19th's Steam Next Fest Impressions June 2025 Edition - Day 1
Okay, even discounting real life stuff going on, jumping back to back between Hundred Line, Deltarune, The Summer Game Fest showcases, and Next Fest happening immediately after, I am exhausted with all these self imposed game obligations.
But the show must go on.
Beyond The Board
A puzzle game where you play as a Rook going, as the title suggests, beyond the board.
During a chess game, the ground suddenly falls out beneath the pieces and they find themselves in a vast tiled dimension beyond their understanding. (I hate it when that happens.)
The puzzles are either "Traverse this space, using turn-limited switches to reshape the map," or "corner the black chess piece using the asymmetrical layout." There's some interesting stuff done with the fact that the player can also be on walls as long as they're properly tiled, but it's not fully explored here.
The demo does have a boss battle, against the "eldritch king." He shoots lasers at you in set intervals, as a chess king normally does, and you have to move to jump between solving the puzzle and dashing for cover. It felt a bit trial and error.
Despite having a really abstract and kind of thin premise, I am really liking the games aesthetics and overall vibe.
Everdeep Aurora
A metroidvania about a little cat thing in the underground looking for her mother.
First thing's first, the presentation is really nice. I like how the palette changes from area to area. It gives spaces that would normally blend together some more identity.
General movement is alright so far. It's definitely at the early metroidvania problem of the player instinctively being able to tell their kit is incomplete. Oddly enough, the dig mechanic that seems to be the centerpiece of the game is barely used here.
The demo felt... weirdly aimless? The protag wakes up with a letter from her mother saying to meet in "their usual place." She walks five feet to the right, and suddenly the neighborhood kids in a dilapidated mansion are trying to scare her away by pretending to be ghosts. When that fails they set up a hide and seek game for the right to explore deeper into the mansion.
I do not know why I am doing any of this, or how it relates to my search.
The writing wasn't all "bad," though. There's some fun implied lore, stuff like a brewing workers revolt, vague statements about the surface being unsafe, and some implied history, but it's mostly vague hinting. There were also an odd number of NPCs with no dialogue whatsoever. Those could have been used to flesh out the scenario a bit more.
In conclusion, an interesting game whose demo doesn't put its best foot forward.
Prison of Husks
A late PS1/early PS2 styled soulslike, with a heaping helping of Fumito Ueda.
You play as a nameless "doll," who wants to escape the prison they wake up in. You fight other dolls and enemies with a sword. There's lore probably.
The game makes some major deviations from the souls formula. There aren't any player stats, just weapon stats, and enemies don't respawn with saves. It seems to be stripping away most of the RPG aspects, and aiming for more straight action.
This game's parry equivalent, a perfect block, doesn't seem to stagger enemies, instead just auto-refilling your stamina. The player has armor points that let them tank a couple hints, and those can only be refilled with a crit. Crits are only available if you've emptied the enemy's refilling poise bar. It all comes together into a system that encourages aggression, while still trying to heavily punish player mistakes. The only thing missing is a good sense of "impact."
I'm enjoying the throwback graphics, but there's some odd disconnects. The game's presentation is deliberately low resolution, but parts of the UI and menus are way too crisp. I get it's probably for readability, but it clashes.
The demo is pretty dense, featuring both some hidden areas and two bosses. My main complaints at the moment are technical. One enemy, when strafing me, looked less like they were stepping and more like they were gliding in A pose. I was also able to cheese the demo-end boss by getting it clipping halfway into the ground.
Generation Exile
A management game where you try desperately to keep a dying generation ship alive after the attempt to flee a ruined earth goes pear shaped.
I am bad at management games in general, and tend to bounce off them early. This game caught my interest because it seemed more plot focused. If there's a good story hook, I can imagine dragging myself through the learning curve. It worked for Lobotomy Corporation, after all.
That wasn't what I got. That isn't to say the trailer is lying. It's just that it seems special events are not frequent. The cast seems procedurally generated too, so it doesn't look like there will be much overarching character arc stuff. I'm sure there will probably be an overarching mystery to follow, but I could not get near it before I just got frustrated by my ass building placement, wanting to start over.
Whether or not its an especially good management game on its own merits is someone else's wheelhouse. Not a great judge of this genre.
Neon Inferno
You're two badasses who run n gun their way through both the NYPD and the yakuza. That's all you need to know.
This is an arcade ass arcade game, for better and for worse. The default difficulty is "arcade," and every other option dials it down from there.
The presentation is top notch. This is some quality spritework. A lot of the art direction feeds back into some of the game's more interesting gameplay decisions.
The game is a Metal Slug-ish run-n-gun, but both the player and enemy sprites take up more screen real estate than usual. To add more threats, there's also a foreground layer of enemies to deal with. The player can shoot into the background, but they can't move while doing so. Combine this with a chunky hitbox, and it's a game where you can easily get checkmated if you aren't keeping enemies under control.
The player does have some extra defensive options, but they're intentionally limited. There's a dodge roll, but it's a relatively short and slow one. There's a bullet parry, but only special green bullets can be reflected.
This is a game that demands not only good reflexes and spacial awareness, but also a little bit of routing and optimization. Which means, depending on your tastes, it'll either be a nail biting challenge or drudgery.
I thankfully landed in the former here. I really liked it.
