|OT| Steam Next Fest - June 2024 started

[Panda Pedinte]

My main issues were related to the way the character controls, while playing with a Xbox controller I wasn't able to activate the super jump after getting the upgrade, once I switched to keyboard and mouse the indicator to press the '1' appeared on screen. Still about the super jump, it felt a bit inconsistent, some times I could jump high and other the jump height was the same as if I didn't had it activate.

In the boss battle it seemed like if you took too much time to move out of the way of their attacks you are going to get hit, maybe making the character slightly faster can help.

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It's more Toree! The demo is only one level but you can get an overall idea of how the game will be.
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A Hollow Knight clone, in a wolrd where Silksong will release only after the heat death of the universe it can scratch that itch. I reached what seemed to be a boss but dropped the demo there as I was getting annoyed by the parry mechanics.
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I really wanted to like because of how absurd it is but the game did nothing for me. The level I played was kind of bland and the wall jump when you're in cat form was hit and miss. The anime opening was cool though.
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a 3D platformer inspired by early 2000 titles, once I got used to the moves I had some good fun!
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[gabbo]

Was able to get in some demo time.

Children of the Sun

A shooter in the truest sense - don't want to spoil anything, but it's fantastic, if maybe a little (for a demo) mechanically shallow. Still, it executes on that mechanic incredibly well and it's going on the 'ol wishlist for sure.


Paws for Adventure

I usually dislike the art style this goes for (retro, pixelation), but having just lost a cat recently, this is kind of frustratingly cathartic. Frustrating, in that the demo is basically the tutorial, but things are so spread out you're spending a lot of time just wandering around looking for quest items with little idea of why something is or isn't around. For action-adventure or cat fans.

Seren Nova

Come for the top down shooting, stay for or run away screaming at, the intentionally awful FMV cutscenes. Goofy, but could use some work. Controls aren't very tight, and aiming is harder than it should be, also it crashed on me before I could finish the mission. Could take or leave a fully realized version

 

[Aaron D.]

Chances are if you know about Pacific Drive, you're already planning to buy it in a couple weeks. Demo only cements that decision.

Some are saying they're getting performance issues, but I haven't had any personally.

Good chance this will be appearing on End of Year lists.



Space Trucker looks absolutely gorgeous & runs great. Vehicle has lots of intractability, as though thought was put into onboard systems, maintenance & upgrades.

It's got that space-trucker vibe on lockdown. Kinda like the Rebel Galaxy games.

This genre can be so hit & miss, with high highs and low lows.

On first blush, Star Trucker is looking like the real deal.



Abiotic Factor sports an infectious combo of creativity & verve.

Reserved humor in a Black Mesa setting with a novel mix of survival/crafting im-sim problem solving.

This is the kind of genre-hybrid mix that continues to keep the medium vital & fresh.

 

[manchego obfuscator]

Steam Next Fest Demos I've played thus far:


extremely stylish Superhot-esque sniper gameplay; feels very polished, though I'm not entirely clear yet that there's enough variety for an entire campaign


Didn't play this one for very long, but the drill "swimming" mechanic and using it to gain additional height feels great


A lot of work clearly went into the Cartoon Network-esque animation, but it's a bit too exaggerated for my taste, and seems like there's a little too much focus on writing and art direction over getting you into the gameplay. Might work better as a Zelda-like in the full game, though


Top-down Metroidvania (I normally think of that as oxymoronic but it's not clear that this has puzzle dungeons or other key Zelda tropes, so we'll go with that for now) with a cute cat-in-the-afterlife conceit, great art direction, and solid level design and controls.


Very pretty 2.5D African-inspired Metroidvania, though it doesn't feel quite as polished as the demo of the somewhat similar-looking PoP: The Lost Crown did, with significant (shader compilation?) stutter on my PC. Still very much looking forward to the full game, though.


Only played this one for a few minutes, but seems like it's trying to be a more accessible sci-fi Hollow Knight where you can shapeshift into enemies, hence the title. seems promising


Probably my favorite of the Metroidvania demos I've played thus far, along with Crypt Custodian. Psychedelic art direction that really doesn't look like any other game in the genre I've ever played, with movement and combat that are simple thus far but feel great.


still need to finish this one - linear third-person narrative game where you play as a Russian nun, dealing with mental illness (or possibly demonic possession) in a very Hellblade-esque manner. Great production values and visuals, intriguing story, solid pacing thus far


Barely had time to play this but the shadow traversal mechanic seems cool and opens up a lot of possibilities for puzzles, stealth, and platforming

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

The trailer pretty much tells you outright that this isn't a game, more like a level-editor that lets you build a scene from prefab blocks and then look at what you made. For something that's supposed to release in less than a month, it has a surprising number of issues and bugs, too. The artwork is nice, but I have no idea who this is supposed to be for.



