I did this during the previous NextFest, so why not do it again? Quick thoughts on each here, in no particular order. If there are any I missed that you think I'd enjoy, give them a shout in the comments.

URBANO: Legends' Debut

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2115210/URBANO__Legends_Debut/

Rhythm-based RPG blatantly inspired by The World Ends With You currently on Kickstarter. Has some genuinely good music in it and doesn't take itself overly seriously, but doesn't play super well IMO. It also has a Caramelldansen minigame. I respect the gumption.

Vampire Syndicate: Gangs of MoonFall

(No Steam link because it's NSFW)
First Image: The Steam NextFest Demo banner for Vampire Syndicate: Gangs of MoonFall, depicting an anime-style cyborg with glowing eyes and a leather jacket.

Second Image: The "normal" demo banner for Vampire Syndicate: Gangs of MoonFall, depicting an uncanny valley CG model of a mostly naked busty blonde.

I feel like I got tricked.

Lies of P

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1627720/Lies_of_P/

Kirkland Bloodborne. Gets closer than most Souls imitators, but still doesn't "get" what makes the combat in Bloodborne click, so every fight just feels like a desperate damage race with no real skill involved. When I was playing this on stream, @rosenonsense said "if you come for the king, you'd best not miss"; I'm sure there are people who will love this, but having actually played FromSoft games this just doesn't feel right.

En Garde!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1654660/En_Garde/

Dreamworks cartoon PS2 tie-in vibes. Combat reminded me a smidge of Sekiro (parrying to break guard, etc), but the forced auto-lock-on and emphasis on knocking guys around with environmental objects make it feel comparatively clunky to me. Seems cute enough, but not something I'd buy.

Heretic's Fork

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2181610/Heretics_Fork/

Tower defense deckbuilder roguelite with a somewhat generic "hell" aesthetic. I played this for like a solid 90 minutes because I'm easily susceptible to number-go-up dopamine hits (it's the ADHD), but I wasn't genuinely engaged. I don't know that I'll ever play a tower defense game that really nails the experience of playing custom Starcraft maps.

Nour: Play with Your Food

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1141050/Nour_Play_with_Your_Food/

A food-based spiritual follow-up to Electroplankton of all things. Food-themed musical toybox where you push buttons and see what happens with various dishes. I like the vibes but I don't know that it could sustain my attention.

CorpoNation: The Sorting Process

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2159960/CorpoNation_The_Sorting_Process/

A Papers, Please-like with a, well, corporate aesthetic. Has a fairly large focus on the non-work side of things and that's where the intensely pointed satire lives. One of the better demos on this list so far (as I'm writing it, having not yet played everything else that's going to be on here) IMO.

Alterium Shift

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1586990/Alterium_Shift/

A JRPG. I like the visual style and nothing else about it stands out to me. It's a demo, so I don't want to harp on bugs and such too much, but I couldn't properly interact with any shops and the game crashed when I tried to change it to windowed mode.

Jumplight Odyssey

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1893820/Jumplight_Odyssey/

I knew this was kind of like FTL with a coat of Star Blazers paint; didn't realize it was also basically a city-builder. The Steam page really pushes the idea of emergent stories happening because each crew member has their own randomly generated personality quirks ala Dwarf Fortress or something, but I spent most of the demo grumbling that I couldn't tell them to prioritize certain tasks. Has potential to be pretty cool though.

SOUL VARS

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2087910/SOULVARS/

Feels a bit like a late GBA game lost to time. Borderline incomprehensible and hocks you directly into the deep end of the battle system, but it's a pretty interesting battle system. Each piece of equipment puts a handful of attacks into your deck, hitting enemy weaknesses gives you more action points, and you combine attacks into special moves. The demo also graded me on my performance and said I was an "Experienced Pixelsmart Soulbearer" with a "Ph.D. in Combat ARTS", so, I mean. Cool I guess.

Thronefall

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2239150/Thronefall/

Cute little basebuilding / tower defense game. It's quite polished and doesn't try to be too complex, which I respect. Gives me the vibes of a game I might have spent an evening playing on Newgrounds or something.

Broken Roads

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1403440/Broken_Roads/

An isometric CRPG (at last!) set in the post-apocalyptic (oh...) Australian outback (hm, okay). Post-apoc isn't really my jam and the morality compass in this feels hokey even judging by DnD's 9-point standard, but it's great to see stuff like this simply exist. Hope it does well.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1340480/The_Cosmic_Wheel_Sisterhood/

A fortune-telling visual novel where you play as a witch in exile making her own cooler, better tarot cards. Made by the folks behind Gods Will Be Watching and The Red Strings Club, so it's got pretty solid writing. I was left immediately wanting more by the end of the demo.

Light Fingers

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1223720/Light_Fingers/

A board game of sorts where you are thieves trying to swipe loot and drop it off at the hideout before the guards catch you. It's got a charming aesthetic (absolutely had to turn off the clockwork ticking sound though) and is surprisingly full featured for a demo, but there's a huge amount of downtime between turns if you're playing single player. I worry it'd grow too dull even playing with other humans.

