For me, I played a surprising number of demos during this most recent Next Fest. I had initially written it off, but then I actually looked through some of the games that had cropped up on the Next Fest page, and before I knew it, I had downloaded a handful of demos to my laptop and Steam Deck. All in all, I played 22 demos, most of which I was able to upload videos to our Next Fest Playlist on the YouTubes. There were a couple I didn't upload because they were a bit on the NSFW side, but I'll get to them below here. I had thought about doing two separate articles for the demos I enjoyed and the ones I didn't, which would also help break up the 22 demos. Still, there were significantly more games I liked than those I didn't, so we're going to just go alphabetically and go from there.
I liked the concept and look more than the execution. The parrying system, which seemed the primary hook mechanic, didn't really stick with me as I wasn't able to get it nailed down.
I really liked the look and story approach to this game. The controls felt a little floaty at times, but after a while, it wasn't too bad.
I wanted to like this game more than I did. Being part of an experiment should have tipped me off, but once I realized that I was now playing/thinking with portals all over again, I was significantly less interested. The other two game modes, "Ascent" and "Endless," were also not my thing.
I really enjoyed this demo, and I'll definitely be picking it up. I quickly became attached to the budding relationship between Zalia and Esme. I loved the letter-writing scene, and even though I accidentally made a detour before going back to the village, it kind of made that scene all the more pointed. I loved the homage to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.
I really loved the look of the game and its all-hand-drawn aesthetic. The demo itself was a little lackluster as it really only showed off some minor platforming, how to recognize it within the art style, and the most basic type of combat. And that was it. Unlike a lot of the demos I played, HEAVYDELIC has been released so I might just see what the full game is like.
This one was interesting. I appreciated the experimental (literally and figuratively) aspects of the game, but I was ultimately confused by the memory removal mechanic, and I think I ended up soft-locking myself during the demo.
No, not that Journey, but the one involving an emperor penguin in a side-scrolling puzzle semi-platformer. I kind of get the types of puzzles and how a full game of them would work, but I didn't feel really satisfied, and had the demo gone on for twice as long, I probably would have been over it before it actually ended.
I questioned this game a bit solely based on the banner art, but the NES look of the game pulled me in. I liked a lot of the game as it reminded me a bit of Cave Story+ (please don't at me) in its look, floaty jumps, although its focus on melee instead of ranged combat was a nice change of pace.
Easily one of the standout highlights for me from Next Fest. I loved the computer-using simulation, I loved the "found device" type of game, and the types of puzzles you needed to complete to unlock more of the story. I am 100% buying this when it's released.
Another computer simulation game, but this one with more of a Paper's Please role to it as you moderate a camera streaming site circa late 90s/early 2000s. The two things that I wasn't a fan of were the wording of the questions you were asked to answer; either they're right or wrong, so I had to rethink the questions to get the correct answer. The second thing was that I wished there were more cohesiveness in the source material for the jump scares.
Our first FMV demo, and this one was interesting. I wish that there had been more puzzle-solving and less "You'll have everything solved after you click all the clickable things." I saw in the description that it was written as an escape room, and an FMV escape room sounded like a lot of fun, even within the confines of a Korean rom-com. I did like that making bad/failing choices didn't result in a complete loss, and that you could start over from the last story point.
I was unaware that having an avatar of your scantily clad character taking up a quarter of the screen was something that wasn't entirely uncommon. I did appreciate that while your character didn't have a traditional life bar, I was greatly amused that the condition and amount of their clothing was what was supposed to indicate how much life they had left. I only played the first 16 minutes, which felt a lot like the prologue to Mega Man X, but with less clothing and with bouncing bosoms. The gameplay was alright, but the music was actually really good.
I really, really liked this demo. I loved the mechanics of locating objects in the desert and the two-pronged mechanic of cleaning them off. I loved the relationship between the old man and the playable character (his daughter?). I loved the visual aesthetic of not quite PS1 era graphics, but reminiscent of what those feel like in a modern setting.
This demo ended up being a portmanteau of a Plinko-like idle game. It seems like it would be something that you could leave on in the background, and some of the music is calming enough, but it's not really my thing.
I played the demo for about 36 minutes, and despite the "sexual content" and "nudity" tags on Steam, I didn't see anything that wouldn't be in a PG-13 movie from 2015. It played half like a visual novel, and the other half like a job sim with a phone repair mechanic that was really satisfying.
