I Played More Steam NextFest Demos (Oct 2023) (Part 1)
Every time Steam NextFest comes around, 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. I've done quick scattershot posts highlighting what I played, and if you're here, this is another one!
Little Goody Two Shoes
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1812370/Little_Goody_Two_Shoes/
90s-yuri-anime inspired... life sim? RPG? with a storybook/horror theme. The visual style is great, with a bunch of cute little animations, and it seems fairly well polished gameplay wise. I particularly appreciate the transparency of the quest log telling you what is happening where and when. Also good is that (based on the demo) it seems to have a brisk 7-day limit for the story, though I wonder how long a full run actually takes what with it advertising multiple endings.
An Action Roguelite for when you have 20 minutes to spare
Well, it's what it says it is. Reminiscent of Downwell, but it's constantly scrolling horizontally instead. I think you're meant to try and keep as much airtime as possible by bouncing on enemies, but you need to dive below the water to reload and I couldn't quite get the hang of it over my 20 minutes of playtime.
The Elephant Collection
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2274110/The_Elephant_Collection/
A collection of classic Flash games where you controlled a little elephant. I'm old (young...?) enough to have played most of these back in the day, waiting several minutes to load a scant few megabytes on a dial-up connection (yes I still had dial-up in the mid-late 00s). There's some pretty clever design in here and it's nice to have them in one place now that Flash has fully deprecated.
Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2417850/Yolk_Heroes_A_Long_Tamago/
Solid Game Boy aesthetics attached to some kind of tamagotchi idler RPG. Seems cute, but speaking only for myself: I simply do not have the patience for idle games or clickers. Once it tossed up the 5 minute real-life timer during the raising segment, I turned it off. I do feel bad about not giving it a full "loop" to prove itself... but demos are there to see if you'll jive with something, right?
Shambles
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2289630/Shambles/
Roguelite deckbuilder; not really my scene. It seems to have a smidge more focus on narrative events, I suppose? There's a real Korean Webtoon kind of aesthetic going on, where humanity retreated into fallout bunkers 500 years ago and emerge to find the world transformed into one of swords and sorcery. Also, clearly designed for mobile (this is a neutral statement).
EternalMist
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2102300/Eternal_Mist/
A quick, stage-based real-time tactics game where you direct little squads around to protect your pylons. I like the PS1-style "2D Characters on a 3D stage" aesthetic, but this is very early, without any tutorialization or progression. I hope it comes together by the next NextFest.
Anx Defense
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2500450/Anx_Defense/
Tower defense where you set up mirrors to bounce your bullets through damage enhancers (love me some Power Gates). Pretty fucking cool, honestly. There's a constant push and pull between leaving enough empty space to set up your enhancer cross-sections and having your bullets actually cover the roads.
In Stone
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2157500/In_Stone/
Some kind of religious horror point-and-click adventure game with a cool scratchy, monochrome aesthetic. Alas, it's not quite my scene, and it froze only a few rooms in.
Interregnum Chronicles: False Prophet
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2218680/Interregnum_Chronicles_False_Prophet/
A post-apocalyptic Tactical RPG. I might actually keep an eye on this? The combat is your usual X-Com-like cover shooting, with a couple interesting wrinkles like your armor and AP drawing from the same bar. There's also some kind of scavenging / exploration meta-layer that's seriously trying to crib from Disco Elysium and doing a really mediocre job of it. The characters all seem like generic proc-gen types, though I hope I'm wrong.
Bahnsen Knights
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1933190/Bahnsen_Knights/
A visual novel that goes in hard on that stark Red-Cyan-Purple-Black aesthetic (is that Commodore 64? Amiga??), about a man investigating a religious cult in the 1980s Tornado Alley. The bit I played was pretty well written IMO, and apparently it's third in a series of VNs in this same style. Pretty cool!
Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1808680/Snufkin_Melody_of_Moominvalley/
I don't know anything about Moomins, but my friends told me that this is exactly what you'd want out of a licensed Moomin game: a cute storybook aesthetic with light stealth and rock-pushing puzzles. Also, this game is about Snufkin saying fuck the police, so make of that what you will.
Anode Heart
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1592750/Anode_Heart/
A Digi-Poke-Monster-Collector type game. Seems really cool, actually. There's a decent push-and-pull with the way the action economy works in battles (basically, you can overextend your action points, but it gives the opponent more on their turn) and even just after 45 minutes I was feeling that Pokemon-like drive to optimize my squad. A little clunky on the UX side, but nothing that I found to be a deal breaker.
Romp of Dump
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1951520/Romp_of_Dump/
I downloaded this because of the title, but I didn't expect it to be a Death Row Twink Gambling Simulator.
You play poker and blackjack with these Live2D anime boys in prison so you can figure out which one is the true Vamp of Dump who committed the crime for which you were convicted. Also there's mobile game stuff like a daily login bonus?
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