Phoenix Springs

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1973310/Phoenix_Springs/

Neo-noir point-and-click adventure. Has a cool visual style and some really neat vibes, but I'm not particularly into the genre.

Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles

https://store.steampowered.com/app/290100/Bulwark_Falconeer_Chronicles/

A city-builder where you're building exclusively on mountain islands, connecting them with bridges, and exploring to the next chain in an airship. The gimmick seems to be that it populates the world map with other factions and such to create emergent conflict, but I didn't play enough of the demo to see much of that. Had a bit of trouble getting used to the controls, too.

VIDEOVERSE

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2079180/VIDEOVERSE/

A narrative game about exploring game forums and chatrooms in the early 00s. I think I'm slightly too old and jaded for whatever this is selling; couldn't help but nitpick minutiae of how the gaming industry actually was at the time. Seems heartfelt enough, though.

Between Horizons

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1921980/Between_Horizons/

A detective game where you play as the Chief of Security onboard a generational colony ship. I'm really into this conceptually, but the writing's a little [wavering hand] and it could use a hefty UX pass. Still, it's just a demo, so the final product might be pretty cool.

Verne: The Shape of Fantasy

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1424600/Verne_The_Shape_of_Fantasy/

A 2D adventure game where alternate-world Jules Verne explores Atlantis. Seemed like there might be something going on with him connecting to our world's Jules Verne. The concept could be cool, but I wasn't really enjoying the "use item X at point Y" gameplay. Also it ignored my audio settings during cutscenes and blasted my ears out like three times.

Venba

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1491670/Venba/

Some kind of narrative game about cooking Indian food in 1980s Canada. It's got a cute, distinctive art style, and I've always liked stuff that has cooking (not crafting!) as a main focus. Seems good.

Eternights

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1402110/Eternights/

Kirkland Persona with surprisingly good real-time action combat. Makes no bones about being exactly what it is, which I can respect, but also maybe it's a little too blatantly thirsty for my tastes. Also, frankly, it looks super cheap despite having solid game feel.

Athenian Rhapsody

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1671720/Athenian_Rhapsody/

Kirkland Undertale that seems to think people like Toby Fox's games because they are Wacky and Random rather than because they have a thematic throughline. When your entire game is nothing but gags, I'll certainly laugh a bit, but eventually I just got tired of it all.
(Also, there's probably something to be said about how Earthbound-style games have now been completely subsumed by Undertale-style games. Dunno.)

Leuer and the Dim Settlers

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2308630/Lueur_and_the_Dim_Settlers/

Simple little city-builder type game. Seems like it'd be great on mobile (complimentary). No notes, really.

Quest Master

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2094070/Quest_Master/

Kirkland Zelda dungeon maker, seemingly based on Minish Cap. Had some issues with the gamepad controls, but it seems fairly robust. Games should either get rid of low-health chimes entirely or give you an option to disable them, because it persisted into the edit mode and I lost my patience real fast.

Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2118420/Stories_from_Sol_The_GunDog/

PC Engine style visual novel that plays all the 80s mecha hits. I was really into this even though it's maybe a little too free with the direct references for my liking. In this era of horniness, I respect the gumption of just saying straight out "your character is dating this character" rather than a "look at all these characters you can date!" vibe.

Steamworld Build

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2134770/SteamWorld_Build/

I've never played a Steamworld game, since I'm not really into steampunk as an aesthetic, but this seems like a solid, well-realized city builder. I was not in a great mental state at the time I played this demo, so the introduction of a whole separate mining layer stressed me the fuck out, but I replayed it later with that foreknowledge and handled it a little better.

Station to Station

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2272400/Station_to_Station/

Build train stations to transport resources back and forth while keeping costs down. The rub is trying to put things down while keeping into account that new buildings will appear in random locations, and you can't remove tracks you've already laid. It seems cute, but I stopped after two levels.

Born of Bread

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555140/Born_of_Bread/

Kirkland Paper Mario where you play as a magic bread boy. Some immediate nitpicks (it's a demo, etc): I hate how you do zero damage if you mess up the timed hits, and I hate how your partner's basic attack costs WP, which necessitates using the Defend command to regain WP, which you only do if you nail the defensive timed hit. Bah. It's clearly meant to be light-hearted, but the writing toed a bit over the cutesy line for me; I may have simply been already annoyed by the aforementioned quibbles, though.

(By the way, if you really have a hankering for a Paper Mario style game, I really enjoyed Bug Fables. Just saying.)

Other NextFest Thoughts

Felt like for every five games on the big demo list, four of them were:

• a roguelite deckbuilder
• a "wholesome" management game
• a first-person survival/crafting tree-punching game
• a first-person horror game

More power to 'em, I guess.

Out of those on this list, I'd say The Ones I Might Actually Buy On Launch were:

• The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood
• Eternights
• Jumplight Odyssey
• Broken Roads
• Light Fingers, if it was easy to get 3 other people to play with me.
• Venba

Video games, huh?