|OT| Steam Next Fest - February 2024 edition soon

bobnowhere

Careful Icarus
Sep 20, 2018
1,665
4,288
113

It's FTL, a prettier version of FTL. Not sure if it does anything more than FTL outside of the graphics.


A Decent post apocalyptic XCOM-like. Controls, like leaning, cover and crouching are far more complicated than they should be and the writing is truly cringe inducing. "Deez nuts?" C'mon.
 

Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
2,265
7,100
113
Last few I tried:


It's basically anime Ori, very pleasant art style, liked it a lot





Very short demo that shows little of the game, I guess it's supposed to be Clock Tower-esque but there are no monsters aside from a weird bullet hell boss fight. Interesting nonetheless.





Comfy RPG based around potion brewing, looking forward to this so I didn't play too much to avoid spoiling myself.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
1,543
2,608
113
It's Metroidvania day! :wd_praise:




That's an isometric anime pixel game alright. lashman justified in his crusade, those are some big eyes on tiny faces yo.
It plays incredibly well and fast (if a bit too generous with counters), without sacrificing any weight behind your attacks. Feels great.
Buuuut... I find the perspective really annoying, it feels a bit too high not unlike some other games like Hyper Light Drifter; it makes the frequent platforming parts a bit annoying and confusing. On top of the backgrounds being extremely bright but flat colors that are constantly hidden in "fog"... except when characters and their weird halos are coming near them... it can get a bit hard to understand elevations, what is in the foreground and the background... hmm.

Fighting's fun, but exploration I'm not so sure about. The artstyle causes some readability issues in the world...


Side scrolling Dark Souls, a market that is not lacking in competition. Interesting premise, you play a black hole birthed from shiny divine beings having divine sex or whatever, that breaks rocks and adds them to its own body. Ok? :cold-sweat:
And... it helps the combat, certainly. You can see pebbles and dust flying away from ennemies when you hit, and tear them apart even when they're dead, it's one of the chunkiest games I've played in a long time. It's pretty cool.
But you only have access to the counter move to grab things with your black hole head in the beginning, I was a tad worried, but no you get weapons as usual later...
However, it's here to signify that the game's heavily, heavily based on counters, only second to Sekiro. There's tons of actions that can only be countered, and it's required to kill a bunch of stuff. It's also the only way to heal yourself, as far as I can see. It still feels good and isn't super difficult, but I could see that being frustrating, since it's a 2D plane, you can't skip most ennemies when you die, and death comes quick. And it is NOT generous with "bonfires".
Might be a bit much.


Anime Ori, pretty much. It looks gorgeous. Even the papercraft intro cinematic.
Now, combat is pretty weak. You just shoot light orbs in front of you, and you can charge it. That's really, really simplistic, and it feels pretty bad too. barely any feedback, weak sounds, lots of hits even on basic ennemies... and a surprising large amount of variance? I didn't expect to see damage numbers to begin with, but a basic hit can go from 30 to 120 without explanation? Even more with crits! Either there are some really deep RPG systems hidden with the little spirits that you can find, or it's just a strange decision.
Still interested, but after the two other games, combat feels janky.


It's Ys! :cat-heart-blob:
It's fast, it's fun, the soundtrack is nuts, now with added movement skills to climb walls, glide and stuff!
About as great as one would expect from an evolution of the franchise, even if I know not all skills are very useful later.
It looks like a middling PS3 game, but it's ok, the port is excellent and at least it runs like a charm... but I sure hope they'll have some more oomph for their future games. I think Ys8 looked better despite the much smaller zones... must be said that basing the demo on sewers and ruins might not have been the best showcase either.
If you played the other squad based Ys games, you'll notice that the game offers really quickly damage type changes accessories, I don't know if it will still be that easy to get them in the final gale, but it helps a lot of the rock/paper/scissors pain forcing you to play the right character against certain ennemies. That was annoying in some previous Ys.
I'll play it anyway, it's always fun.
 

gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
3,506
5,542
113
Toronto

I'm a huge bitch when it comes to these games, had to play it during the sunny morning instead of with headphones at night. Demo doesn't give much to go on, but it builds tension like nobody's business. If this can be expanded to at least walking sim length (5 hours+) I can see it being a great little horror title, as not many games deal with abduction in the first person, and not involve tasking up arms. Seems like it could make for a kind of McPherson Tape first person adventure if done right.



