Curious to get the community’s thoughts on the demos they loved in the latest Next Fest!
To start things off, here’s a few that I absolutely loved and played through as much as I could (or stopped myself if I knew I’d like it).
Viewfinder - A first person puzzle game a la Portal, The Witness, Antichamber, Entropy Center, etc…I played enough to see the hook of using images to solve puzzles and backed away quickly. This was a game I didn’t want to spoil too much for myself when I saw how cool it was.
Beyond Sunset - This was a “boomer shooter” recommendation I saw on Lemmy and checked it out because it seemed neat. I got really into the storyline and art style of the game and saw it through to the end of the demo. I almost gave up on the final boss but when I said no and wanted to push through, I knew I was hooked!
Galacticare - In the last few years, “simulation games” seem to have become my preferred genre and managing an outer space hospital was really engaging. I enjoyed designing each room and trying to optimize the flow of patients. The style and humor of the game worked well since sometimes the humor can feel a little “try hard” but it came together nicely. I don’t purchase a lot of games Day One any more but this might be one of them.
One Lonely Outpost - I’ve had this on my wishlist since it was announced during a stretch of time I was playing Stardew Valley, but this was the first time it’s been playable. I enjoyed the interactions with the world but I’m not sure what exactly it would build to (since the planet you land on is desolate). It may be about creating the town/outpost yourself. The demo seemed to overstay its welcome a bit BUT Stardew Valley-likes are super slow in the beginning, so I’m in a “wait and see” mode since I did enjoy parts of it and the unique setting.
Anything that ended up on your radar after this Next Fest?
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Eternights - A game which takes inspiration from the Persona series, but doesn’t take itself too seriously which really gives a great unique separation from Persona. It is filled with SOVL. Voice actors are absolutely top-tier (Hu Tao’s and Riuji’s / Itto’s VA-s are present as I feel it).
Little Kitty Big City - As a cat, you need to get back to your home which is atop of a tall building. It’s game where you combine Untitle Goose Game and Stray into eachother. It’s a really wholesome and funny game, with some 4th wall breaking lines in the demo. It sold the game for me.
I skimmed over that Little Kitty Big City page thinking the game wasn’t for me, but based on your description I’m very curious now!
Ngl and you made me interested in Viewfinder. ^^
Neverlooted Dungeon: Comedy dungeon crawler inspired by games like Ultima Underworld and Arx Fatalis. The demo consists of a tutorial and a small open-ended area to explore, with a focus on avoiding traps and interacting with physics objects to navigate and find loot. The demo doesn’t really show off Arx-levels of complexity, but it’s fun to explore and genuinely funny at times.
Stop Dead: Fast paced first person shooter where you attack enemies by using telekinetic powers to hurl objects and bodies to deal damage. The weapons work kinda like Mirror’s Edge, in that instead of getting your own loadout you pick dropped guns up off the floor and get rid of them once they’re out of ammo. Also, if you stop moving for more than a moment, you die. Demo is quite varied, and ends with a challenging mid-game level to show off the mechanics a bit more.
Mr. Run and Jump: Challenging 2D platformer with a lot of different moves that can be chained together in slick ways. There’s not much of a narrative and the neon visuals kinda look dated in a not-even-retro way, but the movement really carries the whole game.
Echo Point Nova: New shooter by the developers of Severed Steel. Has a lot of the same mechanics (slow motion, destructible terrain, etc), but makes the levels a lot more open and adds a grappling hook and hoverboard for a different style of mobility. There’s a bit of jank, but it’s very satisfying to play.
El Paso, Elsewhere: Indie Max Payne. I’m not exaggerating, it plays like Max Payne 2 and looks and feels like Max Payne 1. Swap out the main character and it could pass as a phenomenally faithful fangame.
Phoenix Springs: Stylised neo-noir narrative-driven point and click adventure. I usually don’t have the patience for these sorts of games, but I found the writing and visuals very compelling.
Fortune’s Run: Sprite based RPG FPS with level design that feels a bit like the classic Deus Ex, but with the fast paced combat of a boomer shooter. Has a Star Warsy rough and gritty sci-fi setting, if you’re into that.
The Next Fests are my favourite Steam event by far, already looking forward to the next one!
My personal highlight was Genopanic. I cute-spooky pixelart metroidvania-inspired platformer with a good mix of exploration, puzzles and combat. No aspect is super deep, but nicely done.
Wizard with a gun - I really enjoyed this one. Can’t wait to try the finished game coop with friends
The Invincible - Looks promising, the story sounds great but the controls were pretty unintuitive
Gord - The Settlers meets Grimdark. I enjoyed it
Grand Emprise: Time Travel Survival - A pretty janky hobbyist project. Pretty impressive for a solo dev but I don’t see it going anywhere
Station to Station - Looked great visually but very easy and very little depth. Not a sim but a simple puzzle game.
Dragonheir: Silent Gods - Clearly fishing for a D&D license. I can smell the microtransactions coming a mile away. Little depth or strategy. No thank you.
