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Comment on Steam Next Fest has started once again. What good demos have you found?

silverchase@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

Day 2 of Next Fest is over! Here’s what I tried.

Good Luck — An absurdly dangerous walk to work

* Just walk to work * Slowly walk through streets full of deadly things, like exploding garbage bins, loose signpoles, and falling signs * No checkpoints! No dodging! This is a rage game. * There’s online co-op, apparently. Have Fun with friends! * This demo is silly fun, but I don’t need to play more of this Pass

Öoo — Puzzle platformer with bombs

* This guy also made Elec Head, another charming puzzle platformer * Puzzle platforming with exploration * Cute pixel art * Wordless teaching. Actually, the only words in the game are the credits! * Puzzles all revolve around clever use of bombs: launch yourself like a rocket jump, blow up one bomb to push another Wishlisted

PANIK — Chess-like grid puzzles

* Has that Flash game feel, but in a good way. Quirky idea, simple design. It’s built to quickly get you in and playing. * The puzzles are like connecting circuits. The figures can only move if they’re connected to a crown-wearing figure. * An interesting take on grid-based puzzles. Like a fusion of Sokoban, chess puzzles, and “Chinese” checkers. * PANIK’s cute demo trick: just have a quick line of super-simple levels to show off mechanics in the rest of the game! * I’d actually love to play this on my phone instead Wishlisted

SourceWorld — Dungeon crawling FPS in the Half-Life universe

* Deus Ex-like cutscenes for a story set after the Combine invasion! You join a company that raids the multiverse * Doom screen melt transition, holy crap * The familiarity and comfort of Source engine physics, movement, and weapons * Game crashed a bunch for me, so I’ll have to stop early Soft wishlist (I’ll keep an eye on this)

::: spoiler !mrak — Super stylish immersive sim

BTW, “mrak” is Russian for "darkness"
Super rough, gritty introduction to a setting drowning in crusty old tech
Unfortunately crashes early in the game

Soft wishlist

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silverchase@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Day 3

Bloodthief — First-person parkour/speedrunning
* Crusty brown gothic look, like Quake * Gameplay really grabbed me. Sometimes, I was leaning forward and holding my breath! * More and deeper movement mechanics, compared to other first-person parkour games, like SEUM or Neon White. Building up and preserving speed is a big deal * Challenging levels, with actual enemies to fight and a quickly-rising difficulty level. Levels are usually 1-5 minutes long — lengthy compared to Neon White’s 10-30 seconds * I managed to wall jump off of a deadly spike wall, and I’m still not sure if that was intended Soft wishlist. I definitely enjoyed this demo, but I currently don’t have an appetite for this type of game.

Dice Gambit — Tactical RPG with dice
* First thing after the intro cutscene: a detailed character creation screen. That’s pretty overwhelming. * I like the art style except for the subdued 3D character models * Throwing the dice and watching them settle is satisfying, as it is in Armello * Gameplay is clearly focused on battle grid combat, since the “dungeon crawling” is just clicking on a map, like Slay the Spire * Do team management and watch the plot in the downtime between jobs * There is an appreciable amount of role-playing in this RPG Wishlisted

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- silverchase@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Day 4 was all black cats
  
  :::spoiler Everdeep Aurora — Exploration-heavy platformer
  
  Really well-executed limited palette art. It swaps palettes between different areas for mood. Maybe that’s why the playable character is a black cat.
  
  This demo is really short. I saw a bit of lore and played some hide and seek, then went through the scary door. The cat has a drill but I don’t even get to use it!
  
  Didn’t get a chance to see any interesting action except for the very last few seconds of the demo
  
  The camera feels unpolished. It always freely drifts behind you, so quickly changing directions often will make the camera jiggle unpleasantly. It would be nice if the camera would stay still or lock to an axis sometimes. That would especially help with aiming jumps, since the camera always jerks upward a bit every time you jump.
  
  The controls feel great. Super responsive movement with no sliding and little momentum buildup. Jump height is also quick to respond to letting go of the jump key.
  
  Soft wishlist. This demo just wasn’t long enough to be totally sell me on the full game. ::: :::spoiler Project Arrow — Puzzle platformer with archery
  
  I found this demo to be good but not great. I’m struggling to identify why it didn’t appeal to me more.
  
  Maybe the selection of levels wasn’t impressive enough. There were a handful of puzzle ones, but some just felt like repeats with not much new each time. There seemed to be a lot of autoscrollers.
  
  Platforming movement mechanics were simple and straightforward, which is appropriate for a puzzle platformer, but then there are levels with precision platforming and not much puzzle
  
  Cool series of boss levels at the end
  
  Maybe the demo didn’t do enough to hint at the possibilities for the whole bow and arrow mechanic for puzzles, so I’m just not getting hyped enough
  
  Maybe I just don’t get the presentation of the game? Electronic music and high-tech UI but playing as a cat with a bow in the forest
  
  Pass ::: :::spoiler Swoosh Cat — Precision platformer
  
  Celeste but with 360° dash
  
  Cool mechanic: dash into spikes to bounce off of them
  
  Slow motion while aiming, but the aim indicator isn’t very accurate. Also, unlimited slow motion
  
  Hard to tell when I have dash or not
  
  Something feels off about the air control. I often overshoot or undershoot when trying to land on a small platform
  
  What a long demo! This is a substantial amount of game to give out.
  
  Pass. I had fun, but I’m currently not in the mood for Celeste-style precision platforming. :::
  
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  - silverchase@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Day 5
    
    :::spoiler Look Mum No Computer — Twin-stick shooter adventure
    
    Trying the demo purely because of the weird trailer
    
    Very retro PC gaming vibe. SID chip music!
    
    Rough introduction. Big info dump right at the start before I know what I’m doing
    
    Music changes as you change the installed skills, which are presented as synthesizer modules
    
    Struggling with visibility. Hard to quickly tell what’s an enemy and what’s background art. Also hard to tell what’s collidable and what’s clear
    
    I’m not finding the combat here very intersting
    
    Pass :::
    
    :::spoiler Morsels — Action roguelike (Isaaclike?) with creature collecting
    
    Gross and cute
    
    The classics from Rogue: traps, unexplained stuff, retrying a lot until you start to understand
    
    Demo shows a small but varied range of creatures with different abilities, which always come with a randomly selected bonus
    
    Quick switch between your roster of three
    
    At least in this early part of the game, ammo count is really low and even ranged attacks don’t go far
    
    Great presentation. Pixel art feels kind of like claymation
    
    Pass. I liked the demo a lot, but I’m already playing a lot of roguelikes and my wishlist already has ones I’m more excited for :::
    
    :::spoiler ODDCORE — Surreal boomer shooter
    
    Maximalism. An exhilarating force-feeding of the senses.
    
    Liminal spaces but actually awesome and fun. Exterminate the Backrooms! Shoot the jump scare monsters in their faces!
    
    Excursions into the Oddcore only last 5 minutes unless you buy time extensions
    
    Interesting idea: you can teleport home (almost) whenever you want to buy upgrades or more time
    
    Chaotic level progression, like really channel surfing through the multiverse. Sometimes, instead of warping to the next level, you end up in a corrupted level or a bonus level or just some weird, mildly creepy room
    
    Wishlisted :::
    
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