Game about politics? Check. Game with antifascist overtones? Big 'ol Check. Plays like one of PlayWays 'X Simulator'? Sadface check
I think this could be a great adventure title that wears its politics tattooed on its face, but seems a little 'jokey' in the same way PlayWay sims are about some of their subject matter (See 'Thief Simulator'). That said, Stan and Mitch's section were fantastic, and I can only hope all the sections are that interesting.


XCOM, but street fights with gangs instead of aliens. Controls are kinda iffy - never felt like switching between direct control and command mode was ever smooth. More 'agent' characterization, but I'm not sure that will be a good thing. Stereotypes only work well in small doses and the demo already has me very weary. Still, small-stakes XCOM has potential. So after some more time with the game, controls feel tighter. but the characters are still a problem for a game like this. They either need to make them customizable personalities or really lean into the clichés, which they don't appear to be
 
Last edited:

Aaron D.

MetaMember
Jul 10, 2019
966
4,541
93

Deus Ex, but eurojank and really fucking weird. Kind of a bad demo since you just get thrown into a random location and you have zero indication of where to go but I'll be looking into the full release.
Yeah, I really enjoyed Peripeteia as an homage to OG Deus Ex. Your Eurojank observation is spot on. The demo kinda just throws you in there with little handholding and it feels like there's a lot going on with gameplay subsystems that aren't explained very well. As such the pacing can feel a bit overwhelming at first blush.

I really dig the presentation, but it does have a "held together with duct tape" indie vibe, which is actually a plus in my book as I love this kinda no-shits verve from upstart dev studios.

Walked away feeling like Peripeteia is to DE what UnderRail is to OG Fallout. Unabashed throwbacks unafraid throw all those systems-heavy complexities of yore into the mix that most modern titles don't dare for fear of losing the mainstream minshare.
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
3,028
6,667
113
Finland

Played through the demo of Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune, it's about 30 minutes if you explore the map in its entirety.

It's a bit rough to say the least, really hard to get a good sense of whether it has potential or not. It's a metroidvania, plus some other stuff. It feels like they took a look at Bloodstained and modeled a lot of it after that.
But yeah, it's rough. Don't like the feel of the combat at all, but it looks like it has different types of weapons so I might like some of them more. The katana you get at the beginning is a bit shit to be honest. It looks like it has at least 3 playable characters, you get to play as two in the demo. When you have them both you can switch on the fly, which could be cool.

Also the demo defaulted to Japanese I guess, so you have to explore the menus a bit to change the language.
 

Nabs

Hyper˗Toxic Pro˗Consumer
Oct 23, 2018
3,681
12,256
113
No mentions of Lovely Planet Remix is very sad, please play it - it's more Lovely Planet but this time with some twists like tactical mode where you can't shoot while jumping and as always, it's very good.

Good call. I even enjoyed that classic gun mode.
 

bobnowhere

Careful Icarus
Sep 20, 2018
1,665
4,288
113

Seems pretty early in development, not a lot is explained or makes sense yet. Looks like they are aiming for pretty high production values but I wouldn't expect this for a long while.


Seems a lot further along, lots of interesting mechanics, you can send followers out on missions to gain experience/items. Base building, lots of choices. Runs smooth.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,705
15,606
113

I mean, the pixel characters are nice and several backgrounds super barebone, but the thing I took from this demo is... can you please do a demo that even remotely tries to represent the game ?

This is most probably a super basic pnc / very light rpg, but fuck if I know, it could be a zelda like, a rogue like, what do I know :shrugblob:
 
  • Like
Reactions: Angelo and lashman

Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
2,265
7,100
113

I mean, the pixel characters are nice and several backgrounds super barebone, but the thing I took from this demo is... can you please do a demo that even remotely tries to represent the game ?

This is most probably a super basic pnc / very light rpg, but fuck if I know, it could be a zelda like, a rogue like, what do I know :shrugblob:
Had pretty much the same opinion lol, I think you're supposed to have a Majora's Mask esque time mechanic but the game literally cuts off before you get to use that so how the fuck am I supposed to form an opinion on a game that won't show me what the gameplay loop is?
 
