Horror games are a staple of the Fall season. As Halloween approaches, millions of players, both old and new, dive in to get spooked. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that October’s Steam Next Fest offer??s a huge number of horror demos to try. 

Whether you’re after something that will keep you up at night or si?mply want an unsettling dive into a new gaming world, I’ve downloaded and played all the horro??r or horror-related demos I could find. Here’s my top 10, and you should definitely pay attention to these.

Babette

If you ever had a Tamagotchi as a child, then you’ll either love or hate Babette, depending on how good your memories are. Essentially, you’re tasked with looking a??fter a virtual cat on a pixe??lated Tamagotchi, except this cat is either a demon, or possessed by one. 

Things get progressively creepier as you progress the game, and despite the simple art style, there’s definitely something unsettling about Babette. 

Brokenlore: DON’T WATCH

In this deeply unsettling and paranoia-inducing title, you play as Shinji. Afte??r receiving bizarre messages from a friend and your parents cutting you off financially, you seem to undergo what can only be ?described as a psychotic break. 

Within your very messy apartment, which, for some unfathomable reason, appears to have no working lights, eyeballs start to appear in the walls, and Shinji must remove them with his knife. It’s creepy, and I found myself looking away on multiple occasions. Brokenlore: DON’T WATCH is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Fear the Timeloop

Fear the Timeloop is, as it sounds, a game based on the concept of a timeloop. You play as Sheriff James Cooper who, while on the hunt for a serial killer, finds himself in a location that he has no memory of and worse, he only has 15 minutes to live. If you’re feeling brave, you can play in Standard Mode, which constantly decreases your healt??h over those 15 minutes, and you will eventually die and end up right back at the beginning all over again. 

If you want to explore the surprisingly creepy-yet-beautiful setting filled with corpses and eerie music instead, and shadows that move out of the corner of your eye, you can play on a ?simplified mode where your health doesn’t decrease unless you’re attacked. Oh, and you can’t save your progress unless you find a videotape, and put it in a VCR. 

Final Outcry

A first-person horror game played through the medium of found footage from an urban exploration of an abandoned prison, except you’re in control of the camera and things are incredibly creepy right from the offset. You know that something is going to go horribly wrong, because why else would this footage be? classi??fied?

The demo of Final Outcry features the unenviable task of having to hunt down, collect, and then provide body parts to progress. Things just keep getting creepier, and the noises and darkness combine to leave you feeling distinc??tly unnerved. 

Ghost Frequency

If you’re a fan of jump scares, then may I recommend Ghost Frequency? Of all the games on this?? list, this is th??e one that literally made me scream and gave me that all-too-familiar adrenaline-fuelled anxiety spike that only comes with a good horror movie or game. 

You start off as a paranormal investigator, except you only have five minutes to do what you think you’re supposed to be doing, and then you’re thrown into what can only be described as an introductory pit of Hell. Armed with only a lighter, you’re forced to explore a maze of walls covered in the most creepy children’s drawings I’ve ever seen while distorted voices speak?? to you. 

Kelder

There are a few staple things that make a horror game truly, well, horrible (in the best way): Darkness, a flashlight with limited battery life, and unsettling sounds. Kelder has all of these by the bucket load, and to top it all off, there are some things that are a ??little too familiar to life outside of the game as well. 

Tak?e, for instance, The Man. You’ve probably heard of him or at least seen his face because we’ve all apparently dreamt of him. There are also moments when music comes from nowhere before quickly fading away again, leaving you ??trying to figure out what the hell just happened before quickly running off in search of the next light source before your flashlight dies. 

Nav

Nav is the demo tha??t sparked my desire to write this list, because something about it really appealed to me and then I lost an hour playing just the demo. The game begins in an abandoned Russian town, and as you explore, you realize that you’re going to have to dig up graves to progress. 

However, things get really spooky after a visit to your dead Babushka’s house when a well opens up and leads you down into caves and caverns that are home to things unseen. There’s a touch of Alan Wake to proceedings, with enemies dissol??ving when you aim your l??antern at them, and a whole lot of creep factor. 

Liminalcore

There’s something deeply upsetting about being lost, although sometimes it can be fun in small doses. Liminalcore will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen or played a Backrooms game, and it’s filled with stark white, tiled rooms that are all interconnected and incredibly difficult to navigate.&??nbsp;

The only sounds are the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the water sloshing around in wh??atever rooms you find it. There are no jump scares, at least none that I was unlucky enough to encounter, and nobody is chasing you. The horror comes fro??m the feeling of uncertainty and not knowing what’s around each corner. 

Lidar Exploration Programme

This one could be considered an odd one out on this list, but if you want something mildly horror-adjacent, then I cannot recommend Lidar Exploration Programme enough. The demo tasks you with using a Lidar scanner to scan objects in a forest, and your on??l?y view of the world is through the Lidar points.

Nothing scary happened, and you could even describe this one a??s weirdly pretty, but the fear of the unknown and inability to see very far in fr?ont of you will put you on edge at least a little. This one is safe if you want spooky but not gives-you-nightmares level scares. 

Tenebris Somnia

Of all the games I tried while writing up this list, Tenebris Somnia ended up being my favorite. It’s incredibly nostalgic with its pixel art style, but that’s combined with live-action cutscenes that wouldn’t be out of place in an actual horror ??movie. The effects are great, and part of me felt like I was reliving the joy of playing low-res games on my old Atari. 

Your ex-boyfriend?? has gone MIA, and you still have a key to his apartment. When you arrive to check up on him, you find demonic goings-on and, after combining a few found items, you end up getting attacked by a demon woman who attacks with her tongue. While the gameplay itself might not be the scariest on this list, the cutscenes add the necessary creep factor, and the story will definitely grab you. 

The post The best horror game demos you should try during October’s Steam Next Fest appeared first on Destructoid.

Yars Rising was recently announced as a follow-up of sorts to Atari 2600 classic Yars' Revenge. Rather than taking the form of a Zorlon Cannon-blasting shooter, Yars Rising is a hacking-centric Metroidvania with a demo no??w live during Steam Next Fest. As odd as the concept is, after ??playing some of what WayForward has in the works, I'm willing to hear them out.

This time around you take control of Yar â€?okayâ€?so far, so good â€?which is the hacker handle for a young woman named Emi Kimura. A mysterious patron has hired Emi to hack her way into the shady corporation known as QoTech, and in true Metroidvania fashion she'll do so through exploration th??at expands with every new technique she picks up ??along the way. It's all presented in a clean, but somewhat stiff aesthetic that's serviceable if a bit lacking in style and fluidity. 

As Emi jogs through corridors, she'll occasionally talk to herself. This can be cute at times, but it doesn't necessarily bode well if she's going to be doing it throughout the entire game. Yars Rising is also chock full of ??fully-voiced dialogue exchanges, so if you're into that there's plenty of it in this short jaunt. On the opposite end of the audio spectrum, the soundtrack slaps. 

Yar'd house

The real Yars' Revenge flavor comes into play during the hacking minigames. With flashing Atari-style visuals, hacking typically tasks you with breaking down a barrier so your Yar can fire its cannon. Some require shooting while others require nibbling, and they're all fast and fun enough diversions. Successful hacks can unlock doors, reveal n??ew Biohacks â€?equippable pickups that augment everything from crawl speed to Emi's Zorlon Shot â€?and unlock abilities. 

Stealth is also one of the game's bullet points, and you'll get to try one section out during the demo. It's very straightforward, with Emi waiting for guards to turn their backs before slinking past, or crawling through an nearby air duct. Thus, the jury is out on whether or not the stealth portion of Yars Rising will be a thorn in the side of those who aren't fond? of sneaking missions. 

Metroidvania 101

I can't be certain of what WayForward is going for here outside of spinning the license title roulette wheel, but Yars Rising seems like it could make for a solid introduction to the genre. As presented in this bite-sized sampler, everything from the structure to the combat is pure by-the-numbers Metroidvania action. There isn't eno?ugh on display to give you a full taste of what exploration will be like, but you'll secure two early abilities, one of which is essential to opening up new areas. 

It all closes with a battle against the Burning Sentinel, a rotund security robot that puts both of Emi's curre??nt abilities to the test. Like the rest of the demo, it's a clean and uncomplicated affair, but it's enjoyable and manages to work the hacking minigame into the heat of combat in a novel way. 

At this point, we're stretching the meaning of spiritual successor so thin it's practically transparent, but there are enough nods to the source material in this demo to give it a pass. I may not be wild about what I've played of Yars Rising, but I'm curious. It has a deliberately stif?f quality to it, and general movement isn't quite as enjoyable as it should be given the genre, but I want to see more. Maybe it's the WayForward name that has me looking past some of its flaws, but I've got more terminals to hack and I'm keen to see?? how the rest of this adventure plays out when it launches sometime this y(e)ar. 

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Just Crow Things is the latest chaotic game release from Unbound Creations, the studio who also brought us such gems as Rain on Your Parade and Leafblower Man. I wasn’t expecting much when I down??loaded the Steam Next Fest demo, but what I got w?as so much better than I could have imagined.

In Just Crow Things, you play as a Crow, which should be pretty obvious given the title. If you’ve played Rain on Your Parade at any point, you’ll know what to expect from Just Crow Things, but if you haven’t, let me explain. 

As your customizable Crow (mine looks like a Chicken), you can fly around different levels and cause ha??voc. You can poop on unsuspecting humans below at will, steal shiny objects, and use tools such as a Flamethrower, an animal summoning musical flute, and an overpowered Leafblower. And if you happen to find a Coffee, you can drink it for temporary unlimited poop. 

It’s your job?? to help other animals that you meet, completing quests as you go about your day wrecking business. By completing these quests, you’re working towards increasing your Crowputation, proving your worth to the neighborhood bully Crows who stole your family heirloom sunglasses. No, seriously. You also get rewards for completing levels, which mostly seem to be additional hats for your Crow.

You only have a limited amount of p??oop stored up in your tiny little Crow body. But don’t worry, eating fr??uit will regenerate poops, allowing you to rain down some good (or bad) luck for a human below. You can eat Beans too, but this will turn your poops into farts, which give you a small amount of boost as you fly or walk. 

There are also different types of poops available to unlo??ck, such as fire poop and ice poop. Each of these different types of poop only serves to increase the amount of?? chaos caused by your Crow butt, adding to the hilarity. 

There’s also a pre?tty fun camera mode, which allows you to not only roam about the levels freely (including through the floor or buildings), but also allows you to move your Crow freely into any position you like. There’s some fun to be had, there.

At one point during the demo of Just Crow Things, I stumbled across the physical manifestation of Steam Next Fest, which is fitting, considering the fact that Just Crow Things is included as part of the event. I’m sorry to say that I completely destroyed the virtual physical version, which was oddly satisfying, though it did leave a rather huge fiery ?mess behind. 

You don’t strictly need a controller to play, though I would strongly recommend it if you have one at hand. The only issue I’ve faced so far is the inability to turn down the volume of Sound Effects, which is an issue if you don’t want your family knowing that you’re playing a game about a bird with digestive issues. Other than that, though, Just Crow Things has been a heap of fun and I can’t wa?it to go ba?ck for more. 

It’s not to be taken seriously, by any stretch of the imagination. But ??with that said, it’s the perfect game if you’re looking for something which doesn’t require you to think too much, or if you’ve had a bad day and want to vent your frustration from above. While there’s only one level in the demo, the full game promises trips to New York City and Egypt, among other places, and I can’t wait to poop my way across every level.

The post Just Crow Th??ings is such beautiful chaos, packed into a single demo appeared first on Destructoid.

It’s safe to?? say that there are a lot of games included as part of Steam’s Next Fest, but I’ve scrolled through all of them (yes, all of them, it took me a very long time) and downloaded all of the coziest games I could find. 

Some of these games offer pure cozy vibes, while others may be better described as cozy-adjacent. They’re not all life-sims, but they all offer something unique and provided me with positi?ve vibes while I played. Here’s the ten that came out on top in my playtesting. 

