It’s Steam NextFest so you know what that means! DEMO. MINI. PACK!!!!!!!! This was an exceptional NextFest. I liked more games than not, which is in stark contrast to the last demo fest I participated in. I order them roughly in the order for how much I liked them, so please give them a look!

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DEMO: THREE VERSES³ | sphere, desktop_trash, kernelfusion

This game uses the exact same movement system as Underkeep - WASD-EQ for directions and turning. The music is EXCELLENT. The aesthetic is fucking wild. It’s 3D pixelated and every shade of creepy brown as you traverse a hotel and the streets to deliver verses to these creepy mannequin things. Sooooo sick. Oh noooo! This game is funny too>?? It’s weird you get reset to the beginning of the level when you defeat an enemy. Combat is soooo silly! I love it. Best representation of a girl’s bathroom and this fucking alien ass Japanese salaryman creature has me cackling. I adore this game’s aesthetic, vibe, subversion, and Christian under/overtones. Well worth the play and I will be fascinated to see what a full game of this looks like.

DEMO: Underkeep | Rake in Grass

I FUCKING LOVE THIS AESTHETIC. Ooooh movement is very MUD-y, cute. I really love the manual controls to walk around. Pixel art is brilliant and WOW the painterly style on the encounters is EXCELLENT. I love the way the items spew out of chests and everything menu-wise is pretty intuitive. WHOA YOU CAN USE YOUR KEYS INSTEAD OF MANUALLY CLICKING GOAT’D. A really excellent modern interpretation of old text-based and early graphical dungeon crawlers. I love the art, aesthetic, UI, controls and combat. A really excellent and polished game!

DEMO: Helix: Descent N Ascent| Badass Mongoose

Aesthetic perfection. A simple, atmospheric puzzle game in which you use your daddy long legs to walk about a world worth stopping and staring in. You get one mechanic to solve part of the map you are in, and that’s basically it. Music and sound design are good, and the vibes are really chill as you do light puzzling.

DEMO: 07GORILLAS | Highway404

This is my favorite Vampire Survivors-like by a mile. The music is 10/10, the aesthetic and art is excellent and distinct, and the gameplay is unique (you can add characters to your party and they follow you around in a train of max 7). The only issue I had is that at a certain point you are mashing reload on the upgrade list, which makes it pretty boring toward the end. Otherwise, this was super fun and novel. The music, man! Highly recommend.

DEMO: CICADAMATA | ✿ flowergarden

Fuck this is a cool game. It’s a schmoovement game, you gotta go fast. This one has a lower barrier to entry to just get going. If you like Neon White and the aesthetics of Marathon, then this is the love child you’ve been looking for. This soundtrack and visual aesthetic was made for me and I love a schmoovement shooter, heavenly chaos.

DEMO: Sucker for Love: Crush Landing | Akabaka

I was struck by the visual direction and, sans being a guy MC, I really like the conceit with point-and-click gameplay. It’s colorful and silly, which is jsut engaging enough to keep clicking around.

DEMO: P.R.D.A. | 糟糕的树懒

Aesthetic is sick! I love the harsh black and white vibe. Movement is finicky and why is there a star of David? Jesus there is a long unskippable tutorial. Christ, don’t we all know how to play a rogue-like by now? Haven’t we all seen the Slay the Spire progression screen? The progression and animations are pretty slick. Movement isn’t great given the side-scroller in 3D space. Music is a bit muted, but fits the setting and it pretty cool. Okay, it’s Slay the Spire with a different aesthetic. I got locked with 0 resource and it killed my run, so I gave up.

DEMO: Esoteric Ebb | Christoffer Bodegård

A silly DnD-like where the combat is lovingly stylized conversation. Can your competing competencies and flaws succeed the myriad dice rolls? Probably not. A very fun cleric simulator.

DEMO: Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmnth | Hyper Games

This is an adorable game that is very polished. The music and animations are particularly excellent and I have a very deep appreciation for children’s media that has strong appeal for both adult and child-alike. Moomin are iconic and it feels good to see a game so lovingly crafted around the franchise. If you aren’t familiar with Moomin, it would be very easy to think this game is a survival horror-lite experience. The themes and music are quite immersive and I really appreciate the difficult themes they are addressing.

DEMO: Denshattack! | Undercoders

It’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, but you’re a train on a Door Dash-ing mission. Soundtrack may be my favorite part. I loved the two-color menu and pause screen. The general animation, colors, and aesthetic wasn’t for me. It’s fine, but I prefer more contemporary manga styling and this felt too flat. Gameplay wise, it felt tight and refined, but not for me. If you like any of the tricking games, you will probably like this!

DEMO: Celestial Return | Metaphor Games

Somewhere between Disco Elysium and Citizen Sleeper, though I err very much on the side of Citizen here. CRPG but in a cyberpunk setting with detective noir vibes. Aesthetically, it’s not my cup of tea. It’s more on the graphic novel//comic book side of things, which I historically do not like. The vibes remind me of Hellboy and the music is fine. I love the Insight character art. The writing is passable for the genre, which is still a high bar. I found myself genuinely intrigued by the opening mission, but lost steam with the in between dialogue and character developments. To me, the most glaring issue is how the Insight (all of your emotions) dialogue. All of the nuance and complexity is gone and it becomes generic and/or passe - we just don’t talk like that anymore and it doesn’t track with the futuristic setting.