Board 8 > azuarc plays demo games (Steam Next Fest)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Steam's Next Fest is a collection of game demos all put on presentation for people to get excited over. I'll admit, last year when this came around, I kinda asked what's the point. However, last night when it went up, I decided wth and grabbed 5 demos to try out. I might continue to try more as the week continues.

ITT I'm going to tell you about the games I played. Please feel free to add in reviews and remarks for any games you've tried as well.

1. Astlibra REVISION

Genre: Action RPG

I'm not sure what drew me to look as Astlibra. The art looked decent but the animation felt a little stiff in the preview, but the music seemed good. I decided to give it a shot anyway. Turns out this game spent fourteen years in development!

You play as a dude who can use just about any melee weapon in existence, and although the weapons seem to all have the same one special move where it's tossed in front of you, spinning, the normal attacks are unique and there's a ton of equipment to choose from. Gameplay is 2-d side-scrolling hack-and-slash with a little platforming. The demo was pretty easy, but probably intentionally so. Your character can also use magic but I felt like that was harder to handle. I chose to equip items that gave me three jumps and just leapt over enemies while I slashed rather than evading. Dunno if that's a viable strat.

Truth told, I have no idea what the story is about. Your guy has a talking raven following you, passes through a town to meet someone for some kind of test, and then wakes up from a dream as a child -- saying that he dreamed he was a child instead when your fighty dude is definitely not a kid, and...yeah, I dunno. I'm hoping it'll make sense in the full version.

What price would I buy it at? -- I'm a cheap bastard who waits for everything to be 75% off, but I think this is at a fair price point at 14.99 or 19.99, depending on how much meat there is in the full version.

2. Asterigos: Curse of the Stars

Genre: 3-D action-adventure souls-like

I'd seen ads for this even before the demo went up, so the publisher is definitely pushing this game. I was definitely interested in seeing what it was.

You know when a game has that vibe to it, that certain polish and scope that makes you go, "Yeah, this is a triple A game" ? Asterigos has got that. Everything is extremely high production quality. Art, movement, sound design, voice acting, UI, all of it feels right. My only gripe with the demo is that it felt extremely short for what the game was, such that I didn't really get a chance to test out the gameplay. I was still in that "I don't know what buttons do or how mechanics work so everything is really clunky because I haven't gotten past sucking" phase, and then it ended. So yeah, it might be disappointing, but everything on the front end looked fantastic.

In Asterigos, you play as a redhead named Hilda who is training to join the legion that her father seemingly leads. He goes out on an expedition without her, even though she thinks she's ready for action, and then somehow she gets sent out on a mission by...I dunno, somebody, and she's trying to catch up with them. The breadcrumbs of the story seemed well-presented.

I described the game as a souls-like, despite having never played any actual From Soft games based on two factors. One is that the demo consisted of a short period of running around a forest followed by a boss. And then they threw in a second boss for good measure before calling it quits. The second boss, especially, made me feel like this was drawing from Souls games for combat inspiration in large part due to the variation in attacks the guy used. (The first was a giant crocodile.)

The second is the weapon usage. You have six different weapon types to choose from, and you can equip two at a time, switching between them freely during combat, so maybe you fight with daggers plus a huge hammer. Or sword-and-board plus a magic staff. Each weapon has an activated ability ranging from defensive moves to an aimed shot mode with the staff. The fist weapon summoned an arcane land mine? You also have some legit special moves that cost AP, and it felt like that second boss was using his own version of these against you as he switched weapons throughout the fight.

It was this attempt to explore the different weapons that I felt was brought up short by the brevity of the demo, so it's possible I could be disappointed with the full game, but everything about the experience felt very high quality.

What price would I buy it at? -- I will personally wait until it's at least half off, because I know this is not going to be a cheap game, but upon checking, I'm pretty surprised that the initial sale price is only $34.99 because I feel like it could have been a lot higher. I don't know if that says something about the length of the game or if that's a very calculated decision by the publisher.

