Let’s share our lists and opinions on the demos. We’ll help each other find promising games.
This Next Fest runs until Monday, June 16, 10 am PDT.
Seeing as Steam Next Fest ends about 12 hours from now, I’d like to describe / review some demos I’ve played over the week. Hopefully, at least some of these games haven’t been mentioned before, apologies for bumping the thread:
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No, I’m not a Human: Easily my favorite demo of Steam Next Fest. The game presents a kafkaesque scenario in which you must let in humans, but keep out “Visitors” from your own home. The game is intentionally (and consistently) ugly, in a way where even the humans are ugly. The game has a collage like aesthetic, much like the creepy Nickelodeon show Angela Anaconda. This is my favorite type of horror (eerie and weird!), all without resorting to cheap methods like jumpscares. Aspects of the demo are randomized, so there’s lots of replayability.
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Bloodthief: Oh man. As a fan of games like Dusk, Ultrakill, Celeste, and Super Meat Boy, this is a game that was made for me. It’s like a precision platformer in first person with hack and slash elements… I am going to spend a lot of time on this when it comes out lol
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Ball x Pit: basically Atari breakout combat (against tetris shaped enemies) with roguelike elements. Also, you craft and build outside of combat. I’m interested to see how these different genre elements will play out in the final release.
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Bits & Bops: Beautiful rhythm based game, thats fun, charming, and family friendly. Apparently a spiritual successor to Rhythm Heaven, which I have not played. Has a native Linux build. I encountered some bugs (the game would sometimes freeze when transitioning from tutorial to game, or restarting a stage)
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Project Arrow: Puzzle platformer with some precision platforming elements and combat (involving a bow and arrow). Adorable cat protagonist. Synthwave soundtrack, plays great with mouse and keyboard.
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The Adventures of Sir Kicks A Lot: Surprisingly deep immersive sim with hack and slash elements. Despite the Minecraft aesthetic, the animations are surprisingly fluid and funny at times. There’s some DNA of Dishonored and Thief in here, where you are rewarded for creativity.
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Kity Builder: Simply adorable. It’s a calm game in which you are free to build on a remote island. In fact, there are no limits: you do not have to gather resources, farm materials, or grind to build. You can also place as many buildings as you like (and you have to, to get around the island)
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Dispatch: Surprising depth to the hero dispatch mechanics. Funny cutscenes (although the humor might not be for everyone). Cutscene interactions remind me of the Telltale games (to be expected, since some of the employees worked on this). Has a star studded cast that makes it feel like you’re playing a high budget TV show
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Platypus Reclayed: Remake of older 2004 game. Side scrolling ship shoot-em up with hi-res clay models, and has 2 player local coop. Pretty fun.
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Evolve Lab: Async multiplayer rougelite in which you (auto-) battle sea creatures that you can upgrade between rounds. Pretty fun for the small amount of time I played
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Forestrike: Roguelite martial arts game in which each battle can be rehearsed infinitely in your character’s mind (before actually trying it in the real world). You are encouraged to rehearse extensively, since what happens in a real world fight (like getting hit, or having a hostage die) is permanent in your run. An interesting, political story is teased in the demo.
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Pigface: Very dark, gritty immersive sim in which you play as an assassin, taking contract jobs. Atmosphere almost feels like Manhunt, although not quite as dark. Feels more like a PS2 game than PS1. AI could use some work but the potential is definitely there.
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Wander Stars: Animation and character designs are an obvious love letter to DBZ. Gameplay is turn based combat, where you arrange words to create your attack. You know how in anime they shout words before their attacks? The combat is literally that lol. Note that it’s a roguelite so dieing puts you at the beginning of a map (or forces you to load). I’m somewhat mixed on this structure (for this type of game), but we’ll see how it goes when the game releases.
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Öoo: Cute puzzle platformer and metroidvania where the title looks like the main character lol. You use bombs to break obstacles and reach certain areas.
