There Is No 19th Person!

Day 0

Screenbound

Dimension Hopping 5d Platformer.

On a dark and stormy night, Pavi looks for his mother. She's not in her office, but her computer was left on, alongside a q-boy and a note: "Find me! -Mom". As he picks up the machine, he's dragged into the world of the game. Now he has to search for is mother in a realm between 2d and 3d.

I've seen footage of this game getting passed around for a while. It lends itself well to gifs and videos. It's a first person platformer where, as you move through 3d space, the not-gameboy you're holding shows a 2d version of the world simultaneously. Each side of the equation shows info that the other hides, so you need to split your focus to navigate the level.

The game as presented in the demo feels at odds with itself. It's at its best when it's focusing on exploration, digging through nooks and crannies to find secret alcoves and hidden doors. The problem is that the demo consists of small linear levels, elaborate 3d hallways, so that sense of exploration is muted.

When taken on its face as a pure platformer, the game is lacking. It feels simultaneously too loose and too forgiving, which I assume is to not overwhelm players struggling with its core gimmick. When the game does decide to up the difficulty and focus solely on 2d or 3d, it just feels bland and subpar.

It doesn't help that the game has one of those overbearing helper voices that spell everything out for the player. I get that people might miss something when focusing on the gameboy screen, but I don't need to be told that spike balls will hurt.

So with all my frustrations with the platforming aspects, imagine my surprise when I reach the end of the demo and get a preview video on what world 2 will be. The game stops being a Mario pastiche and starts being a Zelda pastiche, with a top down view on the gameboy and wide open levels to better facilitate the puzzle and exploration elements. It looks promising!

So why did they start the game at its weakest instead of jumping straight to that?

Toem 2

Relaxing Photography Backpacking Adventure

Years ago, you took your camera and backpacked across the country to see the mysterious mountaintop phenomena known as the Toem. It's a coming of age that everyone in your family has taken. While they all eventually settled, the fire for exploration and photography hasn't died down in you yet. Onto another adventure, meeting new people, seeing new sights, and searching for a new undocumented Toem.

Toem 2 is good in the same way that Toem was good. You explore small cozy areas, complete NPC sidequests, solve low-stress puzzles, and scour the map to complete your checklist of photographs. It has the same relaxing vibe and the same sense of humor. It is Toem 2.

Which begs the question of why it exists at all. Toem felt complete, what will this game do that won't feel like a re-tread? Right now, it's justifying itself with a couple new mechanical twists.

First, they've moved to make the camera view more multi-functional. You get a screwdriver in the demo, and you use it by going into first person and manually spinning the screw. This lets the devs build more complex and tactile feeling puzzles. The trailer shows off scissors being used in a similar way, so there's more room for variation and gimmicks.

The second change is one I'm not as keen on: They've added platforming. The Toem kid has a jump and the levels are now built with more verticality in mind. The problem is that it clashes with the game's isometric viewpoint. It's easy to misalign a jump. It's not a deal breaker, since there's no real punishment for falling, but it still feels awkward.

Overall, if you liked Toem, you'll like this. And if you don't know if you'll like Toem, then play Toem.

Truth Scrapper

Queer Momento Mystery Visual Novel.

You are Sosotte, a member of the Truth Scrappers: an arcane research organization. A group of fellow scrappers went to the city of Cul-De-Puits to explore The Dwell, a magical sinkhole cutting deep into the earth, but they were attacked by an unknown monster. You've been sent after them to discover what happened and why. There's only one problem… you have severe amnesia. Your memories don't last for more than a day. To counter this, you've crafted an enchanted scrapbook, one that instantly fills your head with information the second you touch it. With this book and your two guides, Betz and Amour, you will dive deep into The Dwell and solve its mysteries… that is, If you can trust your partners.

I'm technically cheating with this one, since it's not listed in this year's Next Fest page, but it's a recently released demo from a creator I like so I'm adding it. It's the same dev as In Stars and Time, InsertDisc5, and she's once again dipping into the well of using a fantasy world and an RPG party to create mystery and interpersonal drama.

The game's main point of interaction is the scrapbook. You choose what Sosotte writes down and remembers, and that colors how she reacts to things in the following day. So far it's mostly been flavor text, with the biggest change caused by which of her two companions she finds more interesting, but hopefully it'll cause larger plot swings in the full game.

Right now, Sosotte's character is carrying the experience. The opening scene suggests that her memory problems were deliberately self inflicted with magic, so there's already a sense of intrigue, but on a moment to moment basis she's... intriguingly distant. When she realizes that Betz and Amour will be long term companions, she immediately switches to a cutesy persona while trying to figure out which one will be more "useful." She even comes off as manipulative with herself, choosing to deliberately omit information for tomorrow's Sosotte. It comes off not as mean but as a survival instinct carved deep into her bones.