Interesting take on classic top-down arcade action, but ruined IMHO by too much rogue-lite design - no powerups and instead having to die over and over to slowly save up on loot to buy health upgrades is not my idea of fun.



Sounds good on paper ("Katamari, but also a golf game"), but the golf game is barely there - the tee-off is barebones, there's no putting, there's no different clubs, it might as well be pinball. Almost feels like the golf bit was an afterthought. Navigating the boost-pads needs quicker reactions than you can reasonably have with a controller, so mouse-keyboard centric, too. Needs work, but releases in two weeks, so - pass.



Good looking metroidvania, plays well, too, but the difficulty is for pros who have been mainlining metroidvanias for years, so not for a scrub like me.



Will anybody anywhere ever make a Backrooms-themed game on Steam that is not garbage (or even simply not get abandoned before release)? This one's probably not gonna be the one either.



This is the 50GB download demo. Apparently the game has been in production in some way or another for 12 years now and had a failed Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign at some point, but will actually get released after all this year. The game's assets have all been created and built as physical miniatures first and then 3D-scanned into the game engine (which explains a lot of the long production time). Somewhat unfortunately the game itself seems to be just yet another German point and click though, with slow, plodding storytelling and writing that wants to be funny but gets stuck halfway between the level of dad jokes and sketch comedy from 50 years ago. 50 gigs of fun this demo is not. The claymation look is this game's strongest selling point and I'm not sure it's enough to sell me on it. At least the emphasis seems to be on storytelling rather than puzzling, there seems to be no object inventory.



Superb looking and rock-solid playing metroidvania with art direction from Niklas 'El Huervo' Åkerblad of Hotline Miami fame. Easy wishlist and recommendation for everyone who enjoys C O L O R S and metroidvanias.



A modern remake of the 16/32-bit home-computer and Gameboy classic Bubble Ghost. Production quality is flawless, the looks are very nicely done and cute (the original games from the 1990s were not exactly good-looking, so this isn't just a weird attempt at nostalgia cash-grabbing, this really looks like a labor of love) and most importantly, the game still will make anybody rage HARD a couple of levels in. Wishlisted and recommended for anybody, not just people who remember the original.



This one really surprised me - I had never heard of this game before and it wasn't part of any promotions or trailer shows, I just found it while clicking through the Next Fest page. The intro and the small tutorial area right at the start do not look like much at all (in fact, they look startingly like a 7th generation console game), but then the game opens up and the reason why the asset and texture detail is sometimes a bit on the low side becomes clear - the maps are huge! Gameplay is stealth-centric, but lets the player choose whether to be a silent assassin or a shadow that just slips by enemies without even harming them. The gameplay had me hooked pretty quickly. Wishlisted and really looking forward to the finished product.




Dang, and I still have 10 more demos downloaded ...

 

[Panda Pedinte]

A Vampire Survivor clone taking the visual inspiration from Geometry Wars. Not sure how it will be in the full release, but the rounds are short, being only 5 minutes and I imo it's a plus for when you want just some quick fun.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

One of the worries I had when the trailer debuted was about the background visuals clashing and making it hard to understand where the enemies are, but I didn't have any difficult in distinguishing between the backgrounds and the enemies.

The game has some interesting ideas, like killing the enemies to get their parts that can be used to heal and upgrade status that unlock new abilities. So far it's very promising.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Basically Death's Door with a cat instead of a bird. And just as good. Wishlisted.



A hard-boiled ducktective investigates crimes L.A. Noire style (complete with clue notebook and everything) in picture-book-and-stickers artstyle. Looks like a kids game, definitely isn't though. Wishlisted.



Super strange game about a Russian nun with a demonic possession problem that leads her on all sorts of adventures. Gameplay is part action-adventure, part exploration & puzzling. Some interesting stylistic choices, such as giving all the gamey elements of the game a very distinctive 8-bit look and sound-design - kind of Kojima-style, but a thousand times more on the nose. Wishlisted.



Huge disappointment. The trailers look amazing, but the gameplay feels like a bad imitation of Grow Up / Grow Home with the gliding and climbing from Zelda - Breath of the Wild thrown in, the controls are awkward, the character animation is terrible and the game in general feels more like a prototype rather than something that's supposed to release in less than a month from now. Pass.

