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The 13 best Steam Next Fest demos you should play this OctoberMake time for these excellent indies
Make time for these excellent indies
Indie extravaganzaSteam Next Festis back for another edition today, showering us with hundreds of upcoming game demos to try over the next week. Running from today, October 1st, until Thursday October 7th, the latest Steam Next Fest is positively packed to the rafters with things to play, and we’ve picked out some personal highlights to help you get started.
Steam Next Fest October 1-7Watch on YouTube
Steam Next Fest October 1-7
From action-packed runnin' and gunnin' and soaring discs catapulting through the cosmos to more relaxed hidden object games and airport fix ‘em ups, there’s bound to be something here that tickles your fancy. And fear not, we’re going to carry on highlighting even more personal favourites over the coming week, too, as there are simply too many good games to shout about in a single list. For now, though, these demos should definitely be some of the first stops on your October Steam Next Fest playlist.
Undungeon
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Airport Renovator
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Anno: Mutationem
Alice0:Things I like in games include: 1) 2D characters in a 3D world; 3) not really being sure what a game is; 3) dodge-rolling with a sword. Anno: Mutationem fills a colourful 3D futurecity with 2D characters. I think you can explore fairly freely when not the plot isn’t pushing you around? There are people to see and talk to, citylife to watch. And some cats who pushed bottles off a high edge, seemingly with malicious intent. And it has shops. And I’ve been collecting scrap materials to sell, or to craft. I definitely could buy weapon upgrades, if I had enough money, to use in the side-scrolling combat. Some sort of… action-adventure-explore-o-action-RPG? Dunno. I’m curious! And I do really like the first-person cutscenes where my cyberlady still hasBernband-esque spritehands.
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Hidden Office
Ed:Hidden Office tasks you with finding hidden objects scattered around a little office diorama. You can flip and rotate each office in search of things like scissors and staplers and plants and it is nice. The music is tinkly winkly and occasionally a cat will grace your presence. Click on a cat and you’ll add it to a card collection. One of them has a bulldog’s face, which is disconcerting. For a short demo, Hidden Office has some neat levels and provides a pleasant diversion from your busy day (even if it’s based in an office). The commute is short, the work is sweet, job’s a good’un.
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Soda Crisis
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Exo One
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Startup Panic
Hayden:When I was younger I absolutely adoredGame Dev Tycoon. I only shy away from it now because if I started playing, I’d never stop.Startup Panicsunk its claws in just as deep, as it captured the same part of my heart. After playing for an hour or two, I had a big, silly grin on my face as my team of mini devs pumped pixelated blood, sweat, and tears into their latest website feature. The worst part was actually when the demo came to an abrupt end, so I went and bought it on the Epic Games Store (where it’s been available for the past year).
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Brocula
Rebecca:Stardew Valley, but make them vampires! Despite the (in my opinion) deeply unpromising title, that’s the central premise of Brocula, a gentle pixel-art farming sim. Yes, it’s mostly another Seasons of Harvest Valley type deal tasking you with resurrecting an abandoned ancestral farm, but the bumbling 500-year-old protagonist is straight out of What We Do In The Shadows, and who could resist that? Certainly not me.
The one-hour demo doesn’t stray very far from the formula — it starts with you talking to the town mayor and then, if you’re like me, you get sucked into playing a mildly frustrating fishing mini-game over and over despite it being completely optional. It’s all comfortingly familiar for the most part, but if you’ve been looking for a new angle from which to view the farming sim genre, I recommend this quirky twist on the premise.
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
SpiderHeck
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Hirilun
Ed:Hirilun’s a first person parkour game and the demo has you jumping, gliding, and dashing through a beautiful black and white city. Some maps have you tumbling through pipes, then clambering back up towers. Others see you striding across rooftops or sliding down ramps. All of them are fantastic concrete jungle gyms. And crucially, there’s a great sense of fluidity to your movements. If you’d like to feel very athletic and very cool, you should give this a try.
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Death Becomes You
Rebecca:There are, as you’d expect, many great-looking visual novels being showcased as part of this event, but few jumped out at me quite as forcefully as Death Becomes You, a sapphic murder mystery set in a magical university. “So kind of like… Wicked retold via Danganronpa?” was my immediate thought, and because I love both those things, of course I had to check it out.
Despite the cool premise I doubt this one is going to do much to convert people who dislike visual novels (personally I love them, but I do get it). But if you’re into them, then the writing here is pretty tight, the characters have a lot of potential, and the sprite animations and background music are really nicely done.
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Apico
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
Dextram
James:Dextram is a 2D arcade shooter in which you can’t shoot. In fact, outside of some rare power-ups, you can’t do anything except turn to the right. This sounds simplistic, and it is, but when your primary means of attack is baiting enemies into smashing into each other, figuring out how to clear a wave becomes downright cerebral. Dextram doesn’t force you into finding the perfect movement pattern, though – improvisation will get you far as well, and even if it doesn’t, the abrupt music cut on death adds a comedic sweetness that makes failure easier to swallow.
Download thedemo on Steam right here.
