Steam NextFest came and went this chilly October. Thousands of free demos for upcoming games were available to play. I played roughly 30 different demos throughout the course of a week ranging from shooters to visual novels, and some good october horror. Below are the demos that really stuck out to me in no particular order.
Cairn
If you have ever played Celeste, the premise of Cairn is going to feel very familiar. Cairn has you step into the shoes of Aava, a climber with a goal to climb a great mountain. The name of the game is route planning. While climbing execution is very important, you need to think ahead about what Aava is capable of. You need to account for the placement of all her limbs, and make sure your chosen route can support her. If a route you pick is too long, you can risk a fatal fall due to the limited number of anchors you carry.
Cairn will have a focus on story as well as survival aspects, though with just a short snippet available in the demo, I am not sure how big an impact these will have on the game. I am really liking the inclusion of the camping aspect. You have a tent you can access in certain locations. At the tent you can save the game, cook food, sleep, and more. I didn’t really have my eyes on Cairn before, but the excellent demo compelled me to put it on my wishlist.
Check out Cairn on steam Here!
Don’t Stop Girlypop!
I love a good shooty game. In Don’t Stop, Girlypop! movement is key. The game hammers this into you by having a video of the developer on your flip phone always saying: “Just. Don’t. Stop. Moving”! The faster you go, the less you get hit, and the more damage you deal. The story has you waging a one–woman revolution against capitalism. The visuals are like glitter vomit in your eyes without sacrificing (too much) visual clarity. Lastly, the music is fire. I was able to really get into a groove with the short time I spent with it.
Check out Don’t Stop, Girlypop! on steam Here!
Skate Story
You are a demon of glass, riding a skateboard on a quest to eat the moon. The visuals are trippy, the skating feels great, and failure is visceral, as a crash results in you getting shattered. It reminds me of playing Sayonara Wild Hearts!, where you play through a visual auditory experience, but Skate Story has more gameplay to it. My only minor gripe is that I wish you maintained momentum a bit more, as I found that I spent way more time pushing my board than gliding through the stages, though maybe I’ve just been playing too much Skate.
Check out Skate Story on steam Here!
Wall World 2
Wall World 2 is a roguelite about scaling a massive wall. Using your spider mech, you go on mining expeditions to complete missions. During the expedition, you use the ore that you mine to upgrade your mech and the pilot to be better at combat and mining. As the pilot, you leave your mech to explore caves and collect materials, returning to the mech to deposit and upgrade, while also fending off the occasional waves of enemies.
You return from these expeditions to a city built into the side of the wall. You can walk around the city to visit the various shops and talk to the locals. The spider mech can be customized by visiting the mechanic, temporary buffs can be gained by drinking at the bar, and there are many more upgrades that weren’t available in the demo. The gameplay loop is as satisfying as all good rougelites should be.
Check out Wall World 2 on steam Here!
Abyss Kitchen
Abyss Kitchen is a cooking real-time strategy game of sorts, where you support an adventuring party by cooking up their fallen foes to empower them to fight bigger monsters. It just so happens that most characters are scantily clad women. The demo was a lot of fun to play, but the chibi artstyle mixed with the sexual themes is uncomfortable.
I do really enjoy the gameplay, however the progression of Abyss Kitchen is what is going to make or break it. If the gameplay loop is done like Patapon, where every mission you go on contributes to making you stronger, therefore giving you new missions to go on, that would be super sick. As it is, we’ll just have to see when it launches.
Check out Abyss Kitchen on steam Here!
Tears of Metal
Dynasty Warriors with bagpipes. Tears of Metal is a rougelite hack-and-slash with immense style. Choose from five different heroes and lead a band of warriors through numerous battles. My favorite feature of Tears of Metal, however, is its co-op play.
You can play through Tears of Metal with four friends, and it doesn’t feel like the experience is stunted for anyone (mostly). In Enter the Gungeon, my favorite rougelite, the two player co-op feels like an inferior experience to single player. Both players have less items between them, and the second player is forced to play a certain character.
Tears of Metal gave all players the same freedom as each other. Choose any character, don’t split upgrades between everyone, and no one has greater authority over others when picking the next battle. The only restriction is that whoever isn’t hosting is stuck using the hosts’ unlocked items.
Check out Tears of Metal on steam Here!
ARC Raiders
While not technically part of NextFest, ARC Raiders held an open tech test during the weekend of Oct 18th, and it was fun as hell. ARC Raiders is an extraction shooter, which if you are like me, is a scary pair of words. They’re words associated with the sweatiest, most time consuming shooters on the market. I decided to keep my eyes on this one despite not being a fan of past extraction shooters, mostly on account of me being a fan of the developers’ last game: The Finals.
I’ve read a few of their blog posts, and the developers have taken much care to make sure more casual audiences won’t be left behind. I jumped into The Finals years after it launched, and still didn’t feel like I was behind. The only concern I have about ARC Raiders is that the progression might not be satisfying. That’s it. The visuals are both varied and gritty, it’s well optimized, and the gunplay handles like a dream.
Check out ARC Raiders on steam Here!
Also check out Emma’s Reading Slashers For A Week!