 

[gabbo]

Under the Snow

Very short, very intriguing, with decent voice acting and really good performance. Added it to my wishlist in hopes it does comes out one day (solo dev it seems). Polar post-apocalyptic adventure.


Pacific Drive

What if Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach was played out from inside a station wagon? That's what this seems to be, and I'm waiting for it very patiently. You should too. Runs well, looks and sounds great.


Illegal Excavation

What could be an interesting Uncharted-like runs like such garbage I had to turn it off after like 5 minutes. I think every computer fan within a 5km radius ramped up to 100% and stayed there until I did. Would say avoid for now until it gets a serious tune up under the hood.


Do Not Press the Button (To Delete the Multiverse)

Taking clear inspiration from Stanley Parable comes DNPtB(TDtM) in which you are forced... either going to be an asshole like me and play it wrong (Yes, I can wait four hours in a hallway Mr Narrator, and I will) or an asshole like the devs want and break the rules of the narrators walking sim social experiment. Either way, there aren't enough of these games that successfully play with how narrative structure and gameplay mechanics interact like this, all with a sense of humour that hits just so.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

A roguelite side-scrolling hack&slash where you play as a cyborg-sheep taking it to Dr. Wolf and his evil army of wolf-minions ... pretty promising, although like most with most rogue-lites, I did not enjoy the initial phase of slowly building up your arsenal of special abilities and buffs from nothing. Wishlisted to keep an eye on.



I learned about this game years ago when it was briefly mentioned in a Videogamedunkey video that I cannot even find anymore - I think it was some PAX showcase roundup? Anyway ... it's coming out this year and it's pretty good - but, although the game may have actually started development earlier, it now feels quite similar to Celeste - and although you cannot really tell from the demo, I suspect that it probably will go in the same end-game direction as Celeste, i.e. eventually get insanely difficult. Which is good news for hardcore Celeste-fans, of which there are quite a few, but not so much for me. Still keeping it on the Wishlist.



The latest game by Richard Hogg, known for for quirky colorful classics such as Hohokum and Wilmot's Warehouse as well as strange & sweet hidden object adventure I Am Dead. Once again the focus is on exploration, discovery and generally low stakes, laid back gameplay, all while looking very lush and with a distinctive style and art direction that closely resembles that of I Am Dead. Wishlisted.



This game reminded me very much of Osmos, but unlike Osmos, this game actually takes place in space. It's all about figuring out orbits (in a 2D perspective, it's not Kerbal Space Program). However ... it lacks a fast-forward feature, and honestly, who has that kind of time? I wish I had, but I don't. Wishlisted to see if it will get a fast-forward feature eventually ...



Had this on my wishlist since the first trailer, but now that I've played the demo, I must report with a heavy heart that at its core, this is a survival sim - with a cool scenario, good story, good production and a whole lot of love poured into it (and not exactly open world either), but for me it's too much collecting, crafting and repairing. I could manage if the maintenance were just restricted to your car, but pretty much every item and tool you craft or find has a healthbar, too ... not for me. Unwishlisted.

 

[Li Kao]

Mmh, Pacific Drive is boring, the UI is dubious and subs on top is all kind of stupid.
But by the end of the demo I must say I am ready to play more of it.

Cool unique game.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

The controls are janky, the music wasn't what I expected, there are UI elements using a pixel like font (you can change that), and all that makes the game more interesting for me. I have no idea to where the plot goes, but I'm interested.

Loved that FPS! It's fun, there are a lot of weapons, the visuals are nice and it plays well.

 

[Li Kao]

I tried Space Trucker for a few hours and I think I hate that shit. Nothing works for me.
Travels are boring as sin, you truck is slow and you can’t admire the changing landscape like in EuroTruck, you are in space.
The game has a real problem communicating anything useful to the player. There are space roads, but they are not obvious. Icons are everywhere and yet it’s a pita to know where to go. Tutorial is clearly not up to par, barely explaining anything. And this fucking Truck ! It’s incredible how dumb the mechanics can be and yet they are absolutely arcane, never explained well. I was never fully in command.
I mean, most on board systems seems to revolve around putting cells in drawers, it’s basic as fuck. But yet nothing seems to go right. But it was never explained to begin with.

Camera is a pain, you basically never see anything but your truck. And camera movements, well maybe it’s me, I’m really suspicious of my brain on that one. Reverted camera in space, ok. But maneuvering your truck in reverse breaks me.

