Valve has launched Steam Next Fest - June 2024 edition, another big event for you to try plenty of upcoming games and see what sticks for you to add to your wishlist.
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Here's some games I think are worth your attention and these all have a Linux demo. I've been writing up various games recently that put up demos, and some of them were in anticipation for this event. There's just so many of them! So have a look at each of these for sure:
Airships: Lost Flotilla is a steampunk autoshooter where you fight your way through waves of enemies on your way to a safe harbour. Destroy your foes, harvest wreckage, and upgrade your ship.
Dungeon Clawler is a Roguelike Claw Machine Deckbuilder. Build your unique deck, fight enemies by grabbing weapons and items from a claw machine and find special artifacts that help you on your quest to reclaim something you lost... Aim carefully to claw your way through this dungeon!
Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers
Battle your way through a seedy tavern filled with gambling addicted townspeople in this Blackjack Roguelike Adventure. From aces and face cards to tarot cards, business cards and more, create your unique deck to beat the house.
An easygoing sandbox game about building towns for cute vegetable folks. Create your perfect community then watch as the gourdlets make themselves at home. No objectives, no points, just good vibes. Play in full screen, or let your gourdlets hang out at the bottom of your screen!
Heroes Of Loot: Gauntlet Of Power
Mount and upgrade your weapons into special combos in this randomly generated action RPG shooter. Mow down thousands of dungeon dwelling creatures and survive as you descent deeper into the dungeon! Unlock items, complete quests, and find all the secrets to help you reach the boss of bosses!
Megacopter: Blades of the Goddess
Pilot the Megacopter, a sentient weapon that gains power by feeding on the blood of its enemies. Play through the campaign featuring seek and destroy, boss, rescue, and defense missions against the evil reptoid army. Upgrade Megacopter with the fabled AZ-TECH: ancient weaponry and armor.
Turn-based sci-fi strategy game that combines exploration and exciting clashes on the battlefield. Take control over several different species, raise powerful armies and destroy your opponents!
SCHiM is a game about jumping from shadow to shadow in a relaxing and lively environment. This 3D platformer takes elements of light, shadow & animation and adds them directly to the gameplay, delivering an experience that you will only find in SCHiM.
Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter
Embark upon a vast, snow-ravaged kingdom in Tails of Iron 2, sequel to the critically acclaimed action-RPG. As Arlo, heir to the Warden of the Wastes, adventure through harsh northern lands, home to giant beasts and ragtag bandits, in an epic quest to overcome an ancient, blood-starved evil.
Tiny Glade is a small relaxing game about doodling castles. Explore gridless building chemistry, and watch the game carefully assemble every brick, pebble and plank. There's no management, combat, or wrong answers - just kick back and turn forgotten meadows into lovable dioramas.
Guide vampires through centuries of emotional baggage, decades of delusions and the odd bout of self-loathing with real cognitive behavioral therapy concepts and become a Vampire Therapist! Even vampires need a shoulder to cry on when a neck to bite just won’t do.
From the developers of Warhammer 40,000: Gladius, ZEPHON is a post-apocalyptic 4X strategy game built on Proxy’s unique tactical combat system. Guide survivors through a turbulent future, navigating unexpected disasters, eldritch horror and cyberpunk monstrosities. What will you do to survive?
There's obviously a lot more than that, and there's plenty of interesting games coming up that don't have Native Linux versions but do work fine with Proton on Linux (and plenty on Steam Deck) too.
A few interesting games with a demo that work with Proton 9.0-1 tested on desktop Linux include:
Face perilous magical trials in the fast-paced rogue-lite follow-up to the acclaimed original, featuring up to 4-player co-op and vibrant new 3D visuals. Master new Arcana and elements, experiment with spell combinations, and become the next Wizard of Legend!
Enotria: The Last Song is a soulslike set in a beautiful sun-lit world inspired by Italian folklore where the brightest sun casts the darkest shadow. Wear unique role-altering masks, face formidable foes and alter reality with the power of Ardore to unravel the secrets of Enotria.
Fera: The Sundered Tribes is an enthralling mixture of monster hunting survival action RPG with village building and tribe management in a unique post-apocalyptic fantastical world of untamed magic and ancient secrets.
Endzone 2 is a post-apocalyptic survival colony builder, where you embark to secure humanity's survival after a cataclysmic disaster. Discover and repopulate the last habitable grounds, while the survival of your people hinges on your wits, foresight, and resilience in a harsh and unforgiving world.
Loading time was quite terrible, but the game worked well.
With my list here there's just about something for everyone I think. I think this Next Fest has probably one of the best variety of games on show so far. I've been constantly surprised by what I've seen.
