Steam Next Fest June 2023 is live now with lots of games

Lies of P is excellent on Steam Deck, and I will check rest of them. Having these fests with demos is really great.

While still playable with a keyboard, Lueur has been designed to be played with a game pad or handheld console. My favorite spot to play is in bed, what's yours?

LOL.

Paleo Pines has piqued my interest, though; I'll check out the demo for that later.

Ugh. You can't change the controls from WASD in Paleo Pines.


Last edited by CatKiller on 19 June 2023 at 10:48 pm UTC

Also, big shout out for Defender's Quest 2. Sadly, the demo is Windows only, but the developer did do native for the first, so I have high hopes.


Last edited by scaine on 19 June 2023 at 7:03 pm UTC

I knew there was a game I was looking forward to which had a demo out at this, but, checking now, it appears no fewer than five games* on my Wishlist have demos to check out.

*Viewfinder, One Lonely Outpost, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, Station to Station, and Jumplight Odyssey, for the curious.

Also, big shout out for Defender's Quest 2. Sadly, the demo is Windows only, but the developer did do native for the first, so I have high hopes.

Oh! More than 10 years after the first one, which was great! I'll keep an eye on it thanks, and hope for a Linux native too!

I knew there was a game I was looking forward to which had a demo out at this, but, checking now, it appears no fewer than five games* on my Wishlist have demos to check out.

*Viewfinder, One Lonely Outpost, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, Station to Station, and Jumplight Odyssey, for the curious.

Similar experience here! Very exciting! My list is:

Sea of Stars, Shadow Gambit, Steamworld, CyberKnights. Mostly I'm super pumped to fire up CyberKnights because the Trese devs are just gold.

Ok, having tried all five demos, here's a little review. First off, a minor annoyance: all five required me to put PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command% in the launch options, or they'd fail to launch with an error.

• Jumplight Odyssey: a bit like FTL: Faster Than Light, as you flee from jump point to jump point in front of an encroaching indomitable enemy. Except instead of an 8-crew-max ship you've got a capital ship which can hold dozens of crew members; my ship started with 68 people and I rescued several more during the demo. There's also a bit of ship-design as you can build new rooms in some empty areas of the ship, so there's some long-term upgrade and strategy. I didn't let the enemy catch up with me so I don't know what combat looks like (from the trailer there's hostile boarders, at least!), but I like the feeling of captaining a large ship and keeping watch over a bigger crew than you could get in FTL. I didn't get great FPS from it (~15-20), and there weren't really video options to change, but I'm willing to bet that'll improve as the game develops.


• Viewfinder: this one was fantastic. It gave me some real Superliminal vibes, as the core mechanic allows you to place photographs in the world which become real, allowing you to walk into them. The trick is all in the perspective – I needed a bridge, and had a photograph of the side of a building, so I rotated it 90° and it turned into a bridge I could use. Later in the demo you get a camera, allowing you to make your own photographs to solve the puzzles you find. There's a nice reverse mechanic you can use at any time which allows you to easily go back to before you do anything (with easy bookmarks for things that significantly affect the world, like putting down a photograph), making it easy to try different solutions to things. Finally, I was going to praise the game's artstyle, when a puzzle late in the demo had me jumping between different pictures with very different artstyles, from watercolor to crayon-drawing to 90's pixel shader, all of which were executed just as competently. And finally, this one had no problem running at 60 FPS the entire time.


• One Lonely Outpost: I couldn't get this one to run. I tried the latest half-dozen Proton versions, and the best I could get was 6.3-8, where it ended up on a loading screen forever. Otherwise I just got a pure white screen and some sounds that sounded like a logo splash screen. I'm not super-competent at fiddling with launch options, so if anyone finds out (or has some suggestions on) how to run this I'd appreciate it.


• Station to Station: this one got to what I surmise is the main menu, but was all blurry so that I couldn't make anything out. Clicking around made it sound like I was clicking buttons, but I couldn't figure out how to un-blur it. I'd similarly appreciate if anyone figures out how to make it work.


• Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: another standout. The same quality as in the other similar "Shadow Tactics" games, with solid mechanics (the voice acting is stellar as always, too). I enjoy the more fantastic setting, as it allows them to really break out some more crazy powers (for player characters and enemies!), like teleportation and insta-growing bushes. It also looks like instead of a linear campaign there's more of a choose-your-own-mission structure, which sounds fascinating, especially since you get to pick your crew composition each mission. (I saw something about being able to upgrade your crew's abilities, too.) The maps are now individual islands rather than custom maps for a linear campaign, which you can approach from different points. I had FPS issues with this one as well, with it hovering between 15-25 FPS much of the time, but at least it has a lot of video options so I'll fiddle with those and see if I can get it running better. Also the whole quick-saving/quick-loading thing is now a diegetic part of the story, which is a pretty interesting way of doing things, but fits in with the whole fantasy setting.

Edit: OK, Shadow Gambit wins hands-down for sheer amount of demo content; I hadn't finished it when I wrote my comment (had about 90 minutes in), and all told I spent 3.2 hours in the demo, easily longer than the others put together, and past several natural-feeling points for when a demo might end. (And I've got enough experience with the Shadow Tactics formula that, while I'm no speedrunner, I'm also not particularly slow either.)


Last edited by Philadelphus on 20 June 2023 at 7:08 am UTC

Moonstone Island doesn't work on Linux (Steam Play) or Steam Deck as far as I can tell. Pity, it's the main thing I wanted to try.

Kingdom Eighties is basically the same old Kingdom game loop, except you play as the leader of a group of teens on bicycles recruiting kids to do chores for money and fight the monsters. It's a fun reskin of the concept. One gripe, there's no way to quit and you need to hit close from the Steam library page.

Lueur and the Dim Settlers I tried before, but it's part of the Next Fest too. Satisfying gameplay loop, although prone to crashes for me.

Alterium Shift is a pretty serviceable SNES style RPG. Nothing too fancy really, although I hit a bit of a wall since I was given a list of items, but didn't fully remember it. Unfortunately there's no journal to actually remind you of what you're supposed to get, so it's left me guessing.

Well Rise Of The Triad Ludicrous Edition demo was up, and it makes the game look reasonable, same gameplay, with improvements, what it does highlight is what they managed to do with the Wolfenstein 3D engine back in 1994 jumping flying walls and ceilings with textures and point lights. at last can be played at today's resolutions.

Viewfinder: this one was fantastic. It gave me some real Superliminal vibes, as the core mechanic allows you to place photographs in the world which become real, allowing you to walk into them. The trick is all in the perspective – I needed a bridge, and had a photograph of the side of a building, so I rotated it 90° and it turned into a bridge I could use. Later in the demo you get a camera, allowing you to make your own photographs to solve the puzzles you find. There's a nice reverse mechanic you can use at any time which allows you to easily go back to before you do anything (with easy bookmarks for things that significantly affect the world, like putting down a photograph), making it easy to try different solutions to things. Finally, I was going to praise the game's artstyle, when a puzzle late in the demo had me jumping between different pictures with very different artstyles, from watercolor to crayon-drawing to 90's pixel shader, all of which were executed just as competently. And finally, this one had no problem running at 60 FPS the entire time.

I played it too and I don't have that much to add. For me it was buggy with the default Proton version, horizontal turning had quite lot of resistance. Forcing latest stable Proton fixed the issue.

I played also SteamWorld Build. Quite solid entry into the series. Build houses for workers, build infrastructure to meet their demands. There's also Dungeon Keeper like mining added in (there seems to be enemies as well).


Last edited by Anza on 20 June 2023 at 6:18 pm UTC

More...

Wizard With a Gun (Steam Play) is a twin-stick shooter with a great aesthetic, mostly made up of mashing Bastion and Don't Starve together. That said, it's got a pretty cool gameplay loop involving progressively going back in time, and taking repeated jaunts into the gameplay area on a timer before you have to bail and return to your home base. Could be something really fun.