I mean, it could be boring but cool. With a tutorial. And a game starting with a working truck. Yeah, and useful icons.

 

[spindoctor]

I tried this out based on your recommendation but I realized it's not for me. I'm the kind of person who uses auto parking in ETS2 so having to do that manually in this game in 3D space with 6DOF movement is a bridge too far. Aside from that I felt that the truck movement had too much inertia for my taste. Obviously they're trying to simulate the actual motion of a truck but hey devs, you know there's no gravity in space right? It's a well made game what they're going for though. The EVA idea is a cool touch too.

I mean, most on board systems seems to revolve around putting cells in drawers, it’s basic as fuck. But yet nothing seems to go right. But it was never explained to begin with.

I agree with this too. The intro/tutorial needs work. I got stuck on virtually everything the game asks you to do. It's all easy once you figure it out but if you're having to figure it out then the tutorial isn't doing it's job.

 

[gabbo]

Chasing the Unseen

Virtual Ruminant is completely right. CtU has a sense of scale and wonder to it, and the music definitely fits being ethereal and moving, but this wants to be a Game™ - really sophisticated and full of meaning and symbolism, and hey maybe it will eventually. For now, it completely forgets to be fun or engaging, with an emersion breaking jump/fall animation and not much to do but climb. Catching and climbing the squid from banner? Meaningless. Praey for the Gods, which has similar mechanics remembers to be fun AND have a sense of scale and wonder. Go play that instead. Seriously, it's only $38, go now, thank me later.

Abiotic Factor

Half-Life - In Australia, with a more darkly silly humor. And crafting, lots of crafting. Craft-Life.
Yeah, I'll be getting this and playing some co-op with friends for sure..

Copycat

Something like Catlateral Damage and Stray but with a more grounded approach. Having just lost a beloved cat to illness less than a month ago, I couldn't play long without having stop. Just too many feelings going on, and this sense of foreboding that permeates. That said, it controls well, looks good (though the human is a little... off-putting), has some nice cat humour, and seems to have a bit of depth to it. The player isn't anything like our cats, except the toilet paper bit, and I hope there's a little more freedom to sort of 'make the cat your own'. Right now though, I just can't. Wishlisted for a later time.

 

[spindoctor]

I had this on my wishlist because of an amusing trailer they put out a long time ago. It's a medieval, comedy ARPG with some GTA references. Calling it an ARPG is a stretch because there aren't hordes of enemies to fight and the combat systems aren't at all deep. The GTA references are like when you're being chased on horseback by 'the police', you can go to a stable and change your clothes and saddle and then the police will stop chasing you. The game is basically a set of straightforward quests that happen on a large map you go back and forth in. It's mildly amusing at times... for example, you are not The Chosen One but you do actually meet The Chosen One early on in the game and just sort of kill them off. It's a very average game but it is completely ruined by the godawful controls. It's crazy how bad they are. Isometric movement has been a solved problem in gaming for nearly 30 years since Diablo came out and these developers have managed to mess it up. What's even more impressive is that they offer multiple control schemes (movement relative to camera, to character or relative to mouse pointer) and each one of them is bad. It's the number one complaint in the steam discussion forum and it's a dealbreaker as far as I'm concerned.


This game made in the Phillipines looks like a pixel art point and click adventure game but it's more of a visual novel really. It's entirely linear and follows the life of a high school student. The story is basically the life of a teenager, dealing with friends and love, struggling to keep up with schoolwork, spending inordinate amounts of time on social media and so on. You move from point to point and interact with objects or people. There is some level of reactivity where you can make choices that are referenced later. The art is nice and the store page promises some sort of mystery story in the full game but I found my interest waning before I had even finished the demo. It's lacking in polish though and feels like a bit of an amateur effort. It feels bad to say that for what is probably their first game but there are things where I felt like they could have made different choices. A small example is how there's a long text intro when you start the game and the sentences have no capitalization. And you can say well, maybe that was a stylistic choice and that's fine, but text communication looks better with proper grammar. people will still understand what you mean without proper grammar but it feels a little awkward right

 

[prudis]

here we go Again

also lol at the legalese by the end

 

[Aaron D.]

Can't wait to give Riven a go.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Like Chicken Police if the writers were high on acid and the game was an itch.io exclusive (that's meant to be praise).