  • Like
  • This!
Reactions: Angelo and Li Kao

gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
3,506
5,542
113
Toronto
Yeah, I really enjoyed Peripeteia as an homage to OG Deus Ex. Your Eurojank observation is spot on. The demo kinda just throws you in there with little handholding and it feels like there's a lot going on with gameplay subsystems that aren't explained very well. As such the pacing can feel a bit overwhelming at first blush.

I really dig the presentation, but it does have a "held together with duct tape" indie vibe, which is actually a plus in my book as I love this kinda no-shits verve from upstart dev studios.

Walked away feeling like Peripeteia is to DE what UnderRail is to OG Fallout. Unabashed throwbacks unafraid throw all those systems-heavy complexities of yore into the mix that most modern titles don't dare for fear of losing the mainstream minshare.
Honestly,. how did you ever come across whatever the point of the demo was? the most I could do was get on the tram and go across the gap, but after that it was more aimless wandering
 
  • Like
Reactions: Angelo

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,705
15,606
113

September 1st ? Really ? Good luck !
I obviously don't know what's the supposed state of a game this close to release, but it was, technically not great.
FPS 120 <-> 70 on the regular.
Pretty sure there was some form of pop in.
Mouse cursor always visible.
No camera adjustment when you move the character.
Lifeless dialogs.

And as a minor cherry pick, people were asshole to my kind postwoman :cryblob:

I don't rule it out, but, September 1st ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman and Angelo

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,705
15,606
113

Cool retro look, grating music, AI stuck in the environment. Close, Uninstall.
I'm not saying it's shit, it could be a nice novelty, but I'm wary of the pathfinding.



10 minutes in, it's shit.
30 minutes in, it's still shit.
Then you understand that the little hideous icon is for foundations. Theeennn you understand that you have to buy the torch and sword to dungeon crawl.
...
Ok, there are still scary elements (for the moment the craft list is minuscule, harvesting ressources is a little tedious) but you have my attention :coffee-blob:
 

Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
2,265
7,100
113
Len's Island wins the prize of most unintuitive UI I've ever seen in a crafting survival game. Can't even be bothered to tell you have to sell the stuff you farm early on.

I get the appeal of no handholding but when I can barely make out what I can actually gather in the field you're gonna have to throw me a bone here, not even Haydee was this obtuse.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Panda Pedinte

Aaron D.

MetaMember
Jul 10, 2019
966
4,541
93
Honestly,. how did you ever come across whatever the point of the demo was? the most I could do was get on the tram and go across the gap, but after that it was more aimless wandering
Yeah, I noticed that too.

Game def. needs more direction regarding objectives.

I made it to a sewer area that funneled into an apt. complex where I ran into some gun dealers. But I couldn't for the life of me figure out where to go afterwards. :(
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,705
15,606
113

The feel is here, the models are good, the systems do the job, it's 40K like we always wanted it to be translated.
If Slitherine is sane, there will be DLC, tons of DLC. And I won't even complain.

Minor nitpick ? Production value on some elements is 'just' meh (loading a mission with a dumb gif, cool cinematic but drawn, far from some fan movies). Some UI struggle on my side. Typos in a product that releases super soon.

Major nitpick ? I want everything, every races, other biomes, go crazy on this, dev.

Cool detail ? The plot seems to be happening not that long in the past of the Meta, there are Primaris and my boy Roboute is name dropped.

Watch this sell like shit and never get anything :so-good-blob:
 

Nabs

Hyper˗Toxic Pro˗Consumer
Oct 23, 2018
3,681
12,256
113
Toem was pretty cool. A quirky, laid back exploration game.

What I played of Dodgeball Academia was fun. I could see myself getting into it down the line. ARPG dodgeball is right up my alley.


City of Beats is a rhythmic dual stick shooter. Cool music, cool visuals. Worth checking out if that's your sort of thing.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Angelo and lashman

Pommes

Hey you! Have a nice day!
Jun 4, 2019
425
836
93
A little bit late to the party but I also played some demos.
I played on Linux (Proton) and some demos had a very poor performance for me (Wartales, Common'Hood & Trigon – Space Story).

