#nextfest

i think this is part of why chore games have a middling reputation. like, sure, it's something simple to do with your hands while you listen to a podcast, but man. in powerwash sim, every little row up and down the gunk you do feels like progress, it's slow but it's steady enough to feel satisfying

here, it's less of a big project, so there isn't as much of a grand-scheme satisfaction to it. imagine if powerwash sim was nothing but doing the vehicle levels, one after another. also, the vehicle is a perfect cube, and instead of a power washer you have a normal sponge so you just have to keep clicking to scrub and scrub and scrub

then you get to do the same thing again indefinitely

okay, positive note. the physics effects on the cube breaking apart is good? i kinda get why the demo is 3gb lol

so if you know me then you know that i fucking love neon white, one of my all time faves. some of the stuff i love about it is how effortlessly the level design directs you where to go, how much the demon placement shakes up the gameplay so it's not just a straight shot to the finish, and how easy it is to feel like a badass even if you're not perfect

i feel like hellsprint misses the mark on a lot of this. thats not making it a bad speedrun game or nothing, everyones looking for different stuff, but i feel like i just kept scraping my knees. there were so many point where i felt like the game was trying to tell me to do something and then wouldn't let me do it. "heyyyyy broski, see that bouncepad under the tower here? don't you wanna jump on it for an extra secret boost?" and then it took me a dozen tries to realize that no, i'm not just fucking up, you can't reach it from the level start. there's the extra floating powerup you can't reach, the level where you have to park your ass and wait for a second while the hole spins... it just feels like there's something basic that i'm missing and the game's doing me no favours helping me figure it out

also i don't know how or why but this game makes you feel floaty in a bad way. i don't know how neon white did it better but it just kinda did. it feels like i'm trudging through water here

i got sooo caught up in the controls though, geez. like minutes at a time trying to make a single shot. hey, not a bad thing, it's a precision platformer

but this is one of those games where like, yeah, void stranger is technically a sokoban game, but it's this freaky meta puzzle-riddle game and you have to figure out that the sokoban thing is a false pretense. here's it's about figuring out, like, what the fuck you can even do. there's one puzzle that only makes sense if you can re-angle your shots, and this area has weird muchrooms in the background, i wond- oh, hey, not backgorund. but then, there's a puzzle where the hole's at a 90 degree angle, clearly implying you gotta put a spin on that thing, and i spent like 10 minutes trying to figure out how the fuck to do it. that's like an hour in demo years! demos are like dogs

so yeah it seems fun! but in a way where i'd have a way better time watching a friend play it and occasionally backseating then having to muscle through all the secret tutorials myself

hey why is there an achievement for collecting a honeycomb what do you mean there's a secret hidden collectible

GOOD FUN CRAZY TAXI BULLSHIT

i had so much fun just driving around and like, doing shit. the only part of gta i liked was fucking around and killing peds and this is a whole game about that, only since it's smaller there's way less cinematic "hey look at this cool city and all these shops you can actually go in and all the people who actually live-" like fuck that, man, give me a fun map! this is exactly what i wanted

it feels like there's juuuuuust enough mechanics with the special moves and the police and the pickups and stuff to make every run fun and exciting without making it feel bloated. that's a hard balance to strike! plus i feel like they do a good job nailing the comedic tone without making me get fed up and just skip shit, i think carissa and truck-kun have a good dynamic what can i say?

wishlisted as fuck and i'm gonna play the demo more, fuck yes

idk what football is but i love bejeweled with blockers

so i don't have to tell you i'm not really a sports gal, right? i went into this kinda worried that i'd have to keep track of bullshit sports rules, and the tutorial didn't really help. but when you get into the game proper you're kinda set free to play and the rules just kinda happen around you. i guess it's the coaches that worry about that shit in the first place and you're just a player, so i dunno why i got worried

anyway, this ain't a sports game, it's a match-3, and a damn good one. the big thing that sets this apart from other bejeweledlikes out there is the blocking mechanic, where you can replace any block anywhere with a certain amount of trash blocks before your opponent's turn. this is hella fun, it gets you thinking of how well you can screw over the other guy without screwing over yourself when you've gotta put up with the same blockers on your next turn

i dig the gay little spinny wheel when you match those 4-blocks, i dig how the penalty for moving a blocker is variable, i dig the character designs, this is an eeeeeasy wishlist this is gonna be a good one

tutorial glitched. couldn't take the item out of the trash bag. i tried playing without a tutorial, but i fell off the rope to the bottom and hurt lost like 1/4th of my health. at the bottom of the spawn hole, i jumped on something that looked innocuous and instantly took massive damage, knocking my character unconscious for like 6 seconds and triggering the sound of a realistic hurt animal whimper.