A cozy little detective game about a nice lady-goat on holiday in Italy and stranded in a lovely Italian seaside town because her Vespa broke down, and of course there's crime afoot, and she happens to have an heirloom macguffin that lets her see back in time, so she's an amazing amateur investigator. Also you can make her change into a swimsuit on the beach and yeah there will be furry fan-art of this. So. Much. Furry fan-art. Good game though as well.

 

[Cacher]

Completed the tutorial. Delighted by the game. Pixel arts, music and narration are all on point! Gameplay is also good, with a focus on unit placement and ammunition management. I also did not know this is a roguelite, so it looks like I am going to sink many hours into this game.


Unique puzzle game where you move around tiles. Although dialogues are a bit lengthy, the gameplay was very enjoyable!

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

An open world third person action adventure, but with the action taken out and replaced entirely by exploration and fetch/puzzle-questing: "no combat, no death, no timer, just you, your van, and the world". Combined with absolutely beautiful graphics and a post-apocalyptic solar-punk-ish scenario, this game is almost like it was written for me specifically, I spent almost three hours in the demo and wasn't even finished with it by then.



Clearly Dreamcast- and more specifically Jet Set Radio-inspired (with a bit of Crazy Taxi thrown in) bike-courier game. Gameplay is simple: BMX your way through the city and do objectives - beat the clock, avoid damage, win races, etc. Controls (I played with controller) feel good, but the demo has performance issues and zero graphics quality settings, so unless you have an RTX2080 or better in terms of performance, you'll get bit by framerate drops, which is somewhat ironic for a game that imitates the look and feel of 25 year old games that you can run perfectly in an emulator on a cheap laptop these days. Good, but needs work.



A puzzle platformer where the player controls a little shadow-frog that lives in the shadows of things, people and animals. Jump from shadow to shadow to reach your objectives, avoid getting stuck outside of shadows or you'll die and go back to the last shadow you previously made it to. Cool idea and great art direction, but the actual core gameplay falls a little short in terms of the level design - finding the way to the objective is just not very satisfying or very challenging either. Not for me.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Third person action-adventure that tries to mix stealth-focused combat and a player-controlled surveillance drone with souls-like mechanics (e.g. saving at a save-station respawns enemies) and unfortunately those two things end up stepping on each other quite a bit instead of adding up to fun. Has potential to be quite good instead of just okay, but with a release planned for this year, I'm not sure how much more the dev is planning / willing to work on some of the core mechanics.



This game is a bit of a weird take on (or perhaps a straight-up parody of) the cutesy/wholesome action-adventure sub-genre popularized by "A Short Hike". There's an island to explore, the protagonist is on vacation, good times ahead - sounds familiar? Well. but the protagonist in this game is a house. And every NPC is also a structure of some kind - there's other houses, a windmill, a tent, talking treasure chests, etc. - and you move around by just tumbling and jumping all over the place like in the notoriously weird 2017 game "Everything" by David O'Reilly. Unfortunately there isn't really much compelling gameplay and the strange setting quickly fades into a one-note joke, even in this quite short demo. But there's no published release date yet, so there's still potential (and time) for the developer to figure out how to turn this gag into a real game down the line.



A very competently made Super Mario play-a-like that borrows the best bits from 8-bit and 16-bit Mario games of yesteryear, throws a bit of VN-style story telling into the mix and lets you play as a Kitsune called "Yuzu". The audience is clearly one of seasoned Mario veterans who spend their free time playing Mario hack ROMs, and that's not me. There's an easy difficulty that lets you respawn where you die instead of at the start of the level and gives you a few seconds of invincibility on respawn to boot, but if you play the game that way you're quickly reminded that classic platformers really were about beating the difficult bits rather than exploring and seeing the sights. Good game, but not for me. Mario / Mario-hack fans / Mario speedrunners should take a close look.



This little pixel-art platformer has two things that set it apart from the competition:

1. The player character is an egg. A very fragile egg. So fragile that it breaks when it hits the bottom of platforms or even falls back to the ground from its own normal jump height.
2. Manages to actually re-invent 2d platforming games yet another time.

By the fact that the fall and touch damage in this game is so pervasive and punishing, the player is forced to completely discard all ideas about how one would usually navigate a level in a 2d platformer and instead focus on never falling from too great of a height, and that means taking a completely different path than one would with any "normal" platformer player character. And there's collectible feathers (an obvious tip of the hat towards Celeste), which add an optional extra dimension of difficulty to this already challenging concept. Brilliant game, can't wait for the full release. Small annoyance: Demo was keyboard-controls only.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

It's an interesting take in the roguelite genre. There are 7 titles where your character will walk over, and each title is assigned to a keyboard key and pressing them will change what you encounter in said title. When I watched the trailer I wasn't sure about how it could be played, but it's very intuitive.