Viewfinder (Steam Play) plays with the picture plane in fun ways by having you place photos in midair, which allows you to step into them. It's a virtual reality setting, which would make a real VR version great fun I think. Essentially a puzzle game, and while you've got great freedom in each of the set pieces I'm not sure there are too many alternate solutions to any of them. Still, quite fun. And you get to pet the cat.

Landnama Demo was very short for this one, although it did give a good overview of what the game is all about. Basically a colony-builder set in 10th century Iceland. Very chill pace (so to speak), with pretty clear-cut mechanics. Exploring, upgrading the colony, managing resources, all the usual stuff. Well presented.

Escape From Lavender Island Right away I get a Tales From Off-Peak City vibe, although it's not the same creator. Very stoner vibe, and aggressively surreal. A bit janky too, overall it'd be right at home on itch.io, but here it is on Steam instead. Not much story to speak of, but there's things to do and places to explore and a corporate hegemony to bring down, so it's all good.

Necrovale Pretty decent action-roguelike with progression. Satisfying combat and gameplay loop, although there's a paucity of enemy types. Some good ideas, particularly with the hope mechanic.Pixel art quite to my taste, although not everybody likes that. You can play for quite a long time though, not sure where the demo actually ends.

Paleo Pines You can pet the dinosaur. What the heck else do you need to know?


Last edited by Nezchan on 20 June 2023 at 9:40 pm UTC

Couple of disappointments:

Soulvars doesn't start at all.

A Void Hope works fine and gives a good overview of the mechanics. It's just there's so little information regarding the plot and characters that you don't know why you're doing any of it. Doesn't really grab the imagination mainly because it's so vague.

Cozy Cabin: Coffee Boutique starts, but I have a gigantic mouse pointer, and after the opening letter, I get dumped to a quest note on a totally black screen. Cannot proceed at all, and I see other people having other issues.

Viewfinder […] And you get to pet the cat.

Wait, you can pet the cat? Wait – there's a cat‽ Think I need to replay it…

Lueur and the Dim Settlers crashed for me, otherwise quite nice and certainly different.

SteamWorld Build would have potential to be a really great RTS for Handhelds like the Deck - if they put some effort into it, like making it controller-friendly. Not sure if I like the layered approach.

Probably gonna be my last batch. Here goes.

Robotherapy (Steam Play) Heavy-handed comedy about the best robot therapist there's ever been. He said so himself, so you know it's true. Kinda blindsides you with some arcade-y bits without explaining how to control them, but otherwise pretty good. Simple choose the dialogue option stuff. Amusing enough, but not enough to make me want to buy a whole game of it.

Moving In Just what it says on the tin. You've got a driveway full of stuff and an empty house. You move in. It's kinda physics-based. Frankly, I got bored pretty quick.

Lies of P (Steam Play) For a lot of people, this is the star of the show this year, and certainly the highest profile. Basically Pinnochio as a Soulsborne game. Runs surprisingly well on my admittedly not-so-cutting-edge machine, no problems at all. About what you'd expect: stylish, ruined environments, interesting enemy designs, stamina management and a lot of combat rolls. I'm not great at it, but it seems solid enough.

I don't bother to write down if something is actually native or not. How things work out usually is native build might be planned, but if you actually try to play it, it's missing the Linux build. These days I have Proton enabled by default and checking if something launches via Proton or not can be bit of detective work, if things work smoothly.

Wizard With a Gun (Steam Play) is a twin-stick shooter with a great aesthetic, mostly made up of mashing Bastion and Don't Starve together. That said, it's got a pretty cool gameplay loop involving progressively going back in time, and taking repeated jaunts into the gameplay area on a timer before you have to bail and return to your home base. Could be something really fun.

I gave it a go myself too. It seems bit more relaxed than Bastion and Don't Starve, but I can see the references in there. There's gathering of resources and crafting. It has been great fun so far.

Rest I'll order from fun to less fun.

House Flipper 2
Clearly a dad game. Basically game about renovating houses. I can see why some people like these kinds of games. There's certain satisfaction in seeing progress. Only gripe so far is that if you for example accidentally paint over something that you want to, finding the original thing that was there is far from easy, so it might actually be easier to just switch the look totally. In general though. if only actual cleaning and renovation would be this easy...