Also, this releases next Tuesday.

3. The Knight Witch

Genre: Twin-stick shooter metroidvania

Knight Witch was a game I was aware of going in, but wasn't sure what to expect. Bullet hell metroidvania? Well, kinda.

The demo opens with a story interlude, explaining how the knight witches saved the world fourteen years ago. As a team of four, they were renowned and beloved afterward, but you play as a character with similar abilities, but who wasn't talented enough back then to make the cut. You can still fly and fire projectiles, but you weren't considered knight witch material.

And then everything hits the fan, and you're the one person in a position to pick up the pieces.

I think the set-up and the lead is rather endearing. The cartoon-style graphics are fantastic. Controls felt tight, the pace of discovery and exploration and learning felt great for the opening ~30 minutes we get to play. A fun part is that you don't even have to aim if you choose to and the game will just lock onto whatever enemy is closest. (Some limitations apply.)

You also have a deck of spell cards which, yes, does mean this is sort of a deckbuilder, but not really. Basically cards are just the physical representation of your six special moves, which appear on the three face buttons of the controller and you can fire off whenever. It then rotates to another ability in the deck. I guess that keeps you from spamming the same move 24/7? I'm not sure the motivation, but you do learn new moves as cards are discovered.

All things considered, I'm definitely keeping my eye on this one. The word that lingered on my mind with each component of the game was "fun." Each aspect of the game felt fun, and not just in a "games are supposed to be fun" way. Y'know what I'm trying to say, right?

What price would I buy it at? -- If the regular price is $19.99 or lower, I'll probably buy it outright rather than waiting around.

And now for two that didn't go over as well.

4. 9 Years of Shadows

Genre: Metroidvania

I've seen a ton of previews for this from indie watchlist channels, so I was definitely eager to check this one out. Unfortunately, the game wouldn't display correctly on my ultra-wide monitor. I probably could have changed the resolution of my display to force it to appear correctly, but with other games, I didn't wait around to find out.

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5. DoubleShake

Genre: 2.5-D Adventure-Platformer, I guess?

This isn't my usual fare, but I scrolled way to the bottom of the demo list, and this one looked lonely and forgotten, so I decided to give it a shot.

DoubleShake is going for a certain aesthetic, and they lean into it completely. The description says it's inspired by Mischief Makers, Klonoa, and Tomba, none of which I've played (outside of a few minutes of MM,) but the art is chalking up early PS1 and the gameplay largely follows suit. I got stuck on a button prompt in the opening two minutes until I switched to KB just for that moment, and then realized what they really wanted me to do.

DoubleShake will appeal to a certain kind of gamer, but I am not that person. It had the undertones of having quest-based adventures as I ran around a small town looking for items, but I felt like I could never quite tell what was ahead of me due to the camera distancing and the fact that -- although the action is 2-D -- the view was constantly twisting and rotating in a somewhat 3-D space. There's even moments where you can rotate the camera and start moving perpendicular to your old direction, reminding me a little of Paper Mario.

But the game, while very whimsical, felt like it was intentionally rough around the edges to feed into its charm. And while it has that, I ultimately concluded it was not for me and moved on.

6. Aquatico

Genre: City Builder/Survival/Production Sim

I thought this was going to be a straight city builder under water, and I figured eh, sure. I'll give it a try. I did not imagine that it was going to throw all the controls from the game at me at once, and leave me as overwhelmed as I felt that time I tried to play Crusader Kings 2. If I took the time to learn where all the buttons were, maybe I wouldn't have skipped out after 25 minutes, but what little bit existed of tutorial just said "push this button, now do this, and click over here" without explaining the mechanics of the game, and I just don't have a desire to teach myself this overbearing user interface on my own. Also, I wasn't happy with the camera controls, partly because I don't have a scroll wheel and a bunch of stuff was bound to it, and partly because I just didn't like them. If I can't pan around smoothly and see what I'm looking at in a game like this, that's going to severely hurt my opinion of it.