A souls-like or as they wrote in description, a souls-lite. It has more movement options than your usual souls game (I'm not putting Sekiro there) and it doesn't seem to have a stamina bar, though mashing attack isn't a smart idea. I didn't finished the game so I only fought against undeads and some human knights and I don't have anything negative to say about the combat. I had some performance issues, but I think it was related to my PC.



It's made by a small team though they may be biting a bit too much. From the demo and the transition text they put between the levels they are aiming to tackle different things gameplay than your typical FPS but I disliked the ship segment and hated the part where you control a remote control car. I was also having some performance issues so I didn't finished the demo.



Just didn't vibe with me I only competed the first race and went for the next game.



This one was a surprise as it wasn't on my radar before. You're take the role of an inkeeper in this VN, as you talk to the adventurers that frequent your tavern they may ask for some drinks, and you cab get pieces of information that can be turned into quests for those. After finishing the demo it went to my wishlist.



A puzzle platformer made the the folks from Game Maker's Toolkit YT channel. It's what you expect, as the levels progress they become more complex to solve but makes you feel smart when you get them done.



Where this game came from? I first heard about it because it was one of the games featured in the Steam Next Fest trailer and I'm so mad that it was only a demo lol I want to play more of it and now I can't wait for the full release. The previous game is free so I might spend some time with it.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Hardcore survival sim with beautiful landscapes and a fantastic soundtrack. I don't do survival sims and I didn't realize this game was one when I downloaded the demo, but fans of the genre should definitely take a look, since this is one of the prettier ones (and is single-player only).



This is a fantasy action-rpg, set in ... an Austrian ski resort?!?!? Yes, apparently in this parallel universe, people go to the mountains to slay monsters and ski the slopes - on hoverboards. Combined with graphic-novel-esque style graphics (somewhat similar to Sable), this makes for a really fresh looking take on a classic genre. The core gameplay is pretty simple - the dungeons aren't very intricate, neither is the combat, or the hoverboard riding, and the RPG elements (weapons/armor/spells/buffs&debuffs/relationships with NPCs/inventory management) are also quite manageable. It's also not open-world - there is a central hub area, where you do your character management and maintenance, and from there you go to other hub areas with quests and dungeons. Quirky fun game for people looking for something rather casual, but interesting.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

The demo for Angeline Era was released past month I think, I had it downloaded but I only started today since the Next Fest put me in the mood to play some demos. So think about this game as a mix of old Ys titles because you fight enemies by bumping into (there are other weapons other than the sword), with an overworld inspired by FF7.

While in the overworld you need to search for dungeons or cities entrance because they're no shown. Some encounters seems to exist only to mess with you like I found a place with a lot of trees cut down, destroyed the last one and when I tried to leave a big tree was blocking the exit, and spikes appeared! I had to kill myself a few times until trees appeared and killed me making me go back to the started of the dungeon

I can't wait for the release.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Another delightfully quirky pixel-art puzzle-platformer. The player characters are a cat and piece of toast (!). The piece of toast can only jump, the cat can only run, and when they are combined, the cat gains an infini-jump ability, making it effectively able to fly. Combined with cleverly designed levels you get a perfect little unconventional game.




Basically goat simulator, but with a little crow as the player character. You can poop on things. I liked it.




I had this on my wishlist since the first trailers came out about two years ago. The trailers almost made it seem like an FMV adventure game back then, but what it really is is a base-builder and management game similar to the modern XCOM games - but without any of the round-based combat, instead, there's survival sim bits. About 50% of the game is story-telling, which makes it quite unusual for this genre. Not sure if there's much of an overlap in the audiences for base-building, survival sims and story-rich sci-fi mystery adventures, but I guess we will find out because this game is happening. I liked the demo a lot.




A gorgeous action-adventure with a creature-collection element (but not a creature-battler, i.e. not a Pokemon-like) and tons of exploration. Unlike Caravan SandWitch, this one has combat in it. Very generously cut demo, too, took me almost 3 hours to complete it and I loved every minute of it, quite strong classic-Beyond-Good-and-Evil vibes.




