Steam Next Fest 2022

Games
21

I’m just about to sit down and play a bunch of these demos (I downloaded like 30+ of them earlier!) but I did check out a couple that I haven’t seen mentioned here yet.

Hellscreen - a first-person shooter with an intense visual style and unique mechanics. The main theme about this game that’s a bit brain-bending is that at all times at the top of the screen is what is essentially a rearview mirror. It’s primarily there so you can see behind you when you’re getting swarmed by enemies but in the first handful of levels there’re a bunch of different uses for it too. Such as: certain enemies/pathways only being visible in the mirror and the mirror being your only source of unobscured vision when you’re in complete darkness. Super neat idea but I thought it was extremely disorienting!

GRAPPIN - a first-person platformer where you move around with a grappling hook. Normally these kinds of games are high-octane action but this game is so much more chill than I was expecting it to be. Although you can fling yourself around with different kinds of grappling hooks, the game emphasizes taking things slow since you’re also meant to explore the environment to find hidden items to unlock gates.

Anger Foot - an intense first-person shooter with lots of foot-based action. I was expecting the mechanics to be fairly basic or one-note but after messing with this one for a while and trying out the different shoes (abilities) you can unlock, turns out this game’s super sick. Most interesting part of the game for me though is the music during the levels. It’s all modern gabber and it seems to be either a bunch of random tracks or generated by some other means. The way it alternates between being “on” or “off” depending on whether or not you’re engaged with enemies is extremely propulsive and compelling.

Last Command - a game where you play as a sentient computer program in a post-human world (I think?). The gameplay in this is pretty unusual but it’s basically like if Snake (the classic Nokia game) was entirely made of bullet hell-adjacent boss fights. The dots you collect turn into bullets that you can fire at the bosses heart, which is an interactable object on the field, which fills a percentage meter. When you fill that meter you attack the heart by dashing into it and move onto the next phase of the boss.

It’s quite a lot to take in but once I figured out how to put all the individual pieces together it was exceptionally thrilling.

1 Like
22

Thanks for all the recommendations, everyone!

Busy week, but I played Escape Academy which seems like a fun puzzle game. Very reminiscent of Safecracker as a game that throws a lot of different sorts of puzzles at you.

Also, Signalis which seems to be exactly my jam. What a cool demo that was. Love how naturally it switches from top down to first person perspectives. Could be the indie hit of October.

1 Like
23

Alaskan Truck Simulator: I’ve never played one of these games before, but I’m guessing the others don’t start with you cooking reindeer meat? It has survival elements of managing health, hunger and energy (although you don’t have a toilet need like The Sims) so you have to pack food to eat and sleep during a job, either in the back of your cab or at a motel. It’s pretty hard to activate some things in the cabin like the heater while you are driving in first person, having to move the camera around the place, but I stuck to third person mode for the most part. I absolutely struggle with controlling the truck so I’ll settle for watching Alex dot Nextlander play this.

Gloomwood: Like ricotta mentioned above, it’s stealth with guns. I love how the there is so much sound around you, with wood creaking and pipes groaning, making you ever vigilant. Was that the building settling or is that an enemy around the corner? One QoL improvement I like is putting area and room names above doors, making it easier to find your way and letting you know what keys open what doors.

Togges: A bright cheerful 3D platformer with the twist that it’s not really about jumping skill. To actually obtain the collectables you have to drag a trail of coloured blocks with you, stacking them up to create paths towards fruit. The demo only has 2 coloured blocks, but the menu describes the others and it’s like they are Pikmin; some conduct electricity, some can go underwater, some can’t die but use more energy etc.

Melatonin: Rhythm game with chill vibes inside a dream land. I like the look and the music, but the game is too difficult for me. I managed to just about 2 star each level. I think only perfects counting for your score is too strict a requirement, I got 5 early notes while every other note was perfect on the first stage and didn’t get 3 stars.

Signalis: Already mentioned above, a Resident Evil inspired game in a sci-fi setting. There’s also some sort of FMV adventure vibes in the way the game switches to first person in certain locations when you need to inspect a layout of items. There isn’t a lot more in the demo than what Patrick and Cado played on stream but the final cutscene is worth watching.

Rytmos: Puzzle game where you are filling out lines in a maze, basically like the classic sliding rock puzzles you’ve seen in top down games where you have to push a rock on ice in a straight line. The lines has to pass through nodes which cause a sound to play, and doing six in a row completes a song. Each group of levels is dedicated to a certain type of music, the first being from Zimbabwe and the second from Germany. Wasn’t expecting some music history here but it’s really cool.

1 Like
24

ive heard Anger Foot discussed a lot for the past week but i think “fps with lots of foot-based action” is my favorite description.