7. Rhythm Sprout

Genre: Turn-based strategy-metroidvania-JRPG dating s--what do you think?

So remember back in the PS1 days when PaRappa the Rapper came out, and it was this incredibly dumb rhythm game? Yeah, Rhythm Sprout is like that...except the rhythm part is good and doesn't involve the vegetables on screen shouting "chop" and "kick." In terms of gameplay, it's more of a traditional 3-button rhythm game. But in terms of the goofy setting? Yeah, it's a bunch of cartoon vegetables fighting against sugary candy attackers. The visual set-up is a little weird, too.

Music's decent. Nothing I'll listen to outside the game, but it does its job. The five sample tracks included were okay. I did need to play with calibrations a bit on the first level. Beyond that, my only beef is that it grades you on how accurately you hit the notes, which affects your score, and that's hardly an uncommon mechanic in rhythm games. Beyond that, it's just fun and quirky.

What price would I buy it at? -- Not a lot, unless it turns out there's more mechanics or a ton more songs, because I could always just go play Muse Dash. Therefore, $5?

Gunbrella
Genre: Metroidvania-ish
I liked what I saw from this in a Nintendo Direct a while ago. The theme is uh, somethingpunk and the titular weapon, a gun with an umbrella mounted is the star of the show. It serves an array of functions, firing as multiple types of gun, propelling our hero through the air via gliding and directional airdash, sliding along midair tracks for further mobility, and blocking/parrying enemy projectiles. I like the gameplay more than anything else currently, but I'm still looking forward to the full version.

Oh, hey. I downloaded Gunbrella today and just didn't get around to trying it yet. We'll see how I find it.

Nine Years of Shadows
I was able to run this one. It seems reasonably good as a Metroidvania but with some caveats. The map screen was severely low on details and I think I encountered like one save point. Not sure where I would have respawned had I died before it. The visuals do look nice though. I may have reached the end of the demo but it crashed after a boss so I'm not sure I did.

How was the gameplay? "Feel" is very important to me in a metroidvania. It's a big part of what makes games like HK and Ori work.

Even with the limited starting capabilities, movement feels more or less like an IGAvania. It's fast and smooth and there's a backstep. Melee is similar. You can attack up or forward with a spear thing, but there's also a ground heavy attack and a charged attack. The health system is interesting. You have a "shield" meter that goes down from getting hit or using projectiles, and up from landing melee attacks. If it depletes fully you have to use an animation to restore it to 50%. And if hit when it's empty you lose one of your two real HP.

8. Necrocity

Genre: RTS

Cute game. Did okay explaining things, mostly, but there were some details I didn't get and then the enemy attacked and my guys got run over badly. Probably something I wasn't getting, but I tried it briefly last night and decided not to go back.

What price would I buy it at? -- I dunno. A couple bucks. It might be decent once they add all the features in, though.

9. Cassette Beasts

Genre: Pokemon Clone

I haven't played a Pokemon game since 1999. However, this comes from the makers of Lenna's Inception, which I adored, so I gave this a shot and the game is really immersive in terms of the world-building and the charm. I got to the end of the demo and was disappointed that I wouldn't get to do a whole slew of things that weren't available, so that's really promising.

The idea of the game is you appear, washed up, on some unknown island where people periodically show up from and can't leave. Someone brings you to town, which has been there for 101 years, and gives you a walkman and a cassette. When you confront enemies, you pop the tape in and transform into a creature to fight. You can switch cassettes to become something else if you've "recorded" other enemies. If the tape gets damaged enough, you have to repair it, and in the meanwhile you take damage to your own health. So it's Pokemon, but you are kinda sorta in the battle yourself. Also, there's fusions because you have a party member or two and you can become one megazord pokemon sometimes.

I'm not sold on the idea of playing pokemon, but I am sold on the game itself.