Not a game, just a little toy that lets you build little castles in a nice looking scene. I've come across similar things before and I still don't see what the point is when there's no way to share these creations other than through screenshots. Not for me.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Super interesting and ambitious setting for an adventure game, but the visual quality seems inconsistent - great backgrounds, questionable modelling and character animations. The demo also lacks subtitles for quite a lot of the Spanish flavor text and there are quite a few errors in the rest of the subtitles. Needs work.



A 2D-pixelart metroidvania with a theme of scientific exploration and a strong focus on puzzles (in fact, there was no combat at all in the demo, not sure if there isn't any in the whole game). Great level design, nice soundtrack, not too much hand-holding, I had a great time. A tiny flaw was that I am not sure if I found the proper ending of the demo and had to make a post in the Steam community forum to ask (still waiting for an answer), but what I played was great. EDIT: Turns out my game session was just glitched, I loaded the demo up again, loaded the savegame and was able to proceed just fine. The demo goes on for approximately ten more minutes afterwards (one area with two puzzles) and properly ends then.



Another 2D-pixelart metroidvania, but this one is quite conventional and also quite visually uninteresting, with levels that have long empty stretches of basic platforming and enemy encounters that seem random and repetitive. Needs more work, but is set to release in Q3 of 2024, so probably won't change much for the better anymore unless the release date gets pushed back significantly.



The screenshots on the Steam page looked nice, but in motion the character models look unintentionally creepy and the gameplay is bare-bones. I guess it's a game for kids, so clearly not for me. But I wouldn't let a kid play it either.



This is the upcoming game from Throughline Games, creators of "Forgotton Anne" (previously reviewed in this thread here), and it's set in the same "Forgotten Lands" universe, and I'm incredibly excited for it because we're in for a treat here. It's a full-on metroidvania, with combat and everything, plus a little optional Go-like game-in-a-game that you can play against NPCs, and it features the same classic hand-drawn feature-film animation style and quality reminiscent of Studio Ghibli or Don Bluth productions that already made Forgotton Anne special (I really need to play that game now, it's been on my backlog for years and this demo made me move it way up in the queue).

The visual feast is completed with a fantastic cinematic soundtrack and great voice-acting throughout. Don't sleep on this game, in all probablity it'll be an instant classic of the genre.



Another 2D metroidvania, but this one is geared towards the skill-platformer/speedrunner crowd (Celeste-fans take note). Cute, furry characters in a Shinto-inspired setting and a lighthearted story with writing that delights in cracking a quick joke and breaking the fourth wall. I'm not much for hardcore skill-platforming in the first place, but what really soured me on this demo is a particular "pogo-stick" move that you need to pull off with the player character's main weapon (a combat staff): To make this move, you have to pull the left controller stick exactly downwards - if you're off just a bit to the left or the right, the move doesn't come out. I don't know of a game controller that is precise enough to pull that off reliably, mine certainly are not. I ended up bailing out of the demo rather quickly.



This one is already available for purchase (was released at the end of May), and it's a metroidvania again, but this time of the 2.5D-variety - and that doesn't just mean 3D-modelled characters and backgrounds, but also the ability to switch between different paths that run in parallel in a level. Interesting art-style, good combat, good music and sound, but one major problem:

The performance of the demo is absolutely abysmal and according to the feedback on the Steam discussion page, the full release is not any better, making it effectively unplayable on lower power machines like for instance the Steam Deck. Clearly needed more work before release, maybe the developers will put it in after release. If they manage to fix the performance issues, this is a game I would definitely want to play.



This game also has already been available for purchase for a few weeks and it's a choice/consequence adventure with a tiny little bit of action, but mostly just "immersive" controls that try to somewhat approximate the activity of the characters on screen - all very similar to Quantic Dream and Telltale games, which does not come as a big surprise since the studio that made the game is mostly comprised of ex-Telltale members. The feel this game is going for is a playable Star Trek movie or a couple of episodes of a classic Star Trek TV show - albeit with a cast of completely original characters, do not expect to see any character from an existing TV show.

Here's the sensantional news about this game: It completely discards the last 15 years of terrible Star Trek reboots and reimaginations - which had me personally treat Star Trek as dead and buried - and just continues right where Star Trek The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager left off. It's classic, talky Star Trek, where Star Fleet is dedicated to exploration and peace-keeping, all spaceships have carpet in every room and every corridor, the uniforms look like they're made of 100% cotton and the moments of suspense and action are used sparingly to maximize their impact. It almost made me tear up while playing. I really didn't think the Star Trek that I loved 20-30 years ago would rise from the grave yet another time and share another story with us. But here it is - at least as far as the demo went.