While the iron’s hot - Stardew Valley but you’re a blacksmith. I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected.
Sea of Stars - It reminded me a lot of older SNES RPGs from the past (looking at you, Chrono Trigger). I enjoyed this one a fair bit and looking forward to its release.
Enternights - The gameplay was interesting but pushing the whole horny thing a bit too much. The facial animations look like they could use a bit more work as they looked quite jarring/didn’t seem to go with the rest of the game. The music was enjoyable though.
Do the demos generally become unavailable after the fest is over?
It depends. In my experience, most demos stay up, and the few that are taken down sometimes explicitly say so on the store page or demo announcement.
Sea of Stars was the only one I tried, and what they had looked really good.
Kingdom Eighties is a branch off Kingdoms Two Crowns, and is storyline based instead of rougelite. You basically have a 2d side scroller kingdom to build an economy with and defend nightly. It’s a cool aesthetic, fun gameplay. I love any content I can get from Raw Fury. Minimalistic but well done pixel art, good music, intense battles.
Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery
The remake of the cult classic bakery girl finally gets a demo after it’s 2021 release date came and went. And it was pretty good. Runs well, shows the progress Mica made as a studio. Very excited for the full release to scratch that Fire Emblem style itch that Engage didn’t really satisfy.
Some pretty good demos out there:
Lies of P- People said this was like Bloodborne and they were not wrong. I enjoyed this a lot, and that the demo lasted up until the second boss made it fairly meaty.
Fortune’s Run- Interesting pixel art style deus-ex type game. Seems to have a lot of gameplay mechanics, but it was also really hard, I was not able to finish the demo, but I enjoyed what I saw.
En Garde!- Fun sword-fighting action game. The parry system was simple and the use of the environment made fights more interesting. Combat felt a little too samey, unsure if it will expand further as the game progresses.
Goodbye Volcano High- I enjoyed the characters and the voice acting, but the demo was fairly short, so I’m not entirely sure its going to go somewhere interesting, but dinosaurs are cool, so that gives it extra marks.
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical- Wasn’t sure what to expect from a musical, but it was definitely different. The demo jumps around a bit to different scenes which threw me off, but I liked what I saw and the singing definitely sets it apart.
Eternights- The gameplay and setup seemed interesting, but I was annoyed at how horny the game was. I feel they went way overboard in that department and was their go to for any light-hearted comedy.
Did you really enjoy the gameplay in lies of p? The controls felt sluggish to me. The animations felt sooo ling that I wasn’t able to react properly to the harder enemies. Might be the demo though.
It took me a while to get into the rhythm of fighting the doll enemies as their movement is really jerky, so its harder to read. Or maybe its the weapon choice that matters here, I picked the Rapier, which I assume is the fastest of the 3 starter weapons. I did not try out the others, so I’m not sure how slow they are.
Little Kitty, Big City - Cute game, nice art, not-so-great camera. Got a little motion sick.
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical - More or less what I expected after the gameplay reveals on Fig back when it was Chorus, but the dialogue mixing needs work. Levels were all over the place.
Station to Station - Voxel train-based puzzler. The art is quite nice, but the game play loop didn’t draw me in. It’s basically a puzzler of matching inputs to outputs via train tracks.
Paleo Pines - I’d say this is Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing but with dinosaurs! Cute, but couldn’t really get a sense of how it’ll develop; life sims take a bit to get going. Liked what I saw so far. Dinos are really cute too.
Jumplight Odyssey - Star Trek meets FTL meets late 70s/early 80s cartoon aesthetic. Ship management sim, liked what I saw so far. FTL-mechanic of having the big bad chase you might be off-putting to some. A difficulty level slider to tweak the speed of the chase might be welcome.
Mob Factory – Fun demo, tower defense crafting game. Zones don’t get progressively harder, so once you have something successful you can just let it run for resources from the mobs and move onto a new area or add more mob spawners to increase loot
Viewfinder – Short demo, great concept, can’t wait to see more
Station to Station – Cute puzzle game. Not a sim/transit game, trains are just the theme for the puzzle. Very pretty looking though
Laysara: Summit Kingdom – City builder on a mountain, with different elevations and castes of workers (including yaks). Didn’t get a great grasp on how much space management and avalanche control would affect the game.
Gord – Grimdark survival city builder. Seems fun, has a story and will reset your town but keep the people as you move through the dark forest.
Thronefall – More tower defense. Run around and shoot/kite as the king to keep enemy mobs busy. Balance more towers/soldiers vs economy. Extra modifiers for more challenge. Fun time killer, not sure how much I’d actually play it personally. Can only build in predefined spots, can’t choose what goes where.
Wizard with a Gun – Survival Crafting Roguelite with
gunsspellsspellguns. Scanning enemies with the book while they’re running around is annoying, but otherwise this was pretty fun. Supposed to have coop multiplayer, so I’d play it with friends once it’s out