What price would I buy it at? -- $19.99 would be my expected price, although it looks like a decent game and I like the developer, so I might be willing to go higher.

10. Turbo Kid

Genre: Metroidvania

The gimmick of turbo kid is that you can summon a bike. The world is designed with slopes and ramps that allow you to use your bike to reach places you might not otherwise be able to go. It's a neat concept and I think they pulled it off pretty well. Cyberpunk setting. Based on a movie I've never heard of.

The one thing that was a bit limiting was trying to understand how the bike physics work. I'm sure if you play it for hours, it starts to feel very natural, but for the first 45 minutes, it was really rough and I was wiping out constantly by flipping onto my head.

What price would I buy it at? -- I've decided this one's not for me, but if it were, $9.99 easy, $14.99 maybe.

11. Manor Lords

Genre: Medieval city builder

This is Banished, but more elaborate without getting burdensome in details like many simulation games go. It's still VERY much in development -- it doesn't even have a save feature currently -- but other than not fully understanding the game mechanics, this looks incredibly promising in terms of the visuals, the sound, the UI, and everything. For such a complete package (what there is of it so far) it's jaw-dropping to think this was made by a solo developer. When I think solo developer, I think pixel art, not...this.

Additional features are going to add more colony areas and probably some kind of minor military aspect? I dunno, it's clear there's more on the docket, but nothing that I looked at and went eww. And it's very easy with games like this to get me to go eww.

What price would I buy it at? -- I don't know, because I'd probably get my fill of it quickly, but if the price is set at $29.99, I wouldn't balk and say it's overpriced.

I liked Cassette Beasts! :D

12. Rosewater

Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure

I played Unavowed about a year ago, and the general animation reminded me of that. Very little else, though. Rosewater takes place in an AU wild west, where you play as Harley Leger, a no-nonsense woman who has traveled to this little outpost to write for their local paper. I don't know the entirety of what the game is about, but it had charm.

Of course, then I got stumped by the very first puzzle in the game. I have to either pick a lock or smash it to get into a building, and although I got the lock picks, I can't figure out how to work them. I have no idea where the heavy object I'd get for the alternate solution is. Still, once other people have played the game and I can cheat and look up solutions because apparently I'm a dingbat who can't figure things out for themselves, I'm sure I'll enjoy it just fine.

What price would I buy it at? -- $14.99 if I'm in a good mood. I'd rather wait for it to be below 10, but they've clearly put some work into it, and I feel like that's being stingy already.

ooh thanks for bringing attention to the fact that next fest was back i hadn't noticed

i have no hard drive space currently so no demos for me right now, but i figured i'd mention that just yesterday i picked up a game i tried out during the next fest back in march i think

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1810270/Blood_Nova/

UF8 posted...

ooh thanks for bringing attention to the fact that next fest was back i hadn't noticed

i have no hard drive space currently so no demos for me right now, but i figured i'd mention that just yesterday i picked up a game i tried out during the next fest back in march i think

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1810270/Blood_Nova/

I don't know what I was expecting you to link me to, but an EGA point-and-click with LucasArts fonts was probably not it.

oh yeah i just remembered i can add demos to my library even if i don't have the space to install them yet so i had a look at what's there too

besides the ones already mentioned, these ones interested me (obviously, haven't actually tried them though), figured i'd bring them up in case you might have missed them and also are theoretically interested lol

