Steam NextFest Rapid-Fire Demo Thoughts (June 2024)

Every time Steam NextFest comes around (and if I remember to do it), I scroll the big list and click "Install" on anything that catches my eye. Honestly, it's a lot of fun and I've found some cool games this way, including some gems like Amarantus pr Balatro. I made some quick scattershot listicles highlighting what I played during previous NextFests, and if you're here, well, this is another one.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2142790/Fields_of_Mistria/

It's one of those. "Wholesome" farming sim ala Stardew Valley. Anime-inspired aesthetic. Does not appear to be bringing anything particularly new or interesting to the table IMO. But maybe that's what you want! Farming games that aren't titled Stardew Valley already have a leg up by simply not being Stardew Valley.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1582650/Caravan_SandWitch/

This seems to have a collect-a-thon loop of doing quests for people in town, exploring ruins to gather components, then using those components to make scanners to open up new sections of the map. Moves pretty smoothly, even though there doesn't appear to be controller support yet. Not bad.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1560160/ILA_A_Frosty_Glide/

3D platformer where you're trying to jump around with your witch broom glide. It's kinda fiddly to control, and often relies upon doing wall jumps. The thing is that you can only wall jump once per time touching the ground, so you keep interrupting your jump chains because you have to land first, except you're also always holding the glide button... so sometimes you'll just fall off a big cliff and end up eight jumps down.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2132560/On_Your_Tail/

This is a "cozy mystery" game where you're hanging out around an Italian seaside town (think Sapienza from Hitman) and solving crimes where people were mostly momentarily inconvenienced. I wish the run speed was a little faster. Seems cute enough, but I feel like I'm not really in the target audience.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2240080/Spilled/

A clean-up game with a low-poly aesthetic. You're scraping oil off the ocean surface into a plant and then spending the money on upgrades that let you scrape more oil. Pretty short, feels like a mobile game kinda (that isn't necessarily a bad thing).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2406810/Emblems_Sunless_Vow/

Feels like a mobile game (again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing). You've got a sort of rock-paper-scissors plate-spinning game where you're trying to make sure you hit weaknesses while managing health between your orbs, and also trying to get last hit with your lower level ones to squeeze out more XP. I didn't dislike the story I saw, but there's just so much of it and you aren't given much context to latch on to.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2403290/Boyhoods_End/

A RPG Maker joint with some genuinely quite impressive animation and some decent sci-fi storytelling. You play as Giovanni Stylus, a student at the galactic academy and secret hacker, who is bullied due to having the lowest "human score" (read: social media rating) in existence. The writing gets extremely on the nose, but I am at least somewhat intrigued. Also, now that I'm more aware of how RPG Maker functions, holy shit! How did they make some of these things in RPG Maker?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2817140/Charming_Hearts/

I downloaded this because it was tagged CRPG. It is not a CRPG. It is an FMV dating sim where none of the choices are in English (but the dialogue is subtitled, at least??). You wanna have models stare directly into the camera and awkwardly flirt with a player character with zero personality? Then here you go! I would like a hot, rich CEO girlfriend though... hm...............

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1712350/Riven/

They made a sequel to Myst, dudes.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1865750/Faye_Falling/

Some real We Have Undertale At Home vibes going on here with a battle system where you dodge bullets and time your hits. That isn't a bad thing, to be clear! I am mostly just fascinated by how Earthbound type games have been almost completely subsumed in the indie space by Undertale type games.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1610440/Minds_Beneath_Us/

A side-scrolling narrative game where you're playing as some kind of ghost in the machine who gets uploaded into other peoples' implants to spy on and/or control them. Good ol' cyberpunk type stuff here. Gosh, you wonder if having every part of your life controlled by some all-seeing, amoral AI is a current cultural fear or something?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2108180/Swordhaven_Iron_Conspiracy/

An old-school CRPG in pretty much every sense. Neat! My only real complaint about the demo is that there doesn't appear to be anything really distinguishing its setting and narrative. You're stomping through forests and punching wolves like pretty much any other low level not-DnD campaign, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that (DnD only gets a pass because it has the name brand IMO), but I've played a decent number of CRPGs and without any dev/franchise pedigree I really need some kind of hook to get me invested.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1669600/Green_Memories/

In the post-apocalypse, you play a scientist wandering the desert to study whether humanity can re-inhabit the wastes. This has a cool Game Boy Color style aesthetic, but the English localization is rough and the very first quest requires you to get random drops from enemies that will kill you with contact damage in mere moments. Could be cool with some more polish.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2224640/Artisan_TD/

Seems like a pretty standard tower defense, but I'm cool with that. My main memory of tower defense games is playing custom maps in Starcraft, and those usually had an element of building your towers in formation to slow down the enemy pathfinding as much as possible. There's a bit of that here with balancing your money between walls or tower upgrades.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1429850/Sumerian_Six/