 

[gabbo]

Sparedevil

An FPS set in an evil bowling alley animation that uses a bowling scoring system. Use your bowling ball to complete frames (strike, spare, etc) to get more time, get more time to keep shooting the pins. Simple but charming. One of those "Just another round" FPS you can jump into for 5, 10, 60 minutes.


Bane Murrain

Boom shoot with a hand drawn comic book art style and a very talkative player character with nerves of mush.
If you're down with fighting mutants and finding cards, it plays smoothly and the art lends it a childlike glee when blasting enemies, and the dialogue actually goes quite a way to give it some extra appeal.


War of Wheels

Take the war rigs from Mad Max Fury Road and slap them right in the middle of a medieval fantasy warzone. Combat is mostly arena based where you [and your eventual team of hired guns] take on packs of automotive scum (or the military of a particular kingdom). The controls take some getting used to (using the left stick like in an fps was reaaally strange at first), but once you've got them down, it's quite fun to charge in with yor customized souped up rig and collect scrap. There's an overworld map where you drive around (in point and click fashion) between castles and villages using the smithies to upgrade/repair your fleet, hire more merenaries for your crew, and fight in actual arena tournaments to gain favour). Controls need a rethink (imo) but when it clicks, it clicks.


Morn

Not big on the voxely/minecraft-square presentation, and the story was window dressing at best, as far as i could tell, but the gameplay felt like jumping into a less brown Quake. Boom shoot through and through. Felt like I was missing out on a few features somehow, but still enjoyed it (some areas were either plainly visible 'secrets' or completely beyond my mind's capability to solve gaining access to).


Aero GPX

Anti-grav racer with a nice cartony/cell-shaded art style. It's definitely an 'easy to pick up, difficult to master' kind of game. Really enjoyed my time with it, though, cards on the table, I Kickstarted this, so I was in favour of it before this demo. as PC doesn't get a lot of anti grav racers.


Tactical Breach Wizards

Likely going to be the biggest hit coming out of this NextFest. Not really the turn-based strategy game that say XCOM or any of Mimimi's games are (which I think it was initialy sold as), but it's tactics, dialogue, art style, and goofy world all make for a great experience. If you haven't, go play this one.
edit: whoa, wrong button, sorry

BC Piezophile

I wanted to like this: giant mech, underwater, survive to the surface.
It looked good, ran well, controlled decently, but just didn't seem to click for me. I think it's the lack of understanding the Mech's controls and signposting that did me in. There is so much hud on screen that the rest of the space just wasn't used effectively to convey to me (imo) what I was suppose to do with myself, and I seem to just fall off underwater cliffs to my death endlessly. This one has got to be on me, right or was it impenetrable to anyone else?


Skyward Dream

The meta story seemed like it took the initial biomed premise from Soma (You joruney into your own mind via technology to heal), but goes in a completely different direction with it. Parkour-sim (like, walking sim, get it?). I think I need to give it another go, as it played well, looked appropriately dream-like, but something didn't do it for me, but the trailer seems to imply something more interesting/sinister going on, and I like that.


Red Snow

1080 Snowboarding as a third person shooter/action game. Looks like a 5th gen snowboarding title, instead of just collecting "skate" and learning new tricks, you're part of a team of snowboard champion operatives tasked with free the worlds slopes from some kind of ski-terrorist force. It's ludicrous, and dumb, and bloody as hell. I loved it. Aside from T.B.W., easily my demo of the 'Fest. Easy to jump in, but mastering is a whole other beast, and like the yeti player character, I'm willing to dive in because this managed to merge the extreme sports and the shooting/action really well. Wish it had more tricks to pull off, but maybe the full game will. Can't wait.


DEATHGRIP

Pod racing is having a bit of a renaissance it seems, with this game, and at least two other three other indie titles I know of in development.
Loved it even though I kinda sucked at it (much like Aero GPX).. Not big on the combat controls, but they're serviceable - what is with using the sticks weirdly this 'Fest?. The speed is there, the track design was mostly canyons, but there's still depth to be explored with customizations that are mostly locked away in the demo. Anakin would be proud.


Turtle Riders

Simple premise - you're riding a giant turtle and need to defend said turtle from the packs of enemies that run up behind you until you make it to your destination. It's tower defense with one slow moving tower. Initially i blew through this, kicking those enemy's asses, but on subsequent tries I couldn't make it half way to the gates. Addictive, and any game I can show my wife that features turtles is a big plus. I will master you Turtle Riders, just you wait!