Garden Witch Life

For at least 15 years now, I’ve had a hankering for a game which gave me the same satisfaction as Cooking Mama. I didn’t expect to find it in a game about a girl who just lost her job and is looking for her place in life, but Garden Witch Life scratches the Cooking Mama shaped?? itch in my brain. I mean, you actually get to chop the ingredients for soup! 

That, along with the glimpse into the heartwarming story offered in the demo, leave me impatiently waiting for the full release of Garden Witch Life. You get ten in-game days to expl??ore your ??new home, so make the most of them.

Tiny Glade

It’s no secret by now that I love Tiny Glade, the demo for which technically released before Next Fest by a couple of weeks. However, it is included on the list of games available so you know I had to include it h??ere??. 

Effortlessly create tiny little towns or medieval ruins, erect a monolithic tower fit for Rapunzel or design a miniature secret garden - Tiny Glade lets you do it all without the worry of having to actually figure out the mechanics, because the game does all of that for you. Where paths intersect a wall, a door or arch is created. Windows are freely movable and flowers pop up at the click of a button. Tiny Glade is set fo?r?? big things when it releases later this year.

Fields of Mistria

If you took Stardew Valley and said “hey, how come the Wizard is the only magical one here?â€? you’d get Fields of Mistria. 

I won’t go into too much detail, as you can read my full opinion of the game here, but it?’s safe to say that I’m waiting for the full release on July 5 with bated breath. You get three in-game days to play, which isn’t nearly enough to explore and discover everything, but you do have ??the option to play again when your three days are up.

Amber Isle

Imagine you’re a dinosaur, setting out on the biggest adventure of your life, only to fall out of your hot air balloon and through the roof of a newly renovated shop. That’s the start of Amber Isle, before you meet the incredibly grumpy Mayor of the town and set out ??to impress him with your crafting and shop-keeping skills.

What cements Amber Isle on this list is the character creation. The options are endless, with a full RGB color selector, which means you can be truly unique. You can change the color and design of everything from ??your arm tufts to your teeth, so you’re unlikely to look exactly the same as any other dinosaur out there. 

Galaxy Burger

I would say that this is the strangest offering on ???this list, but it isn’t. You'll see a weirder one later. 

Galaxy Burger sees you running a string of burger joints across the galaxy, beginning on Mercury. It starts out easy enough - griddle the patties, try not to burn the cheese and fulfill or??ders for cats in mech suits. As soon as you progress to Venus, though, you have multiple customers and a hugely expanded cooking station, not to mention you need to memorize multiple different recipes if you want to get top points for cooking time. 

I know it doesn’t sound very cozy and, in truth??, there was some stress at times. However, there are cats involved and that instantly makes anything cozy�Right? In my defense, I did say that some of these games would be cozy-adjacent.

Love, Ghostie

Love, Ghostie is a game from Janbeh Games where you play as a Ghost who is newly haunting a house of shared occupan??cy. Without being seen, you need to help the residents of the house couple up, by leaving gifts from one resid??ent to another. 

You need to manage your resources and decide which residents would make the best couples before becoming a spectral cupid, shooting arrows to make love happen. The art style is captivating and honestly, Love, Ghostie is just a joy to play all around.

Tavern Talk

I don’t know about you, but I’m so used to being on the adventurer side of RPGs that it would be nice to be on the quest-giving side of things every once in a while, almost like being an NPC. Tavern Talk offers that, and you play as the barkeep in a tavern visited by adventurers from across the realm of Asteria. Yo??u gather rumors and use them to create quests, which can then be picked up by any adventurer who enters the Inn.

One visitor, Fable, is an elven girl suffering from cripplingly low confidence and self-esteem issues. She seeks advice, and you give it, but it often feels like you’re giving advice to yourself. Or m??aybe that’s just me.?? 

Alongside the visual novel aspect to Tavern Talk, you also have to mix drinks to specific recipes. Each ingredient corresponds to a different attribute, ??which will all be very familiar to an??yone who has ever played an RPG before, including Dexterity, Strength, and Charisma.

Cats Around Us: Giant Cat

Now hear me out?: I know this is a hidden object game at the most basic level, but there’s more to it than that. Not only do you have to find the 31 hidden cats in the demo, but you can also turn the picture itself into a coloring page and honestly, what’s more calming and cozy than doing some coloring on a rainy day?

Like I said, there are 31 cats to find, including the larger than life Giant Cat from the title, but that’s just one level of what will eventually be the full release of Cats Around Us. There’s also a speedrun mode, so once you’ve pinpointed where all of the cats are, you can race against yourself to beat your best time - but doesn??’t t??hat go against all things cozy?

Farlands

Farlands reminds me of Stardew Valley in a huge way, but if some kind of bizarre event happened to turn your farm into a planet in its own right, and a thousand years passed. T??he mechanics on the planet are essentially the same, but there’s a whole universe to explore with the help of your spaceship. 

You can use crops and forageables to create fuel cells and then use the fuel cells to visit every planet in the solar system, meeting new friends and finding new items at every stop. What’s not ?to love about ex??ploring a galaxy filled with aliens and building questionable relationships with them?

Oddada

Remember when I said that Galaxy Burger wasn’t the strangest offering on this list? Well, let me introduce you to Oddada. 

Oddada is a game about creating music using toy-like objects which spark a huge amount of nostalgia for childhood years. It’s like putting wooden blocks together, except those woo?den blocks are musical and depending on where you put them, or when you? place them down, you get a different song at the end of the game. 

Playing the Oddada demo might have been the most bizarre yet most relaxing ten minutes I’ve had in a very long time. It’s so easy to just zone out and simply play with blocks, and while the music I created definitely won’t be topping any charts (an??d probably shouldn’t ever be heard by anyone outside of myself), it’s quaint and I felt oddly proud of myself for what I’d achieved.

At the end of it all, you get to design a cassette tape to go ??with your song. And if you don’t know what a c??assette tape is, thanks for reminding me just how old I am.

The post 10 cozy demos to get lost in this Steam Next Fest appeared first on Destructoid.

Over the last few years, I've grown increasingly fond of playing demos over watching game trailers. Trailers can be fun (as I found myself squealing over the rec??ent Xbox Showcase announcements), but th??ere's nothing like playing a small slice of a game and seeing your excitement for a game jump massively.

Steam's Next Fest events are a great source of demos, but the sheer amount can be daunting to sort through. That's why I've curated a list of game demos that are well worth you?r time. Here are the 10 of what I consider the best Steam Next Fest demos of June 2024.

10 must-play Steam Next Fest demos in the June 2024 event

I've listed 10 of my favorite demos from the Fest below, but don't shy away from trying more if you get the chance. For example, GMTK's Mind Over Magnet was very close to making this list and is still wel??????????????????????????l worth your time. These merely edged out the competition.

Schim

Shadow-based puzzlers are far from a new thing for the puzzle genre, but something about Schim's use of narrative combined with its novel take on shadow manipulation works very well for me. You play a small shadow frog hopping from shadow to shadow as you try to traverse the world. This includes people moving about as well, and they won't wait for you to make a jump before going about their day. It grounds Schim in this semi-realistic setting that offers a lot of promise for the full release. Schim releases on July 18.

Akimbot

When I went into Akimbot, I was expecting a little platformer where you shoot some enemies and maybe toy around with a few weapons. What I wasn't expecting was a well-put-together Ratchet & Clank-style platformer, equipped with pleasing scenery, weighty movement, and humor that quickly grows on you. It's even got fluid combat that quickly gains depth. Akimbot is worth any pl??atforming fan's time and launches?? on Steam on August 29.

What The Car

I have yet to play the developer's previous game What The Golf, but What The Car makes me want to pick it up ASAP. This little physics-based adventure game sees you run a car around (with actual legs, may I add) to cruise through levels and avoid numerous obstacles. However, each stage puts a unique twist on your car such as more legs or rocket boosters to switch things up. It helps elevate a rather one-note experience into one that constantly adapts to keep things fresh, and I can't wait to see how that's moved further along in the full release. What The Car launches on September 9.

The Operator

The Operator scratches an itch I've had since playing games like Orwell and Hacknet. This detective puzzle game sees you scour a government database to help Federal Department of Intelligence agents solve cases. You'll scan for vehicle details, acquire names & addresses, and even locate discrepancies between witness testimony & real events. Its evidence footage can come across as a bit staged, but it has its heart in the right place and comes with full voice acting along with already challenging puzzles. The Operator is currently planned for a Q3 2024 release.

Wizard of Legend 2

I haven't jumped into the original Wizard of Legend just yet, but as far as I can tell, Wizard of Legend 2 is already doing great to keep that gameplay style while translating it to a 3D space. It even tosses elements of its contemporaries like Hades into the mix to further its appeal. There isn't too much in the demo to go off of, but I can already envision plenty of unique builds centering around the random character buffs. Wizard of Legend 2 currently has no planned release window.

Wild Bastards

Strategy shooters like Ready or Not feel right at home for me in their intensity, realism, and attention to detail. While Wild Bastards is nowhere near as realistic, combining strategy FPS elements and boomer shooters works shockingly well. Throw in a cosmic Wild West theme, unique & compelling characters, and more than enough passives, and you have a roguelike that feels almost created for someone like me. I've had the previous entry Void Bastards in my backlog for a while, and I'm thinking I'll be checking that out sooner rather than later. Wild Bastards shoots its way into launch on September 12.

Kill Knight

From the second I saw Kill Knight at the Triple-i Showcase back in April, I knew I needed to get my hands on it. Having played its demo now, that excitement holds firm. This score-based arena shooter is a bit tough to get the hang of at first, but once you do, you feel like a slaughter symphony, weaving various attacks in between each other to wipe out consistently spawning hordes of foes. With plenty more tools in the full release, and more maps to come, this will easily become a great way to kill time while chatting in Discord calls. Kill Knight releases sometime before the end of 2024.

I Am Your Beast

One of Strange Scaffold's previous games, El Paso Elsewhere, got me lost in its unique and impactful story while leaving much to be desired in its gameplay. Five minutes with I Am Your Beast showed this wouldn't be the same situation. Each level feels like a sandbox waiting to be mastered, with more than enough weapons, explosives, and elevation to manipulate for a better time. It's even got Mario-esque Goomba stomping, and who doesn't want Goomba stomping. With a bombastic soundtrack and solid visuals to boot, I'm excited to see how the team expands on the core ideas with more levels to play with. I Am Your Beast is currently set for an August 15 release.

Tactical Breach Wizards

I went into Tactical Breach Wizards expecting an XCOM-style experience featuring tactical wizards armed with magic .357 ammunition. While what I got was a tactics puzzle game of sorts, I'm still impressed by how satisfying TBW can make setting up and executing a plan. Baiting an enemy into a trap or sending someone flying out of a window is great, and the story-driven aspects are rife with intrigue and some solid banter between characters. If you want to cast a few magic bullet barrages yourself, Tactical Breach Wizards releases on August 22.

Dungeons of Hinterberg

I wasn't sold on Dungeons of Hinterberg from its trailers, primarily for the art style not jiving with me too well. However, that opinion has done a complete 180 now that I've had some time with it. This dungeon-crawler mixes narrative elements with some interesting locales, satisfying combat encounters, and more than enough puzzles. It's even got some fluid movement through its hoverboard and rail-grinding traversal. It all oozes this sense of style that makes it hard to put down. Dungeons of Hinterberg releases on July 18, and is com?ing to Game Pass if you want easier acc??ess to it.

The post 10 Steam Next Fest demos you need to play before it’s over appeared first on Destructoid.

Amidst the flurry of Steam Next Fest demos, Codename: Ocean Keeper from RetroStyle Games emerges as a standout, blending underwater mecha action with the survival challenges of Vampire Survivors. Quite the exci?ting twist, and one that brings with it an interesting new take on the action survival roguelike genre.

