This Next Fest runs until October 20, 10 am Pacific.
RogueJack21. Basically Slay the Spire meets Black Jack. Very fun, the UI is great and the animations are super smooth.
It’s not something I found in Next Fest, but if we’re talking demos, Trails in the Sky is something I’ve been having fun playing recently. The demo is surprisingly long too.
I’m glad it has a demo because I know a lot of people don’t enjoy characters like that; there’s some great heartfelt conversations once you get to know the characters, but you have to be able to stand 20+ narmy and overly polite banter sequences to get to the moments where each of them surprises you. If you get that far, you usually get invested.
I REALLY like what they’ve done with the combat in this one. Even on normal, I was losing early boss fights for playing without consideration and using nothing but the enemy’s elemental weakness. I just finished Chapter 1, and I especially liked having moments where half the party was dead, and attacking was actually a good option to give my team a moment to revive each other, thanks to the stun/delay systems.
I also really enjoy the combat. I like how you can chain the quick combat into the turn-based combat to start with an advantage by stunning enemies. And since you want to abuse weaknesses in turn-based combat, neither forms of combat overshadow or weaken the other despite quick combat being inherently easier and safer. It feels very fluid and well designed, to the point where I was surprised to learn quick combat wasn’t a thing in the original game.
So far the only thing I don’t enjoy is missions where you need to protect people. Like one of the first few missions where you need to protect the kids as you fight off the group of cats, I’ve lost many a battle purely because of bad RNG where they just all beat up the kid three turns in a row and there’s nothing I can do about it. And since you can’t use quick combat to get an advantage on story encounters like that, it really is all down to luck. And good fucking luck if you run into an enemy that explodes on death later down the line.
Admittedly I’m (stupidly) playing on the hardest difficulty despite not being great at turned-based combat, so that’s probably mostly a me issue lol.
For some of the cases where enemies are getting multiple turns in a row, using an S-Break (RT+D-pad) can be a good way to get yourself back on positive ground. If you get a turn, it also helps to give defensive buffs to the VIP before the enemy attacks them.
That said, I have heard that while Nightmare difficulty poses a great challenge to some masochists and optimizers, it’s not a difficulty level the developers really balanced around.
I love those demo’s, but it’s on purpose! They want you to play enough so you get hooked enough to want to buy it once it ends. A few hours into an rpg is nothing, but once you invested that much, there’s probably a higher chance you buy it to continue playing.
I haven’t tried the Next Fest demo yet but I’m going to shout out Road to Vostok. It’s kind of like a single player version of Escape From Tarkov. You have a hideout/shelter, you go out to looting and then you get to come back and improve your hideout. The hideout customization is excellent. Outside you have to deal with enemies, environment, food, hydration, energy etc. and if you die outside you lose what you had on you.
Just tried it out. I’m unfamiliar with the extraction shooter genre, but it was interesting, I’m not necessarily opposed to tactical complexity for its own sake. I died to a minefield, and then on the next go didn’t have a weapon; so some of the mechanics come across a little bit unclear.
Oooh. Grabbing.
But one major nitpick
It’s kind of like a single player version of Escape From Tarkov.
Yeah. That is called STALKER. Especially since, based on the store page, this is more of a zoned open world than an instanced extraction shooter?
The game is somewhere between Stalker and Tarkov but I’d say it’s more Tarkov than Stalker. Stalker is more focused around mutants, anomalies and artifacts, none of which are in this game. The only things that separate this game from Tarkov is the lack of online component and no map timer. Tarkov is also moving towards a zoned open-world so I think the comparison with Tarkov is perfectly fine.
And the developer has mentioned both as inspiration:
In terms of other games, Road to Vostok takes inspiration from titles Stalker Anomaly, DayZ, Project Zomboid and Escape from Tarkov.
Bonus: It’s made in Godot and the dev has an interesting dev blog where he shows off how the game works.
As usual, I haven’t even played anything yet. I’ve just been thoroughly browsing for games to put on my list, and it’s a long one this time. At the top of my list of games I want to try are:
- Bubsy 4D
- Ultimate Sheep Raccoon
- Mesmalie
- Time Snatcher Handy
- Myths are 100% True
- FUNKYHEART
- MONUMENTUM
Roughly ordered by my interest levels:
FUNKYHEART: In which the people who wrote that bunny-hopping script for Half-Life 2 speedrunning made a video game, in which they’re also strange cyber demon lesbians.
Skate Story was a real trip. Aside from the fun surreality of the thing, it may be my favorite skateboarding game apart from Tony Hawk.
Final Sentence has been great in short sessions - it’s a keyboard typing battle royale with a gritty 1940s atmosphere
Everwind is fantastic. Fixes just about every complaint I have about Minecraft, and I say that as someone who bought Minecraft back in alpha. There are things that could be improved, but even where I think there’s room for improvement the baseline always seems to be “It’s already better than Minecraft”. For example I really feel like the combat could do with a dodge mechanic and harsher stamina management, but that’s based on comparing it to stuff like Dark Souls. Even in its current state it absolutely clowns on Minecraft’s combat.
The artstyle is lovely, the building and crafting feels really good, the range of furniture and decorations you can build is massive, and you get to build and fly an airship. And that’s not an afterthought, it’s a core part of the game and feels really, really good.
Maybe I’m suddenly shite at games but parrying feels like happenstance rather than a technique. The block windup is too long for me to react to the quick strike they throw out. It feels like Skyrim combat, from a “battle flow” standpoint.
Yeah, parrying needs serious work. I don’t think I’ve been able to make it happen even once.
You have to do it super early, the timing number is weird
It’s not Next Fest specific, but the Ball X Pit demo has absolutely grabbed me by the throat and won’t let go.
I’ve played like 5 hours of just the demo alone and I cannot wait for the full release.
Releases in like 22 hours from the time of this comment!
Great demo although I played it months ago. Full game launches tomorrow.
Oh, and Dog Pile is fun too. For a suika like deck builder. I’ve had some good easy fun with that one too
G-Rebels demo is back. I just love how nimble the ship is in this one. Fully upgraded you can get up to insane speeds with it darting around the cyberpunk style city. Personally I think they should make more of that, so that you can fly through more narrow gaps and maybe even underground tunnels. Also I’ve been watching their Discord for a while and they seem to be really going full steam ahead (no pun intended) with this one. Can’t wait for the full game 🙂
Oh so like a remake of the old G-Police or at least in its spirit.
I still play the original so I’m very happy to hear abput this one.
rome burns and nero fiddles - i’m no exception
Million Depth demo is pretty good.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3991920/Million_Depth_Demo/deleted by creator
