Steam Next Fest, which is a regular event for showcasing upcoming games, is happening now on steam and will continue until February 12 at 10:00 AM PST (UTC-8).
With hundreds of demos available, even if you’re only interested in a fraction of the games it’s going to be difficult to try everything before the event ends. With that in mind, I’m hoping people can use this thread to share their thoughts on the titles they’ve played.
Which games did you enjoy, and which do you think suck? Please share your thoughts!
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Managed to try Shapez 2 Demo. It has me proper hyped for the release.
I really liked the original, did they change a lot?
It’s still the same basic game, but some of the changes make a big difference. Like they added a second layer, and the stacker machine works across both levels with the top item dropping down on top of the other. And the colors are now liquids.
But, as silly as it may sound, the graphics change make a huge difference in game feel. Every tiny thing is animated fully in a way that makes sense and nothing ever disappears into a machine to reappear later. The underground belts are replaced with launcher ramps and catcher ramps, which does the same thing but feels more fun.
The entire background, music and artstyle give it such a beautiful surreal abstract vibe that I can get lost just staring at it and moving the camera around. (Although as a kid I used to hold up and stare at CDs for ages, so your mileage may vary)
I haven’t even played the first Shapez. How do you like it?
Feels easy to get stuck in. Progression balance is better.
I tried out Lightyear Frontier and Homeworld 3.
Lightyear Frontier made for a generally pleasant low-stakes low-stress first person farming game. The mech aspect had some minor jank in places, but nothing I think the developer can’t smooth out with some minimal adjustments. Seems like a good game to relax with.
Homeworld 3 looks beautiful. I played through the tutorial and it’s got me hyped for the full game. Only complaint was that there isn’t a proper single player level to the demo. It appears to just be a tutorial and skirmish/online, and I’m not a competitive multiplayer guy.
I was so fucking hyped for Homeworld 3.
I still am but I think I just discovered I’m no longer a day 1 gamer for anything.
50% off is the bare minimum now, holy shit that sticker shock is real.I was just reading an article about Homeworld 3 and it sounds like I was mistaken about the online/skirmish thing. It sounds like it’s some sort of PvE coop mode or something. Still not my cup of tea. Still excited for the single player campaign.
I’m with you on the patient gaming. With few exceptions, purchasing the new hotness on day 1 means paying more for a worse experience. By the time a game goes on sale, the major bugs and balance issues will have all been fixed (if they’ll get fixed at all), so what’s the rush? Most gamers these days, myself included, have big enough backlogs that we’ll never be in the position of not having something fun available to play anyway.
I feel slightly obligated to buy it day one.
Pepper Grinder is an amazing little retro-style 2D platformer that took the burrow ability from Ori 2 and made a whole game around it. It’s novel, fast-paced, and surprisingly polished! Made me wish the demo was longer than 3 levels.
Stormgate
It’s like 90% StarCraft 2 and 10% Warcraft 3. The competitive RTS part is promising but it didn’t show me anything new. Depending on the lore and campaign it may get more interesting, so far it’s neutral.
Millennia
It starts very similarly to Civ 6 with even more kinds of resources. The current version of the UI seemed confusing and the poor performance (on linux) stopped me from finishing the demo.
MULLET MAD JACK is my kind of boomer-shooter, and the visual style is interesting.
I tried that as well, but really didn’t like it. The visual especially were extremely unappealing to me.
The four I’ve tried and would recommend:
Homeworld 3 looks gorgeous. I’m not good at RTS games but I’m interested in this one just for the nostalgia and it hits that just right.
Lightyear Frontier is a good “just chill and work on your farm” kind of game. It seems relaxing.
Pacific Drive is like The Forest but instead of feeding and protecting yourself, you’re fueling and repairing your car.
And for a surprise hit I just tried on a whim, Space Trucker. A sci-fi twist on the Euro Truck Simulator style game.
Pacific Drive had one of the most atmospheric intros I’ve seen since Half Life. It loses a little once you start scavenging and crafting and get your HUD, but still a unique game. Like a cross between My Summer Car and STALKER.
I will chip in for Homeworld 3 as well. Even at lower graphic settings that game looks amazing!
Balatro, it reminds me of how everyone who back in the day played Solitaire on the desktop to pass time. Instead it has a modern take with poker and mixing it into a roguelike. Easy to learn but can be complicated. I thought I was going to put 30 minutes into the game but now I have 10 hours into it and can’t wait for full release. Recommend it even if you do not like card games.
The modifications you can make to your deck are straight forward but feel ridiculous by the end of the run.
“Change 3 cards to diamond”
Sure, why not.
“When you play a diamond, increase how much it scores.”
Cool.By the end of the run 40 cards in my deck are diamonds, my Flushes are worth 3x as many points, and each card is scoring points twice.
Played the Pacific Drive demo last night. Definitely looking forward to the real thing now, and I’m not usually a fan of crafting games.
Haven’t tried anything yet, but I’m thinking of seeing Millennia and comparing it to Civilization.
I don’t know if this would be considered a shameless plug or not, but I have a friend doing the music and sounds for a game on Next Fest. I finally got to play the demo yesterday, and I think it’s pretty neat.
packet.Breach() — it’s kind of a tower defense game and kind of a roguelike. Instead of setting up turrets and hoping for the best, you are redirecting the enemy’s fire with certain “programs” you can place. And the playable space continually moves, so it’s not just one map that you have to kill X number of bad guys before going to the next stage.
I’m not always super into tower defense, but even beyond knowing people working on it, I enjoyed my playtime last night.
Whoa, that looks incredibly cool, definitely going to wishlist this one
Nice!
One thing that I mentioned to them last night that I’ll tell you now is that you cannot place the “programs” on the “track” where the enemy nodes are traveling. And that may seem self explanatory, but some of the flavor text made it seem like you needed to put the “program” right in the way of the enemies. But that’s not the case. Nothing will go there.
Ah ok, so they don’t act like spikes or glue in Bloons Tower Defense?
With the items you can use in the demo, no.
I don’t know if there are any you can use later that might slow them down on their path.
I’m looking for either factory / automation games (see: Factorio, Satisfactory, Nova Lands, etc.) or games similar to Against the Storm (Roguelike city builder). Anyone have any suggestions?
Shapes 2 for the factory game!
Oh my god yes, I forgot I had this demo installed. I also grabbed Final Factory and Civ Idle.
Any other jams?
Oddsparks
Dyson Sphere Program
Yeah I have DSP, I gotta see if they fixed the really rough translation.
I was going to try Harold Halibut but I’ve read that it contains noticeable spoilers so haven’t bothered.
Homeworld 3 is next.
Really crossing fingers that Homeworld 3 delivers.
7-month follow-up: It did not deliver. Massive disappointment.
Yeah I’m looking forward to it. Currently playing through the old ones, they hold up surprisingly well.
I tried several and most did not play well with the Steam Deck. Serum and the car survival game were the bigger disappointments, there; really wanted to try them.
I’m awake you can download proton hacks to make them work, but that’s not the point, imo .