At first glance, Codename: Ocean Keeper entices with its premise, merging the allure of ancient horrors with the futuristic focus of underwater mech combat. Players assume the role of a pilot tasked with navigating treacherous undersea environments teeming with monstrous creatures. Drawing from the survival roguelike elements of Vampire Survivors, the game challenges players to scavenge for resources, upgrade their mech, and bat?tle increasingly for?midable adversaries.

Gameplay Undersea

The gameplay loop of Codename: Ocean Keeper revolves around strategic decision-making based on an ever-looming timer.?? Each dive into the abyss presents new dangers and opportunities, from important resource gathering to artifact scavenging, testing both reflexes and tactical prowess. Your mech can be customizable with an array of weapons and utilities and becomes the player's lifeline against the tide of increasingly monstrous denizens.

Resource and artifact harvesting are critical aspects of the gameplay loop in Codename: Ocean Keeper. To survive the waves of alien lifefor??ms that arrive at specific time intervals, players must constantly gather resources and artifacts to purchase upgrades within a session. These upgrades are essential, not only for sustaining themselves but also, for upgrading their mechs and enhancing their chances against the relentless onslaught from the depths. As the countdown to these encounters ticks a?way, strategic resource management becomes paramount, adding a layer of constant urgency that eats away at you as you progress.

Demo Dives: Unveiling the Adventure

From the moment I jumped into Codename: Ocean Keeper’s demo, I was immersed in a world where action and strategy merge seamlessly. The game wastes ?no time throwing you into the thick of it as soon as you start the game for the first time. This immediate engagement hooks instantly, as you're encouraged by the game's short tutor??ial to explore the abyssal depths for vital resources. After this tutorial, the ticking timer begins, and the frantic race for upgrade resources begins.

Navigating the murky depths in search of resources felt exhilarating yet perilous. Yes, you're in an undersea spider mech, but that alone is far from enough to survive the horrors that lurk in the dark. Every moment-to-m?oment decision counts as resources carry weight, forcing you to carefully balance the amount you gather against the time needed to return them to your mech. This dynamic adds a layer of tension and strategic depth that kept me constantly on my toes, calculating risks and rewards with each venture into the unknown.

The timer loom?ing in the background heightens the sense of urgency, reminding you that every second counts. It’s a thrilling balancing act that demands both quick thinking and precise execution, ensuring that each gameplay session is a gripping challenge. The monsters of the depths grow stronger with each passing moment,?? and you're tasked with keeping up with the tide or risk becoming derelict at the bottom of the sea.

Codename: Ocean Keeper shines with its gameplay mechanics, however, I did find myself occasionally distracted by the repetitive nature of its music and audio design. The soundtrack initi??ally sets a mood of suspense and anticipation, which I enjoyed, but the repetitive loops became somewhat annoying after only a few minutes. Particularly, the singular track that played during combat enco?unters became especially tiresome. Nevertheless, exploring the depths and overcoming challenges in this captivating underwater world was still an enjoyable experience for me, and I have no doubts RetroStyle Games will make the necessary changes for the game's full release.

Looking Forward

Codename: Ocean Keeper beckons players into its intriguing universe. A recent trailer teases a game filled with danger and peril, offering an adventure that's both captivating and challenging for indie gaming enthusiasts. Setting itself apart from Vampire Survivors, Codename: Ocean Keeper introduces a distinctive twist that ??seamlessly blends under?sea adventure with strategic resource gathering, a blend that highlights the promising bright future ahead for this title.

If you're interested in trying out Codename: Ocean Keeper, you can jump in right now with its free demo available on Steam. It's a great way to explore the game??'s universe and experience its challenging strategic gameplay firsthand. Whether you're drawn in by its unique premise or just looking for something new in indie gaming, the demo offers a taste of what promises to be an exciting change of pace for the genre.

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The Tiny Glade demo released on May 30 and is featur??ed as part of Steam’s Next Fest. It seems ?to have taken over the cozy gaming corner of Twitter, with players sharing their miniature creations in droves. I’ve spent over 10 hours absorbed in the demo, and I’m still loving it. 

Back in March, I wrote about Summerhouse and how amazing it is to just place blocks in order to build adorable houses. Tiny Glade is like taking Summerhouse and making it 3D, giving you creative control over a small area to create dio??ramas fit fo??r any RPG world. 

The Tiny Glade demo offers you control over an appropriately tiny piece of land, on? which you can erect square buildings, circular towers, build crumbling walls, plant flowers, and even hang your laundry between windows. There’s not a lot to it, admittedly, but th??at doesn’t mean there isn’t a tiny world of possibilities to discover. 

One of the things which makes Tiny Glade so endlessly enjoyable, at least for me, is the camera mode. Not only do you have free reign over your ??builds, but also free reign of ?the camera. You can take wide angle shots of an entire build, or zoom in incredibly close to capture the most minute of details, really putting yourself into the tiny world you’ve built. 

The buildable zone is very small compared to the space we’ll have once the game releases fully and we don’t have access to all features, which do??es limit you somewhat. However, the space is ample for miniature builds and the features we do have access to reduce the feeling of limitation somewhat.

Buildings can be circular or square, and windows can be placed pretty much anywhere on flat walls, in corners or as dormers in the roof. They come in different designs which automatically connect to create bigger windows, allowing you to make a feature out of them if you want. There is a certain window w??hich comes with a towel hanging out of it. Placing two of these windows close together, but not quite touching, will? result in a washing line stringing between the two, even stretching across alleyways between buildings.

Whether y??ou're building Rapunzel's tower or a ramshackle town fit for a medieval saga, each building can be modified in whichever way you choose, with any paths you place automatically creating doors or archways which grow depending on the size of the path. You can stretch walls, curve the roof or flatten it entirely to create turreted lookout towers and walkways. If you place two roofs together just right, a small nest filled with eggs will appear in the joint. T??hose small touches make the game feel alive.

Once you've designed your miniature vista, you can add f?lowers and lanterns. While flowers are always the same, something I'm hoping is worked on before the full release to add more variation, lanterns will change from free-standing to wall-hanging with no effort, allowing?? you to place them wherever you like. If you change the time setting to nighttime, those lanterns automatically light up, casting soft light across the paths and brickwork.

All of this works together to bring whatever you create to life, despite the lack of people wandering the streets. Thank??s to the free roaming camera mode, you can explore your creation from within and it's easy to imagine meeting people in the streets, or residents ?in the houses going about their lives as the windows illuminate the dark of night. The mode feels like walking through a quaint English village late at night and I can almost smell the wood burning fires.

With that said, Tiny Glade isn't entirely devoid of life. There are some sheep wandering the area ??and one particularly cute feature is what happens when you modify the terrain underneath a wandering sheep, or erect a building on top of them. Moving the ground underneath a sheep will cause it to fly up into the air and do their best Mary Poppins impression by floating down with the aid of an umbrella. If you happen to trap a sheep inside a building, they will audibly voice their confusion and a speech bubble will periodically appear until you let them out again. Did I mention? that you can pet the sheep?

During Next Fest, the team at Pouncelight are issuing daily prompts over on Twitter. There have been three so far - House on a Hill, Secret Garden and Tiny Neighborhood - which have seen players sending in a ton of screenshots. I’ve sent in ??one myself, though I’ve been put to shame by some of the other beautiful diorama builds I’ve seen.

I have to admit, it’s taken me this long to feel like I’m getting the hang of things and I still don’t fully understand how to do everything I want to do in Tiny Glade. I want ??to build huge arches and elevate buildings, but I’m just going to have?? to keep playing to figure that out.

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I’m not entirely sure I needed another game to sink hours of my life into, but I think I’ve found one in Fields of Mistria. The farming sim? from NPC studio has released a demo as part of Steam Next Fest, an?d will enter Early Access on August 5.

Fields of Mistria is essentially Stardew Valley with added magical abilities and the bonus of being able to both jump and swim. You play as an adventurer who has an?swered the call for someone to come and help r?ebuild Mistria after an earthquake has cut it off from the outside world. 

As someone who has sunk many, many hours into Stardew, I cannot help but draw huge parallels between the two games. The pixel art style is obviously similar, as are the movement style, tools, and more. However, Fields of Mistria does offer a few things that Stardew Valley doesn’t. 

You can go bug hunting, for one thing. It’s something I got pretty good at in my hours playing Palia, so I’m excited to go and grab some butterflies in Mistria. You aren’t limited to the land in Fields of Mistria, either. You can jump, fo??r starters?, something which immediately filled me with joy, and you can also swim. 

Swimming comes into its own when it comes to catching certain fish, like the Crayfish needed for the first request in the demo. To catch a Crayfish, you’ll need to go diving in a dive spot, before popping up with one in your hand. The fishing game itself is reminiscent of Animal Crossing, where you need to fish? directly in front of fish shaped shadows, which will?? nibble on the bait a couple of times before biting. 

One of the best things about Fields of Mistria is the fact that you can change your appearance at any time. Your character is fully customizable, ??and all of the clothing items come in various colors, so you really can design your little pixel self in your own image. Th?ere’s no payment to be made or quest to unlock this feature, and you can even make preset outfits.

Fields of Mistria isn’t short of things to do, either. There’s a whole museum to fill with crops, forageables, fish, and items (again, very Animal Crossing), plus villager requests to f??u?lfill. Those villagers themselves are romanceable, too. Even the Guardian Dragon, Caldarus, is romanceable, though I’m choosing not to think too much about that.

There are small things which set Fields of Mistria apart from Stardew Valley, as well. There’s a very adorable animation which happens each time you choose to go to sleep, with your character yawni??ng and blinking a few times before drifting off. I know this is a small thing to notice, but the details matter.

As you progress through the days in Fields of Mistria, you’ll earn Renown which will eventually increase your level and village rank. You begin at Wo??od rank, and each time you increase your level, a reward becomes available in the chest next to the Request B??oard in town. 

Like I said, I wasn’t looking for a game to sink hours into when I downloaded Fields of Mistria, but I can definitely see myself doing just that, especially once it enters early access in August. It will likely never steal my heart away from Stardew Valley entirely, but it could very w??ell come in at a close second, depending on the main story and whether it receives updates in? the future. 

The only downside to the Fields of Mistria demo is the fact that you only get three in-game days to play. I found that I couldn’t explor??e all of the areas in this time, let alone get to grips with any of the features or make friends with all of the villagers. I’m excited for the Early Access release in August and I will definitely be there on day one, ready to literally jump back into action in Mistria.

The Next Fest demo features some things which wo??n’t be av??ailable immediately in the full release, such as the mines being unlocked straight away, spells ready to be used, and some tools at your disposal as soon as you arrive.

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The Monke Simulator demo is available as part of Steam’s Next Fest, and if y??ou’re a fan of parkour games or surrealist primate fantasies, you?? should give it a look.

Monke Simulator starts out as so many adventures do: with a group? of caged apes being dropped into the heart of a volcano by a small army of drones. After breaking free of your ??cage, you need to jump, wall run, and dash your way to freedom. From there the game throws you into level after level of unique challenges that, at least in the demo, don’t seem to have any narrative linking them together. 

Vine grind to victory

But who needs narrative when you’ve got apelike speed? Maybe these apes were being volcano dumped because of their borderline supernatural powers. Running through levels, you can slide along vines like you’re playing some kind of Tony Hawk Pro Skater game, and your super intelligence allows you to use tools like a grappling hook and a banana blaster. Those help you avoid deep trenches of water and break down barriers in your path, but they also let you fight the enemies that are trying to prevent you from getting your next banan (there’s no time for that last syllable in Monke Simulator). 

I had an absolute blast splattering nasty humans into gore while swinging my way through the half-dozen or so levels featured in the game’s demo. In between levels you can head to a hub area to purchase upgrades and encounter a few zany apes. Tricking out my ape’s toolset gave me a solid motivation to try and earn the maximum rewa?rds for every level. Initially I had some trouble navigating the strange forest landscapes, ?but once I tapped into my innate ape brain, my runs started flowing more smoothly. 