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1669980/Volcano_Princess/ had seen a trailer of this one already from gamera games' tokyo game show showcase iirc, seemed like more than your average raising sim
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555800/The_War_Enders_First_Strike/ a 2.5d shmup that looked pure 2d imo
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1953850/Vice_NDRCVR/ i think this has been in prior next fests but i never got around to it, it's one of those hypnospace-esque pc simulation games but with other gameplay on it too and a great aesthetic
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2094580/Ticket_to_Europe/ seemed like a kind of choose your own adventure game with a significant, fairly true-to-life refugee story
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1783360/Megs_Monster/ that really interesting (and definitely not mother inspired) rpg with the girl and the monster that had a trailer somewhere a while back. since the demo's so tiny i'm definitely trying this one out
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1897650/Dream_Tactics/ at this point i'm long past tired of card-based systems being injected into games for no reason, but otherwise this is kinda just an srpg that looks cute and i'm down for that
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1591450/Aka/ honestly one of the most well-realised "farming" type games i've seen, a game apparently made for healing with a charming world
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2123100/Kitty_May_Cry/ a similarly charming game about a chibi animal on an island except here it seems to be an action-adventure/puzzle game. saw this via the gamera games showcase too and hope i can try it out. (it doesn't seem to play anything like dmc)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2073530/Stereo_Boy/ nice little isometric puzzle game with a parallel world-swapping mechanic. trailer made it look like it may be on the easy side but hey
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211120/WuJiDaoRen/ yet another game from that gamera games showcase, this one seemed to be like a... kind of ragdoll physics kung fu sim, with a topdown isometric view and a striking classic film aesthetic
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1710100/Bing_in_Wonderland/ basically, this is Wanba Warriors but if it had a story. i'm pleasantly shocked that game did well enough to become a series
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2003880/The_Creepy_Syndrome/ there were a fair number of pretty interesting-looking horror games i noticed but this one definitely stood out the most with its four unique styles. curious how it all plays
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1636620/Cognition_Method/ very cool atmospheric portal-like inspired by 2001 (it's horror-ish). apparently there was already some kind of demo release a year ago, not sure if this next fest one is any different but i'm interested in checking it out in some manner
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1564060/Lighthouse_of_Madness/ evil myst
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1562430/DREDGE/ dark, atmospheric fishing game, looks good
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2161450/Sorry_Were_Open/ "procedurally generated Horror CRPG Roguelite, Supermarket Simulator". somehow even though there were a few others, this is the game that takes the most elements from the mother series
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1995880/Afterdream/ more cool pixel horror games
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1672310/Decarnation/ ^
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1889040/Birth/ creepy but somehow not horror, surreal puzzle game
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2024390/Mato_Anomalies/ animegame jrpg but indie and i think it uses cards also it looks like it's set on off-brand midgar tbh
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2118420/Stories_from_Sol_Part_1_The_GunDog/ retro vn that doesn't try to hide its snatcher inspiration. i can't decide how i feel about the mixed retro style it uses with the inexplicable gameboy palette. i guess this isn't actually a next fest demo but it was recent
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1757920/Astral_Flux/ looks to be a roguelite that feels like a metroidvania
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1957590/Armored_Lab_Force_VULVEHICLES/ what if blaster master was a cheap shmup (i guess this is already out but also yeah demo was a recent-ish thing from what i searched)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1850960/The_Jackbox_Party_Pack_9/ jackbox demo?

by the way but tangential to volcano princess, turns out a branch of gainax (who made princess maker) just released a new game on steam a few hours ago... (it looks, uh https://store.steampowered.com/app/1986250/__Pretty_Ninja_HIMEKAGE_01/ less than great)

I'll also endorse Gunbrella. I'm terrible at it, but it's fast & stylish in a way that seems like it'd be addicting.

Slay the Princess

Very meta horror VN. A Stanley Parable-esque narrator tasks you with murdering a princess trapped inside a shed hidden in the woods becsuse she will destroy the world if she escapes. What do you do?

There's not much horror, but the demo does a good job of setting up its mysteries and general atmosphere. It remains to be seen how long or in depth the various paths will be in the full game & meta novels may be a bit played out, but the demo sold me on the concept and I'm fairly optimistic.

Good topic! I've only played a few and most of them have been covered in pretty good detail here already, but I'd like to call special attention to Dredge. Easily the most interesting/exciting of the ones I've played - Lovecraftian fishing game with an emphasis on nautical exploration and quests. Seems like it'll have a potentially very addicting gameplay loop plus a very cool - and sufficiently twisted - world to explore.

