Steam NextFest (June 2025)
I haven't done one of these in a while! Mostly because my life is in shambles, but hey, here are the demos I played this week in between all the other shit happening. Hopefully most of them will still be up by the time this post is.
Mina the Hollower
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3741460/Mina_the_Hollower_Demo/
I wish I wasn't, but I'm way less interested in this after playing the demo. Given the aesthetic I was hoping for something a little more Zelda-like in format. Instead they're doubling down on the not-quite-Souls formula where you have checkpoints in-between linear areas that act as "levels" and Estus charges and all that. I get it, but what if we got more not-Zelda games instead of not-Souls games?
Ratatan
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3449820/Ratatan_Demo/
You know what Patapon had that this doesn't? Clear and readable visual design. I could barely tell what the fuck was going on in Ratatan which made it really tough to gauge what I was supposed to be doing at any given time. Plus I've come to hate the roguelike as a format so really this ain't doing it for me chief.
ACE Overheat
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1590390/ACE_Overheat/
Turning a Luftrausers clone into a roguelike makes a lot of sense. It was already a run-based thing but in a pure score-attack way. It's not as capital-s Stylish as Luftrausers (what is?) but I could see this being a solid action roguelike that you could squeeze into 15-20 minutes.
Rue Valley
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3546270/Rue_Valley_Demo/
It's nice to see something aping Disco Elysium with some active intention rather than just... trying to be like Disco Elysium, I guess. I like how the character sheet works and there are some cool aesthetic choices that give the game an actual visual identity. I'll keep an eye on this one.
ChainKit Builder
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3764620/ChainKit_Builder_Demo/
Steam page claims no generative AI was used at all, which already puts this above that other game that was trying to be this. Cute enough. The mouse controls seem to completely shut off the second you tap anything on the keyboard and I couldn't figure out how to reverse that.
All Living Things
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3681490/All_Living_Things_Demo/
The real charm here is the resplendence of stop motion animation. The game part is clicking on things until you've clicked them in the right order, but because everything is so beautifully sculpted it isn't always clear what you can or can't click on. Worth a gander just to marvel at the artistry on display.
Banpo's Bridge Wondrous Worlds
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3454950/Banpos_Bridge_Wondrous_Worlds_Demo/
Decent enough logic puzzle type game. After a smidge of searching, I guess this is a noted type of puzzle called "hashi" or "bridges", so perhaps this scratches the same kind of itch that buying picross games does.
Tactical Annihilation
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3642240/Tactical_Annihilation_Demo/
I meant to pass 15-20 minutes and I played this for two hours straight. What can I say! I like Advance Wars and Advance Wars derivatives! Sometimes!
I think part of what makes this one work is that it moves fast. Having all the attacks just happen on the map view means you're jumping into the next turn pretty much immediately. I'm a bit ambivalent on how the economy shakes out, but if you're paying more attention to unit strengths/weaknesses than I was it probably works better.
Duskmarch
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3701890/Duskmarch_Demo/
I just click "install" from the big NextFest list, so I didn't realize beforehand that this uses a bunch of generative AI to make Worse Wizardry. Next.
Seventh Song
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2908100/Seventh_Song/
Like 90% sure this also is using generative AI art for (at minimum) the character portraits, even if the Steam page doesn't say it. Well, even if it isn't, the writing is a bit too irreverent for my tastes.
Vangaro Tactics
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2221530/Vangaro_Tactics/
Another Advance Wars style game, though this is particularly blatant. This one tries to add more mechanical grit with stuff like stealth missions and resource caches, which are fine, but I'm less sold on decisions like allowing infantry a full 10 capture power no matter how damaged they are.
Pompeii: The Legacy
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2632240/Pompeii_The_Legacy/
A good ol' city builder in a historical setting; the kind of game I remember seeing on my neighbor's PC back in the 90s that seemed so far beyond my conception of what a video game was. Maybe I'd want some kind of extra educational stuff, but any proverbial Civilopedia wouldn't be in a demo anyway. No frills, just solid all the way down.
Zakon
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1918120/zakon/
A cool PS1 aesthetic which I personally find incredibly difficult to read. Mostly makes me think about how we should be due for Ace Combat 8 any day now... surely. SURELY.
Also, not the game's fault really, but the "satirical hyper-nationalism" angle just gets less and less funny to me as the past few years have progressed.
P4ST3L
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2875820/P4ST3L/
The way the camera swings around actively gave me a headache. Maybe this has something to it but also it froze up and crashed before I even met a monster or anything and I didn't feel like continuing. Alas.
Paradigm Island
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2780990/Paradigm_Island/
I was enjoying this before it crashed (they're demos, it's cool). It's another Disco Elysium type RPG with seemingly no combat, which I can appreciate. What I appreciate even more is that like Rue Valley above, this has its own visual and tonal identity that aren't nakedly imitative.
Quartet
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1307960/Quartet/
I've had bad luck when it comes to indie RPGs trying to evoke the 16-bit era, but this seems surprisingly polished after about 90 minutes (releasing in August, apparently). It seems the full game is going for a Wild ARMs style "multiple scenarios collide" situation, which I like, but, uh. The only one available in the demo has you playing as a solider actively participating in ethnic cleansing, which, I mean, he gets better after an hour or so, but oof.
Decorum
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3474950/Decorum/
Seems cute enough, though I'm personally not that interested in this kind of aesthetic (not steampunk per se, but steampunk adjacent). Is it gauche to say that this game would have blown up if it launched on Xbox Live Arcade 20 years ago?
BYTE
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2946750/BYTE/
There is some major comedy value to be had from the idea of "Dracula in the 1990s" and this game undeniably has a striking aesthetic... maybe too striking. I had trouble parsing what was going on and had to stop during the first-person segment. The trailer on the Steam page doesn't look anywhere near as intense, so I wonder if I missed a setting somewhere.
MIO: Memories in Orbit
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3496520/MIO_Memories_in_Orbit_Demo/
Perhaps I'm being overly reductive, but this game is desperately asking if you'd be into a sci-fi Hollow Knight. My answer is a tentative "yes". The first ten minutes or so didn't make a great impression on me, but the more I played the more I started to appreciate the game's aesthetic choices. Those are some nice environments.
The Coldest Winter
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2627420/The_Coldest_Winter/
This is undeniably interesting, but the demo feels like it's barely holding together. The long pauses between dialogue lines made it hard for me to keep the thread. The tricks it's pulling with the player's pointer being separate from the character's are cool, though. For example: you don't simply choose options, you have to actively drag the character's cursor over to slap it down on the choice you want.
Herdling
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3047750/Herdling/
Journey, with buffalo? It took me a bit to grasp the controls but I had a good enough time once I did. I was streaming to friends at the time and said out loud, "So the title card is going to show up once I get through this gate, right?" and well, maybe I play too many video games. Nothing really feels wrong with this, but it also doesn't really appeal to me personally.
---