1 Like
25

Didn’t quite get a chance to give ample time to every demo I downloaded but I did manage to find a handful of neat looking games over the weekend. Such as…

Boneraiser Minions - a zero-stick shooter (term I made up to describe games like Vampire Survivors) where you play as a necromancer and summon skeletal minions to fight for you. Unlike other games in the genre, the upgrade paths in this are quite different. You summon a minion after collecting enough bones and can choose to level it up or summon more minions. As you get more out of game upgrades you can do fun stuff like combining minions or upgrading them along different paths. The pace of the game’s extremely fast as well. Runs in this ramp up and dissolve in the blink of an eye. The writing’s also incredibly silly and full of juvenile humor. Be warned that there are lots of boner and boner-adjacent jokes.

The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo - a visually exquisite point and click adventure game. Even if you don’t play this demo find some way to put your eyeballs on this game because it just looks so cool. Tons of slick animation in plenty of different styles, even the hint screen in the game (which I absolutely had to use after a point) looks incredible.

Furquest - an RPG(?) where every enemy(?) encounter is its’ own unique mini-game. Depending on your disposition, you may find the writing and character in this game to be fun and charming or annoying and aggravating. I think it’s pretty fun! It leaves a bit of room for a potential dark turn much like the game it is very clearly inspired by but even without that it looks like it’ll be a fun time.

Pry Into The Void - a turn-based RPG set in a dream world where you can recruit enemies as your party members. Every enemy you fight starts in an incomprehensible state. Attacking it with an element it’s weak to will make it comprehensible so you can “Pry” it. Prying enemies (which range from stuffed animals, regular animals and pugilistic vegetables) puts you in a memory where you have to establish a connection by sussing out the right dialogue choices/actions for the scenario you’re placed in. Lots of interesting systems to engage with in this but I’m not 100% sold on the game’s story from what I saw in the demo.

GHOSTWARE: Arena of the Dead - a narrative driven first-person shooter where you play as a one of six players trapped in an abandoned 90s arena shooter. Hands-down the coolest premise and execution of said premise I’ve seen in all the demos I played this week. The only thing I’m not all the way in on is the writing because the “fake” shooter you play and all the stuff built around it are directly up my alley. Apparently it also comes out in Early Access in just a few days from now too. Really looking forward to getting my hands on this one.

2 Likes
26

Nine Sols won’t work on my SteamDeck and I’m devastated. That’s one of the coolest-looking games shown at E3. :frowning:

27

Do demos normally work on the Deck?

28

I’ve played about half a dozen demos and most of them ran fairly well. Cult of the Lamb had a color TV test pattern appear every so often, which I thought was a design decision, but it seems to be the Steamdeck’s default “we don’t know how to show this image” back-up. (Cult of the Lamb is really good, btw, maybe the combat is too tech-y and demanding for a game attempting that many systems.)

Nine Sols would launch to the menu screen, but the gameplay was all Test Pattern.

29

Spirittea
Seems like an interesting take on the life sim, except instead of a farm you’re running a bathhouse for spirits. Your job is to keep the boiler running, guide customers to their perfect spots, maintain supplies of clean towels and more. Could be fun!

Loopmancer
Could be a cool side scrolling action game? The loop concept of following up on leads every day in new areas is interesting. But god, do they run straight into every boring cyberpunk trope imaginable. Except for making you play as a cop whose appartment makes him seem super rich. Developer is based in Beijing at least so maybe there’ll be something new to chew on beneath the surface.

Potion Permit
I’m a sucker for life sims. You give me a place to run and resources to gather in a small country side village and I’ll spend dozens of hours in it. I like this ones take on brewing potions by solving mini puzzles, and investigating patients’ symptoms to decide on treatment. It’s a bit twee, perhaps?

Fabular: Once upon a Spacetime Dream
Is this called an FTL-like? Instead of a crew you pilot a single ship as in a twinstick shooter, though. The narrative elements are interesting (lizardmen guards! autonomous androids needing a lift to a new home!) and the art is really gorgeous. But I’m not sold on the action itself? It’s sluggish and with at least three forms of timings to consider. Could be the starting ship that’s slow, but it’s not a great first impression for me.

Roots of Pacha
Farming life sim but with more of a sense of community than Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley. More narrative elements, as well? Good portrait art.

Various shooters
Cultic blends mild narrative elements with shooting. Maybe interesting? Not sure what sets it apart from others in this booming subgenre. Slayers X aims to be as obnoxious as Drawn to Death. Didn’t care for it. Metal: Hellsinger didn’t boot.

30

I was half paying attention to a friend streaming some of the Steam demos yesterday. He switched to a new game, I thought “Weird, this sounds like an Angerfist song” and then he said “And now we’re going to play this game called Angerfoot!” It has to be intentional, but I don’t see anything on the Steam page about it, so I’m guessing it’s just a joke by a dev that likes gabber.

