games in which you push boxes.
Lest there be any doubt, Valve is not kidding when it says, with emphasis, that this fest is about pushing boxes: Nothing more or less, and definitely not pulling them. From the Steamworks documentation page:
"Games that include box-pushing or similar elements as a minigame are not eligible; the main gameplay loop should revolve around box pushing mechanics. Adjacent games (including all types of box-pushing puzzles) are also welcome to join. Games that are eligible will typically be 2D, have little to no time pressure to solve the puzzle, and likely require multiple attempts per puzzle to solve. Math and logic games that happen to use a grid or box are not eligible for this event."
The inspiration for the Box-Pushing Fest is of course Sokoban, a game about moving boxes in a warehouse that was first published in 1982 and has been released in one form or another for just about every platform to ever exist. In fact, if you check out our list of Steam sale dates, you'll see that the Box-Pushing Fest was at one point called the Sokoban Fest.
I don't know why the name was changed, but I definitely like this handle better: It's amusingly specific, and also more useful from a practical perspective. You don't need to know what Sokoban is to know what this fest is all about, after all.
It's not the biggest sale ever, but there's some good stuff to be had: Patrick's Parabox, Stephen's Sausage Roll, Bonfire Peaks, and Sokobond Express are just a small sampling of the hundreds of games marked down for the sale. And even if you're not especially interested in the pushing of the boxes, there's a free animated avatar, frame, and sticker to be had in the Steam Points Shop—all suitably box themed.
Steam's Box-Pushing Fest is live now and runs until April 28.
