Four more, this time around no total disappointments.

AI LIMIT
One of the many soulslikes. This time around it seems easier and not as dark as some of them. Otherwise seems familiar. Still fun enough.



CraftCraft
Crafting game like the name suggests. Lot of mouse movements emulating somewhat real life, which I guess might help with immersion. Though can be bit confusing for a while. In the short demo the customers were quite personalities. One task even required bit of creativity. Good casual fun, but didn't cross the wishlist threshold for me.


Keep Driving
Imagine Pacific drive, but 2D and everything is mundane. On top of that there are events have their own minigame, which utilizes items and skill. Relatively forgiving, though there seems to be some kind possible end state. Interesting concept, almost worth of wishlisting.



Worshippers of Cthulhu
Management game, but with Cthulhu theme. Developers have managed to make many activities around the theme. Sacrifices (sometimes with people) and carving marks into peoples backs with a daggers are among few examples. Towards the end of demo, amount things to do got to satisfying level.

I guess biggest downside is that publisher is Crytivo who have tendency do bit suspicious things.

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Had time just for few. Two hits, one miss.

Ale Abbey
One of the many management games. This time around we're brewing brew in a monastery. All the standard stuff is there like keeping monks and nuns happy and building rooms for different functions. Though at the heart of it is making new beer recipes, which is bit of min maxing. Requests might require different qualities and market might has bit more subtle mechanisms what sells. I didn't figure out the market completely.

Seems to be better than the ingredients suggest. I did have fun. So much fun that I actually wishlisted the game.



Urban Myth Dissolution Center

Slight twist on detective games. Dialogue and clicking things in order to get their description is kind of point and click like. Deduction screens ask you to form sentences. And there's also social media research which is about hunting for relevant messages in order to find search terms. There's small part which requires to understand a bit about Japanese culture, but luckily game is quite forgiving. Narrative is driving the game forward. Might benefit from even better writer, but plot is still interesting enough. Unless you're allergic to anime plot twists.



Time Plague

This one is the miss. It's FPS based on Time Machine, but there's lot of exposition before you actually get shooting and even then people complain that they didn't figure out how to complete the first shooting encounter. I also gave up at that point.

There's lot of lack of polish, though game graphically looks OK. I found some information about the developer and it all makes sense. This is their first game and from reading between the lines, the game is meant to showcase the engine. The sales text speaks more about rapid development more than actual impressive features.

I did try it with VR, though it works also without.

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Quoting: Philadelphus

Quoting: pbPlease remind me, will these demos disappear right after NextFest or will they stay available? Or at least stay in my library if I install them now?

The most likely outcome is that they will disappear, though sometimes developers keep them around afterwards. But if there isn't something explicitly saying that, I wouldn't bet on it.

I don't have much to ask, but I have hunch that AA games are quickest to disappear. Reasoning might differ between games.

Only way to be sure if something is going to disappear and when is to ask from the developer. Sometimes developer has answered the question already in a discussion in the games Steam forums.

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Quoting: Xpander

Quoting: satorideponThat's because some indie devs were complaining that they don't get enough visibility and most of the attention is taken by already popular games

Personally I think these big banners are better because you see screenshots and a trailers and don't have to open a store page for each game anymore

well that makes it even worse for visibility then. cause im not going to scroll through those... pressing show more only brings like 3 more.

Luckily clicking on Charts it still shows the better list and mouse over shows short clip of the game and i can middle click and open in new tab to then later decide if i will download or not.

Now there's also discovery queue for demos. Compared to regular one, it behaves bit differently. Seems to be still under development as it looks different than it was yesterday. Still feels bit klunky though, so I have some doubts how well it's received by bigger audience.

But at least it has potential for bringing less popular demos to closer to the surface. Though still the problem is that there's so much to play that I mostly have time for some popular ones and might accidentally stumble on some less popular one.

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I haven't really have had to time to dig in yet to demos, but few that I tried previously (and many of them have been actually been covered here)

Axe Ghost: this one is not actually part of the fest, but just found it yesterday. It's puzzle game you need to join same types of monsters together in order to destroy as big group as possible. So kind of like match 3. The trick is though that you have you have random set of cards to play that contain vaguely Tetris like moves. Bit more complex than your average match 3 game and requires more thinking. But it still has same addictive quality.