Rise of the Triad
I might have played it more than I played it when it game out. While impressive for its time, the engine limits level design too much.

Fortune's Run
Immersive simulation inspired by System Shock and maybe it of Deus Ex. It's Janky as System Shock and is graphically about the same level, it just doesn't have the same charm and aesthetics. Everything is brown and things are bit hard to see among all the brown. Didn't try though if turning up the brightness would have helped.

Got stuck quite quickly as two of the routes were blocked and probably the route I should have taken was too dark.

Demonic Supremacy
Tutorial goes through probably every single thing game has to offer, which is why completing it takes forever. After all the trouble, you get thrown into boss battle. I couldn't beat the boss and couldn't be bothered to keep trying.

Wizard With a Gun (Steam Play) is a twin-stick shooter with a great aesthetic, mostly made up of mashing Bastion and Don't Starve together. That said, it's got a pretty cool gameplay loop involving progressively going back in time, and taking repeated jaunts into the gameplay area on a timer before you have to bail and return to your home base. Could be something really fun.

I gave it a go myself too. It seems bit more relaxed than Bastion and Don't Starve, but I can see the references in there. There's gathering of resources and crafting. It has been great fun so far.

One thing I will say is do NOT play Wizard With a Gun using a Steam controller. That haptic pad is utterly ass at doing the twin-stick thing. I'm bad enough aiming as it is, this just makes it ten times worse. Maybe twenty.

Again, I try to arrange game in from most interesting to least interesting. Though with better quality games, things are quite subjective.

Jumplight Odyssey: a bit like FTL: Faster Than Light, as you flee from jump point to jump point in front of an encroaching indomitable enemy. Except instead of an 8-crew-max ship you've got a capital ship which can hold dozens of crew members; my ship started with 68 people and I rescued several more during the demo. There's also a bit of ship-design as you can build new rooms in some empty areas of the ship, so there's some long-term upgrade and strategy. I didn't let the enemy catch up with me so I don't know what combat looks like (from the trailer there's hostile boarders, at least!), but I like the feeling of captaining a large ship and keeping watch over a bigger crew than you could get in FTL. I didn't get great FPS from it (~15-20), and there weren't really video options to change, but I'm willing to bet that'll improve as the game develops.

I don't have that much to add. Tutorial and user interface could be bit better. Keyboard shortcuts to the decks would be nice, though I din't check if it's already implemented. During the short demo there's maybe four decks that you actually care about.

Animated cutscenes are nice touch. Hard to say if there's enough story to warrant more of them. Smaller nice touch is that some of the notifications come from the crew.

Have to see how the final game turns out. Lot empty rooms might indicate that building stuff in a hurry is the norm, so might have do custom ship if you want to plan things out bit better. Kind of almost wishlistable. Though I should get back to Space Haven, it has had lot of progress.

Kingdom Eighties is basically the same old Kingdom game loop, except you play as the leader of a group of teens on bicycles recruiting kids to do chores for money and fight the monsters. It's a fun reskin of the concept. One gripe, there's no way to quit and you need to hit close from the Steam library page.

I had same quit problem. Also some of the game mechanics have been changed around a bit. I couldn't figure out at first how to attack the gates, but apparently you have to first hire "knights" and then push the dumpster close enough the gate so attacking force gets protection behind it. Without the dumpster attacking force might advance in direction of the gate, but retreat behind safety after a while.

Game was typical for me. Just built everything I can. Took too long and got overrun by from opposite side while I was attacking the other side.

Lies of P (Steam Play) For a lot of people, this is the star of the show this year, and certainly the highest profile. Basically Pinnochio as a Soulsborne game. Runs surprisingly well on my admittedly not-so-cutting-edge machine, no problems at all. About what you'd expect: stylish, ruined environments, interesting enemy designs, stamina management and a lot of combat rolls. I'm not great at it, but it seems solid enough.

Like the souls games, this might be bit of acquired taste. Took a while to familiarize myself with the controls and when I finally figured out how to block, I blocked in wrong direction. At that point I gave up. Probably if I played it again, I might do better.

Aesthetics are indeed quite nice as said.