You thought I was done? Pff...

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13. Flowstone Saga

Genre: Tetris RPG

The genre says it all. It's a very competently created "JRPG" where the battle sequences are replaced with tetris breakouts. The enemies fight back with disruptive moves, but I hadn't really grasped the mechanics involved beyond occasionally extra junk appeared in my well. Still, the anime art and music were very well done, and the game had the potential to be a lot of fun, like playing Puzzle Quest (which was match 3) again but WAAAYYY faster-paced.

What price would I buy it at? -- I'm not sure how much the full version will have, but I'm definitely comfortable with $14.99. I doubt this game will sell for more than 19, but if it sounds like your thing, it might be worth it.

14. Potionomics

Genre: Item shop management deckbuilder

Start with Recettear. Make the main character less of a dingbat. Remove the dungeon exploration. Replace the basic haggling with a card-based system. Buy ingredients, but then use them to craft your own stock. And throw in some pretty distinctive animated modeling for a game without any real action. Voila, you've got Potionomics.

It's going to be a fun game for people whose itch it scratches. Personally, I loved Recettear, and I'm not certain I'll be as eager to play this one. Not spending an entire day signing on with an adventurer is fine -- that was just a big (IRL) time sink. But the game will obviously be a slow grind of getting ingredients, upgrading aspects of your shop, working relationships with other artisans, earning new cards to use in your deck while haggling...it might be a lot to manage. Or it might not. I can't really tell. This demo was very short. I reached the end of it in 22 minutes. I'm not sure that I needed more time to form an opinion, but geez, people, this was like a 5 GB download. My poor SSD won't like all this installing and uninstalling.

Anyway, the deckbuilding part, in particular, caught me by surprise. So many games have been shoehorning components of that into their game that I'm inclined to shy away from anything with cards, but this seems like a nice, light replacement for the very underwhelming haggle system in Recettear.

What price would I buy it at? -- I recognize a quality product, but I have a feeling this one's going to be priced out of my interest level. It releases next week, and there's no price listed, but with the sort of animations they have and given that this very much looks like Xseed's attempt to finally follow up Recettear, I just know this one's going to eclipse the $20 mark for its initial price, and that's not a barrier I'm prepared to cross unless it's for something special. TBH, I'd probably be waiting for it to go on sale, anyway, and maybe some day I might pick it up for cheap, but that won't be for a while.

Have you played Moonlighter? It's similar to Recettear. The shop portion is more streamlined, but it is a substantially better dungeon crawler with far superior combat.

I haven't. I've looked at it about 86 times, and chosen not to buy it each time, though I've been close a few times.

Still have like 5 more demos I installed and hadn't gotten to.

15. Vernal Edge

Genre: Metroidvania

Pixel art metroidvania with controls that are loose but handle well. Jump precision feels decent, but the game plays quickly, so timing needs to be pretty sharp. Combat is something I wasn't really able to get used to just yet, but also I didn't have a strong sense of where to go because rather than being one giant 2-D map, VE has lots of little maps that you fly to with an airship. Some are hostile, some are friendly. I didn't really piece together where I was supposed to go. And then I died. The ramp-up from tutorial battles to quickly kicking your ass was a little too severe, so I probably wasn't going where I was supposed to.

Anyway, gonna wait until I hear some good reviews from others before putting more time into this one. Graphics that are too pixelly tend to hurt my eyes before long.

16. The Entropy Center

Genre: First-person puzzle

This game is completely and utterly, unabashedly Portal. You wake up in an unknown testing facility. You pick up a strange gun you don't understand. And you go through puzzle chambers at the start of the game. So, yeah, no questions asked; it's Portal. Except the humor isn't quite as sharp and the graphics feel less good in 2022 than Portal did back in 2007. But enough of that, because TEC is actually really cool.