Terraformers was a strange case:
The game is advertised as having a native Linux version. But the demo does only have a Windows and a Mac version. This resulted in an empty download for me [UWSL]:weary-face:[/UWSL]

Now on to the games that did actually work:

Farlanders

I really enjoyed this one. It is a turnbased Mars colony builder game. The gameplay itself feels somewhat like a tile laying board game. I don't know if it will scale for bigger maps and how much changes there will be in the late game. But even in the two small maps that i played it is already quite puzzle heavy. I can certainly see myself playing this game regularly for a long time (every month a map or so).

Growing Up

This is basically a game about growing up as the title says. You must select the activities you want to do (e.g. playing or learning a new skill). This is combined with a light RPG mechanic where you level up some stats (e.g. Intelligence, Empathy and Physique etc.) which in turn reduce the cost of learning new skills. Additionally their are external factors that influence your development (e.g. exams, expectations of your parents) and you make friends along the way. It somewhat reminds me of a more gamified version of the 1986 game Alter Ego. And just like Alter Ego I quite like this game. I guess i am just a sucker for „life role-playing“ games.

Terra Nil

A reverse city builder: The goal is to recreate a functioning ecosystem from a barren wasteland. I don’t know about this one. It seems relative simple. Not that this is bad thing, but I expected something more. Perhaps I should have played a little longer to get to the later stages for more complexity. Perhaps it was not the day for such a relaxed city builder. Besides that the atmosphere and graphics where nice.

Stellar Monarch 2

Space 4X (maybe with Crusader Kings elements?). To complex to play in this short amount of time and the help function (how to play) was not yet implemented.
 

Nabs

Hyper˗Toxic Pro˗Consumer
Oct 23, 2018
3,681
12,256
113
Good thing I downloaded Grime before the demofest was over. I forgot to give it a spin, but I get to play it from the folder.

edit: nvm. It seems there's a bug related to running it directly. Something regarding achievements and being able to parry the first enemy.
 
Last edited:
  • Sad
Reactions: lashman

Tizoc

Retired, but still Enabling
Oct 11, 2018
7,622
18,766
113
37
Oman
ko-fi.com

The feel is here, the models are good, the systems do the job, it's 40K like we always wanted it to be translated.
If Slitherine is sane, there will be DLC, tons of DLC. And I won't even complain.

Minor nitpick ? Production value on some elements is 'just' meh (loading a mission with a dumb gif, cool cinematic but drawn, far from some fan movies). Some UI struggle on my side. Typos in a product that releases super soon.

Major nitpick ? I want everything, every races, other biomes, go crazy on this, dev.

Cool detail ? The plot seems to be happening not that long in the past of the Meta, there are Primaris and my boy Roboute is name dropped.

Watch this sell like shit and never get anything :so-good-blob:
Hmmm
If it is still discounted by late july
I might get it
 
  • Like
Reactions: Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,705
15,606
113
Hmmm
If it is still discounted by late july
I might get it
It’s 21 bucks on cdkeys AFAIR. If I wasn’t poor and there wasn’t a steam sale in the immediate future, I may have bitten.
 

gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
3,506
5,542
113
Toronto

If you like Giant Monsters and goofy 16bit satire, Kaiju Wars!
I suck at it, but the turn based action and silly story really work in its favour



the controls are a little wonky (alt to jump?!), and the cutscenes are a little skeletal and limited, but the gameplay is a nice Aztec take on character action game



What if 2010: The Year We Make Contact but marble/frisbee? An open world physics game with some vague mysteries about alien signals and lost astronauts? Sold! It's too bad there isn't much to do but zip around empty worlds with mere hints of anything else actually going on.. If they can make the plot more prevalent/add actual gameplay mechanics besides roll and glide, i'm in.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Angelo

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
9,636
25,854
113
Also recommend: Peglin, Soda Crisis (this one was really great), Kaiju Wars, Exhausted Man.
 

Virtual Ruminant

MetaMember
May 21, 2020
515
1,770
93
Just gonna dump the hot takes into this post as I go.