An isometric stealth game a-la Shadow Tactics, where you're moving your bespoke hero units around and trying to kill all the nazis without getting caught. There's always going to be something satisfying about setting up a split second double kill and watching it go off, and the characters seem to have pretty cool abilities like riding guards through their patrol routes or just outright swapping positions to drop a guy right onto a waiting knife. Neat!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2449160/While_Waiting/

A puzzle game where you're trying to accomplish semi-hidden objectives while an invisible timer ticks down, but in a variety of wacky situations. Based on trailers during E3(False), this is meant to broadly be a kind of time waster while you're waiting for things IRL, and it does an admirable job of that. I had fun for the 20 minutes I played this waiting for my discord server movie night where we watched Dragon (2011) starring Donnie Yen. Isn't that all you can really ask for?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2831320/babelathe/

I guess this is a goof on Beyblade? It is either nigh unplayable or I'm just bad at video games. Appears to be multiplayer in some form but I could not quite fathom what was going on or what I was supposed to be doing. That might be the game's fault or more likely is due to my poor mental state at 7:30pm on a Tuesday night.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2769210/Scarmonde/

The coolest thing I've played so far on this list (I write these in play order over several days). An RPG Maker joint that's patterned off NES style, original-FF type RPGs. Make your plotless party out of the available classes and hit up that dungeon with no other pretenses. It's got a somewhat more modern progression system where you can pick and choose which abilities to buy for each character, which is kinda cool. However, I do wish there was some way to modulate random encounters; they happen maybe a little too often.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1697850/Rose_and_Locket/

An action platformer with a real neat comic panel aesthetic where you're hunting down the Seven Deadly Sins. Unfortunately, the demo locked up right before what seemed like the first "real" stage, and the only way to get back there would have been to replay the entire tutorial level up until then, so I didn't get that far. But it does look pretty cool!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1590760/Metal_Slug_Tactics/

It sucks that this is a roguelike, because there's some cool tactics stuff buried in here. The game wants you to have all your units lined up to do synchronized cross-fire on enemies, but you also don't accrue skill points for special moves unless you're moving as far as possible each turn. Combined, this means you're often just one or two tiles out of perfect alignment, scrambling to squeeze out that extra damage.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1691750/Sky_Oceans_Wings_for_Hire/

If Sega won't make Skies of Arcadia, it's time for the indie devs to step up, I guess. I wish I liked this more, but the demo doesn't make a great first impression, opening with 10-15 minutes of fetch quests before you can start actually flying planes around and getting into the mood of it. The art style seems cute, though.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1414910/The_Shimmering_Horizon_and_Cursed_Blacksmith/

You got your Mystery Dungeon in my Dark Souls! You got your Dark Souls in my Mystery Dungeon! There's also some kind of weapon forging mechanic where you are cobbling together swords from whatever scraps you can scrounge up in the dungeon. Seems totally fine mechanically, but the anime girl could stand to put on some pants.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2102450/Enotria_The_Last_Song/

An almost comically Italian Souls-type game. I played until I beat the first boss dude in the town, who was in an arena where the camera kept clipping into the wall, completely obscuring my vision. What I will say is that storebrand Souls-type games are certainly getting better at being what they are, but they're still just not good enough to replace the real thing (at least for me). Keep at it, I guess.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1680780/Big_Boy_Boxing/

A Punch Out type game that pretty much nails everything you'd want from a Punch Out type game. No notes other than that it got real fucking hard real fast. I must be getting old, because my reaction times suck now; Coach Skank can fuck right off. Nails the "shitty mid-90s afterschool cartoon" vibes.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1239360/Genokids/

A character action game clearly taking inspiration from the likes of Hi-Fi Rush and Devil May Cry. The characters have some solid style, but the environments are pretty fucking bland, and I eventually died after being infinitely juggled by multiple enemies. Seems like it could be neat and there's at least a bit of cohesion to the whole aesthetic.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2694420/KILL_KNIGHT/

A twin-stick shooter with more than a little Devil Daggers DNA in it. Shoot a bunch of guys, get a higher score, unlock new things to shoot guys with. Knows exactly what it wants to be and is that thing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2809200/Fading_Skies/

Extreme mid-00s PS2 / Xbox 360 platformer energy from this one, like if Jak & Daxter was made in 2015 or something. You've got the perky elf protagonist who quips to her wacky little mascot, all the models are kinda too smooth, there's janky combat and even jankier platforming. There's someone out there for whom this game hits the direct center of their strike zone, but it ain't me.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2744650/The_Moon_2044/

Isometric dual-stick shooter horror game where you're a space marine wandering dark halls and shooting zombie monsters when they crop up. Pretty janky, but the lighting works well; you can't see shit if you aren't pointing your gun directly at it. This does however mean that something can sneak up and kill you before you even have a chance to swivel around to see it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2243690/BC_Piezophile/

This game feels like it was made for a particular kind of sicko who wishes Descent took place in the terrifying depths of an alien sea and instead of a speedy spaceship you had a confusing clunker of a mech. I can't say I've ever quite played anything like it, and it's got some incredible vibes. I will probably never play this in earnest, but I'm impressed.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1832040/Flintlock_The_Siege_of_Dawn/