Lots of CWs on Angerfist’s music, but there’s no vocals in the game from what I saw.

31

24 Killers looks great. There’s been a boom in offbeat lifesim/RPG indies lately but I’m rarely as taken with them as I was with this.
Moon RPG seems like a big reference point. Demo is still up as far as I can tell - give it a look. (in dev since 2014, apparently!)

3 Likes
32

Attention forum-posters and perusers alike, the fall edition of Next Fest has begun! It’s the final Fest of 2022 and, as usual, will run for about a week! (Ends October 10th!)

New to this round of demos is a personalized discovery queue similar to the one that’s typically pushed during the big sales to help you sift through the huge amount of games that’re available for the event. Haven’t actually looked through my own yet since it wasn’t quite working when I checked it out but I did play a few demos for games that I already wishlisted!

Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 - I’m not quite up to date will all Gunvolt games at the moment, so I’m not 100% certain what’s brand new in this game. I can tell you that playing through the demo (which is an intro level and the first real-deal stage) immediately reminded me how cool and slick these games are. The new character is pretty neat in that she’s best played by building up potential damage with her ranged attack that you cash out to one-shot enemies by hitting them with a melee attack.

Super fun to play but also just incredibly overwhelming visually, mechanically and story-wise in a way that I’m very into!

Potionomics - I first caught wind of the game on twitter years ago, I wanna say, where I’ve seen the account post a ton of the incredibly expressive character designs and animations. Earlier their account started posting gameplay and was shocked that on top of being a potion shop sim it’s also a deckbuilder with romanceable NPCs in it. I’ve been dying to know what the structure of the game is like since then and the demo has given me just enough of taste of it to let me know that I need to play this game.

The extent of the deckbuilding that’s shown in the demo is that every sale in your shop involves haggling with the customer in an attempt to upsell them in the form of a card battle. Due to the way the mechanics are set up these battles are usually a couple of turns long. You seem to gain news cards as you progress throughout the game but also as you meet other shopkeepers and hang out with them. The demo isn’t very long so there’s still a ton I’d like to know about the game… but thankfully it comes out not too long after Next Fest ends!

Once again looking forward to seeing out what games you all decide to check out and share as well!

4 Likes
33

I’ve spent a lot of this week’s demo time on playing strategy game demos and there are definitely a few standouts.

Against the Storm - City Builder where you fight against apocalyptic rains. It looks great with just wonderful art direction and has a real fast and interesting gameplay loop. From the demo at least you don’t spend too long building one city but try to meet the queen’s requests quickly, which unlocks more buildings, and once complete you move on. The 3MA podcast covered it in more detail, but I think its going to become a classic.

Shadows of Forbidden Gods - A turn based strategy game that has you play as a dark god attempting to corrupt and take over the world. It’s weird and has a great style (at least I love it). It’s probably simplistic to say its about sending agents throughout a fantasy world to do dark things ( infiltrate communities, raid villages, perform dark rituals) but the time I spent with the demo really only hinted at other things to come. It’s in early access but does have a demo. I think its something I’ll really enjoy, but I could see a lot of people being turned off from it due to UI and aesthetic choices.

Diluvian Winds - Wow, so far this might be my favorite, its a worker placement/light colony building management game that has your little village taken out by tidal waves every so often. It’s wonderful art style with little anthropomorphic animals and I lost an hour to it without even realizing.

Will be digging into as much as I can this week. It just so happens I found myself on vacation from work with my original plans cancelled. I am running into a few games that seem really interesting, but for one reason or another my computer is struggling to play them, hopefully some optimization comes for a few so that I can enjoy them.

2 Likes
34

Patrick and Cado ran through some demos on stream

35

Haven’t had much time this week as I’d like to check out some demos but I have been spending most of the day playing some! Here’s the standouts from what I’ve checked out so far:

Wildfrost - A decklike roguebuilder with a generous helping of tactical strategy heaped on top of it. Above your hand there’re two rows where your Leader, allied companions and enemy cards fight each other. Each time after you play a card, a countdown timer ticks down on every placed card and when that hits zero, they’ll attack. It’s fairly simple to understand but ends up being incredibly challenging given the way all the cards and mechanics can interact with each other. Took me about half a dozen tries to reach the end of the demo and got stopped by a couple of different encounters that are messed up in very different ways.

Very cute art style as well!

DIMENSIONAL SLAUGHTER - a first-person shooter that’s a little arcade-y, a little roguelike-adjacent and extremely chunky in almost every way. Structurally, the game’s split into different dimensions that are a few small arena levels and a boss fight at the end that’ll reward you with a perk/upgrade before you travel to the next one. Mechanically, the game feels halfway between a 90s FPS in terms of the shooting and something a bit more modern with all the different ways you can move around.

It’s very crude and overbearing aesthetically as well but in a way that I find to be a little compelling.

