Sulphur on 21/10/2024 at 05:32

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I didn't give any of these games a fair shake, so these aren't opinions so much as feelings slowly squeezed under the hydraulic press of, 'Why in sweet heaven would you release this for public consumption in this shape'?

New Arc Line: From what I saw in the first five minutes, it dumps you in medias res into a conversation with a policeman who orders you to help an old man's wife by getting a doctor before legging it, and the entire exchange feels like someone with a conceptual idea of this whole writing lark cranked out their first bit of dialogue.

It runs like an aibo whose owner shot three of its legs off, you have a team member who just exists with no introduction, the first fight barely explains the mechanics, and when you get to the leprosarium, the doctor there gives you another quest that indicates you should leave, when the first quest was to get the doctor to help the wife from the opening conversation.

My save game from just before I closed the game at that point was labelled 'what'.

I reloaded it yesterday after the demo build updated, and some of the settings simply didn't work, had placeholder text 'label' under the description, and somehow DLSS was enabled even though I'm using a 1070 Ti. I started my saved game, and the game decided to load in geometry and blobby texture maps, and then the program hung. Good job.

Cop Bastard: You run around rooms and corridors with a low-poly aesthetic and a 90s Japanese movie filter, pick up health and weapons, and shoot goons. You can crouch, and that's the extent of your movement abilities. Good weapon impact effects, but after two minutes I asked myself 'is this all there is?' And the answer, apparently, is 'yes'.

Usual June: Has you doing UrbEx and talking to ghosts with no explanation, then pulls you into some ghost dimension with a big bad, and has you biff up insectoids. It has a... mixed art style, where the characters animate with a sort of claymation stutter-stop. This would be fine if the game's frame rate was stable, which it is not (this is a pre-alpha version), so it just feels ungood. The combat's sort of slick, the story's sort of whatever, but the worst part of it is everyone's using words that are the most American ever, but the voices are a bunch of chopped-up Korean/Chinese syllables with random tones and inflection that do not go with the text. Okami is the last game that did this in my recollection, and while it was kind of tolerable there, here it feels incredibly weird and off-putting with no context, and I'd like to know what the reasoning was.

Otherskin: Remember all those mid-00s games that were brown? And then after that there were all those games that decided that was passé, so they went grey and green? This game is like those grey and green games. Think Dark Sector. Anyway, it's built on UE5 so of course it runs like your computer is slowly being submerged in a peat bog. It's also very jank, has amateurish writing, and occupies that odd limbo of art styles where you see it's got potential but is being dragged down by not having a cohesive or impactful visual style. The gameplay has a neat idea or two for abilities that are immediately hamstrung by the conceit that you have to cash them in at set points and regain them by biffing up insects or whatever. The demo felt like it was going to fall apart at various points, and did I mention the jank? There is jank. If this one gets released, it'll be the platonic ideal of the janky 6 or 7 out of 10 AA game that we used to have back in the day.

Things in the pipe: Hail to the Rainbow, which is Pacific Drive if it crashed its car into Stalenhag's art style in the middle of post-apocalyptic Russia. It's not very player-friendly, but the vibes and atmosphere are immaculate so far. Then there's Sorry We're Closed, Mandragora, Spirit of the Samurai, and Floridale Man if their demos remain up for the next few.

Mefix on 26/2/2025 at 19:03

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(https://store.steampowered.com/app/2629230/The_Adventures_of_Sir_Kicksalot/)

Fun minecraft style imsim with stealth and stuff. Pretty light & fun

henke on 14/6/2025 at 12:20

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Another couple demos...

[video=youtube;2Wgn6rowvkI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wgn6rowvkI[/video]

(https://store.steampowered.com/app/3675810/Eriksholm_The_Stolen_Dream_Demo/)

Solid but basic stealth mechanics, fantastic visuals, and some promising storytelling. The setting is extremely Swedish. I think they might be using the LA Noire facial capture tech because the cutscene people look stunningly lifelike. The demo is 1h and well worth a go. The game releases in a month, and could be good!

Also (https://store.steampowered.com/app/3769110/Azaran_Islands_of_the_Jinn_Demo/) Azaran: Islands of the Jinn is a game about Azaran going on some kinda 3D Zelda adventure.

reizak on 14/10/2025 at 13:23

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Yeah, I was browsing through some featured demos and it felt like about half had some generative AI anime lady already in the key art, which doesn't inspire me to look any closer. I don't know if Steam has any rules about mentioning AI use, I'm guessing not, but would be nice to at least get a genAI user tag or something.

Apart from that, against all odds it seems like (https://store.steampowered.com/app/4019140/Regions_of_Ruin_Runegate_Demo/) the sequel to Regions of Ruin, which has been playing dead for half a decade at least, popped out a demo and is actually a thing that will come out. It looked pretty good, too. Also tried (https://store.steampowered.com/app/3757210/Agreeee/) Agreeee in which you try to agree to the terms of service of some product or another. It got a laugh out of me after which I uninstalled it because a couple of the minigames are just too annoying to do repeatedly. Fun for 5 minutes though.

henke on 17/6/2026 at 06:02

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Steam Next Fest is ON and hey what's that? (https://store.steampowered.com/app/4795170/Bounty_Trail_Demo/) A new demo by you favourite indie developer??? Could it be? It's... ME????? :o

Ok ok but once you're done playing Bounty Trail there's more demos worth checking out as well. Here's a few I liked.

(https://store.steampowered.com/app/3695930/Penguin_Colony/) PENGUIN COLONY is some kinda mix between Lovecraft, The Thing, and that Werner Herzog doc about penguins? The narrator from Disco Elysium tells a story about going mad while you slip and slide around as a happy little penguin. The vibes are immaculate, the movement is kinda janky. It’s by the Umurangi Generation devs and just like that this feels like a game made with more heart than engineering skill. It feels like a game with something to say. I’m not sure what, but by the end of the demo I was hooked. This is gonna be good.

(https://store.steampowered.com/app/4135570/4x4_in_a_Furniture_Store/) 4X4 IN A FURNITURE STORE is the next game from Walaber (Jelly Car, Parking Garage Rally Ciruit, Very Very Valet). You drive a big jeep around an IKEA and help people out! Don’t let the twee aesthetics fool you, this is a hardcore offroading sim and some of these trials put up a real challenge. Loved this demo, eagerly awaiting the full version.

(https://store.steampowered.com/app/4703940/over_the_hill_Demo/) OVER THE HILL is funselector's (Art of Rally, Absolute Drift) new offroading game. The demo is quite generous with a big open map to explore and a lot of things to discover and do. You can even upgrade your car with parts you find. The physics and gameplay ain't quite on Mudrunner's level, but I very much enjoyed my time with this. A good game to play while listening to a podcast.

oh and if you wanna see some real Cruelty Squard-esque freak shit check out (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2002840/Gossamer_Matrix/) GOSSAMER MATRIX which is very interesting but too hard.