i'll be blunt, this is a really awful first impression. i'm glad people are having fun, but this is a really hard pass

huh. there's actually kinda schmoovement

i haven't had the best experience with vtuber games. i've tried out a few of the free ones, but they all seem like they're only supposed to catch your fancy if you're already in the scene, y'know? this one's dialogue seemed like it was a lot of injokes too, but whatever, i'm here for gameplay. and the graphics i guess, those were good cartoony wind waker classics i love it

anyway yeah gameplay! the jumping feels good and satisfying, i've played a few like big ass proper expensive platformers that don't feel as good. the combat's a bit weird, i keep getting thrown off that the enemies don't flinch when you hit em so i take damage i don't need to, but it's not like the game's stingy with its health. there was actually a pretty fun boss too, i'll say i was expecting it to be easier i'll admit it

i like how blunt they are about like "yeah this is gonna be like a little 2 hour romp, no biggie", respect. wishlisted, why not?

AWESOME HOLY SHIT

so i had kinda low expectations going into this but the church puzzle hooked me so quick. first, gotta look up to find the last key, immediate fuck you to most fps gamers. then the poem was like juuust subtle enough for you to have to actually read things over, i pulled out a notepad so you know its good and wooooow the way the fog just HITS you when you open the doors!

there was such a clever mislead with the pipe puzzle to, i actually went through the motions to fix it before i found that valve spot by the swamp(?) and it's like... okay. forgetting. with the crow and the old man, so much is set up about forgetting, and the puzzles are all somehow themed around it! with the piano and the lost items you're like "was there a place i forgot to look?" with the valves when i tried it the right way first i was like "did i forget a step?" and then the game ends and i enjoyed the credits for a bit before i said "oh yeah i forgot about the tv remote" like ohhhhh my god it's so thematic how did they do that

this is like a horror game that's all puzzles and no monsters and i'm so pumped for that, wishlisted immediately

so i got to the tutorials, and i was pretty ready for it to be a fun dungeon roguelike thing, and it kind of is? but most of the actionable gameplay is just... holding the S key and holding fire. strafe to either side for the shooting enemies and you just, like, win. for a game that's trying this hard to ape on cruelty squad, it doesn't seem all that cruel

oh this is going to be good as fuck when i get good at it, it's so hard to get things right but it's nice the be a train for a bit (even if the graphics are hard to look at sometimes). tickles my autism

you are not talking to me, you are talking directly to my autism when i say that this is so fun. honestly the only thing that tripped me up was that i didn't know more about what to do. like, the fact that it only told me about the 45 speed limit when i was already at max speed. plus there's how you have to slow down to a stop instead of just pulling the breaks, so you have to know the exact timings to move to a lower level if you want the best score. i get that it's the friction, but... ohhhh i just wanna be right i want those numbers to match i wanna be on the decimal

oh and the graphics kinda hurt my eyes, but y'know, that's a throwback for you. wishlisted, i'll have the walkthrough on my second monitor

zwaard is special to me because it is a lot like hyper light drifter, which is one of my favorites of all time. i am so glad i found it this nextfest.

scavenger zero is the mecha game i've wanted ever since i got into the genre.

hollow home is a heartbreaking tale of living in the midst of a war.

hull rupture is like if ftl had a baby with fallout shelter.

abashed holds... psychological and institutional intrigue. hard to tell from just the demo.

plungeez is an incredibly charming and atmospheric puzzle-platformer.

hyperfist is for the overwatch doomfist enjoyers (me).

brazilian drug dealer before 4: demons from the portal to hell i opened are still in the favela and now i have to save mamadas from ronaldo is a fever dream.

akiba lost is an interesting metanarrative about the game's development and a disappearance in akiba, japan.

restory is in that power wash simulator & house flipper genre of cozy cleaning game, but i saw those soldering irons and individually modeled resistors in the demo!