Monke see, monke wishlist

I’m a sucker for a good speedrunning game, and Monke Simulator scratched that itch. I laughed out loud more than a few times when running around the various levels. Discovering a stoner monkey hideout in the game's hub was a highlight, and blowing humans to bits with ??my handheld banana canon never stopped being funny. The tone is supported by some solid speedrunning mechanics, and I frequently found myself ??sitting on a single level until I earned my gold medal.

Even the early levels featured in the demo provide a varied set of challenges and multiple paths to explore, plus there's the upgrade system to encourage you to sharpen your skills. Monke Simulator only has a vague 2024 release window for now, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for when developer Totem Softproducts announces the actu?al date.

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It's always nice when a game presents a sole conceit and executes on it as promised. That's exactly what you get with ONE BTN BOSSES, a single-screen shooter that, true?? to its name, has you using a single button to dodge and destroy increasingly complex bosses.

Games that don't demand more than a single input aren't necessarily anything new. There's the whole sub-genre that Vampire Survivors summoned into wider popularity, in which players need only move their characters around the screen as they automatically attack in an attempt to survive as long as possible. ONE BTN BOSSES does?n't quite fit into that niche, instead tasking players with pressing a single face button to switch the direction (or another aspect) of their ship along a fixed plane. 

Between the simple and clean gimmick to the overall look, developer Midnight Munchies has delivered one of the most confident demos I've played so far during?? Steam?? Next Fest.

Just press the button

ONE BTN BOSSES recently appeared as part of a showcase for Outersloth, an indie games fund created by Among Us developer Innersloth. Prior to that, an earlier version of it could be found floating on various browser game communities like Newgrounds dating back to 2021. Now that the team has funding, they can finally build toward the full release. There's currently no dat?e in place, but what's available in the demo shows a ton of promise.

In the few seconds you're introduced to the concept at hand, you'll know e??xactly what to do in this unique spin on the boss rush. As each battle begins, your ship automatically orbits the boss. That "one button" you've heard so much about is just there to switch the direction of your orbit. Doing so will kill your momentum, and the faster you move around the boss the faster your ship fires its bullets. 

Survival in ONE BTN BOSSES quickly becomes a game of risk vs. reward. If you can keep your momentum going, you'll chip away at their health bar that much faster. Sounds easy enough, but are you sure you'll circle the boss in time to skirt past the incoming wave? of missiles? If you'd rather play it safe, you can continuously dodge left and right along the line and take your time. As the difficulty increases, though, it becomes clear that being bold and efficient has its ad??vantages.

Mix it up

Whil?e the demo just outfits you with the basic loadout at first �with at least one more unlocking after �it looks like the final game will have a lot of ways to change up your playstyle. You can customize your ship with different attack and movement upgrades, which e?ven switches up how the button works. If the direction-swapping move isn't cutting it, you can opt for a dash, or you can fire lasers instead of bullets. Midnight Munchies promises over 100 combinations in the final version.

All told, there are 50 planned fights as far as handcrafted levels are concerned. You can choose different paths of progression along the way, so if you're stuck on a particularly tough boss you can always try another route. Beyond the main game, there's a roguelite-inspired R&D (Rifts & Discoveries) department that tosses randomly-generated bosses into the mix. New power-ups and upgr?ades can be picked up after fights, offering up a bunch of different playthrough possibilities. 

What's next? TWO buttons?

It's amazing what a little presentation can do. ONE BTN BOSSES comes out of the gate with the notion that you already get it. It has a sense of humor and its die-and-retry stylings are, at least in the sma?ll slice the demo has to share, well handled. I'm most interested in how they plan to make each boss unique without leaning on "more bullets and obstacles." There are already examples in the demo of different type of lines for your ship that aren't traditional orbits. One of the fights has you gliding across an angled line that teleports the ship back from one end to the other, like a looping single-screen arcade game.

You can try ONE BTN BOSSES for yourself right now. If you don't have time for that, the three-person dev team has been sharing some live-play broadcasts o?n Steam. One thing's for sure, by the time this one launches in full, I'm pretty sure I'll still remember how to play. 

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When I read the description for the Evolution Survival demo on Steam’s Next Fest page �“a survival game where the universe evolves around you��I thought it might be a bit like Spore. It was not like Spore.

The game is scheduled for release this December, and it ta?kes place on a solitary planet inhabited by bizarre creatures and surrounded by a stunning array of stars. You wake up on an island, unclothed, unhoused, and hungry. You start gathering wood and rocks to build campfires, tools, and a primitive shelter. Or, if you’re like me, you run into an overly aggressive animal and die immediately. No worries, there’s always the next generation, though without a shelter, it’s forced to spend the night wading through darkness. 

Speeding through history

Life goes on until it doesn’t. Time is sped up in Evolution Survival, and it doesn’t take long for you to notice that the planet you’re trying to survive on isn’t all that stable. Sometimes,w a massive sun floats overhead, roasting you and all the other blocky little creatures alive. Occasionally, a gleaming white dwarf takes center stage in the sky, and even though it looks pretty nice, it’s not warm enough to keep the planet alive. The oceans freeze over, but wave sound effects still drift up fr??om beneath their icy surface. Your character dies, respawns, and groans in pain as the environmental damage saps its life away over and over again until a more stable sun rises. 

The game’s evolution system doesn’t just affect the stellar bodies above you and the weather around you. As ?each day progresses, the animals and even the landscape start to shift. Seeing each wave of creatures take on a new shape is exciting, but I’d also find myself chasing a rock for my latest tool, only to have it vanish with the su?dden passage of time. Even when it frustrated me, there was something delightful about seeing the world slowly change to take on new forms. 

No math necessary

Of course, as I played, I couldn’t help but think of 3 Body Problem, the book, the Netflix show, and the game depicted in each. In 3 Body Problem, the characters exist in an ever-changing world, and their only hope for building a sustainable civilization is to mathematically determine their planet's orbit between its suns. Evolution Survival lets you host a server for your friends, so you are trying to gather resources to build sprawling structures and form a civilization together. Unlike 3 Body Problem, though, there's no solution to ??be found and no promise of survival.

In stable periods, Evolution Survival plays like a pretty straightforward survival game. When everything falls apart, and the chaos stretches on for what feels like years, the game feels a bit like an exercise in existentialism. You might be able to build a fledgling society with a server full of friends, but eventually, a rogue star will wipe you all out of existence. Still, there’s something oddly satisfying about struggling against the inevitable. At least your ruins will remain for your future generations to discover. I’ll? be excited to see what the game has in store when it releases sometime in December 2024. 

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Boomer shooters, retro FPS games, whatever you want to call them. They're popular? on Steam, and for a good reason: they're loads of fun. But what if you stepped back into a classic '80s and early '90s anime, with big guns and an even bigger need for speed?

In Mullet Mad Jack, the gunplay will feel familiar but other mechanics are very unique. Hammer95 Studios' heart-pounding and a??ction-packed roguelike shooter had a demo as a part of Steam Next Fest, and it catapulted its way into my heart and onto my wishlist.

The 10-second kill timer is terrifying

The best part of Mullet Mad Jack might be the story. There's a perfectly good explanation for why you'll die if you don't get kills: your viewers will be angry. You're live-streaming yourself the entire time, a??nd you literally live for likes. When viewers are bored (you're not getting enough kills), they stop giving you likes, and it kills you.

If getting a kill every 10 seconds sounds challenging, ??there are different difficulty levels to choose from. Each option changes the number of seconds you can survive without a kill, which maxes out at 1??5. I found 10 seconds to be very doable, though it was tough at times through the first 20 floors.

Your character holds a phone in his left hand the entire time displaying how much time you have left. Watching the time tick down as you attempt to find a new enemy to kill is nerve-wracking and had me out of breath. Fans of Neon White might enjoy the speed combi??ned with over-the-top action.

Madness, music, and a mullet

In Mullet Mad Jack, you play as—you guessed it�Mad Jack, who must rescue a popular influencer from a corporate billionaire high in a tower. Each floo?r is a level to complete as quickly as possible, and they're quite short. Most floors can be finished in 30 seconds to a minute.

Each floor is super fun and satisfying, and I sense speedrunning in this game's future, which will really get the blood pumping. Upon completing each floor, you're offered a few options for upgrades, which is where the roguelike elements come in. You can choose from new weapons, abilities, and upgrades for what you already have. Options range from a flaming katana that's also ?throwable to a massive damage boost immediately following kicking an enemy.

Speaking of kicking, it's a huge part of the game?. Regardless of which weapon you're using, you can always kick enemies. There are strategically-placed hazards like industrial-sized fans and walls of electricity so you can one-shot enemies into them with your feet. Kick, throw a katana, blow stuff up, and jam out to ??'80s-inspired music the entire time. Is there anything better?

Billionaire bosses must die

After finishing 10 floors, you'll get to murder a corporate billionaire. Don't worry, there are thousands of them that will keep running off with the influencer princess. Each time you kill one, they'll tell you the princess is on another floor (sound familiar?). Your run?? will co??ntinue and Mad Jack will continue doing what he does best: entertaining millions.

During boss fights, you don't have to worry about keeping your kill timer active. Conveniently, your live stream drops out, and losing those viewers also means you don't need to constantly earn kills. What a shame, no one will be th??ere to clip it when you take out another billionaire.

With over-the-top action and loads of replayability, what's here of Mullet Mad Jack is enough to keep me entertained for a little while. The limited demo content left me wanting more, but it looks like I'll have to wait. An official release date has not been announced, but developer Hammer95 says it's "coming soon" on the Steam page.

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Deep space exploration, spaceship customization, and good ‘ol dude-bashing card games don’t seem like they go together, but after playing the demo for Breachway, I can confiden??tly say this actually makes a perfect trio. 

Breachway combines roguelike elements with deckbuilding to create a run-based space exploration game presenting new challenges in every star system. The basic hook has you exploring a large region of space while searching for new ship components and thus adding cards to the deck you’ll use in combat. Additionally, you'll pick up new crew members along the way, each with unique abilities. Multiple factions exist in the game, and they all control their own pockets of space. There’s a surprising amount of encounters to be had in Breachway, but as you might expect, most of the time you’re goi?ng to stum?ble into combat. 

That’s?? where the card game comes into play. Ship systems, like lasers and shields, supply cards to your deck, and require Ordinance, Energy, and Mass to be played. You’ve got to balance the resources your ship has coming in each turn to defend yourself?? from incoming attacks and deal damage to your opponent. 

As the fight plays out, you’ll be able to track how close an enemy is to firing on you or how soon you’re going to be hit by incoming missiles. The se?cret to success is matching your shield charges to any?? incoming attacks and dishing out maximum damage whenever your opponent has their shields down. Naturally, different cards combo with each other, and some even let you directly target components on your enemy’s ship, potentially allowing you to block some of their cards from being played for a few turns. 

A real space adventure

In the heat of battle, the card game at the heart of Breachway is compelling enough, but what really sold me on the game was how runs play out on a larger scale. Almost every mechanic in the game forces you to consider the future and plan for the longevity of your crew. Within battles, you set the rate at which your variou?s resources replenish, which makes for some really tough decisions. More than once, I boosted my Ordinance to prep a heavy attack, only to run out of Energy, l?eaving my shields down and my hull damaged. 

There’s plenty to think about between battles, too. You get to plan your ??path through the stars, and sometimes, the only thing between you and the space station that can repair a damaged hull is risky enemy territory. You’ve got to sust??ain your ship’s integrity through multiple battles, which makes even easy fights feel impactful.

It's not just the ship itself that you need to manage, e??ither. Crew members have some extremely powerful abilities that boost damage or replenish resources, but this turns out to be another?? mechanic that asks you to think about the bigger picture. Crew abilities require Command Points that slowly add up after every battle. Sometimes using an ability to finish off one powerful ship would throw off my balance of Command Points and put me in a worse position for the next fight. 

All in all, Breachway really hit a sweet spot for me. As a card game, it’s the only thing that managed to (momentarily) pull my attention away from Android: Netrunner in a long time. As a space game, I found myself genuinely enjoying the exploration and really digging the art and aesthetic. Thanks to this Steam Next Fest demo, I’ll be looking forward to Breachway’s full release on March 22. 