Desktop Dungeons: Rewind - A remake of the 2013 RPG puzzle game Desktop Dungeons… in 3D! Other than the new artstyle this is, from what I can tell, almost exactly the same as the original game, which is still a neat game! I actually went back and played the original to compare the two and I found the new style to be a lot easier to parse, and generally more appealing, than the original.

Wavetale - A 3D action platformer based around fluid movement on land and at sea. This demo isn’t very long so it’d be hard to say what the flow of the game is like but it seems like it involves a fair amount of water surface travel which is the standout thing in this game. It’s not very complicated but it sure is a joy to just move around in.

SlipDream Resonator - A rhythm game with a super-slick aesthetic and mechanics unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. So, in the center of the screen there’re eight circles arranged in a circular pattern that act as their own note highways. You hit the notes with two “arms” that are mapped to the analog sticks if you’re using a controller or WASD + the arrow keys on a keyboard. You also have to hit the triggers to hit notes if you’re using a controller as opposed to just tapping on time with the keyboard, which is a little strange.

There aren’t any wild variations on the notes but having to be aware of 8 different pathways at once felt like way too much for me to deal with when I tried out a couple of songs. Also, this game’s probably the first time I’ve heard a hyperpop song used in a rhythm game or maybe even any game period.

3 Likes
36

Diluvian Winds - Very cute, but unfortunately I didn’t like it nearly as much as @lftrpllr. The art is gorgeous, but the decisions you make don’t require you to interact with the art at all. The lighthouse and the rooms are all the coziest I can imagine, and the animals are adorable, let me spend more time with them, rather than just waiting for their animations to complete!

Floodland - There sure is a lot of citybuilder games, isn’t there? This one lets you play as garbage sorting firemen, and the post apocalyptic landscape is very pretty, but it has quite a few pinch points in regards to resource needs and managing your people.

Storyteller - Oh hey, I remember this game! Annapurna is bringing a nearly 15 year old art Flash game to full release. Move the characters between panels to see how far you can push the story’s constraints. Never was my favourite of Daniel Benmergui’s games, but good to see it again!

Touhou Hero of Ice Fairy - Is Touhou, is cute, is gay, is good. You dodge by dashing, which makes some of the danmaku less interesting, and from the looks of it, the final game is gonna be pretty short, but it’s made in the doujin spirit of Touhou, so gotta respect that!

Masterplan Tycoon
A citybuilder with an abstract style, that looks like it’s going to go a lot of different places, since it doesn’t have to literally represent all its resources. It also has the Space-Chem style map where you send resources into smaller maps, then take the results out.

Against the Storm
Probably the best of the citybuilders I’ve played this time, though I don’t know why they chose to highlight the rain theme over the much more interesting ‘Lady Sauron sending you to chop down trees’ theme. The Warcraft aesthetic works well, and the pace of the missions is pretty excellent. The campaign map layer is interesting too, though I worry it might be a nightmarish time sink in the full game. One to definitely keep an eye on.

The Pale Beyond - Okay, this is my favourite by far. Narrative based resource management as a Antarctic explorer. The writing is excellent, the game unfolds at a satisfying and manageable pace, the presentation is solid, and there’s a surprising amount of twists on the mechanics. I didn’t even bother finishing the demo, I could tell where the story was going based on actual Antarctic expeditions, and I know I’m gonna need to play the full game.

5 Likes
37

Managed to fit in like 20+ demos since my last post and managed to find a handful of neat looking games!

Out Of Hands - an unsettling narrative focused card-like(?) RPG(?) with a ton of FMV footage, primarily of hands doing or holding unusual things. For as bizarre as this game looks, it’s actually pretty simple to understand but I feel like It’d sound like utter nonsense trying to briefly break it down here. I’m 100% in on the vibes but more than a little bit skeptical of the potential direction of the story based on the handful of levels I played in the demo.

Betty & Earl - a sokoban game where you have to make two mono-eyed creatures slam into each other by sliding them around. There’s a hefty amount of levels in the demo and a lot of them do a really efficient job of the mechanical potential of later levels by reusing a handful of simple level layouts to introduce new mechanics.

Insomnia: Theater in the Head - a simple point and click game where you have to quiet the noisy little jester gremlin inside a lady’s head so she can get some rest. Not much else to say about this one, I just like the way it looks and think it’s got a couple of fun gimmicks for the stuff you’ve got to click on.

Isle of Pan - an open world photography game that takes place on a mysterious island. There’s not a ton to do in this demo but what is there is kind of a lot. The first photo I took was of some birds flying next to what appeared to be the triangular spaceship from Star Wars. The second was a sheep named Martha. And the last was of a mantis creature I found on the other end of a portal that removed several of my organs and upgraded them(?). Immensely curious what other strange stuff there’ll be to find in this game whenever it comes out.

2 Likes