yo ho ho and im out of control

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.

The Toynbee Tiles

Sets of embedded messages found in asphalt across major American cities and a few South American cities. Their origin is unknown, and their message is debated upon to this day. Almost all of the tiles depict a variation of the same message: Toynbee Idea Kubrick’s 2001 Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter

The first tiles date back to early-mid 1980’s, and have continued to be found until the present day.Many of the locations center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and it is believed that the original tiler is a Philedelphian. At one point, native James Morasco was believed to be the tiler, but has since been proven not to be.

With pre-war Hormuz traffic at 30,000 vessels and 7.6 billion barrels of oil per year, this could generate $10+ billion in annual revenue for Iran, and comes on top of the $300 billion in reconstruction funds directly sent to Iran.