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The '80s and early '90s were a haven for a very specific type of arcade side-scroller. Ripped heroes brandished blades and vile wizards attempted to stop them at every turn, and that spirit is very much alive in Abathor, which is available to try out as part ?of Steam Next? Fest.

Abathor comes from developer Pow Pixel Games, and upon firing the demo up I was whisked away to a world full of bold box art, Fabio's hair blowing in the breeze. The demo conjures thoughts of games like Rastan, Magic Sword, or even Turbografx-16 adventure Legendary Axe.

The nostalgic journey offers four playable adventurers to choose from as you embark upon what certainly appears to be an epic quest, from blus??tery beaches to massive seafaring vessels and treacherous forests. There's enemies abound in each sample stage, all ready to be hacked, slashed, and, in s?ome cases, soul-sucked to oblivion. 

Sailing the Seas of Cheese

I played through the demo once with the th??ief-like Kritias and gave the other three a spin to see how they all differed. Each has a unique secondary ability beyond the basic attack. There's Crantor, a sword-wielding warrior with an additional power attack, and Sais �a similarly imposing woman able to parry enemy blows. Kritias, my pick of the bunch, has a mean Crescent Slash that slices upward.

Then there's Azaes, maybe the most interesting of the quartet. He can slash and dash like the others, but he also uses Soul Plunder to power up a meter that gives his sword flame attributes. Dashing with juice in the meter lets you blast through enemies with a fiery aura. Otherwise, you just have a standard dash ?that leaves you? open to attacks. 

The action itself is fairly straightforward, which is certainly nothing to complain about at this point. You venture forth at a somewhat meandering pace, in the lumbering tradition of the sub-genre, cutting away methodically at every e??nemy standing in your path. That path is also lousy with treasure chests, offering up plenty of loot and health to keep you going and give you some? cash to burn at the local merchant.

Bosses await at the end of certain stages, starting with a massive kraken that slams down its tentacles and fires off bounding balls of energy. I didn't get a chance to try?? out the co-op �which supports up to four players �but it seems like it would bring everything that much closer to the inspirations behind it. 

Arcade Fantasy

Abathor is visually imp?ressive in a way more subtle than the sea of others like it. The camera pulls back just far enough to put more of a focus on the full picture rather than each individual character or enemy sprite. It ends up being more about the atmosphere, not just individual ?quirks.

That picture really comes together, too, as huge waves crash upon Atlantean shores in a stunning background animation loop. Coniferous trees sway in the breeze of an oncoming storm, and mist envelops a forest that looks as if it has more than a few nasty little secrets lurking in the shadows. The soundtrack is understated and triumphant in equal measure. It has a dull warmth to it that recalls the music of Altered Beast and, occasionally, the powerfully erratic OST of Rastan Saga. 

Nothing sums up my feelings on Abathor more than the demo's ending screen. As you leap around a single-screen, tiered arena, the area's lizard wizard boss appears in a full splash illus??tration, condemning you for even attempting the fight. And then it all ends, just like that.

It's a swift conclusion, leaving us with about as potent a cliffhanger as I could imagine for a game of this fashion. It's this type of playfulness that has me hopeful for the stages that await in the full release. There's a special kind of atmosphere lingering in Abathor, stoking the imagination in ways only th??e background detail of a 32x32-pixel wounded warrior could manage. 

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The internet sure does love a cat, as illustrated by games like Stray, and Copycat eagerly jumps ??on that bandwagon in its demo debut. Thankfully, that never feels gimmicky, and the Steam Next Fest sampling is packed with enough emotion to make the grumpiest grouch's heart melt.

Copycat illustrates a somber mix of both loss and belonging through Dawn, t?he cat, and Olive, an older lady who adopts her. Dawn isn't receptive at all to her new home where even the ring of a telephone has the feline racing for cover. Before her adoption, somewhere along the line, the cat learned to be cautious around humans �honestly, not a bad stance to take.

The woman has experienced her fair share of loss as well, and you learn this as you take control of Dawn and do all the usual daily cat duties, like walking on counters, stealing food, and hissing when ??annoyed. It's evident the two need each other, and even in the short space of a demo you can see their relationship slowly build.

Pay attention to the items all over the home, and you'll understand what led to Dawn's adoption. It's a sad tale, but one that's not uncommon. Perhaps most interestingly, messages hover all around the house that convey cat logic and why they do cat things like scra??tching up couches or ripping up toilet paper, and it's as humorous as it is aesthetic.

As a fan of environmental storytelling, Copycat ??definitely presents itself as one I'll like. There's enough intricacies throug??hout the home to paint Olive as someone with real dimension. Done right, this game might be the first tear-jerker I've had in a while.

It's not a triple-A style game, though it does have a piano soundtrack that's hard to not fall in love with, as it carries with it a whimsical sense of curiosity. It's ambitious with its offering, giving the curious cat plenty to sniff around in, and my biggest hope here is that this feline lands on all fours to really st??ick the landing, whenever that may be.

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There are plenty of sampler platters to sift through during Steam Next Fest, but if you're a Mega Man fan looking for something fast and fun, you need to set aside a half-hour or so to check out the Berserk Boy demo. 

Developed by BerserkBoy Games �hey, if you're gonna put all your eggs in one place this ain't a bad basket �Berserk Boy currently has a couple of levels available in its demo. After a brief opening that finds our hero learning how to harness his berserk potential, we're immediately thrust into robot-busting action. Rather than using an arm cannon or laser sword, which is legally distinct from a lightsaber, Berserk Boy goes completely ham on his hops. Jumping and attacking hones in on enemies from all angles, making for a snappy mix of Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog combat that really works.

We've been jumping on enemies since the dawn of gaming, but Berserk Boy works these actions into the overall flow of traversal. You can jump on robot heads, sure, but you can also use your leaping attack to blast through enemies horizontally and vertically, letting the momentum carry you through to the next platform or enemy. You can leap into Donkey Kong Country-style cannons and blast off in set directions. You can juggle floating laser cannons, and kick the face of a crawling boss spider from above, below, and side-to-side. Once you complete an attack you can also send your little robo-bird companion careening into enemies for some bonus damage. Later, you'll unlock one of the other powers that turns Berserk Boy into a spinning drill, ??perfect for piercing through rock walls.

Running around at the speed of sound

It's all very satisfying, and within the first few minutes I could only think about what an absolute delight Berserk Boy is going to be for speedrunners. Once you get in the groove, which doesn't take long, it becomes a mesmerizing act of zipping from one end of the stage to the other. It's easy to pick up and makes you feel like you're really good at a game you literally just started playing. When you're not bouncing off enemies, you're kicking off walls and sliding along rails, which is another part that feels like one of the Greatest Hits from the Sonic series. 

The visuals backing up all the action are pretty much exactly what you'd want from what Berserk Boy is cooking. Decent-sized sprites reflect strong character design??s, and both stages present in the demo hint at layouts and objectives that mix the formula up a little. The tunes are also nice and chuggy, with plent?y of electric guitar fonts, synths, and driving drum tracks to propel you forward to the next objective. As I write this I have the base level paused with the jams full blast, so I've got high hopes for the rest of the soundtrack. 

Wearing inspirations on a sleeve

There's a ton of Mega Man Zero DNA in Berserk Boy. If you told me the hub base station was from one of the Mega Man Zero games, my faulty memory would short circuit and I'd have no choice but to believe you. The demo doesn't go too much further beyond your introduction to the base, but there are various characters littered about??, and there's an area for purchasing upgrades to health and other aspects of Berserk Boy's 'bot body, including adding new moves and attacks. There's even a brief section that has you fending off an attack on the base, so it all felt very familiar. 

One thing I'd love to see more of are the boss battles. The demo only pits you against two slight variations of the same spider, which is fun to fight but doesn't tell me too much about what the meatier showdowns will be like. Enemy variation is decent so far, so I'm eager to see what else Berserk Boy has to show us.

Thankfully, there's just one month to go before the full launch on March 6, so I'll keep practicing my jumps and looking forward to seeing? what the wider community does with this punchy lit?tle platformer. 

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It's rare that a demo hooks me in as quickly as Mouthwashing did. Sure, plenty of games have solid slices showcasing a few cool gameplay elements that make me intrigued, curious, or interes?ted to see the final build.?? But it's really rare for a demo to feel so crafted that it might as well be a standalone work, impressive in-and-of-itself, outside the bounds of previewing.

Horror games are usually the ones that thrive in that space. Some of my most well-remembered demos, like Signalis, Slay the Princess, and the two letters at least a few of you are screaming at the screen right n?ow, were all horror games; so sure, mayb??e it's that. Few genres create small slices that stick with you in the same ways horror can.

But this long tangent to start isn't just to celebrate excellent horror demos. It's to tell you that if you dig any of what I've just said, or you enjoy horror, or you want to play a 20-minute game that will get stuck in your craw and fester for hours, maybe days? Play the Steam Next Fest demo of Mouthwashing. But ??leave? this tab open for a bit, you know, because site metrics and stuff.

Monsters

If you're still here and need convincing, here's the set-up. Mouthwashing follows a crew of five adrift on the Tulpar, a long-haul space freighter for the Pony Express on a 382-day trip. They're 147 days in, and thing??s have not gone as planned.

Due to an unknown incident, the captain has practica??l??ly immolated himself. Foam has sealed off major parts of the ship, and the crew is now terrifyingly anchorless and adrift in the vast expanse of space. They have some food supplies they could ration, but demand for oxygen will probably catch up soon, too.

So they try ??to figure it out. They try to get by. A vote keeps the captain alive, and in one stomach-turning moment, the player can opt to force painkillers down his throat to help him out. Tensions rise over whether the cargo hold should be opened and raided for potentially life-saving supplies. Usually, it's the captain's call. But the captain's not really in a state, mentally or physically, to make that decision.

Look, there are only so many ways I can say, "if you like Alien or The Thing, you will like Mouthwashing." And if you dig interesting takes on what games can do, that's here too. The team behind Mouthwashing, Wrong Organ, has another fascinating title under their belt in How Fish Is Made. It's one I've heard other people laud, and now playing their new ??effort, I can see why.

Writing our stories

For the scaredy-cats, it might reassure you to know that even though the atmosphere of Mouthwashing is absolutely dense and terrifying, it's not really a jump-scare game. There is significan??t dread, and som?e decidedly grotesque imagery, even sounds that might make you squirm. But an animatronic bear is not going to leap out at you from the shadows.

What's stuck in my head with Mouthwashing is the writing. It is, to put it plainly, excellent. You understand the crew and their moment-to-moment tensions. Lines from each of them have been bouncing around in my head since I closed out of the application. Even just the intro screen, displaying some plain, mundane information about the trip at hand before ending in "I hope this hurts" struck a chord with me. That's how you instill some s?uspense, rig?ht before the demo kicks off.

So yes, go play Mouthwashing. It's already been added to my mental list of "incredibly solid standalone demos," and now has Wrong Organ's new title sitting on my Steam Wishlist, waiting for news of more. Thankfully, it's not going to be a lo?ng wait. Right now, the team is targeting a Q1 2024 launch.

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Despite being at the proper age for it, I never caught on with Rugrats. I don’t think it really aired much with my cable provider. I do, however, know the NES quite well, and I can confirm Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is an NES game.

This is despite the fact that the game will also have an HD art style over top of the 8-Bit backbone (not available on NES) that you can toggle on or off. Allegedly. That’s not actually in the demo. All you get is a taste for is the NES version, which strikes me as an odd decision. I personally love the NES and don’t have much interest in their “HDâ€?visuals, but anyone who prefers fidelity wonâ€?™t really have much to chew on just yet.

On the other hand, there’s enough here to tell us that Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is at least shaping up to be a good NES game.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is heavily inspired by Super Mario Bros. 2 (the US version). You select from one of four toddlers: Chuckie, Tommy, Phil, and Lil. They have different jump heights and lifting speeds. You can do a butt pound on enemies, which wasn’t part of SMB2, but if they look comfortable en??ough to bop, you can also stun them to pick up and throw ?at enemies. 