See all of it on the event page.
If you're going to be testing some out be sure to leave a comment on your top games for people interested, and if you tested them with Proton be sure to note the Proton version used in your comment.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
It was fun to build things but I was expecting more from the ai, they didn't seem to do much apart from weirdly just hanging out in the cemetery
I'll probably try Schim next
Quoting: SalvatosYou might want to check your list, Liam, as neither Fera nor Enotria have a Linux demo as far as I can tell.Correct, noted above they're a separate list for Proton.
Just Crow Things (Native): Unplayable. Runs, but no sound and inputs b0rked. Constantly moves character to the right on keyboard, Steam Controller barely works, and Logitech controller can't open the pause menu. Only way to quit is alt-F4. Shame, because I really wanted to try this one.
Machinika: Atlas (Steam Play): Unplayable. Starts fine, logos appear, then sound but totally black screen. Also the usual Unity problem of opening on the wrong monitor. Again, I really wanted to try this since the first game was very good. Maybe it'll be better later, or someone will suggest a fix.
Dr. Finklestein's Marvellous Room (Steam Play): Hey! A game that runs! Oh, happy day! Not what I was expecting, if I'm being honest, and very short besides. But also very entertaining, which is fine. Basically you're walking around, taking in the ambiance, and making use of a very simple mechanic of interacting with items added to a test chamber, presumably in an effort to save the world somehow. Worth keeping an eye on, at least. No FoV setting on a first person game though, that's a MAJOR sin. Hopefully they fix that in the final game, or it's an auto-reject for me.
Dungeon Clawer (Native): Dungeon crawler with a claw machine mechanic. Your items, plus useless fluff, are tossed into a tank and you get two grabs per round, and what comes out is auto-applied to the enemies. Fun enough, and there are interesting mechanics like filling the tank with water, or enemies throwing poison in for you to pick up. But I think it needs a little more. no combat sound effects, which is odd, and the music is VERY repetitive.
Tiny Glade (Native): Probably needs no introduction. Works great, designing is intuitive. Very small amount of area or things to do at this point, but it's early days. Nice little diversion.
Quoting: NezchanDungeon Clawer (Native): Dungeon crawler with a claw machine mechanic. Your items, plus useless fluff, are tossed into a tank and you get two grabs per round, and what comes out is auto-applied to the enemies. Fun enough, and there are interesting mechanics like filling the tank with water, or enemies throwing poison in for you to pick up. But I think it needs a little more. no combat sound effects, which is odd, and the music is VERY repetitive.There's actually promise that that there will be more. The claw part seems slightly useless at first, but it works surprisingly well once things get more complicated.
PS: fluff isn't totally useless as for example you can burn it, which makes it apply damage to enemies
Quoting: NezchanTiny Glade (Native): Probably needs no introduction. Works great, designing is intuitive. Very small amount of area or things to do at this point, but it's early days. Nice little diversion.Can't say much more. Nice thing is how things adapt to parts you build. Hopefully there will lot of more things to build, otherwise it will get boring bit too quickly.
Airship: Lost Flotilla
As far as autoshooters go, it's fine. Short battles and you can choose your own route. Good amount of polish. Ship being on fire makes things slightly more interesting as it's another upgrade path. Still seems like it needs maybe one or two more interesting twists to make it actually interesting. I didn't feel like that I needed to play it more than half an hour.
Die In the Dungeon (Native): I've played an earlier build of this on Itch, back when it was free. Come a long way since then, a much more refined experience as a "deck" builder with the addition of movement mechanics, relics, and different shaped dice. Runs great. Haven't dived too deeply into it, just one run, but that's enough for a good feel for the vibe. This is worth looking at.
Linkito (Native): Electronics puzzles with a mid-20th century corporate/propaganda vibe. Looks like a solid game, but I don't have sufficient brain for the genre. Runs very well though, and the vibe is on point.
Judero (Steam Play): Thought this one was native for some reason, but apparently not. Action-adventure game set in Scotland with a VERY strange aesthetic. Everything seems to be made from badly kitbashed action figures and model railroad scenery. Very weird, and honestly not coherent with the story either. Not recommended unless you're adventurous.
WHAT THE CAR? (Steam Play): I mean what do you expect on this one? If you played WHAT THE GOLF? this is more of the same, but racing this time. It's very good and you should play it.
Philadelphus Jun 11
It's a bit like a combination of Into The Breach and XCOM: Chimera Squad, with some great writing and interesting puzzle battles to solve. And watching wizards use Breaching Glyphs to breach 'n' clear is just hilarious.
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