For the last several years the Steam Next Fest has grown from a manageable collection of demos into a tsunami, containing far more great gaming than anyone really has time for. The demos are in the hundreds, and even after you filter out all the ones with AI content disclaimers it’s still a good week’s worth of gaming with far more to play than any one person can experience. Thankfully some demos survive beyond the Next Fest, so odds are good you can catch up later, but it’s still a lot to keep track of. Everyone’s list of game recommendations ends up different from anyone else’s, even if there’s a bit of crossover, and it’s always fun to hear what people are enjoying even if their best-of list contains games that may not be for you. Here’s a list of games I’ve enjoyed during this Next Fest, at least so far, with plenty more on backlog.
A Little Bit Of Everything, All At Once
Over the Hill– Chill open-world offroading. You’ve got a nice jeep and the wilderness is calling, peacefully lonely or enjoyably companionable depending on whether you want to relax alone or with a friend or two. Points of interest are marked on the map as you explore, and whether you follow the barely-existent path or hop off the trail to drive through the woods is your call. Smaller objectives like wildlife photography or opening up all the quick-travel rest areas give it a little bit of direction, but Over the Hill is like a more laid-back Snowrunner rather than an objective-focused experience, and the joy of the game is just being there on a journey to whatever landmark catches your attention.
New Releases and Major Updates By the Conveyorful for the Steam Automation Fest
There’s something out there for anyone who can take satisfaction in seeing a system they designed spring to life.
Kick– A kid with a football/soccer ball runs around his neighborhood, which is divided up into a series of stages with their own objectives. The 2D side-view adventure sees him sending the football wherever it needs to go, whether that be through the hole in a doughnut sign, into the tree to knock loose a child’s stuck ball, under some pipes and out the other side, etc. He’s got a variety of moves where results are dependent on speed, so kicking the ball into the air sends it straight up if he’s standing still, or arcing into the distance when running. It’s the kind of not-quite-platformer that’s about mastering technique, learning how to control the ball to not only clear each stage but also get all the bonus objectives scattered around its streets and back lots.
FluxWerks– Factory game! Start with nothing but a floating bot and some drones, explore the randomly-generated voxel world from a mostly overhead perspective, and then mine and build so that you can have machines to do all the heavy lifting for you. I’ll admit to not getting too far in this one yet, due to it seeming to be a nice, long chunk of gaming, but despite its awkward menu system FluxWerks feels like it’s got a lot of good automation once you get used to a screen that’s half menus.
Hyper Detonator– Pure arcade action, where a growing virus needs to be beaten back by twin-stick shooting. As the virus grows it spawns large weak points, and while the weak points can soak up a bit of firepower they explode nicely after a few shots. Explosions cause other nearby weak points to detonate in turn, leading to screen-clearing chaos with a bit of luck. Blue cubes sometimes float across the arena and snagging them powers up your gun, but it also depletes down to a lower weapon tier after a bit of time. Shoot the weak points, clear a path to the blue cubes as they drift across the screen, pick up the yellow trinkets left behind when the virus is cleared, and survive as long as possible to have your time immortalized on the leaderboard.
Desolus– A city named “Desolus” was never going to end well, and sure enough it’s a ruin now. In the future, though, it’s even more of a wreck, but in a very different way that can be used to clear a path forward. Triangular portals in mid-air act as seamless passages from past to present, while black holes shunt chunks of the environment between the two ages. It’s a beautiful and melancholy series of environments to puzzle through, as the demo jumps from area to area and introduces new mechanics in each one.
Spanky Bat-a-Swing– Probably not technically part of Next Fest but close enough. Spanky is a 3D platformer set to an electro-swing soundtrack, and also a bat who may appreciate music but would like the occasional moment of peace and quiet as well. Everything in town is synced to the beat, whether that be platforms moving through the sky or enemies who are best attacked to the rhythm. The levels are relatively linear but with extra side-paths to explore, and the post-level tally lets you know how many collectibles you found. Honestly though, this one is worth playing just for the soundtrack alone.
Blood Dungeon– Ok, this is a weird one. 2D side-view free-roaming survivors-style action platformer, where each run is through a randomly generated dungeon crawling with enemies. If there’s a goal beyond surviving as long as possible I haven’t found it yet, but that hasn’t prevented me from going back far more times than is reasonable to see what kind of monster-freaks start spawning as the waves get deadlier. Each character has their own weapon, of course, but there’s good variety among them and one even shoots webs you can use as netting to make paths where there are no available platforms. The real strength of Blood Dungeon is that it just feels great to play, with precision controls that let you know each hit you take was your own mistake.
Lazy Kickers– Incremental football/soccer game that’s absolutely not about football in any way, shape, or form other than looking like it on the surface. Gardeners grow and harvest football plants, shooters kick the harvested footballs into the goal for a coin apiece, bankers collect the coin, hooligans counter enemy ninjas, and like any good incremental game there’s a slow growth from a single player “team” eventually turning into hundreds of little guys running all over the field. It’s not exactly sane, but then again who needs sanity?
Moonbrella– A robot wtih conveyor-treads rather than legs can’t jump, but it’s found an umbrella and that’s more than enough. As it turns out, the simple umbrella can be used as a stick to push downward, sending the robot into the air, while the parasol pops open to slow descent. The hook on the other end acts exactly like you’d expect a hook to act, in that it can snag ledges and allow the bot to reach places that should be too far, or latch on to vines that give serious distance from a swing. The front half of the demo is an introductory course while the back half is the platforming equivalent of deep sorcery. Evil, but also not impossible once you figure out a few basic tricks and keep your fingers from tripping over each other trying to use all the buttons at once in a panic.
Honorable mention for games that I wish I’d had time to play but will have to wait for later- Normal Golf Game, Truck-kun is Supporting Me, Echoes of Mystralia, Good Heavens!, Goobies 2, Botlings, OffBeat, BioEden, Iron Inc., MeowFactory, Fading Echo, and many more. Other demos I’ve covered before include Factory Town 2, Tankuki: Pon’s Summer, Lou’s Lagoon, Well Dweller, Exovia, and possibly a few others I’m missing. The secret is to play what you can, enjoy what you’ve got time for, and not worry about the rest. There’s more going on than anyone can play, and FOMO is just an easy way to add stress to what should be a fun week of new experiences.