I do wish the demo lasted longer, but it's short length at least makes it easier to test how different choices play out.

Virtue and a Sledgehammer

Narrative Sledgehammer Teardown.

You are Pratelle. Your mother is dead. Everyone you once knew is dead, replaced with digitized copies. The hometown that you grew up in, the one that both nurtured you and rejected you, is gone. And it's all thanks to your perfect genius sister. With nothing but a 20 pound sledgehammer and your mother's corpse in the trunk, you are going to tear this place down brick by fucking brick.

Before anything else, this is a game about swinging a sledgehammer. That was the one thing they had to get perfect, or else the whole project falls apart. And thankfully, they got it. It has a wonderful weight, and the way buildings fall apart and robot bodies fly feels really satisfying.

I wouldn't call it an action game. The enemies either walk toward you in a straight line or cower away, existing more for texture than for challenge, and there's no strong fail state. It's more akin to a cleaning game, going through a map and systematically breaking it down. You're doing so to find floating glass figures that, when smashed, unlock flashbacks that show how Pratelle got to this point.

It becomes clear that this is not just about an abstract philosophical problem about personhood and AI. This is the bubbling up of something long overdue, between Pratelle, her family, and how the world at large has treated her. It's less interested in the question on whether she's right on wrong, painting her in very deliberate shades of gray, and more on the question of if this will actually do anything, or if this is just a violent tantrum.

If you're being overly thorough, like I was, then the swinging can get tiring, but in this case it feels fitting. Holding a grudge and swinging a sledgehammer both wear you out pretty fast, and those moments of downtime leaves you space to reflect on everything that's going on.

One day we will all be Steam Next Fest. Until then, here I am.

Dead Watch

Comedy Timeloop Puzzle Mystery

You play as Ben, a hapless loser who wakes up trapped inside a mysterious castle alongside several other prisoners. He soon discovers that someone is out to kill Lumi, the mysterious living internet explorer, and whenever he sees her corpse or dies himself, time loops backwards. Using this ability, he needs to prevent the murder and escape.

I am a sucker for this type of game, but right now it is missing me entirely.

Part of that is a complete lack of pathos. The centerpiece of the narrative is Lumi, but right now she just feels like a flat Cute Anime Girl. I will admit that this game is a pseudo-sequel to the dev's previous game Outcore, so maybe if I played that I would have more of a connection, but Dead Watch as it exists right now doesn't really endear me to her.

Everyone else is a paper thin joke. Literally in the case of Stock Photo Man.

A cast full of joke characters can work, but that requires that the jokes... actually be funny. Most of them didn't land for me. It's either "Our one note gag character sure is doing their bit" or "Ben is a cringe idiot" and there's only so much of that you can stomach.

I will give them credit for the gag of finding an "adult video" and it's just a sock puppet doing taxes and plumbing with sexy jazz music. That joke got me. You win this time.

So without humor all that's left is the mystery and the puzzles. As for the former...it's hard to build intrigue when everyone is doing their bit. There was a reveal at the end that, in a more serious game, would be mind bending in it's implications, but here I'm just going "well we're already doing cartoon logic so that's fine."

As for the puzzles, most of it was variations on finding codes or hidden coins. The steam page mentioned having to follow characters schedules but that so far has barely come up. Maybe it'll get more complex in future chapters but I'm not lining up for that.

So. Final verdict is I need to remember to play The Seance of Blake Manor

Silver Pines

Twin Peaks inspired 2d Survival Horror.

You play as private investigator Walker, heading into the small town of Silver Pines, right as its being evacuated for a massive storm. Your job is to find the enigmatic musician, Eddie Velvet, even as monsters fill the streets and reality starts to fracture.

The game is a pseudo-metroidvania in the style of Lone Survivor. Your character doesn't have enough mobility for it to be called a platformer, but you're still moving back and forth on an interconnected map, using puzzle items, keys, and new weapons to unlock passageways.

The horror comes from classical survival horror threats and friction. These hallways are littered with enemies that hit hard. You have limited ammo, weapon durability, and healing items, so you need to choose your fights carefully. You have a boxer-style weave dodge to get through enemies, but I kind of wish it was less consistent. It felt too easy to sprint past enemies. That feeling goes away when they throw multiple enemies, or throw faster non-humanoid ones at you, but it took a while for the demo to step on the gas there.

The game wears its Silent Hill and Twin Peaks influences on its sleeve. The eerie American small town, the character dialogue where it feels like the people speaking might not be all there, there was even a red room equivalent. It's blatant, but they seems to be pulling it off correctly.

I do like how the storm is pulling a lot of weight in terms of the Silent Hill "They look like monsters to you?" sort of ambiguity. Is the town damaged and abandoned because of the monsters, or was it a messy evacuation? It's clever setup.