One Lonely Outpost: I couldn't get this one to run. I tried the latest half-dozen Proton versions, and the best I could get was 6.3-8, where it ended up on a loading screen forever. Otherwise I just got a pure white screen and some sounds that sounded like a logo splash screen. I'm not super-competent at fiddling with launch options, so if anyone finds out (or has some suggestions on) how to run this I'd appreciate it.

Worked for me for some reason. I didn't even fiddle with anything. Could have just changed the Proton version to latest (I had Proton 6 as default, no wonder some games didn't work with the default version)

In the demo there's farming, mining, dusting archaeological artifacts and crafting.There's also surveying which is just wandering around the area and hoping to find the target locations.

While it's kind of Stardew Valley with protagonist being stranded in space, it didn't totally click for me. Stardew Valley didn't either, so it might be that I need more exciting tasks and more plot development which is what Graveyard Keeper provided. I'm bit worried that this one might be bit forgettable.

Moonstone Island doesn't work on Linux (Steam Play) or Steam Deck as far as I can tell. Pity, it's the main thing I wanted to try.

Didn't work for me either. Didn't dig deeper.

Again, ordered from most exciting to least exciting.

The Invicible
Sci-fi walking simulator with bit of soviet aesthetic. If you have played Firewatch, you might have general idea what to expect. These kind of games are more of a vehicles for experiencing the story, there might be just enough gameplay in there to aid the immersion. I do like the lore and the story though and that's what matters. Most worrying thing might be the linearity.

Little Kitty, Big City
Non sci-fi version of Stray. It takes a while to get hang of it, but once you get hang of it, there's few cat like things to do and some side quests to do. Cat like things include dropping things that are in high places, hunting birds and tripping people over. There's some risk of things feeling grindy as tasks involve doing same thing over and over again. Though I don't know if some of them are actually necessary for completing the game. Might be there just for achievement hunters and completionists.

Battle Shapers
Another roguelite FPS. Levels are not that graphically diverse, but game mechanics are solid enough. Another worrying thing is that game seems to missing certain oumph that for example Doom games have (there's certainly some Doom 2016 influence in there). Fighting robots instead of demons might give some disadvantage in that department.

Might need bit more hints what all the abilities do and how to activate them. There's quite many of them and some of the are bit vague what they do.

Also boss battles are bit underwhelming. There's some build up where boss makes sure to let the player know who's the boss, but then you can't really be sure which of the enemies is actually the boss. Bosses are usually bigger than rest of the enemies, but not here.

Some potential in there, though needs more work to be the best roguelite FPS out there.

Station to Station: this one got to what I surmise is the main menu, but was all blurry so that I couldn't make anything out. Clicking around made it sound like I was clicking buttons, but I couldn't figure out how to un-blur it. I'd similarly appreciate if anyone figures out how to make it work.

Worked for me without any twiddling. Puzzle game about transporting resources via railways. Seems solid enough (assuming you're lucky like me and it works without issues).

Paleo Pines You can pet the dinosaur. What the heck else do you need to know?

There's bit more to it. It's kind of Stardew Valley, but you tame dinosaurs. Wasn't exciting enough for me to actually finish the demo, but maybe for bit younger audience...

Van Hellswing
Roguelite FPS with retro look. I like the aesthetics, nice usage of colors and resolution is not too low. Demo though doesn't seem to involve procedural generation, so it gets boring quite quickly. Based on trailer there's at least second level, where movement mechanics seem to be bit more essential.

Paleo Pines You can pet the dinosaur. What the heck else do you need to know?

There's bit more to it. It's kind of Stardew Valley, but you tame dinosaurs. Wasn't exciting enough for me to actually finish the demo, but maybe for bit younger audience...

Honestly, I was being pithy. I bounced off it too, in the end, although I can see the charm.

Two things I didn't like were not the greatest signposting, like where I got a quest to search the pen at someone's house with no clue where their house actually was (I never did find it before quitting). The other is how it taught me dino taming before setting me up to have somewhere to keep it, so the poor thing was dreadfully unhappy as a result. I think that would frustrate a kid playing.