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Ratatan: Rhythm based roguelite where you command a small group of creatures to fight bosses and other enemies. It definitely has a “kawaii” aesthetic, so not for everyone. Overall really fun
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The Drifter: Point and click game with an interesting story and great voice acting. I won’t mention more, to avoid spoiling the story
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Demonfo: The only VN on my list. It is also a point and click game. Interesting story that kind of reminds me of Urban Myth Dissolution Center. Surprisingly funny, at times.
Special mentions:
- Undermine 2 and Neon Abyss 2: I’ll be honest, I thought these were only ok as singleplayer experiences. However, they look like they might be fun games to play in online coop.
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I’ll plug The Stickman: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2781680/The_Stickman/
It was made by Simple Shark, who I know from his Rocket League Maps and Lethemyr videos.
I tried a bunch of these today and yesterday. EDIT: also tacked on impressions of demos for After Inc: Revival, Kaizen: A Factory Story, and Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.
In the “Shut Up and Take My Money” tier:
- Bits & Bops - Sure, it’s a total Rhythm Heaven clone but, hey, why mess with a winning formula? Still, I worry about devs borrowing this heavily from Nintendo titles these days 😬
- Dispatch - I only needed 10 minutes with this to know I’m sold. The animation is gorgeous and it has a hell of a cast. Between this and Expedition 33, how are new studios getting these people!?
- Mina the Hollower - Shovel Knight’s the best retro game I’ve seen and I didn’t need to see much of Mina to know that Yacht Club delivered again. It’s got a Zelda vibe (the jump especially feels just like it did in Link’s Awakening) along with all that other 8-bit-with-present-day-game-design goodness. I also cut this one short so I can enjoy it in full later. Day 1 for me.
Pretty good but a couple hiccups:
- Forestrike - Hey, PlayStation gamepad glyphs! Always appreciated. Outstanding atmosphere in general. The pixel graphics are interesting; the character design reminds me of old Sierra games. I wonder if at some point during dev they considered just not going roguelite? There’s real storytelling talent here and I think a linear game with increasing complexity might have been even better (and helped to not undercut the narrative as roguelite progression tends to do).
- inKonbini - Very short demo, but the gameplay seems it’d be good and vibe is cozy. Really strange that the written Japanese is gibberish. It seems too elaborate to be placeholder text, so I wonder what the story there is? It takes me out of the life sim aspect of this a bit.
- Kaizen: A Factory Story - I found a lot to like with this. I tend not to like puzzle games, but when I find one that’s interesting, I tend to really like it. The setting is also great. After a very short demo, the only thing I’m not sure on is how long the full game is going to be. I’d like to get this, but the price has to be right.
- MIO: Memories in Orbit - This one was up and down for me across the board: music, gameplay, systems, visuals. The tutorial sections are outstanding work and worth the download for that alone (there’s one right away). While I think the metroidvania design here is good, I wasn’t sold on the graphics. At times it’s difficult to parse out what’s a platform and what’s background, and there are weird blind spots with camera on top of that. I also can’t believe they went with the map system from Hollow Knight, the only real negative of that game.
- Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - I see this one just went 1.0 after an early access period, and critic reviews have been mixed. Understandable why old Elder Scrolls fans are feeling this is scratching an itch. I think there’s a lot to like here, but I might ultimately skip it. The prevailing thought I kept getting through the demo is that this studio’s next game is going to be great.
Not for me:
- After Inc: Revival - This ended up playing more like a clicker game than I was expecting. This seems not bad, but this isn’t my kind of game.
- BALL X PIT - The gameplay pacing on this is unpleasant, with the roguelite elements stopping the action too much. Kept wanting to get into a flow state and was constantly interrupted.
- Bloodgrounds - All the other demos I played came ready with story and this one feels underbaked in that department. What I played of the demo was almost all gameplay. Didn’t see much that sets it apart from the pack.
- Dice Gambit - I don’t think this strategy game gets the basics down well enough to add on the dice layer. Feels like one move should be guaranteed regardless of rolls (and lack of move undo is unfortunate also). The art style also isn’t for me.
