Three times a year, Steam hosts their Next Fest event prior to their major sales. Thousands of free demos hit the shelves for anyone to pick up and play.
This Next Fest I played dozens of unique demos, though not the multiplayer ones like the promising title: Wildgate, because I didn’t have many friends interested in trying them. I also didn’t play Mina the Hollower, the next game by developer Yacht Club Games, because I would rather play the game when it releases. But the demos I did play were a lot of fun. Here are the best demos, ranked from eight to one!
HM: Ratatan
Ratatan has been one of my most anticipated games for 2025. Directly inspired by the excellent Patapon series, you control an army of little guys using rhythm commands. The visuals and music are top of the class, the gameplay is wholly unique to Ratatan and Patapon. The reason it doesn’t make the list is because of its many, many rough edges. The game adopts a card system that doesn’t feel good. The roguelike progression is more frustrating than fun, and the bugs are numerous. Ratatan releases in early access late July, not enough time for these issues to be fixed. I can only hope that the game is in a more playable state once Ratatan releases into 1.0. The developers have already released a statement about lessons learned from the demo so they are clearly listening.
Check out Ratatan here!
8: Jump Ship
In Jump Ship, you and up to three friends take control of a spaceship to undergo various missions. Every mission gives you money and upgrades to further enhance your ship. At any moment in gameplay you can jump off your spaceship and fly around with your jetpack, allowing for cool moments where you board enemy ships and complete objectives.
I spent two hours with Jump Ship and saw its potential, but the experience was brought down as I only had one friend to play with. While the game allows for one or two players, it clearly isn’t designed with that in mind. There are too many tasks for less than three players, as someone needs to control the ship, another needs to man the guns and keep the ship repaired, while the others work on completing the objectives. Overall, Jump Ship is a cool game that will be a lot of fun with enough friends.
Check out Jump Ship here!
7: CloverPit
CloverPit is a roguelike game all about gambling. You pay in-game money to try your luck on a slot machine, and use the earned money on items that sway the odds in your favor. But not all the money you earn is yours, as you have a debt to pay. Every few rounds of pulling the slot machine you’re required to turn in a set amount of money. Fail to comply and you are killed.
It’s a neat game that takes the roguelike genre and presents it in one of its simplest forms. Luck seems like a huge factor in this game, and it is, but your success is instead decided by how cleverly you spend the money you earn. Will you buy an item that increases the chances you will roll the rare 7? Will you play it safe and save the money for the upcoming debt collection? Every round, you make a series of small decisions that steadily push you toward either success or failure. The demo for CloverPit also gives you a reward in the full game once you beat it, which I always thought would be cool for a demo to do.
Check out CloverPit and its demo here!
6: Ball X Pit
This is a bit of a weird one. Ball X Pit is a block breaker, city builder roguelike that incorporates elements of the recent “survivors-like” subgenre. You go on missions to defeat bosses and return with rewards to expand your city. In which you set up your buildings to make your own little block breaker level that gives you resources.
The style and sound effects of the game are fantastic. Balls fly all over the screen destroying skeletons in satisfying block explosions. They bounce off walls and blocks creating a whirlwind of block breaking destruction. You collect XP from destroyed blocks which level you up, giving you new balls or upgrade your existing ones to increase your block breaking potential. Once you fully upgrade two balls, you can merge them into a more powerful one, freeing up a slot and letting you launch even more. It’s a cool mechanic, and I’m curious to see how the late game evolves after the full release.
Check out Ball X Pit and its demo here!
5: No, I’m not a Human
The earth’s temperature has reached a critical level, nobody is to go outside during the day lest they are cooked alive. Stay inside, and only let humans in.
No, I’m not a Human is a choice driven narrative game where you have to decide who you let into your house. Dangerous creatures called “Visitors” wear the skin of humans. You have to distinguish who is human, and who is a visitor. Let humans in your house and they give you extra protection from outside visitors, as well as other benefits. Let visitors in, and you put everybody in danger, including yourself.
The atmosphere and art of No, I’m not a Human is incredibly striking. Every character is strange and contorted. There is a huge amount of detail and visual horror on the characters that serves as the main selling point of the game. There are visual tells for visitors that forces you to really look at the characters, and sometimes at an uncomfortably close distance. It’s creepy, it’s gross, it’s wonderful.
Check out No, I’m not a Human and its demo here!
4: Dead as Disco
Dead as Disco hosts arkham style combat to the rhythm of a song. You punch to the beat, dodge to the beat, and step to the beat. There is a full campaign with game original music. What makes this game really special, however, is the arena mode with functionality to import and fight to any song you want.
Dead as Disco is very easy in the demo. I hope the full game has harder difficulty options as currently the gameplay can feel a bit mindless. Super cool if you just want to listen to your music and punch a few baddies.
Check out Dead as Disco and its demo here!
3: TAMASHIKA
I love a good shooty game. TAMASHIKA is all about moving fast, and not letting the adrenaline get to you. The steam page description says it best: “the game is about keeping your mind at one place”.
You fight through a series of linear hallways with a gun and a knife, shooting and slashing your way through green fellas. Some of the green fellas initiate a skill check, where you have to time your knife slash to reflect an incoming bullet, or cut down a fella before they cut you down. The difficult part is the timing, where the rest of the game is about moving fast, these skill checks require you to stop, pressing the knife button too early is a fail, too late is a fail. Die, and the game kicks you back to the start and tells you what went wrong. The game seems insistent to overwhelm your senses with its visuals and fast paced gameplay, but to succeed you need to find clarity.
Check out TAMASHIKA here!
2: DISPATCH
Created by former Telltale developers, DISPATCH puts you in the shoes of a down-on-their-luck superhero who has to manage former super villains as their dispatcher. DISPATCH is a narrative driven game where your choices affect the story. You interact with a cast of exceedingly well written characters, before your job begins and you manage the former super villains as they undertake missions.
As I mentioned, the strongest aspect of the game is how well written it is. It’s funny, it’s charming, and visually, DISPATCH looks incredible for a video game. The presentation is similar to a 3d animated show that feels like something you’d watch on tv. Whether or not that will come at the cost of gameplay remains to be seen, but what we’ve gotten our hands on does not suffer from its style. You often get to make dialogue choices, but most of the gameplay happens when you are dispatching the villains on missions.
Check out DISPATCH and its demo here!
1: Star Birds
Any of the past three games could’ve been #1. But Star Birds takes it for me (I am a sucker for management games). Kurzgesagt makes exceptionally entertaining and educational videos focused on science. Their first foray into video games seems to be a strong one. In Star Birds, you command an expedition of birds on missions to extract materials from asteroids to further the expedition’s progress. The mission starts simple, land on an asteroid and extract iron to send back to the main station. Soon after you learn the ropes, you are managing multiple asteroids and sending materials all over the place to complete your goal.
Star Birds isn’t a challenging game – I don’t believe you can even lose. Material supply is endless and there isn’t any threat that might impede your progress (so far). It’s a chill game where you incrementally work towards winning by undertaking various missions. Star Birds is a very satisfying game that is only brought back by some performance issues that will hopefully be fixed when it releases.
Check out Star Birds and its demo here!
Also check out Bentley’s article: Has Nintendo Outgrown its Magic?
Graphic by Dialma Quiroz
Edits by Bentley Bramhall
