Dialma Quiroz

Steam’s Nextfest has become something of a holiday for me. Three times a year, I get to play tons of demos, ranging anywhere from shovelware to masterpieces in the making. I played a lot of demos this year (20ish?), and honestly not a lot of them stuck with me. But the ones that did? Hoo boy.

Shift at Midnight

Convenience store horror games have lost a lot of credibility recently. The phrase: “Fix generators (0 out of 3)” has become more feared than any horror these games can provide. What “Shift at Midnight” brings to the table is a convenience store horror game where gameplay is actually fun. 

The premise has you and your friends running a store during a sort of “doppelganger epidemic”. Customers come in to buy items, and you need to question them to figure out if they’re a human. If they can’t keep their story straight, or maybe there’s just something wrong about them, grab the gun and kill them. 

Accidentally killed a human? Well that’s only a $15 dollar deduction to your pay. If you let a doppelganger go however, you better spend your hard earned money on defending your store. At night, they’re coming back.

“Shift at Midnight’s” greatest strength is its pacing. You don’t spend too much time managing your store. Instead, most of the gameplay has you questioning and investigating customers. Events that throw a curveball into the gameplay are frequent, and new mechanics are introduced quickly. 

My only little nitpick is how much time is spent cleaning up after dead people. Whenever you shoot someone, an explosion of blood and body parts decorates your store, and you shoot people a lot. It feels like it’s balanced for three to four players, but there were only two of us when I played, and we greatly struggled to keep up.

Despite this I am very excited for “Shift at Midnight” to release–it’s one of those games in Next Fest that I believe is going to make a big splash.

“Shift at Midnight” is slated to release sometime in Q2 2026

Mama’s Sleeping Angels

“Mama’s Sleeping Angels” is probably similar to “Lethal Company”. I also think you can find guns to fight off the monsters. It also miiiight be a blast.

Truthfully, “Mama’s Sleeping Angels” is one of the most surreal games I have ever played, at no point did my brother or I know exactly what was happening or what we were really doing. From what I gathered, you explore one of six procedurally generated dreamlike levels to collect cursed items for your mama. These cursed items have various effects like making you see shadow people, or making your character pee–pee which can kill you if you run into it? You play as people-shaped characters which have flip phones which can analyze curses, shine a flashlight, or communicate with your other teammates if you’re separated. 

Also enemies can kill you, or die by your guns, or can be kissed for health and stuff. This is a weird game. At one point there was a girl telling me to stab my brother who was already a ghost floating around with a flip phone. He had accidentally pissed himself to death before shredding his head in a grinder.

Our session came to an end when I threw a nuke at him.

“Mama’s Sleeping Angels” was a blast because I had no idea what was happening. My only worry is that when the game comes out and it loses its novelty, that the gameplay might not be good enough to carry it. But “Mama’s Sleeping Angels” has yet to give me reason to worry on this count.

 Very cool Y2K vibes, trippy music, and barf visuals similar to “Cruelty Squad”.

“Mama’s Sleeping Angels” is set to release March 11th.

Airframe Ultra

Have you ever wanted to get out of your car to beat someone up? Now you cannn… live vicariously through your character!

“Airframe Ultra” is a low-poly, breakneck, racing game with a huge emphasis on combat. Races are not just decided by who reaches the finish line. Instead, the first player to get ten points, achieved by killing other racers and beating minor races, gets the chance for victory by winning the next minor race. This means the closer you are to winning, the bigger the target on your back.

On foot, the player can kick, punch, jump, sprint, slide, and combo moves together for different attacks. Weapons can be bought using money earned by reaching checkpoints, replacing your punch with a gun or a machete. 

On your vehicle, you still have your weapons and kicking, but the rest of the moveset is replaced by things like accelerating, boosting, jumping, and other maneuvers to optimize your speed.

Even though (or maybe because) “Airframe Ultra” is low-poly, it is one of the most cinematic and beautiful racing games I have ever played. The maps are so varied and detailed, crashes are visceral, the camera seems to be trying to capture the coolest angles possible, and the top speeds are exhilarating.

My only critique is in the visual clarity. It is often very difficult to see what’s happening. Yes, the maps are beautiful and detailed, but not very clear on where the racetrack actually is. Often I found myself driving headfirst into a wall along with the other racers.

“Airframe Ultra” was my personal favorite demo this Next Fest, and I am highly anticipating its launch (hopefully this year)!

“Airframe Ultra’s” steam page says it is Coming Soon.

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