Woah! BALL X PIT is shocking to me! This was easily my favorite second favorite next fest game I’ve ever played, just behind Balatro. The action is insanely cool, the combos are very unique and interesting. Loved every moment of it. Very curious to see how much the full game will have/add.
Ratatan!
This wasn’t part of Next Fest, but I devoured ‘Tainted Grail - Fall of Avalon’. Excellent demo.
Jump Ship for sure.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2841820/Jump_Ship_Demo/
Definitely got some rough spots though.
I am loving Cleared Hot. It brings me back to my youth when MicroProse reigned supreme.
One I’ve been waiting for for a while, “It has my face” Admittedly I didn’t find it on the nextfest page. I found it well over a year ago when it was still DoubleMe. The original was super addicting and I like the direction the story seems to be going in the demo.
Also trying to be patient for Clover Pit
And Gone Fishing has some promise to it. Not everybody’s bag, but my buddies and I all found the demo pretty fun.
Jump ship, rogue point, and mycopunk. Pretty solid demos to try out. They definitely need more content for release, but all of them are decently fun.
I want to try disco as dead (rhythm beat’em up) and pioner (mmo stalker looking game)
My report from day 1
Orbyss — 3D puzzles with spheres
Thoughts before playing: Pretty, abstract 3D puzzle game. But what’s the killer feature? Like the portal gun from Portal or the camera from Viewfinder?
This is what it would be like to play the PlayStation 2 boot sequence as a puzzle game, with floating cubes and coloured sparks whizzing around in an abstract void. You get to control some balls, rolling them around the level to press buttons and zoom through pipes.
This demo shows some early levels, featuring some fairly stimulating puzzles, but it failed to really grab me. The slow pacing and pure abstractness of the game’s setting aren’t getting me excited to play more. I just never got to that “aha” point where I realized what made the game special. In comparison, another puzzle game demo I played in a past Next Fest, The Art of Reflection, didn’t waste any time showing off its key feature of jumping through mirrors.
I’m going to pass on this game, but I know someone is going to like it.
Panta Rhei — Atmospheric top-down adventure with time manipulation
The game produced an error when launching it, which I fixed by forcing Steam to run it with Proton Experimental.
2D animated cutscenes? Hell yeah, I love that kind of effort. The in-game 3D art also does a good job capturing that illustrative feel of the cutscenes. Atmospheric top-down adventure with cool art and light RPG elements? I liked Bastion and Tunic, so maybe this could be up my alley, too. The game’s premise and worldbuilding interest me. You play as a young guardian of time and use your time powers to fight the monsters ravaging the world.
But gameplay-wise, this demo is rough. I found the melee combat to be unsatisfyingly sluggish. There’s a bug where falling off the world makes you permanently faster when you respawn, and I was definitely running way too fast by the end of the demo. The game is tagged as a roguelike (aka “choose some randomly drawn upgrades”) on its store page, but there wasn’t much time in the demo to really appreciate any of those upgrades in action.
I’ll pass. It’s really unfortunate that this demo disappointed me, since this game still might grab me if it gets in better shape.
Wander Stars — Turn-based combat anime
The key selling points for Wander Stars are its loud inspiration by anime and its word-slinging combat mechanic, the latter of which got me to try this demo. I thought it was an interesting take on turn-based combat to line up words that customize an attack, and that old anime style presentation is indeed charming.
Wander Stars is also very heavy on the visual novel-style dialogue and cinematics, which is probably necessary to evoke that anime feel. It felt more like a visual novel in disguise than the more mechanically involved turn-based RPG that I was hoping for. I’m just lacking the patience to read so much between active gameplay, though the gameplay near the end of the demo does show potential for depth in the turn-based combat.
I’ll pass.
Day 2 of Next Fest is over! Here’s what I tried.
Good Luck — An absurdly dangerous walk to work
- Just walk to work
- Slowly walk through streets full of deadly things, like exploding garbage bins, loose signpoles, and falling signs
- No checkpoints! No dodging! This is a rage game.
- There’s online co-op, apparently. Have Fun with friends!