At some point it was bound to happen, really bad The Stanley Parable imitators showing up. The reverse psychology won't work on me for this one. 👎


Incredibly, the second demo I played is another Stanley-style comedy walking simulator, and it's also bad. Though not quite as bad as Do Not Buy This Game. :blobno:


Point-and-click Americana set in 1968 ... written and made in Poland. Looks good, sounds better (nice music and good voice acting) and feels good to play (mouse & keyboard only at this time). Not too sure if the story is something to be excited about, there just isn't quite enough of it in the demo. Still, followed / wishlisted. 🗒👍


A visual novel / point-and-click? About a giraffe detective and his hippopotamus assistant?? Fully voice acted??? I'M THERE!!!!1
Seriously, having played and loved Aviary Attorney just a couple months ago, this is more than welcome and can't release soon enough. The demo looks perfectly solid already. 🗒 👍 :love:


A third person action-adventure (interestingly without melee combat, apparently) adaptation of Sámi folklore. The title is a Sámi word and roughly translates to midwinter, i.e. the darkest part of the year. Somewhat unfortunately, to the ear accustomed to English, it also sounds a bit like some unpleasant disease.

This is one of those demos that clearly never were meant to be released to the public and is just an early build - there is controller support (the game outright tells you that controller input is the preferred way to play it), but not in the settings screen that the game launches into, and the controller support fights with the standard Steam controller scheme that is applied to the demo by default, and it doesn't have an option to invert the Y-axis, and you have to force V-Sync through third-party tools or your graphics card control panel ...

But: The game already looks and sounds really great, the package is clearly there. Very confident the finished product is gonna be great. Followed / wishlisted. 🗒 👀


Pretty basic third-person exploration game with a bit of platforming that seems to be somebody's first stab at making a published game. :blobno:


Noble Muffins / PlayWay are back with the latest iteration of their eurojanktastic open-world-ish immersive-sim Thief Simulator, where the gap between ambition and execution makes players' eyes water since 2018 - and yet ... give them another five to eight years and these devs might actually iterate this game into something that you could play unironically. :blobno:


Tries to be a mysterious side-scrolling puzzle platformer similar to the Playdead classics Limbo and and Inside with more of a mystery/sci-fi angle rather than outright horror. But it's bad. Very. Unsalvagable. Don't even download this. 👎 :poop:


Crappy FPS. Looks bad, performs bad, plays worse. Avoid. 👎 :poop:


A 2.5D side-scrolling survival adventure game where you control the mother of four little fox cubs and have to manage your own as well as their survival. While doing that, you discover the larger world and scenario through environmental storytelling. Interesting, although the core gameplay seems a little thin. Still followed / wishlisted. 🗒👀


Similarly to Tacoma and The Return of the Obra Dinn, this game seems to be all about watching the interactions of a number of people in a confined space (a two-story house in this case) to first find out what happened, get access to the whole environment, and then (and this is this game's unique selling point) change certain events after the fact to prevent any of the people dying in a house-fire.

This game seems to be determined to push the envelope of this concept, featuring nearly 200 of these cutscenes for the player to watch and nearly 60 events to change. That's quite a matrix to juggle. I kind of doubt that that's actually fun to do. And since the scenario isn't a space station either, I can't for the life of me imagine the story of the people in this house will be that interesting. But, well. Still interesting enough to watch and wait for reviews once the finished thing is out. 👀


A promotional tie-in game for the Canadian YouTube music promotion channel MrSuicideSheep and the associated record label Seeking Blue. It's a pixel-art 2D-platformer with the MrSuicideSheep channel mascot as the main player character. The demo gets barely past the tutorial and stops immediately after picking up a double-jump ability, but the tutorial is very nicely done, elegantly teaching mechanics without having to display any written-out hints, and the controls are nice and tight as well. And, as you might expect for a promo game put out by a music channel / label, music and sound is really nice, too. Apparently the finished product is going to be released for free, so, slam dunk! 🗒 👍 :love:


A pretty fresh take on the metroidvania genre, adding a time-loop mechanic to the usual platforming, collecting and map-exploration - the player only gets 15 minutes per loop to explore, but retains items and information found and the map from the previous runs. On top of that there's a pretty unique art style and really fast and fluid platforming with some new takes on basic platform mechanics - takes a bit to get used to if you play a lot of platformers and are used to the current control conventions of the genre, but once it clicks it really flows. Definitely getting the full release of this one! 🗒 👍 :love:


It's A Short Hike, but styled like a classic mascot / cartoon 3D platformer. It's cute. It's tight. It flows. It's REALLY cute. It's comfy. It's a follow. It's a wishlist. It's a must-have. And it's SO CUTE!!!1 🗒 👍 :love:


This is a mix of a rogue-lite action-adventure and a more heavyweight RPG. You not only get procedurally generated maps and permadeath, but the world-state also doesn't exactly carry over between runs, instead the actions from the previous run are fed into an algorithm that changes the world based on actions taken and decisions made in the run, and the next character then experiences that world. You can also explictly leave stashes of equipment behind for your next run and they will still be there - if stashed in a safe place. Success at the overarching goal isn't guaranteed - if the final mission is taken on and failed, the world-state is no longer maintained and you have to start over completely.