The demo consists of one level, which proceeds through a variety of areas and concludes in a boss battle. ??Along the way, there are a couple of hidden areas that you need to work your gamer brain to get into. This rewards you with a Reptar coin, but what they do is a bit of a myste?ry at this point.

The whole demo takes about 10 minutes to complete, but judging from your typical N?ES game, I wouldn’t expect the whole experi??ence to go far past one hour. But, combined with the lack of features present in the demo, it’s pretty damned underwhelming.

There is also supposedly 2-player simultan??eous, and that’s maybe not a good choice. The toddlers are 24 pixels wide, meaning three ?sprites per child. The NES can handle eight sprites in a vertical line before some of them need to flicker. Two players would leave room for two sprites eight pixels wide. Most of the enemies in the game are at least 16 pixels wide, meaning you have already used the NES�capacity and anything else added is going to cause flicker.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. A lot of games just accepted that they were going to flicker a whole bunch and just left us to deal with it. However, if the level in the demo is any indication, they’re planning on trying to avoid too much flicker. That means that levels are going to be rather sparsely populated to accommodate two ?players. I just don’t think that’s worth it. Leaving so little room for anything other than background tiles is going to hamper the challenge and make the game feel slow and lacking in dynamism. Without a greater threat to take on, what even is the point of having two players? At that point, you’re just platforming next to each other.

Of course, I couldn’t test multiplayer because there is no support for controllers. I’m not sure what kind of monster likes playing 2D platformers on a keyboar??d, but I’m not one of t?hem.

What is in the demo of Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is pretty solid. It feels solid, which isn’t always guaranteed with modern NES titles. I can see it being pretty enjoy??able wh??en it gets released.

However, a lot of signs are pointing to it not being very spectacular. It kind of feels like the developers are allowing themselves to be hampered by the NES limitations rather than getting inventive and trying to push things. They seemed satisfied with Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland just being an NE??S pla?tformer and don’t have ambitions beyond that.

Which is fine. There are worse things out there than just being solid. Typically, that’s enough to convince me to ?pick up an N??ES cartridge. And maybe the HD art style will add more to the experience aside from just a different way to look at things. 

However, as of now, the demo isn’t really demonstrating much, which might be concerning since Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is set to launch next month for PlayStation, Xbox, PC??, and NES.

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Stea??m Next Fest ran from October 9 to 16, and during this week, there were several demos to try out and new information revealed by dev??elopers. For anyone interested in knowing what the future of PC gaming holds, it was an event to pay attention to.

Steam revealed the 50 most played demos during October's Next Fest. Plenty of calming, meditative games made the cut including Don't Nod's climbing game Jusant, thatgamecompany's Sky, and Helder Pinto's Europa.

Though there are plenty of indie titles, the list also features some demos from bigger games such as Nacon's Robocop and 505 Games' Ghostrunner 2. There was also plenty of space for strange titles to find some attention. The macabre Crime Scene Cleaner makes the list, as well as the FMV game Love is All Around.

The full list of most ?played game demos is as follows:

• Enshrouded
• Japanese Drift Master
• Sky: Children of the Light
• Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor
• Robocop: Rogue City
• Foundry
• Pioneers of Pagonia
• Apocalypse Party
• The Last Faith
• BOPL Battle
• Headbangers: Rhythm Royale
• Last Train Home
• Love is All Around
• Ghostrunner 2
• Stronghold: Definitive Edition
• Astra: Knights of Veda
• Another Crab's Treasure
• Quantum Knights
• The Thaumaturge
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin
• Anonymous Hacker Simulator
• Ascent of Ashes
• Crime Scene Cleaner
• Sentry
• The Crust
• The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication
• Cooking Simulator 2: Better Together
• Strike Force Heroes
• Anomaly Agent
• Magicraft
• Robocraft 2
• Microcivilization
• Legendary Creatures 2
• Dungeons 4
• Forgive Me Father 2
• Gangs of Sherwood
• The Talos Principle 2
• Silent Rain
• Jusant
• Skybreakers
• Paranormal Investigators
• Cursorblade
• Hammer of Pain
• Tank Squad
• Celeste Empire
• Europa
• Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance
• Laika: Aged Through Blood
• 下一站江湖Ⅱ

There are still some Steam events to look forward to i??n 2023. This includes the Return of Steam Scream Fest running from October 26 to November 2, as well as the Autumn Sale in November.

The post Most played demos of Steam Next Fest revealed appeared first on Destructoid.

The soulslike genre is hardly an unexplored frontier these days. While I generally detest using the “like�nomenclature, it’s hard to deny that FromSoftware made some very specific tweaks to the action-RPG genre that keep getting lifted wholesale. I was recently perturbed by Lies Of P essentially just lifting Bloodborne, sprinkling some variations from other Souls games, and then just calling it a day. I h?ave trouble applauding someone for just copying the successes of another c??ompany wholesale.

But I’m not against the soulslike genre, in general. A developer just needs to put their own twist on things. Take Another Crab’s Treasure, for example. There is a lot of Souls DNA mixed in here. The fundamental systems boil down to essentially the same place. But simply by mashing it with the polluted ocean floor and fascinating creatures that are hermit crabs, the developers at Aggro Crab ha?ve created something that is uniquely theirs.

You've got crabs

I actually keep land hermit crabs as pets. One of them I’ve had for 13 years. The??y’re interesting little crustaceans, having their own small personalities and their own shell preferences. U?gly butts, though. You just usually don’t see them.

Another Crab’s Treasure stars saltwater hermit crab, Kril, as they explore the polluted ocean depths. The demo doesn’t have much in the way of narrative, but I’m reading the press rel?ease, and?? he’s apparently trying to find treasure so he can buy back his repossessed shell. That’s fantastic.

The big twist here is that Kril can jump into various trash to wear as a shell. Each piece of garbage has its own “Umami ?Ability�that can be used in combat. Not only that, the shells have different durability, and you’ll be swapping them out all the time as they break, sometimes even during boss battles. ??Part of the game’s fun is just trying out different shells and watching Kril wear everything from a pop can to an ice cream cone.

Trials of trash

The differences in combat between Another Crab’s Treasure and any of the Souls games threw me off at first. Learning when and how to use Umami Abilities and the best strategies for?? defense isn’t entirely straightforward, so I had some difficulty at first. Even after I began to get the hang of things, I was afraid of using my shell, knowing that relying too much on it would result in it breaking.

It doesn’t help that the demo?? has?? two speeds: a tutorial and a level later in the game. I feel like if I got dropped earlier on the difficulty curve, I would have had things internalized before I had to deal with archers and samurai. 

A lot has been simplified from its influences. There are only four very straightforward stats to worry about, and while you can do some fancy things with your grappling hook, there’s no critical hit from hitting an enemy in the butt. This makes the whole game feel a lot faster and almost akin to an ??N64 platformer.

Speaking of which, there’s platforming. There’s your typical way of avoiding hazards by jumpi?ng on small environmental items, but then there are ??also nets to climb and hooks to shot. Kril’s pretty spry for someone carrying garbage on their back. 

For the umami

On the other hand, there are a lot of loose threads in the demo. I get the feeling that it’s still relatively early in the development of Another Crab’s Treasure, as the developer expects to ship it in 2024. As such, there are some issues with the feel of the game and just the general flow of combat. The camera w??as particularly troublesome. It would have difficulty seeing around objects and would sometimes clip right through the ground in a very unhelpful way. The lock-on helps in combat, but it’s too gluey at times and unreliable at others.

However, a lot of the is?sues I had can be evened out with th?e polishing brush. I’d be more concerned if the game was out, say, next week. As it stands, there’s plenty of time to tighten up the screws.

As it stands, I’m just enamored by the concept. The bright visuals that depict a garbage-strewn wasteland and the twisting of familiar concepts just make for a really fun take on the genre. There’s a lot of creativity and personality on display, which makes Another Crab’s Treasure one to watch.

If you want to try out the demo for Another Crab's Treasure yourself, you can find it right here as part of Steam Next Fest.

The post Another Crab’s Treasure demo shows off the brilliance of garbage appeared first on Destructoid.

Picture this: You're in a small European village, there's an ominous church, and you don't quite know where to go. This could be the setup for countless Italian horror films. It's also where we find our protagonist at the beginning of the Saturnalia demo, which went live as part of Steam Next Fest. The demo sets you ??free to complete simple objectives that eventually open up into a larger, interwoven mystery. It's all vaguely interesting from the start, but it's the off-kilter sketchbook visual??s that make me want to explore further.

After heading to church to meet her paramou?r, Anita retreats to their villa to kick off the conundrums. What's going on at the mines? What's up with the strange rituals held in this small town in Sardinia? Who's this dude sleeping on the couch and why do I need to keep an eye on him? Frankly, even suggesting that I need to "keep an eye" on someone who's crashing on my couch gave me major college flashbacks. It's clear from the beginning that something very strange is afoot, and it's all accented with scratchy, amorphous art design that makes it more unsettling than it really is. 

Disorienting by design

The deeper you get into Saturnalia, the more likely you are to run into a mysterious creature that stalks the streets. Avoiding encounters gets easier the more you play, as you'll eventually learn the layout of this labyrinthine location. Don't count on rote memorization for too long, though. Saturnalia lets you switch between characters, each with their own unique abilities. One may be more suited to a particular situation than another, or may be n?ecessary for solving a specific puzzle. Once all of your characters die, however, the town's layout changes. 

There are still plenty of literal signposts to help you get around, but switching up the structure throws a disorienting wrinkle into the mix. Add in the pressure of pursuit and the branching puzzle nodes and you have a game with a sense of progression as sketchy as its visuals. In addition to?? shifting roads, your characters lose all tools and consumables while keeping progress, shortcuts, and key i??tems. 

So far, the puzzles are fairly straightforward, requiring practical items like hammers. Controls are about as intuitive as you'd expect from a survival horror game, where half the horror is in fumbling around frantically as you attempt to flee. Beyond that, it's hard to get too much of a grasp on how Saturnalia will play out as its mysteries deepen. T?he demo is timed at 40 minutes, but you should be able to pick up where you left off when the full ga?me launches.

Stop-motion scares

Developer and publisher Santa Ragione cite rotoscoping film techniques and stop-motion animation as the inspiration behind Saturnalia's art style. Both are certainly apparent in the execution. It's a smart move, because even when things get janky it's easy to chalk it up to the quirky art style that falls somewhere in the realm of a lost PlayStation 2 game. Parts made me think of Manhunt and Madworld in equal measure. It's an intriguing concoction I'm keen to see more of when Saturnalia is ready.

Another thing I'd like to see more of is the actual horror. The few moments I spent hiding in a confessional didn't really up the tension much. From what I've played, I imagine the suspense will come in the form of a general sense of foreboding. The town certainly supplies plenty of that, especially as the moodier colors seep in from the periphery. If Saturnalia lea?ns on that in lieu of cheap running and hiding tricks, it might be worthy of busting out the ol' gaming notebook. 

The post Steam Next Fest: Saturnalia’s sketchbook visuals make its weird mysteries compelling appeared first on Destructoid.

You have an impressive variety of games to pick from when it comes to demos to try out during the latest Steam Next Fest event. If you're not an indie fan, and you prefer your games to have high production value, you may be tempted to avoid the event altogether. However, you're highly advised to at least give Europa a shot, because it is one of the gems of Steam Next Fest that is quickly gaining attention online.

The demo throws you onto Europa, which is one of Jupiter's moons. The landscape has been turned into a paradise teemin?g with alien plants and animals. It's a game that relies on minimalism when it comes to gameplay and storytelling. This will, naturally, turn some players off. However, if you have the patience for it, you may find the experience irresistibly alluring.

Exploring Europa

I never tired of exploring and taking in the fantastic sights of Europa, and the game does an excellent job of making me feel like I'm in a new, better world. During the demo, I didn't manage to unravel too much of the story save for a few items that provide some background information, but there is enough there to pique my curiosi??ty and? have me wondering what the rest of the moon holds.