- This demo is silly fun, but I don’t need to play more of this
Pass
Öoo — Puzzle platformer with bombs
- This guy also made Elec Head, another charming puzzle platformer
- Puzzle platforming with exploration
- Cute pixel art
- Wordless teaching. Actually, the only words in the game are the credits!
- Puzzles all revolve around clever use of bombs: launch yourself like a rocket jump, blow up one bomb to push another
Wishlisted
PANIK — Chess-like grid puzzles
- Has that Flash game feel, but in a good way. Quirky idea, simple design. It’s built to quickly get you in and playing.
- The puzzles are like connecting circuits. The figures can only move if they’re connected to a crown-wearing figure.
- An interesting take on grid-based puzzles. Like a fusion of Sokoban, chess puzzles, and “Chinese” checkers.
- PANIK’s cute demo trick: just have a quick line of super-simple levels to show off mechanics in the rest of the game!
- I’d actually love to play this on my phone instead
Wishlisted
SourceWorld — Dungeon crawling FPS in the Half-Life universe
- Deus Ex-like cutscenes for a story set after the Combine invasion! You join a company that raids the multiverse
- Doom screen melt transition, holy crap
- The familiarity and comfort of Source engine physics, movement, and weapons
- Game crashed a bunch for me, so I’ll have to stop early
Soft wishlist (I’ll keep an eye on this)
!mrak — Super stylish immersive sim
- BTW, “mrak” is Russian for “darkness”
- Super rough, gritty introduction to a setting drowning in crusty old tech
- Unfortunately crashes early in the game
Soft wishlist
Day 3
Bloodthief — First-person parkour/speedrunning
- Crusty brown gothic look, like Quake
- Gameplay really grabbed me. Sometimes, I was leaning forward and holding my breath!
- More and deeper movement mechanics, compared to other first-person parkour games, like SEUM or Neon White. Building up and preserving speed is a big deal
- Challenging levels, with actual enemies to fight and a quickly-rising difficulty level. Levels are usually 1-5 minutes long — lengthy compared to Neon White’s 10-30 seconds
- I managed to wall jump off of a deadly spike wall, and I’m still not sure if that was intended
Soft wishlist. I definitely enjoyed this demo, but I currently don’t have an appetite for this type of game.
Dice Gambit — Tactical RPG with dice
- First thing after the intro cutscene: a detailed character creation screen. That’s pretty overwhelming.
- I like the art style except for the subdued 3D character models
- Throwing the dice and watching them settle is satisfying, as it is in Armello
- Gameplay is clearly focused on battle grid combat, since the “dungeon crawling” is just clicking on a map, like Slay the Spire
- Do team management and watch the plot in the downtime between jobs
- There is an appreciable amount of role-playing in this RPG
Wishlisted
Day 4 was all black cats
Everdeep Aurora — Exploration-heavy platformer
- Really well-executed limited palette art. It swaps palettes between different areas for mood. Maybe that’s why the playable character is a black cat.
- This demo is really short. I saw a bit of lore and played some hide and seek, then went through the scary door. The cat has a drill but I don’t even get to use it!
- Didn’t get a chance to see any interesting action except for the very last few seconds of the demo
- The camera feels unpolished. It always freely drifts behind you, so quickly changing directions often will make the camera jiggle unpleasantly. It would be nice if the camera would stay still or lock to an axis sometimes. That would especially help with aiming jumps, since the camera always jerks upward a bit every time you jump.
- The controls feel great. Super responsive movement with no sliding and little momentum buildup. Jump height is also quick to respond to letting go of the jump key.
Soft wishlist. This demo just wasn’t long enough to be totally sell me on the full game.
Project Arrow — Puzzle platformer with archery
- I found this demo to be good but not great. I’m struggling to identify why it didn’t appeal to me more.
- Maybe the selection of levels wasn’t impressive enough. There were a handful of puzzle ones, but some just felt like repeats with not much new each time. There seemed to be a lot of autoscrollers.