The game also de-automates a lot of the RPG mechanics and instead makes you go through dice-roll systems (with modifiers) often, even for trivial tasks such as opening doors.

In short, it's everything I'm not looking for in a game in one perfect hostile package. But: It looks, sounds and plays quite well. So if this mix of genres and mechanics is your thing, definitely give this a watch. 👍 , but :blobno: .


Isometric pixelart action RPG with a "mind-bending science fiction story" - a lot of verbose mumbo-jumbo that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me and certainly failed to motivate me to fully explore even this demo. Notably the dialog system seems to be VERY inspired by Disco Elysium. No voice-acting at all though. Not necessarily bad, but not for me I think. :blobno:


A side-scrolling puzzle platformer where you apparently play some sort of alien parasitic seed, which can possess little twigs and make them move (?!?). All the textures in the game are made from photograps, so the look is very unique - not necessarily realistic (the levels are quite typical 2D platformer designs), but certainly something I haven't seen before in a game. The platforming is a little slow for my taste, but still: Followed / wishlisted. 🗒👀


Are you like me and have been slightly disappointed with all the first-person-parkour games there are? Including Mirror's Edge? Have you also wished that the gameplay in those could be smoother, faster, and not encumbered by the levels trying to mimic real-life spaces and places? Then this game is for both you and me. Best first-person parkour-platforming I have ever played by a long shot. It's a bit more Sonic-the-Hedgehog rather than Faith Connors - no wall-running, instead you get a dash and a glide. Must-have. 🗒 👍 :love:


First-person horror game. Very obviously made in Brazil, the English translation at least in the demo is incomplete and quite poor - possibly the Portuguese text is better, but I can't judge. From what I played, the focus seems to be less on the scares, but more on the classic point-and-click puzzles - find thing to open thing to combine thing with a thing to get to another thing, etc, etc. Didn't really grab me. Looks and sounds quite good though. :blobno:


Looks like a cute 3/DS-era Zelda-like action adventure with a foxy Link, but is actually much more of a souls-like, with a really faithful transposition of Dark Souls combat mechanics to the isometric top-down perspective. The save/heal/respawn-all-enemies mechanic is also there. So is the very sparse (explicit) story-telling and tutorializing. Gets difficult pretty quickly, too.

However, the map is custom-made for the demo to quickly show off all elements of the game, so the difficulty curve may be somewhat flatter / smoother in the actual game - probably not though, this seems like the creation of a Dark Souls superfan, and we know the type. Likes to suffer and make others suffer.

I'll keep an eye on it, but since I'm not a big fan of getting stuck in games and throwing controllers in frustration, this is a 50/50 for me. Souls-like fans who also happen to like the aesthetic of this game should definitely put this on their wishlist. 🗒👀


Took me a bit to figure it out since the demo contains zero tutorial or explanation about what's going on - this is basically a bad remix of Manifold Garden. In Manifold Garden, every room is a four-dimensional torus, which is why everything seems to endlessly stretch in every direction, but actually just wraps around on itself. On top of that, there is the gravity shifting mechanic, where you press a button and whatever direction you are looking at while you do becomes the new "down". You then go ahead and solve puzzles based on switching things around in this environment, which allow you to move on to other rooms.

In this game, gravity is fixed, and pushing the magic button turns on or off an endless repetition of the map in just the direction you are looking at. The rest is the same, find switches, solve puzzles, get to the exit. The game does not tell you about any of this, you're left to figure it all out on your own (although I found out after the fact that it's all spelled out on the game's website ...). Unlike Manifold Garden, which has these beautiful levels full of M.C.-Escher-inspired impossible architecture and is actually really fast and smooth to navigate, this game features intentionally obtuse level design and clumsy movement with a slow walking speed and an almost useless jump. This game could be still fun with better designed levels, but if the demo level is any indication, oof. I'll keep watching, but purely based on the demo: :blobno:


A Celeste-style skill/speedrunning platformer with Ori-styling. Sounds like a winning combo, but the imitation of the Ori aesthetic is too blunt for me (even the music is a soundalike, how shameless are these devs?) and the actual platforming is a little too slow, the difficulty curve is somewhat too steep, and there's little chance of any of this getting improved upon, because the game releases in a week. 👎 :blobno:


The player controls an anthropomorphic robot traversing Portal-esque chambers with buttons, switches, lasers, etc, and two doors, but only one of them can be walked through. Walking through the door will spawn a clone of the player character at the other door and all the steps the player took to get to that point will then be replayed, exactly as the player has taken them until that point - but backwards. The goal is for the clone to get to and walk through the chamber exit.

This enables collaborative puzzle solving - with yourself. Essentially this game is a mechanic taken out of The Talos Principle, with the additional twist of the reverse playback of the recorded actions. I loved those puzzles in The Talos Principle and this game replicates the experience pretty darn well, even if the graphics are a little basic. Looking forward to the finished product. 🗒 :blobyes:


Point-and-click adventure game, but very light on classic puzzling, more of an exploration / interactive story-telling affair, with branch points that affect the story that switches perspective between two characters and takes place over seven days. The style is quite interesting, seems to be a homage to Richard Linklater's rotoscope-animation movies - not sure if the animation actually was rotoscoped, but if not, the imitation of the effect is very well done. Story is interesting, too. One more for me! 🗒 :blobyes:


Point and click-adventure very much in the style of Joe Richardson's work - scenes and characters cut-up and animated from snippets and crops of Renaissance art and scored with classical music - mostly 18th century, as far as I can tell. Other than the offbeat styling, it's a very classic point-and-click. Lots of reading, inventory, get the thing to do the thing, etc. It goes on the list, I'm a sucker for quirky stuff like this. 🗒 :blobyes:


Couldn't get the controller support in this demo to work at all. Even the demo's menu was hilariously broken. Wishlisted purely so I can recheck the demo at the next Steam Fest. 🗒👀


Pretty funny moment, the game starts with a dream-like cutscene showing one of the protagonists towing a huge sailship through huge ice floes and I immediately thought "Wow, is this about the Franklin expedition" and mere minutes later it turns out: It is! This is another story exploration game with vaguely point-and-click mechanics - the most prominent one unfortunately seems to be pixel hunting objects, which will enable triggers to move the story along. A highlighting feature would be very welcome here. The rest isn't very point-n-clicky, there's a feature to read the inner monologue of characters on a subject, the story takes place in multiple points in time and you can switch between them on the fly - all very interesting stuff. Style is somewhat minimal, but pleasant, and the user interface is very smooth, everything just zips along. On the list it goes! 🗒 :blobyes:


First person spooky house exploration game. I didn't encounter any jump scares or really anything that could be classified as horror, other than the music. The exploration is fine, but basic. Go here, find a key to that door, find another thing to put on a thing, find a safe combination, etc. Didn't grab me. Runs pretty well, doesn't look like much though. :blobno:


All the aesthetics of a 3D platformer, but it's actually a rather slow-paced exploration and puzzle-solving game in expansive open plain and cave levels. You enlist the help of some AI NPCs and make them push objects around and raise and lower platforms to get to your goals. Looks and runs pretty great, and is cute. Goes on the list. 🗒 :blobyes:
 
Last edited:

manchego obfuscator

MetaMember
Jan 23, 2020
894
2,154
93
spending less time checking out demos than I did for previous Next Fests simply because my backlog is so massive, but this one is my favorite thus far:


if you've ever wondered "what if A Short Hike had been about a kid pretending to be Link in Breath of the Wild," this is the game that dares to answer that question
 
  • This!
  • Like
Reactions: Joe Spangle and Wok

Nabs

Hyper˗Toxic Pro˗Consumer
Oct 23, 2018
3,681
12,256
113
Transiruby is pretty solid so far. It definitely feels like I game I'll play through and enjoy one day. Just a bit too chatty (a common issue with games today).

BIOTA is a game that I should be into (retro/gameboy style metroidish game), but it seems a bit too extreme for me. Like I need a 12 pack of Mountain Dew to enjoy it.

Lil Gator is Lil GOAT tho. That game is great. Very much in the style of A Short Hike. The Shield is the only way I want to traverse these types of games from now own.