The core mechanic here is that your gun doesn't fire portals, but rather it rewinds the time on select objects. So imagine you have two pressure pads. You put a box on one, then move it to the second. You pass through a door from the second pad. Then you rewind the box to the first pad, enabling you to go through a different door. It's a very simple idea, but the amount of shenanigans that can ensue are pretty significant, as anyone who's played a time-rewind game like Braid can attest.

The Entropy Center itself is apparently a near-space facility hovering around Earth that collects "entropy energy" from its puzzle solvers, which it then uses to rewind time on Earth itself to protect it from a cataclysmic meteor strike. I got to the control center, where I activated the big time rewinder doodad, temporarily saving Earth, and then the demo ended.

The demo only had very basically puzzle chambers like you'd expect from the beginning of Portal 2, but then it showed a mini-trailer at the end promising that there is so much more. If it can deliver on what it's promising, this will be one to watch.

What price would I buy it at? -- Easily $19.99, maybe higher. Because of the obvious Portal parallels, and the fact that Portal 2 was 11 years ago, I think it's inevitable you'll hear people talking about this one at some point.

17. Tower Escape

Genre: Tower Defense-themed Roguelike

Imagine a TDS game where you play as the enemies trying to survive the maze. That's Tower Escape. Similar to a game like, say, Defender's Quest where there are attackers on the walls like archers and knights, you have to thread your ragtag band of monsters through a level by defining the path they are to follow and choosing the order they spawn in. Each has a certain amount of health, speed, and delay before they follow the previous troop in. It's surprisingly fun...for a few minutes, anyway. If you're the kind of person who enjoys run after run of Monster Train, you'll probably love Tower Escape.

Graphics and music are decidedly 8-bit. This was clearly not made by a large team. The developer clearly wants to sell you on the gameplay hook. If that sounds like it's for you, by all means, give it a try.

What price would I buy it at? -- I dunno. I like TDS games, but I think I'd tire of this pretty quickly. I'd probably only buy it on an extreme sale.

18. Tails: The Backbone Preludes

Genre: P&C Adventure

Not sure what to make of this one. It's very text-heavy, filled with beautiful pixel art, and sees you rotate between a cast of four different anthropomorphic animals. The writing seems decent, but I wonder if it doesn't come closer to a visual novel than something with actual gameplay. The demo gave me the chance to see each of the characters -- who are very different and each in their own unique circumstances -- and I honestly have no idea what any of them have to do with each other. I think I caught wind that this is basically the prologue to another game, but I don't know anything about that.

What price would I buy it at? -- Dunno if I would, but it's definitely pretty and has deep writing, so if that's your thing, check it out.

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19. Beloved Rapture

Genre: RPGmaker

Seemed okay-ish. I didn't like the control scheme. The game was clearly winding me up for some grand narrative, complete with a flash forward before returning to the typical "18yo leaves the village for the first time." But then I died basically as soon as I got into combat, and hadn't saved, and decided I didn't want to replay all ~30 minutes I'd already been through.

Also, it defaults to a TINY screen resolution, and there's no options menu. Turns out you can hit F5 to change the resolution, but I almost didn't notice that.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/7/0/AAUC3iAADyLi.jpg

So yeah, that was kinda a weird choice. Anyway, I didn't finish this one, as hinted above.

What price would I buy it at? -- Probably pass on this, even though it might very well be good. Combat just felt really off to me and it handled poorly on controller, which is how I'd prefer to play a SNES-era style JRPG.

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I also had "The Forest Quartet" downloaded, but apparently they pulled that demo after Next Fest ended, meaning I couldn't try it. So now I've just got Gunbrella left (lol).

I was gonna say I liked Vernal Edge but forgot to until now. I definitely want to try the full version.

I was going to round out the list with an even 20, but someone bought Asterigos for me today, so I guess I'm doing that instead. I'll probably forget all about Gunbrella until it comes out, and the other demo I had closed up shop. Anyway, lmk if you want to hear about Asterigos.