As many have pointed out, Europa looks like a Studio Ghibli game come to ?life. It feels like you've been transported into the most whimsical storybook where nothing can go wrong. I instantly fell in love with it, but some may find it a little too saccharine.

I believe I can fly

To get around, you can run, but it's more fun to levitate instead. You can do so with the help of your trusty Zephyr jetpack. The more you explore, the more you'll level up your ability to levitate, allowing you to soar further. It's both fun and calming to glid??e over meadows, and it prevents traversal from feeling like a chore.

Europa isn't perfect. The menus look a little too low-effort, which stands out when the rest of the game is so polished. It also feels like Europa relies a bit too much on its atmosphere at times instead of engaging gameplay. Despite this, the game is certainly worth checking out.

If you enjoy Kena: Bridge of Spirits, you'll enjoy Europa, as it has a similarly fairytale-like world. Fans of Journey will enjoy Europa for its eccentric storytelling style, and if you like Forspoken's smooth tr??aversal, you might get a kick out of this game as well.??

Europa is set to release in 2024.

The post Europa demo is a slice of heaven appeared first on Destructoid.

Horror has played a key part in my upbringing ("that explains a lot," says the funniest person in the room). These days, it's mainly through games that I get my scares, which is why I was quite excited when Steam Next Fest rolled around again.

Scouring the horror section has been a delight, and while there have been some that haven't stood out, I want to give a shoutout to Nayuta Studio's Hollow Cocoon. This tasty jam of an indie horror title has a lot of potential, appealing to those who like a bit of Japanese folklore to spread on their gaming toast like some sort of macabre marmalade (that is definitely not a thing).

Hollow Cocoon h?as all the hallmarks of an immersive horror experience. Is it unique? Not really, but playing the demo ticked all the boxes for me. And for a small studio, the game appears to have been very lovingly c?rafted. There's enough intrigue and mystery to create a compelling narrative, enough atmosphere to make you grip the mouse tighter, and visuals that can match a lot of triple AAA efforts.

So what's it about?

Set in 1980s Japan, Hollow Cocoon takes a lot of cues from first-person horror titles of the "run-and-hide" variety. At least, that's the impression I got from playing the demo. I have a huge soft spot for games that toss ??you into the darkness with nary a baseball bat or kitchen knife for protection. Whethe?r the full game does allow for combat later on cannot be said at this stage.

As far as the story goes, I'll let the Steam page field that one:

Step into the shoes of Minato Jinba, a college ?student returning to his mother's hometown after receiving news th?at his grandmother is in critical condition. Hide yourself from the monster and gather vital evidence to unravel the bone-chilling truth lurking beneath the surface!

It opens with a wonderful yet melancholic scene as you exit the bus. The town you land in is empty, an enigma, but not quite uninviting. Jinba clearly has a link to this place, but much of it seems l?ost to faded memories.

While alone in your grandmother's house, your father calls to say he's unable t??o meet you, asking if you're okay to stay there by yourself. Every horror instinct in anyone who plays this knows what's likely to happen next, but the ominous events you suspect are going to occur is where the meat of the story seems to lie.

There's a connection between the horrors that threaten you and the family that's lived here for generations. As with all good demos, Hollow Cocoon ends at just the right moment.

From this limited experience, I can already foresee a spectacularly terrifying time. It's tough to know what else to compare it to at this stage. It's tempting to liken it to Fatal Frame. But the first-person perspective puts it more in line with the claustrophobic horror of Outlast or Alien Isolation with some of the Japanese folklore themes of Ghostwire: Tokyo. But even that doesn't sound accurate.

Hollow Cocoon releases on December 6. Anyone ??into first-person horror should definitely check out the demo.

The post Hollow ?Cocoon is a potential hit ?for fans of Japanese horror appeared first on Destructoid.

I really didn’t expect RoboCop: Rogue City to even be any good when it was first revealed, let alone be absorbed in a demo of it for hours. Licensed games are rarely high up on my priorities, and even though I love RoboCop, I never thought anyone would go to the effort of do?ing the movie justice in a video game.

RoboCop is a lot more than just a license easily transferable to action figures. The 1987 movie was a surprisingly grey look at corporate overreach, gentrification, the role of police, and the nature of humanity, among other things. Those themes, as well as the ultra-violence depicted, make it strange that it would be adapted into a children’s cartoon. It’s so ironic for the licen??se; an irony that was probably missed by the marketing department.

And while the action-oriented plot and memorable protagonist would �and have �been ample groundwork for a braindead action game, I figured it would be too much work for a licensed title to really create something faithful to the movie. For that matter, I can’t believe the developer who turned Rambo into a rail shooter would be the one ?to make the attempt. But if the demo is any indication, they’ve succeeded.

Somewhere, there is a crime happening

RoboCop: Rogue City supposedly takes place between RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3. I’ll take their word for it since I’ve never watched the sequels. I’ve heard they weren’t as good as the original, and some of the cast complained about the studio’s handling of the material, so I just ignored them. It doesn’t feel like I missed much because I would absolutely believe that Rogue City also ignored the sequels.

If you’re unfamiliar, RoboCop is a mechanized weapon of law enforcement created by resurr?ecting fallen officer Alex Murphy as a zombie cyborg. The demo starts off with Murphy doing what he does best and marching into danger along with his partner Anne Lewis.

The thing about RoboCop is he seems barely capable of movement. His advantage against crime is that he’s virtually immune to small arms firepower, but any perpetrator capable of moving faster than a brisk walk can evade him. You would expec?t that any first-person shooter developer would take some creative liberties with this and just make Murphy move and die like any other protagonist, but they really didn’t.

RoboCop is a dumpster on legs. He can take immense amounts of damage without stopping, and that’s exactly how RoboCop: Rogue City plays.

That's it, buster. No more military aid!

I am not sure I have ever experienced such a satisfyingly dumb shooter. It feels so good to be RoboCop. Even with your default pistol, you can absolutely tear down anything in your way. Any damage can be patched up with a health pack. I often wondered who would be dumb enough to actually take shots at the walking death machine, and that carries through to Rogue City. ??It felt like playing with god-mode on. The swarms?? of thugs were merely flies to be swatted.

If you’ve watched any video of the game in action, it looks extremely janky. It is. There’s no way around it, but all the combat has a veneer of dopiness to it. You can grab enemies and hurl them at each other. You can serve the public trust by hurling them out the window. Years of deliberately playing bad games has left me inoculated to jank. If you’re not, you probably ?won’t get my excitement.

However, the combat is only part of it. You might have expected the demo to stop after the first mission, but it doesn’t. After the prologue, you’re allowed to wander around the Detroit Metro West Precinct and can pick up? and complete some rather unique side-quests. But it doesn’t stop after that, either. You’re then sent off into Old Detroit to try and track down a perpetrator.

One parking ticket is all it takes to improve mindfulness

The surprising thing is that RoboCop: Rogue City doesn’t just depict Murphy as an action protagonist but also as a cop. The chunk of Old Detroit you’re left to explore is a large hub environment, similar to the open areas of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Instead of just heading ?off to the mission waypoint, you’re rewarded for serving the public trust. This doesn’t just take the form of optional combat and investigation activities, but also in ticketing for petty crimes. Along the way, Murphy muses to himself about what a great job he’s doing.

This is the most surprising part to me because I definitely expected a straightforward first-person shooter. I was not expecting Deus Ex mixed with L.A. Noire. It’s a difficult mixture to work on, and not something I expected from Nacon and Teyon. Yet, somehow, it’s h?ere. And even more surprising is that it all works.

The budgetary restrictions mostly show when it comes to the game’s graphics. The environments shown off look okay, but the characters are invariably terrible-looking. While RoboCop is base??d on his original actor, Peter Weller, I wasn’t sure about some of the other characters. They often look similar, but I can’t tell if they’re supposed to be legally distinct or just terrible renders of their real-world actors.

You call this a glitch!?

Meanwhile, you’re graded on your performance and can spend your experience on tuning Murphy in both combat and investigation abilities. In various ways, these abilities present themself outside of combat. Deduction, for example, can allow you to obtain pieces of evidence that make it easier to nab the perpetrator. I just can’t believe that it’s a feature in a RoboCop game.

I’m very curious to see if RoboCop: Rogue City can maintain the quality shown in the demo through a full-length game. If Teylon does manage to pull it off, it might become an unexpected favorite for me this year. Because while there is jank and rough edges abound, there is also an obvious passion and excitement in putting it together. There are way easier routes to take in creating a RoboCop game, but Teyon didn’t take them. They went for something much more fascinating. And that shows a level of passion and excitement that you ??just rarely see in licensed games or any game with massive budg??ets and huge teams.

You can try the RoboCop: Rogue City demo on PC through Steam here.

The post RoboCop: Rogue City’s demo is strangely fascinating appeared first on Destructoid.

My, how this year has gone by so fast! We're already in October which, for you demo lovers, means Steam Next Fest. If you haven't been keeping up, this is your reminder? that the event will g?o live soon, at 10am PT.

The event gives you access to hundreds of de?mos of upcoming releases from a variety of studios. You can also chat with some of the dev?elopers or watch livestreams. It's basically a celebration of everything that makes indie gaming so good.

At the moment, we don't know exactly what'll be featured, but the above video teases what ??you can expect to find. Did I just hear something about a Grim Reaper dating simulator?

Sounds Steam-y

Anyone who games on PC knows that Steam is no stranger to events, celebrations, and sales. It's part of the reas??on Valve's service is still many people's go-to. While the Summer Sale is arguably the one that most look forwar??d to, things like Next Fest offer up something in between the more mainstream events.

Steam also turned 20 years old recently, which was celebrated with �you guessed it �a big sale. I still can't believe the studio behind Half-Life would go on to create? one of the biggest PC gaming clients out there. Sure, there are great alternatives, such as GOG, Epic Games Store, and Humble Bundle, but Steam is pretty much ?the OG of this market.

Next Fest goes on until October 16, so you have p??lenty of time to check out what's available from upcoming developers.

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Atari and Cristales developer Dreams Uncorporated have pulled back the veil on Lunar Lander Beyond for this week’s Steam Next Fest. Th??ey’ve put out a trailer for the game, as well as a demo for you to try it out.

Based on the 1979 vector arcade title, Lunar Lander, Lunar Lander Beyond is a reimagining that ties a narrative and progression to the formula. Atari previously played it coy with ??a cinematic trailer that left a lot of questions. Especially considering the trailer’s more melancholy tone versus the synopsis, which boiled down ??to space deliveries.

I personally love the original Lunar Lander, but I was wondering how Dreams Uncorporated was g??oing to tackle it. There have been a lot of adaptations of the game’s fight against gravity gameplay in the decades since its release. ??I didn’t expect stress.

The press release says, “Beware of mounting stress levels, as they may usher in harrowing hallucinations and the onset of cosmic-induced madness!�/p>

Yeah, I usually start hallucinating when I’ve got a deadline coming up, or ??I’m visiting with? relatives.

It honestly doesn’t look that bad, but, li?ke I said, I'm a fan of the original. You select your pilot, there are four different ships that you can customize, and there are 30 missions across five celestial bodies. From that trailer, it looks like there will be a decent amount of variety between the mission types.

The demo can be test-driven from 10:0??0 AM today, October 9th, through October 16th. I think that’s in Eastern Time.

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The first word I think of, looking back on my first 20 turns of Solium Infernum, is anxiety. With all of Hell laid out before me, and so many ways to seize it for myself, I had to make the most of every turn and those precious two actions I could take. But that's the appeal of Solium Infernum, a remake of a classic strategy game from Armello creators League of Geeks; it offers a plethora of options but limits their frequency, making each turn a hellish clash of subterfuge,?? cunning, and two-faced lies.