I really like the aesthetic of this - a sort of militarized, flintlock fantasy Ottoman Empire situation - and I'm not into anything else. The gameplay is just a mashup of every notable action RPG of the past decade, akin to something like Star Wars Jedi Survivor, so it just kinda feels like extruded Souls-type sludge. Not into it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2739630/of_the_Devil/

Come and getcher Ace Attorney / Danganronpa styled mystery lawyer visual novel. The demo is the whole "first case", running about two hours, and it's great from top to bottom. I realized the twist about two seconds before it was revealed, which is exactly what you want. No notes.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1876590/I_Am_Your_Beast/

A stage-based kill-em-up. You're trying to murder all the guys or whatever in the stage as cleanly and quickly as possible to get your score up, simple enough. It's fast and smooth, and all the throwing around weapons and immediately scavenging new ones gives me some Superhot vibes. Fun if you're into that sort of thing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2855390/Echoes_in_the_Deep__A_Fateforge_Tale/

I would bet actual money that this is based directly off the devs' DnD game. It's got the same character classes, ability scores, and even svirfnebiln gnomes living in the Underdark Netherworld. The character portraits even look like they're drawn over Heroforge models! There's some decent character writing, but I also don't think that I care to play a bog-standard DnD visual novel at this point in my life. (Edit: I guess Fateforge is literally a DnD 5e offshoot, so fie on me for not doing research on the title of the demo lol)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1960900/Judero/

A fairly simplistic action game with one hell of an aesthetic. Everything is some kind of scanned-in sculpture/doll with a handful of straight up stop motion interludes to introduce monsters with names like "Spitting Haggis" and "Wee Beasties". You gotta see this one in motion, I think.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2171880/Albatroz/

You want to drive and hike around lovely mountain landscapes while managing various hunger/thirst/stamina meters? Then this is the game for you! Jokes aside, there could be something here once it reaches a more polished state. I'm really into the idea of a hiking game having elements like a party or towns where you plan out your next journey. Cool stuff.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2679070/IRONHIVE/

A (sigh) deckbuilder citybuilder, and definitely one of those plate-spinning games where you're juggling a bunch of limited resources to try and keep factions happy while also expanding. I'm interested in some aspects of the aesthetic, like the cross-section between heavy industrial mechs and fanatical religion, but I'm not sure I'm willing to put up with the gameplay just for that. There's hardly any tutorial either, so it's a real sink-or-swim situation.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1614440/B_Path_of_the_Teal_Lotus/

I suppose you could do worse than cribbing Hollow Knight this blatantly; that part's fine, if a bit trite these days. What I'm less enthused by is how hard the game is learning on being "Japanese-inspired". The Steam page says "Japan" or "Japanese" like seven or eight times, the game loooves to mention kami and yokai and whatnot, and all in a way that sets off my "this is made by weebs with no self awareness" alarm. Dunno.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1543710/Beyond_Galaxyland/

An RPG with some light 2D platforming and puzzle solving. There's some neat presentation stuff going on here, but I'm not quite sold on the "90s Saturday Morning Cartoon" aesthetic with its wacky mascots and capturable monsters. The combat's also a bit clunky for my tastes. That said, I'm not seeing any overt red flags and the game seems earnest enough.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/458430/Steel_Seed/

Feels like a store-brand Jedi Survivor, which sounds like I'm damning with faint praise, but Steel Seed is definitely one of the more polished games on this list. It's got your setpiece platforming, a double jump, stealth takedowns, a light-and-heavy attack, checkpoints that heal you but respawn all enemies, a little robot buddy who hacks doors... all the things that would be in a modern, big budget action platformer. S'fine.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1983260/Dungeons_of_Hinterberg/

This feels like it takes a lot of inspiration from Gamecube/Wii-Era Nintendo games. The core loop is going out during the day to Zelda-like dungeons where you solve puzzles, kill enemies, and get loot; then you get back to the village in the afternoon and have your Persona-like social stats and character links that get you better perks to go dungeoneering. Seems like it could be pretty damn cool.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1325040/Keylocker__Turn_Based_Cyberpunk_Action/

Really stylish, I was into a lot of what was going on in here, but holy shit it's hard. Maybe I just picked the wrong class, but if I was not hitting every timed hit and timed defense perfectly, I would die in two hits in even the tutorial battles. If I ever go back to this it'll be on easy mode, I am clearly a Soft Punk.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2366980/Thank_Goodness_Youre_Here/

Comedy game where you're a weird little guy running around punching things. Like all comedy media, the jokes are a little hit-or-miss, but I enjoyed myself more often than not. Perhaps I'm just not British enough for it to truly hit.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422440/Cataclismo/

A really interesting RTS / Tower Defense game. I like pretty much everything about this. The building can get a little fiddly, but that's just because you can get really meticulous with where you're placing every single brick. I spent a solid 10-15 minutes building a wall in the tutorial level and then the swarm was over in 30 seconds.