The Last Campfire is cool. I was over the narrator after a few min, though.
 

gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
3,506
5,542
113
Toronto

Have you played Space Ranger 2? Yes, this is like that, but in 2021, and still charmingly eurojank it would seem. Or maybe it's 'No'?
It's a mishmash of different genres: rts, 4x, shooter, adventure, ,management all together where you play a Space merc and your second consciousness (this part, over my head). Do jobs to build your fleet and improve yourself and your fleet however you see fit.


Trigger warning, you are literally playing as the embodiment of hope in a suicidal persons mind. If that doesn't turn you off, this is an interesting take on shooter mechanics. A little 1st person parkour in there, and some good voice work sold me on it. I just couldnt play it around some people in my life.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: xinek

Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
4,923
13,188
113
France

As others mentioned, the controls are a delight, and the adaptation of A Short Hike from an isometric view to a third-person-platformer view works.

Slow and hard to read UX.

Hidden content
You are not allowed to view this content
Next:

 
Last edited:

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
5,119
11,978
113
Probably going to update this post as I make my way through some suff.

Here's what I've tried so far

2D action-adventure platformer with gorgeous graphics and an interesting setting. Controls feel somewhat iffy at times and flying enemies are annoying. The first section is "alright", but the first dungeon with platforming and a new ability was super fun. Hopefully they can iron out the small annoyances. Has potential.


This one was excellent. Combat feels great. Story and setting seem interesting. Good presentation. Puzzles and lots of equipment to find - weapon in particular are not just a damage +1 but change up the gameplay itself.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Durante and Nabs

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
5,119
11,978
113
Might as well just make new posts for new games :p


Charming metroidvania. Controls are tihjz and the whole thing feels just very cozy, but it also didn't wow me.


Very interesting concept, but a bit rough around the edges.
Basically an RPG with a card-game battle system. There's 3 characters/classes to pick from. You wander around the map to talk with people, do quests, pick up items and fight. You use your deck to fight enemies. You draw some cards and play the ones you want. Every card has a cost associated with it and you have a number of energy that dictates how many you can play (which increases at the beginning of your turn). There's regular attack/buff/debuff cards, equipment cards that when used give you a permanent bonus through the rest of the fight and consumable cards that can only be used for a certain amount of times. (Unsure whether per fight or if they're gone for good). At the end of a turn all the remaining cards in your hand get discarded. If all of the cards in your deck are exhausted, the discarded cards turn into your deck again (interesting thing: some enemy attacks can put cards into your discarded card pile that activate once that pile turns into your deck again.)
At the end of every battle you can pick one out of 3 cards dropped by the enemy (or none to get some money). You also get EXP and level up, which lets you distribute stat points into your attributes, like how much energy you get per turn. There's a town where you can change your deck, upgrade or buy cards, etc.
English translation is serviceable, a bit awkward but I have seen far worse. Though I'm not sure if I like what I've seen from the "story" so far, it seems a bit too whimsical/4th wall breaking for my taste.
There's certainly a lot going on in this game and I'm very curious how it will turn out in the end.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wok and xinek

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
5,119
11,978
113

Didn't really grab me. It's competent for sure and I didn't play the entire demo though, so ymmw.


Similarly, it's okay. Competent and charming, but didn't really grab me.


RPG meets board game meets card game. Interesting stuff, and very high quality.
 
  • Like
Reactions: xinek

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
3,028
6,667
113
Finland

Tunic - The demo is exactly what I expected and it's good. Looking forward to it.


Disciples: Liberation - It's kind of neat. It scratches some of the HoMM itch, but not all of it. I really do miss growing the unit numbers in HoMM, here all the units have levels instead. I really hope Songs of Conquest is the true HoMM like I'm looking for. Also, it badly needs a combat speed option, all units move slowly and take forever to do their thing. Few more voice sample variations for the "action shouts" or whatever wouldn't hurt. I also wonder how old the demo build is, the game is out in 2 weeks and there's stuff in there that I'm not sure if it's just a budget decision or actual bug. Like, some of the characters don't have lipsync but others do. Not all dialogue is voiced. One thing I really hope is a bug and not a design decision is how they duck out the music when some sound effects play and it sounds awful.
 
  • Like
Reactions: xinek