In the annals of PC cult-classics, Solium Infernum is as much hidden as it is a gem. This strategy game from Victor J. Davis and Cryptic Comet certainly inspired some love when it first hit the scene in 2009. It picked up steam as a darling among bloggers at the time, even inspiring a particularly good series of journals from writers over at Rock Paper Shotgun.

League of Geeks, who you might know from fellow strategy title Armello or the Early Access space anime throwback sim Jumplight Odyssey, are reviving this classic with Davis' blessing. The result is a strategy game that is fair?ly faithful to the original, while providing a new look at the battle f??or the less-appealing side of the afterlife.

Better to rule than serve

If you're new to Solium Infernum, the general stage-setting is fairly straightforward. The devil has ??left Hell, and in their absence, the many Archfiends are now competing for rule over Pandæmonium. Your chosen A??rchfiend competes with several others, who can all muster forces, enact stratagems, scheme, taunt, lie, and more to get what Prestige they can, eventually seizing the title.

One of the most fascinating, incredible parts of both the original Solium Infernum and its remake is the map. Hell, you see, goes on forever. It's also circular. Scroll north, and you'll ?eventually circle back to where you were. Both longitude and latitude eventu??ally come back around, so that enemy far off to the east is actually probably very close to the west.

What this does is create some absolutely wonderful strategic revelations, audible "a-ha's" as you realize that an enemy has heavily fortified their northern border to you, leaving their southern approach wide open. Enemies are always at your doorstep in Solium Infernum.

Of course, that's getting ahead of ourselves. You can't just invade an Archfiend's territory all willy-nilly. This is Hell, after all; we've got some decorum, for Satan's sake. There has to be casus belli, which usually comes in the form of a provocation. My Archfiend can demand another, say Lilith, to deliver monetary Tribute. If she refuses, then she has personally insulted me, and I can provoke her into a competition, determining that whoever seizes more territory from each o?ther, or eliminates the others' legions first, may gain much valued Prestige.

Social standing

Solium Infernum might look, on its surface, l??ike a 4X game. But if you approach it strictly from a militaristic standpoint, you're missing some of the finer details. This is really a game about politics, and playing each ?player off each other.

A key component of the game's stressors is how rapidly the table ??state shrinks. Within a few turns, each Archfiend had rapidly set out and captured hexes around their individual Sanctums, fitting for the power vacuum left in Lucifer's absence. Lines and borders are formed, and now it's all jockey??ing and arguing.

Really, I don't know if I'd call the political layer of Solium Infernum statecraft, so much as its a bunch of petulant demon-children arguing who's the toughest kid in the yard. It's seen in the way you taunt, lie, and snip a??t each other, and ways the original design encourages both subtle deceit and outright bluffi?ng.

I'd provoke foes way stronger than me, only to let them walk into a legion I'd put a Stratagem on. They might have been counting on winning in the combat turn order; battles are determined in stages of Ranged, Melee, then Infernal points, with the lesser value taking the difference as damage. A 9 Melee force could easily route a 2 Melee one, but what if their Ranged values were secretly much higher, able? to end the fight before it ever came to martial blows?

It also helps that Solium Infernum has a litany of hidden moves, through rituals and spells that can secretly alter the game state. Everything plays out at the same time, too. Each player submits their moves for the turn, from demanding tribute to moving, attacking, provoking, or bidding on the bazaar??, and then each turn plays out sequentially, starting with that turn's regent. You cou??ld get the jump on a foe if you're ahead of them in the turn order, or watch your plan crumble if you didn't anticipate them outmaneuvering you in kind.

Demonic succession

Even precious resources can feel difficult to come by, making every use of them matter. And the currency system is beautifully frustrati?ng. You get resources in tokens, stacking up as 1's, 2's, 3's or more of specific currencies, like Souls or Ichor.

Everything, from summoning new legions to the field to learning new rituals or bidding on books at the bazaar, costs resources. And those tokens don't naturally stack together. If something costs 2 Souls,?? and you only have a 3-Soul token, you're spending that full token. You can only hold? so many tokens too. Maybe you'd like to spend an order, one of only two you have each turn, making your money stack neater?

Solium Infernum is a beautifully frustrating game to just stare at. Frequently, I'd find myself pondering how I got myself into such a hole, on??ly to feel on top of the world a few turns later. It's a delightfully devious set-up that, in a short 20 turns, led to incredible highs.

On the remake side of things, League of Geeks has stayed largely true to the original's form, while injecting some modern looks. I like that, even though this new version is 3D and has a vaguely Armello sheen over it, Solium Infernum has retained its vision of a gorgeously desolate Hell. Vast ashen wastes and marching legions of horrors look fantastic, and the card art is a particul??ar high note.

I still feel like I've only had a taste of what's possible with Solium Infernum. This version I played, a demo that will soon be available in the Steam Next Fest, was solely single-player. While I love beating up the CPUs, I really do feel like this game will shine in its multiplayer. It's got some real friendship-scarring de?sign behind it, where everyone leaves the ??table with at least a few daggers in their back. I can't wait.

Solium Infernum is coming to PC via Steam. No release date'?s been set as of yet, but it's aiming ??for early 2024.

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Flipped for your pleasure

If you've been keeping a close eye on the Steam Next Fest (a triannual event that gives developers a chance to showcase their upcoming games), you'll have seen a host of demos go live. As it turns out, there's been one particular demonstration that's stood out above the rest, and that's House Flipper 2.

If you haven't had a chance to check out the original game, you're missing out, especially if you're into methodical, job-based simulations. The sequel is due for release sometime in 2023, and a recent update on Steam shows that not only was House Flipper 2 the most downloaded demo of the recent Next Fest event, but it came top ahead of Lies of P.

//youtu.be/l8ySGZM6NnA

Now, maybe you're not overly familiar with Lies of P, but given that it's described as a Bloodborne/Soulslike game that tells the story of Pinocchio, it's gained quite a bit of interest. However, Steam fans felt otherwise, as they seemed to prefer Frozen District's home renovation title. Other games that feature on the Next Fest list of most played demos include the reimagining of the 2002 Adobe Flash game Alien Hominid.

Homes under the hammer

House Flipper 2 was announced a year ago, but it was just recently that the demo went live. Much like the original, the sequel tasks you wi??th purchasing run-down properties that you can then fix, ??redecorate, and hopefully flip for a profit.

It's part of a growing list of games that take what would otherwise be considered a job and turn it into a surprisingly fun simulation. Titles like Farming Simulator, PowerWash Simulator, and Lawn Mower Simulator (are you sensing a pattern yet?) have enjoyed their own succes?ses thanks to their more chill gameplay mechanics.

If you want to get to grips with the original, you can get it pretty cheap on Steam at the moment. That's good because you're going to need to be good with money when it comes to renovating dilapidated h??omes.

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Our mother shoulda just named you Laika

Excitebike crossed with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night isn’t a mash-up I really considered, but that’s how Laika: Aged Through Blood is pitched. A “motorvania�as they put it. It’s gated, side-scrolling exploration, but you’re also playing a dark version of Uniracers. Goodness.

As part of Steam Next Fest, a demo lets us get all our paws on it to find out exactly how Laika pulls off this unholy union. ?At over an hour long, it’s a surprisingly big bite of t??he game, and it reveals quite a bit.

[caption id="attachment_387642" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The depressing Mad Max

You play as the eponymous dirtbike-propelled dog, ??Laika. From t?he very first moments of the game, it's made evident that we’re in for a dark ride. Poochie has been killed. He was killed by the birds and crucified “with his own guts.�Oh, lovely.

The whole anthropomorphic animal angle gives Laika: Aged Through Blood a feeling like Redwall mixed with Mad Max (the first one). Everything is really wasteland-y, and while I don’t recall anyone mentioning an apocalypse, it certainly looks like the world ended at s?ome point.

The story is revealed painfully slowly. You’re dropped a lot of information without knowing who these characters are or wha??t you’re fighting against. It certainly gets there, but that’s?? a lot of weight to get dumped on your shoulders when you’re first learning how to dirtbike.

[caption id="attachment_387643" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Uniracers but with two wheels

The Excitebike comparison is rather apt, but I think a closer one would be Joe Danger or even the aforementioned Uniracers. You have to constantly roll your bike in midair to try to land in the best way possible. However, Excitebike didn’t let you flip your bike completely, which is key in Laika. Partway through, you’re provided with a pistol, and in order to reload it, you have to, strangely, do a backflip. You can also block incoming bul?lets by putting your bike between yourself and your furry hide.

It’s a lot to keep track of, even when it’s just a sidescroller. Thankfully, when you go into aiming mode, the?? game drops into slow motion. This gives you the ability to pick your target with greater ease, as you’ll often be doing this while trying to protect yourself. Even still, my thumbs would get confused on the controls. There’s a high skil??l ceiling here, and you’ll need to put in a bit more work than you would if you had your feet planted firmly on the ground.

The greatest issue I had with Laika wasn’t actually the difficulty of the controls, but how demanding they are. You do get off your bike for sections, but you’re saddled up the vast majority of the time. This made the time I spent with the demo feel all the longer, because I had to?? be constantly engaged, and that can be stressful. I felt the need to take a break before the hour was even up, but didn’t allow myself to because I didn’t expect the demo to go on for so long. It concerns that, when it’s time to play the full version, I might have difficulty getting through the runtime, as it would necessitate me taking more stops than usual.

[caption id="attachment_387644" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Blood red wall

This isn’t to say that Laika: Aged Through Blood is any sort of failure. The level design actually impressed me, though I do wonder if it will be able to deliver enough variety to carry whatever runtime it’s aimin??g for. It has some rather lavish a??nimated cutscenes and great characters to spruce things up, so I don’t doubt that it’ll find some way to be worthwhile.

The soundtrack is done by Beícoli, who is sort of the Brainwash Gang’s in-house composer. She makes some fantastically melancholic music that is completely up my alley. I skipped over Brainwash Gang’s The Longest Road on Earth and Friends vs. Friends, but now I’m listening to the former’s soundtrack, and it is some great atmospheric stuff. Is Laika’s soundtrack goi??ng to be pressed on vinyl? Bec??ause I am already there.

Despite my discomfort, I’m definitely on board with Laika: Aged Through Blood. I love the vision that the Brainwash Gang has for it, and the production as a whole looks absolutely spot on. Even with its meaty demo, I have a lot of questions I still need answered and a whole lot that I’m looking forward to. There’s no announced release window for Laika, but given how polished the demo experience is, it feels like we won't be waiting until the end? of the world.

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No longer Radioactive Ugly

Easily one of the most bizarre news hits of 2023 was the reveal that Studio Retroware was adapting forgotten '90s cartoon Toxic Crusaders for a brand new scrolling brawler, which is currently in development for PC and console platforms. And if you had already grabbed your mop 'n' bucket in anticipation of t?his release, then this weekend brought with it a ton of good news for you.

First and foremost, a demo for the still-in-development scrap is currently available on PC as part of the Steam Next Fest event, giving fans a limited window with which to see how the new scrapper is shaping up. All you need do is go and download the trial from the St?eam platform, and you're good to check out the street-cleaning action from Toxie, Yvonne, Junkyard and co. Righteous!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-tOCfDFxhw

Additionally, Retroware announced that it is in the process of upscaling the original 1991 animated series, restoring all 13 terrible episodes in 4K for streaming purposes (with a Blu-ray planned for release at some point down the line). The episodes will also feature as part of a 24-hour live stream set to run the entirety of Steam Next Fest. The stream will feature interviews with the team, all-new gameplay footage, and an appearance from Troma's own Lloyd Kaufmann. you can check out the action right here.

This swillful of news was rounded out by the revelation that Arizonian comic-metal band Psychostick have been commissioned to compose and perform the game's score, which will feature original compositions as well as tributes to the soundtrack of the animated series. While an official release date was not revealed, Retroware has pushed the title back a little, and Toxic Crusaders is now aiming for an early 2024 release on PlayStation, PC, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch platforms.

Go check out the demo and see how you think this bizarre-but-welcome return wi??????????????????????????ll fit into the pantheon of modern brawling marvels.

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