- Platforming movement mechanics were simple and straightforward, which is appropriate for a puzzle platformer, but then there are levels with precision platforming and not much puzzle
- Cool series of boss levels at the end
- Maybe the demo didn’t do enough to hint at the possibilities for the whole bow and arrow mechanic for puzzles, so I’m just not getting hyped enough
- Maybe I just don’t get the presentation of the game? Electronic music and high-tech UI but playing as a cat with a bow in the forest
Pass
Swoosh Cat — Precision platformer
- Celeste but with 360° dash
- Cool mechanic: dash into spikes to bounce off of them
- Slow motion while aiming, but the aim indicator isn’t very accurate. Also, unlimited slow motion
- Hard to tell when I have dash or not
- Something feels off about the air control. I often overshoot or undershoot when trying to land on a small platform
- What a long demo! This is a substantial amount of game to give out.
Pass. I had fun, but I’m currently not in the mood for Celeste-style precision platforming.
Day 5
Look Mum No Computer — Twin-stick shooter adventure
- Trying the demo purely because of the weird trailer
- Very retro PC gaming vibe. SID chip music!
- Rough introduction. Big info dump right at the start before I know what I’m doing
- Music changes as you change the installed skills, which are presented as synthesizer modules
- Struggling with visibility. Hard to quickly tell what’s an enemy and what’s background art. Also hard to tell what’s collidable and what’s clear
- I’m not finding the combat here very intersting
Pass
Morsels — Action roguelike (Isaaclike?) with creature collecting
- Gross and cute
- The classics from Rogue: traps, unexplained stuff, retrying a lot until you start to understand
- Demo shows a small but varied range of creatures with different abilities, which always come with a randomly selected bonus
- Quick switch between your roster of three
- At least in this early part of the game, ammo count is really low and even ranged attacks don’t go far
- Great presentation. Pixel art feels kind of like claymation
Pass. I liked the demo a lot, but I’m already playing a lot of roguelikes and my wishlist already has ones I’m more excited for
ODDCORE — Surreal boomer shooter
- Maximalism. An exhilarating force-feeding of the senses.
- Liminal spaces but actually awesome and fun. Exterminate the Backrooms! Shoot the jump scare monsters in their faces!
- Excursions into the Oddcore only last 5 minutes unless you buy time extensions
- Interesting idea: you can teleport home (almost) whenever you want to buy upgrades or more time
- Chaotic level progression, like really channel surfing through the multiverse. Sometimes, instead of warping to the next level, you end up in a corrupted level or a bonus level or just some weird, mildly creepy room
Wishlisted
Jump Ship and Moonlighter 2
How is Moonlighter 2? The first one is a game I always felt like I should like but I never really enjoyed the loop of the game for some reason.
It was interesting. Added a roguelite aspect to the dungeons, which could work if it’s implemented well, but is pretty overdone at this point. The shop part is pretty similar with a few additions. Performance was pretty bad and was unplayable on SteamDeck.
Overall, I’ll wait for the full release and see how the reviews look. I like the developers and hope it does well.
I spent a good long time browsing through the piles of thumbnails to make myself a tall list. It’s a mix of games I’m excited for, games that look interesting to me, and weird games. Since I spent so much time today browsing for games, I haven’t actually played much today on day 1.
Some thoughts on my list
- Bits & Bops has already had a demo for months now, but for Next Fest, there’s a new minigame to play. Also, I backed this game on Kickstarter, so I’m obviously interested in seeing this game be good. And I think it is.
- SourceWorld is a Half-Life 2 mod participating in Next Fest! It’s an FPS dungeon crawler! The Source engine isn’t dying anytime soon.
- Oddcore has a really flashy trailer. I actually first heard of it from seeing it get front page attention on Newgrounds. It could be the first game set in “liminal spaces” that isn’t utterly boring or crap.
- Funi Raccoon Game is on this list because the trailer is stupid and I want to see more of it. I have high hopes.
- Why, yes, those are three games featuring a black cat as playable character.
I showed my kid the trailer for bits & bops and he literally did a gasp of delight. Thanks for that :)