Moon Watch: Vampire Survivors meets card game and Superhot. Time moves when you move and cards contain weapons and other useful things and need energy to use. And of course lot of enemies. Takes a moment to get used to, but once you figure it out, it gets way easier. Demo has already few unlocks, so you can try out different playstyles.
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Neverlooted Dungeon: it's basically dungeon crawler combined with immersive sim. Controls manage to mimic somewhat real movements, so you can for example peek inside chest to see if there's a trap inside. It has been a while since I have played it, though I don't remember seeing demo update.
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Pest Apocalypse: Driving meets Vampire Survivors and pizza delivery. Played the Itch demo and spent a moment with the Steam version. Still good fun, though there's some learning curve to get good at the game. As usual for the genre, permanent upgrades help, but it takes a while to get good enough to start earning enough money.
There's three articles already?

Spilled: cute little boat game by solo developer about cleaning ecological disasters. I have mentioned it before, but now it's actually part of the fest.
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Quoting: based

Quoting: Linux_RocksI find it funny how Nintendo ends up getting blamed in the comments somehow. Could you imagine the PR nightmare it would cause if they were found out? Nintendo isn't stupid enough to do something like this. Even if some of their actions (especially as of late) have been questionable. I'm not saying that a big company isn't or couldn't be behind this. I'm just saying that I highly doubt Nintendo would be the ones to do so.

Then as far as it possibly being a false flag to cause Palestinians further issues. I could see that. Seeing as how petty western imperialist countries can be with their bullshit, actions, and propaganda.

How would they be found out? Whoever did it could have paid a hacker, who could have been in a differrnt country AND using proxy

I can totally imagine someone like Nintendo who dont always play by the rules to do this.

I assume huge companies would attack Internet Archive with their huge lawyer armies. Legal battles can have lasting effect on how the Internet Archive works.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Purple Library GuyMostly, they just talk about stuff that you can see confirmed in mainstream media . . . they just talk about (whatever it is) a whole lot and the mainsteam media talk about (whatever it is) only a very little bit, because both are talking about the facts that fit their narrative and analysis. This difference is largely because the far left has no money (which in turn is because they're by definition the enemy of the people who have all the money). The far right has the dough to amplify false messages enough to get traction, but the far left don't have what it takes to get away with that.

Uhm, what? The richest companies on the planet are ALL on the Left. Microsoft, Google, Apple.

Crazy things from the far-left? Identity politics. Denying biological science, etc. I'm sure I could come up with more, but I need coffee. Denying DNA is basically the equivalent of flat-earth in my mind.

What on earth are you talking about?
So, first of all, identity politics is "liberal"; it's not left at all. But in any case, identity politics has nothing to do with endorsing false facts--note, I didn't say "crazy stuff" which is a pretty subjective value judgement, I said basing ideas on stuff that is not true. Identity politics is all about interpretation and values; whether you endorse it or disagree with it, there's no facts you can point to that getting them wrong is the basis for identity politics. Identity politics is about wanting to treat everyone equally in an unequal world, without making the world itself more equal. This leads to some difficulties and contradictions, but there's nothing wrong with the basic insight that groups are often treated unequally even though everyone is fundamentally equal and it would be nice if that weren't the case.

Denying biological science and DNA . . . um, who is doing this in what way? Is this some kind of weird misinterpretation of what transgender stuff is about, or what? (which, again, would be getting something wrong about liberals, not really leftists) Come on, I gave real and widespread phenomena that were actually about denying facts.

Microsoft, Google and Apple are also arguably liberal. They are in no possible way left. Just to be clear, being on the left is about economic class in one way or another. It's about redistribution of wealth and power to the poorer classes away from people who own things for a living. None of these corps are going to get behind any of that stuff. Google in particular a couple years back rejigged their algorithm to avoid getting socialist websites in search results. Left my ass.

Thanks for reminding me what's wrong with framing all things left and right. Left and right come from old model of describing politics. More moderns ones tend to throw in more dimensions. Current discussion seems to best described as conservatives VS progressives (should take deeper dive to understand how it differs from liberalism, but don't have time right now).

Otherwise the discussion seems to have progressed to point that it's just better to agree to disagree.

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The first demo was bit like "what's this? can this even be fun". And ten minutes later or so it starts to make sense and some viable tactics emerge. There was even some unlocks that changed how the game plays.

Just downloaded the Steam demo and maybe I'll give it a try.

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If somebody is interested in game development, there's a recent interview where the developers show some games inner workings in Godot.

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Licenced games used to be mostly crap as they had to be developed in a rush in order to stay close to the movie release date. Based on the more recent indie games and the press release, this doesn't fall into that trap.

Not that getting a license means that game still will be good (Gollum, Gollum), but at least given enough development time there's a chance that good games come out.

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