Steam’s very own Next Fest, a celebration of upcoming video games, happened last week and you know what that means: we browsed through the repertoire of available demos and tried a whole bunch of them. As usual, we picked out our favorites, so in case you were not sure which games you ought to be looking forward to (I mean, there were a ton to pick from), do have a look at the ones we’ve chosen below:
Decarnation
Decarnation, at first glance, may seem almost like an innocent little pixel art adventure game, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Inspired by movie classics like Perfect Blue and Mulholland Drive, the game takes you on dark and nightmarish journey in the role of Gloria, a dancer going through some struggles in both her personal and professional life. The demo gives only a brief – yet sufficiently disturbing – glance into the metaphorical horrors you’ll have to face, but it was more than enough to make me want to see how the rest of this hauntingly bizarre tale is going to unfold.
Unusual Findings
A love letter to the 1980s, Unusual Findings will no doubt feel familiar to enthusiasts of the era – as a group of kids stumble upon some unsettling mysteries, they soon decide to team up and get to the bottom of things in the hopes that they will succeed where the adults might fail. The demo may have been painfully short and overly linear, but it made up for it with its charming retro atmosphere, upbeat 80s-inspired tunes and enjoyable voice acting. All in all, it was quite groovy.
Necrofugitive
In Necrofugitive, you are both the hunter and the hunted – assuming the role of a shapeshifting monster, players are able to take on the forms of their enemies to blend into their ranks… or go all out, unleash their demonic powers and wreak havoc to their hearts’ content. If you’re looking for a game that lets you become an unstoppable killing machine, slicing and dicing through dozens of panicking knights as they hope to capture you, you’ll no doubt enjoy the utter chaos offered by Necrofugitive. I know I did.
Potionomics
I sort of knew I was going to like Potionomics simply based on its trailer, and I was right – the charming, cartoonish art style, the peppy protagonist and the lively animations all made the demo an absolute joy to play. And that’s not even mentioning the real meat and potatoes of the game: the haggling, the brewing, and the whole store management aspect. Using a card-based minigame to simulate the bargaining process, Potionomics has you juggle things like customer interest and patience while making sure that you drive up the price as much as you can before putting a neat little bow on the deal – do it right, and you’ll rake in the profits; do it wrong, and your would-be customer might even leave without buying anything at all.
Asterigos: Curse of the Stars
The demo of Asterigos gave me pretty much what I had hoped for – flashy battles, solid Soulslike basics and a pleasantly vibrant art style. One of the main selling points of the combat, that is, the ability to simultaneously keep wielding two weapons – even comboing their attacks together – felt fun and fluid, with special attacks that frequently got a “whoa” out of me. The two bosses I fought more or less fell into the “challenging but doable” category, so the game certainly seems committed to delivering some classic Soulslike difficulty, which is good. The demo gets two thumbs up from me.
