Steam Next Fest 2025
Hear are some of my impressions of the demos I played during Next Fest this year!
Gruel
This was a boomer shooter with a hand drawn style. You run through areas collecting currency, shooting down enemies with limited ammo and upgrade your arsenal at a shop. Nothing groundbreaking here and the gameplay left much to be desired. I see what they were going for as it’s very retro in its presentation and controls, but it felt hollow to me. Maybe if the enemies were more lifelike and had more character it would make more of an impression. There was one guy in the shop that looked at you weird, but otherwise it was a lifeless experience that didn’t hold my attention for long.
Cabernet
You awake in the basement of a mansion after your uncle gives your eulogy. You don’t know what’s going on but after you escape you are at a dinner party. Everyone acts normal, drinking cabernet and chatting. They’re utterly unperturbed at your appearance. After getting cleaned up, you are told that you are now a vampire. You mingle at the party, get shown the basics and that’s the extent of the demo. It’s a solid opening, but there’s not much to do. It’s basically a point and click adventure. There are some dialogue options and you have stat points you can distribute to give yourself more choices, but there’s not much else. You have limited vampire powers that I hope are expanded upon more in the full game, but I wasn’t quite hooked by this showcase. The characters presented had some intrigue to them, but it felt very surface level. Tied to them are relationship systems that are super basic and I’m unsure if they would flesh them out enough later on to actually make them meaningful. Still, I think the art style and voice acting are quite charming and I was genuinely interested in what came next. I’m sure the story develops into something great, but I’m not quite willing to pay for it at this time.
Lost Skies
Here we are with another survival crafter. I can understand losing time to these games as their allure is a wide open space with only your creativity being the limit, but this one didn’t do it for me. You are a remnant of a civilization long gone (or in cryo, I wasn’t really interested) and your job is to craft. The difference with this game and others is that this world is a bunch of floating islands. There’s a lot of interesting things that could be done with that aspect. Like what if you could repel down and drill into the side of it to build a base or even just chop pieces of it off? I don’t think that was the direction they wanted to go here, instead opting for a more standard survival-crafting experience. One aspect I did like was the grapple hook. What’s not to love? This one though has a whole physics side to it, so you can use it to launch yourself, detach, reattach and launch yourself again. This and the glider make for some interesting traversal. Unfortunately, that was the only thing I liked about this game. Though its graphic style is pleasing, it’s also rather plain and none of the vibes of an “other world” were really present. I think leaning more into the fantastical part and giving the player the ability to adjust terrain would help this game have its own identity. Without anything special, I can’t say I liked it much.
Total Chaos
As a horror game where you are a guy and you go to a creepy place for seemingly no reason, this game didn’t do much with it. The visual design of the environments was stunning to be honest, but there was one repeated texture of a mass of something with a blue thing in it that showed up in every area. Other than that, I was thoroughly impressed with the art here. My main issue lies in combat. Horror games can live or die by it. If the combat makes the player feel too capable, then the game won’t be scary, but if it’s clunky or unintuitive, the player may not want to keep playing. Most games in the genre tend to opt out or use a fixed perspective to keep the tension high. Total Chaos allows you to swing weapons like a maniac at creatures. They do have a durability meter, but after the first weapon I had broke, I was only without one for probably five minutes afterward. The combat is basic and enemies really only swipe at you after your three hit combo, so it’s easy to dodge them. If they do hit you though, you have to worry about bleeding as well as health. The inventory system is pretty generous as the bag you have is massive, so I picked up everything I saw and still had more space than I would ever need.
Because of my overabundance of resources and the basic attack patterns of enemies in addition to the combat system, I wasn’t scared. The setup made me think I would be running and hiding most of the time, but I spent most of the experience mashing the attack button and slamming bandages on my bleeding character. (I didn’t get hit that much.) I’m not sure if this was just the demo version or if resources will be more scarce in the full release, but the lack of actual management made the system superfluous in my opinion. The environmental “puzzles” were mostly just; get a key and open the door/ flip the switch. There wasn’t really anything you needed to think about. To say I was disappointed in this one would be a correct statement. I think they could do a lot more with it, even in the combat focused direction they’ve gone, but I don’t think it’s for me.
Wanderstop
Cozy games have their place and Wanderstop wants you to chill and pay attention to what it has to say. The game has a lot to say about achieving your goals and the importance of taking breaks, which is an admirable message that we all need to hear in this fast paced world. Does a multi-step tea making process that involves light farming and climbing a ladder interest you? It didn’t interest me. I wonder if the customers (which you don’t get to see in the demo) have their own stories that they’ll come by and talk with you about. If so, there may be something to work for in this game. Otherwise, I think it’s too quiet for me. There is some voice acting, but with something like this, I think it’s necessary to have it fully voiced. Reading dialogue and clicking buttons on a machine is not my idea of fun. Still, this game does have something to say and if you want to chill out, it may be for you.
Flesh Made Fear
I can’t believe how good this game is! It’s such a love letter to classic horror titles and I am the target audience. You are a member of a government task force sent to a remote town, where weird stuff has been going on, to rescue another operative. There’s rumors of a mad scientist who was researching mind control that started experimenting on others and himself to great effect. You and your crew roll up, investigate, get separated and all hell breaks loose. Most of the time you’re searching for a way forward, fighting off zombies from a fixed camera perspective and managing your resources, while also solving environmental puzzles to progress. The setup is very familiar, but it gets the ball rolling in the right direction.
One aspect that may turn off some people is the voice acting. I personally love cheesy dialogue and one liners in stories like this as the camp just enhances the experience. My only gripe about it is the guy you play as in the demo sounds quieter than everyone else. Otherwise the PS One audio quality fits into the aesthetic perfectly and is quite charming.
Another aspect of the game is the combat. To shoot you hold right click and left click to shoot, pretty standard. You also have an auto aim that points you at the nearest enemy and locks on so you don’t miss. As a real gamer, I don’t think a lock-on is necessary. It detracts from the franticness that can arise when you’re missing with low ammo. You also have twin knives that you can use to basically stunlock single enemies. To better balance this, I’d have more recovery time for them or possibly reduce stagger on zombies so they can hit you back. I didn’t find myself lacking in any ammo or healing items either, and giving the player a chance to miss and get hit back would help balance that out well.
Environmental design is pretty standard for this type of game. I think the camera angles are used well to accentuate certain pieces and usher in unease at the right times though. Puzzles are also pretty much one way streets. I would’ve liked more backtracking to find the right path, but I’m sure there’ll be more branching options in the full release and I’m still really looking forward to the whole experience. (I could have also just gotten lucky in going the right direction the first time. I’m good at that.)
Though I had a few nitpicks, this game is truly sick as hell. I love the character interactions, the setting and the aesthetic of the game overall. The PS One graphics and audio quality really helped immerse me in the world. The menus were easy to navigate and the character health icon getting progressively more beat up was a cute touch. I was so stoked by the demo that I went straight to Kickstarter and backed it. Give the developer props because he put his whole heart into this game and I can feel his passion in my own.
