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Comment on Steam Next Fest has started once again. What good demos have you found?

silverchase@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Day 3

Bloodthief — First-person parkour/speedrunning

* Crusty brown gothic look, like Quake * Gameplay really grabbed me. Sometimes, I was leaning forward and holding my breath! * More and deeper movement mechanics, compared to other first-person parkour games, like SEUM or Neon White. Building up and preserving speed is a big deal * Challenging levels, with actual enemies to fight and a quickly-rising difficulty level. Levels are usually 1-5 minutes long — lengthy compared to Neon White’s 10-30 seconds * I managed to wall jump off of a deadly spike wall, and I’m still not sure if that was intended Soft wishlist. I definitely enjoyed this demo, but I currently don’t have an appetite for this type of game.

Dice Gambit — Tactical RPG with dice

* First thing after the intro cutscene: a detailed character creation screen. That’s pretty overwhelming. * I like the art style except for the subdued 3D character models * Throwing the dice and watching them settle is satisfying, as it is in Armello * Gameplay is clearly focused on battle grid combat, since the “dungeon crawling” is just clicking on a map, like Slay the Spire * Do team management and watch the plot in the downtime between jobs * There is an appreciable amount of role-playing in this RPG Wishlisted

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silverchase@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Day 4 was all black cats

:::spoiler Everdeep Aurora — Exploration-heavy platformer

Really well-executed limited palette art. It swaps palettes between different areas for mood. Maybe that’s why the playable character is a black cat.

This demo is really short. I saw a bit of lore and played some hide and seek, then went through the scary door. The cat has a drill but I don’t even get to use it!

Didn’t get a chance to see any interesting action except for the very last few seconds of the demo

The camera feels unpolished. It always freely drifts behind you, so quickly changing directions often will make the camera jiggle unpleasantly. It would be nice if the camera would stay still or lock to an axis sometimes. That would especially help with aiming jumps, since the camera always jerks upward a bit every time you jump.

The controls feel great. Super responsive movement with no sliding and little momentum buildup. Jump height is also quick to respond to letting go of the jump key.

Soft wishlist. This demo just wasn’t long enough to be totally sell me on the full game. ::: :::spoiler Project Arrow — Puzzle platformer with archery

I found this demo to be good but not great. I’m struggling to identify why it didn’t appeal to me more.

Maybe the selection of levels wasn’t impressive enough. There were a handful of puzzle ones, but some just felt like repeats with not much new each time. There seemed to be a lot of autoscrollers.

Platforming movement mechanics were simple and straightforward, which is appropriate for a puzzle platformer, but then there are levels with precision platforming and not much puzzle

Cool series of boss levels at the end

Maybe the demo didn’t do enough to hint at the possibilities for the whole bow and arrow mechanic for puzzles, so I’m just not getting hyped enough

Maybe I just don’t get the presentation of the game? Electronic music and high-tech UI but playing as a cat with a bow in the forest

Pass ::: :::spoiler Swoosh Cat — Precision platformer

Celeste but with 360° dash

Cool mechanic: dash into spikes to bounce off of them

Slow motion while aiming, but the aim indicator isn’t very accurate. Also, unlimited slow motion

Hard to tell when I have dash or not

Something feels off about the air control. I often overshoot or undershoot when trying to land on a small platform

What a long demo! This is a substantial amount of game to give out.

Pass. I had fun, but I’m currently not in the mood for Celeste-style precision platforming. :::
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- silverchase@sh.itjust.works ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Day 5
  
  :::spoiler Look Mum No Computer — Twin-stick shooter adventure
  
  Trying the demo purely because of the weird trailer
  
  Very retro PC gaming vibe. SID chip music!
  
  Rough introduction. Big info dump right at the start before I know what I’m doing
  
  Music changes as you change the installed skills, which are presented as synthesizer modules
  
  Struggling with visibility. Hard to quickly tell what’s an enemy and what’s background art. Also hard to tell what’s collidable and what’s clear
  
  I’m not finding the combat here very intersting
  
  Pass :::
  
  :::spoiler Morsels — Action roguelike (Isaaclike?) with creature collecting
  
  Gross and cute
  
  The classics from Rogue: traps, unexplained stuff, retrying a lot until you start to understand
  
  Demo shows a small but varied range of creatures with different abilities, which always come with a randomly selected bonus
  
  Quick switch between your roster of three
  
  At least in this early part of the game, ammo count is really low and even ranged attacks don’t go far
  
  Great presentation. Pixel art feels kind of like claymation
  
  Pass. I liked the demo a lot, but I’m already playing a lot of roguelikes and my wishlist already has ones I’m more excited for :::
  
  :::spoiler ODDCORE — Surreal boomer shooter
  
  Maximalism. An exhilarating force-feeding of the senses.
  
  Liminal spaces but actually awesome and fun. Exterminate the Backrooms! Shoot the jump scare monsters in their faces!
  
  Excursions into the Oddcore only last 5 minutes unless you buy time extensions
  
  Interesting idea: you can teleport home (almost) whenever you want to buy upgrades or more time
  
  Chaotic level progression, like really channel surfing through the multiverse. Sometimes, instead of warping to the next level, you end up in a corrupted level or a bonus level or just some weird, mildly creepy room
  
  Wishlisted :::
  
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