I like their take on Resident Evil's ink ribbons. You save via payphones, and each call costs a dollar, but you can also save that money for vending machines. The shared resource creates a nice push and pull dynamic.

I also like that the in-game map doesn't over explain things. It'll mark the main objectives, but keeping track of side stuff will rely on your memory and photos you take with the in-game camera. It leaves a lot of room for clever hiding places.

An enjoyable experience.

Oniria

Spanish Haunted Hotel Horror

You play as a woman named Angie, living in the village of Oniria. After you father's death, you receive a letter from his close friend Fernando, who says he left an important heirloom for you at the abandoned hotel your family once stayed at. As you arrive, it becomes clear that there's something else waiting for you there in the dark.

This is a tone demo. It's a tiny slice of the game that doesn't give a sense of its mechanical loop, just premise and tone. I'm not sure if it's a stealth game or just an eerie puzzle exploration game. The tone itself is good though. The game's intentionally shitty flashlight makes creeping through the dark tense, and the sound design has a lot of small bumps and creaks, where you're not sure if you caused it or if there's something moving nearby.

There's a fun gimmick where the present day is 3d while flashbacks are 2d. The 2d sections are essentially interactive cut-scene, but I like the contrast it establishes, with the brighter childhood palette running straight into violent trauma.

The game still needs to prove itself, but it's at least left a good first impression.

Burn With Me

Demon Summoning Puzzle Deckbuilder

On a frustrated whim, a professor at an arcane university teaches his students a forbidden magic: The art of demon summoning. While most were afraid to dig deeper, a select few students were willing to put their souls on the line to fulfill their dreams.

This is a balatro-esque point scoring deckbuilder, where you have to reach ever increasing point quotas per round. You do so by placing cards on a pentagram. Each card has a base value, and most have effects that synergize with other cards on the table. For example, you can get cards that boost when there's other cards with odd numbers nearby.

The game is generous with adding cards between rounds, and you can't turn them down, so you trend toward big unwieldy decks. You have to balance the immediate puzzle of scoring this pentagram with the long-game puzzle of deck control.

You either luck into a card that has a card-burn effect, or use the draw system to get rid of cards in your hand. If you want a new card from your deck, a card in your hand is burned at random. This can be done at any time, so you can keep cards safe by putting them on the board, but you're still making a controlled gamble.

There's a narrative aspect, the story presented as an anthology of each student and their problems, but what's in the demo right now feels kind of barely there. Hopefully it builds up over chapters.

The Granny Detective Society

Cozy Panopticon Deduction Game

You play as an elderly woman whose hobby is professional busybody, watching her neighbors through her window and meticulously documenting her findings. Soon her thorough investigations catch the eye of the Granny Detective Agency, and her entertainment turns into a new life of detective work.

It's another fill-in-the-blank detective game a-la golden idol. The player is shown an active scene with several characters moving about the metaphorical stage, and the player then needs to follow their actions and movements to fill in answers on the case.

There's some fun theming going on. Once you confirm things on the conspiracy board, the info is presented in a scrapbook. Each case has its own set of hints in the form of a crossword puzzle.

Two complaints. First, the game needs a fast-forward button. You can jump around on the timeline, but if you want to track a specific moment or character throughout the entire scene, you're stuck at 1x speed. Second, the camera needs to do more than be a glorified viewfinder. Right now the only thing you do is take photos of characters for the conspiracy board, which feels like a perfunctory step.

Still, an overall fun experience.

Meaningless Random Numbers

Stylish Satanic Dice Incremental

You are a fallen soul, cast into hell. You're supposed to be beyond redemption, but money can open doors, even to the pearly gates. With your soul on loan, return to the surface and pay the devil his due, by any means necessary.

My first impression was that this game is dice Balatro. Each round you're given a quota you hit in a certain number of turns. You do so by rolling dice, and the money you get is the sum of the dice plus multipliers for matching dice. Get further fear multipliers through a Russian-roulette style killing minigame. Spend money on upgrades to try and hit the deadline.

This impression is only half right, though. I was expecting a harsh push-your-luck game with stark fail states, having the death and damnation imagery be reflected systematically. But the incremental game stuff gets in the way of that.

Running out of turns isn't an instant game over, it just starts throwing zeroes into the dice pool, and your cost-to-roll will outpace the expected value. The bullet minigame's failstate doesn't feel harsh enough, just temporarily turning off a UI element. There's not even a strategic consideration of ending a round early versus trying to hoard extra resources. If you go too high over the quota it just shunts you forward early.

It's less shutting you down and more nudging you to prestige, resetting the run with new permanent bonuses.

This is the idle/incremental loop. It's what people who like that stuff come for, and I've enjoyed it in its own contexts before. The trailer shows off that the growth you'll create will go into ludicrous billions territory, and there's a big enough upgrade ladder to reach for that. If you go into the game with the right mindset and tastes, you'll enjoy yourself.