Another highlight of Next Fest for me was this side-scrolling creature dive into a mix between Twin Peaks and The X-Files, but with less government involvement. I still feel a bit sad about not finishing the demo, but I'm sure that by the time the game is released, I'll have figured out where the key to the ferry building is.
The Sleepless Nights Origin
I'm not going to say that this is a bad game because I failed to fully read and understand the directions, but the mechanics of crossing from one setting to the other, regardless if you spotted an anomaly, felt incredibly clunky. And, I didn't like that you had to travel the length of the street twice if you thought you didn't spot something wrong in the setting. Just felt like a forced way to extend the gameplay.
I'm not going to say that this is a bad game because I failed to fully read and understand the directions, but the mechanics of crossing from one setting to the other, regardless if you spotted an anomaly, felt incredibly clunky. And, I didn't like that you had to travel the length of the street twice if you thought you didn't spot something wrong in the setting. Just felt like a forced way to extend the gameplay.
This was an interesting demo in that I felt I was getting a lot of Dark Souls vibes with a semi-vague story with lore and background being found in item descriptions and hints from talking with characters as to what is actually going on. And that opening song we're going to cover very soon, mark my words.
T.W.I.R.L.
This was interesting in all of the right ways, and only odd in the height and dimensions of the doors. I found the demo to be very unsettling in both the snippets of story that were revealed and the sound work after you enter the closet. The voice acting was a little stiff at times, but that might've been on purpose to make the scenes awkward and additionally unsettling.
This was interesting in all of the right ways, and only odd in the height and dimensions of the doors. I found the demo to be very unsettling in both the snippets of story that were revealed and the sound work after you enter the closet. The voice acting was a little stiff at times, but that might've been on purpose to make the scenes awkward and additionally unsettling.
Tenebris Somnia
An interesting demo (that might have gone on a bit too long, even though I didn't finish it) and an equally interesting approach, using a combination of pixel art side-scrolling point-and-click with FMV cut scenes. Like I mentioned in my video, I found these FMV scenes a lot scarier than if the game had made the cutscenes seamless with the rest of the game. I also now wonder if there will be some kind of in-game revelation later on as to why there are two different visual styles.
An interesting demo (that might have gone on a bit too long, even though I didn't finish it) and an equally interesting approach, using a combination of pixel art side-scrolling point-and-click with FMV cut scenes. Like I mentioned in my video, I found these FMV scenes a lot scarier than if the game had made the cutscenes seamless with the rest of the game. I also now wonder if there will be some kind of in-game revelation later on as to why there are two different visual styles.
The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest
I was kind of taken aback by the tongue-in-cheekiness in the opening story. I guess if it was a direct copy of Simon's Quest, there might be lawsuits on the horizon, but I really appreciated the humor here. I also really liked that Simon Quest only had a set number of lives when doing dungeons, which still gives the game some tension, but not the same aggrivating kind that was ripe in the NES era Castlevania games.
I was kind of taken aback by the tongue-in-cheekiness in the opening story. I guess if it was a direct copy of Simon's Quest, there might be lawsuits on the horizon, but I really appreciated the humor here. I also really liked that Simon Quest only had a set number of lives when doing dungeons, which still gives the game some tension, but not the same aggrivating kind that was ripe in the NES era Castlevania games.
Well Dweller
Another demo that I started, got a great feel for, and decided not to finish. Maybe because it was a Metroidvania set in a forest with this particular art style, I got Ori and the Blind Forest vibes, which was another game I played the demo of for about 30 minutes (a great many years ago) and decided that I would not play anymore because I knew I would (eventually) buy the game; so why bother make progress I couldn't carry over?
Another demo that I started, got a great feel for, and decided not to finish. Maybe because it was a Metroidvania set in a forest with this particular art style, I got Ori and the Blind Forest vibes, which was another game I played the demo of for about 30 minutes (a great many years ago) and decided that I would not play anymore because I knew I would (eventually) buy the game; so why bother make progress I couldn't carry over?
So those were all of the demos I played during this most recent Next Fest. I honestly don't know what it was about this collection of games that got me as excited about playing than in previous Next Fests. Maybe it was the quality of indie games, maybe it's been frequent announcements of major AAA game studios closing down another indie studio they bought up during the pandemic, and this was just another reminder of how great games are still found from indie developers.
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