I tried a bunch of these today and yesterday.

In the “Shut Up and Take My Money” tier:

• Bits & Bops - Sure, it’s a total Rhythm Heaven clone but, hey, why mess with a winning formula? Still, I worry about devs borrowing this heavily from Nintendo titles these days 😬
• Dispatch - I only needed 10 minutes with this to know I’m sold. The animation is gorgeous and it has a hell of a cast. Between this and Expedition 33, how are new studios getting these people!?
• Mina the Hollower - Shovel Knight’s the best retro game I’ve seen and I didn’t need to see much of Mina to know that Yacht Club delivered again. It’s got a Zelda vibe (the jump especially feels just like it did in Link’s Awakening) along with all that other 8-bit-with-present-day-game-design goodness. I also cut this one short so I can enjoy it in full later. Day 1 for me.

Pretty good but a couple hiccups:

• Forestrike - Hey, PlayStation gamepad glyphs! Always appreciated. Outstanding atmosphere in general. The pixel graphics are interesting; the character design reminds me of old Sierra games. I wonder if at some point during dev they considered just not going roguelite. There’s real storytelling talent here and I think a linear game with increasing complexity might have been even better (and helped to not undercut the narrative as roguelite progression tends to do).
• inKonbini - Pretty short demo, but the gameplay seems it’d be good and vibe is cozy. Really strange that only the written Japanese is gibberish. It seems too elaborate to be placeholder text, so I wonder what the story there is? It takes me out of the life sim aspect of this a bit.

Not for me:

• BALL X PIT - The gameplay pacing on this is unfortunate, with the roguelite elements stopping the action too much. Kept wanting to get into a flow state and was constantly interrupted.
• Bloodgrounds - All the other demos I played came ready with story and this one feels underbaked in that department. What I played of the demo was almost all gameplay. Didn’t see much that really sets it apart from the pack.
• Dice Gambit - I don’t think this strategy game gets the basics down well enough to add on the dice layer. Feels like one move should be guaranteed regardless of rolls (and lack of move undo is unfortunate also). The art style also isn’t for me.