meaningless random numbers is all the shit i love in indie games. it's going ALL in on the style in a way i fucking adore. it gives you like just enough control over stuff to make the random stuff fun give you enough control to make good plays when you level up. this feels like an entire game that i played for 2 hours, how the fuck is the full game gonna build on this? instant wishlist, good shit, expect the review someday after it drops

i have a headache

so this game has an interesting gimmick that has an uphill battle. indie games are like short stories in that they live and die by how much the concept grabs your attention. whenever people talk about all summers in a day, nobody gives a shit about if it's well written or what the prose is or whatever, they care about the concept of losing your childhood's only sunny day. obviously, you can still fuck it up by being bad at it, but as long as you're fine then people won't really care about the little details. he who controls the left field controls the world, so just stick the landing and you're fine

so if you live and die by your concept, you have to commit. and by god does this game commit. its all about trying to play a first person platformer while also playing the same game as a 2d platformer. if that sounds disorientating, that's correct. i kept the screen in the corner and even then i felt like i was getting motion sick from having to see all the secret hidden shit. like powerups mandatory for progression

i respect the fuck out of this commitment. its like how cruelty squad makes my brain bleed, but that's cuz it's not for me, it's for cruelty squad fans. if you've a newtype or whatever the fuck then give the demo a shot

the presentation on this one is kind of shit. like, it feels like it was made in like, another game's level creator. i remember seeing people make machinimas in smash brawl and trying so fucking hard to make the drab ass stock ass three blocks they give you work. the areas look like that, just browns and greys in kinda arbitrary shapes

but the gameplay itself is pretty solid. it's another incremental game, tower defence flavoured. the thing is, your upgrades make you stronger, but in a way that makes you rethink your strategy. getting another flamethrower means you have to reposition your old one, and making the flames last longer means you have to move them far apart. it's an easy trap to make your upgrades TOO overpowered and i feel like this does a good job of still needing you to think. wishlisted, i'll keep an eye on it

i'm gonna be real i was expecting this to be lame as hell. i thought it was going to try way too hard to get in on zoomer brainrot writing, everything would be quippy and unserious, you know the kind of thing i mean. but it was actually kind of cute. the dialogue between the main girl and the skeleton was just normal comedic stuff without being too meta and irreverent, and the comedy knew when to take a back seat and let things be serious with the boss

the gameplay is pretty fun too. i always get thrown off by dungeon crawlers, it always felt like the best way to play em was with a flightstick or something, it's hard to click. but i got this one down pretty well. plus the rpg stuff is just straightforward fun. the flirting mechanic makes you get into the enemey's head and consider what they actually like, like how the slime girl gets dysphoric about her skeleton not being fully dissolved. this extends to the inn mechanic where you get to talk to them, and work out how the bee princess (one of the cutest fucking character designs i've ever seen in my life) likes talking about politics and history. also it has siffrin but a badass biker chick, wishlisted

i've seen plenty of ps1 throwbacks, i've even seen a few ps2likes, but i think this is the first time i've seen a modern indie game embody the muddy and gritty vibes of ps3 shooters. the good news is that it does what indie games do best, picking all of the good shit to make better and leaving all the bad shit in the dust. so instead of being a cover shooter where you play as a normal army guy with the hustle of a hot air balloon, it's a movement shooter with shit like bullet time and reflector shield abilities. your health doesn't regen, and- fuck it, it's a new-doom-like. it's like the post-2016 dooms, nudoom

i dig the ammo system a lot. which is no. there's no ammo. reloading is always the worst part of any shooter, you totally lose your momentum and just kinda wait for it to end. that said, i respect it as an important part of balance and friction, so what do you replace it with? well, just give every gun only one magazine, and give the player a fuckton of ambient guns. if you need one, there's like three nearby, just gravity gun that shit and you're rootin tootin baby

gotta complain though, jesus christ people don't know how to shut up. you'll be minding your business solving environment puzzles and going from one shootout setpiece to the other, all while some insane cultist's podcast is playing on loop on every speaker in the city. i get that it's probably important lore stuff, but so are the datapads and you're not rubbing them in my face about it

one last bit. i like how when you hit the "show me where the objective is" button, it shows up in the middle of the screen before floating into the actual direction. i've been playing a shit ton of abiotic factor with my buddies recently, and whenever they ping i've gotta do a gay little pirouette playing marco polo with their locator icon. it's the little things that go a long way, i didn't even realize how much the default sucked until i knew about the alternative. i'll keep an eye on the reviews when it launches, i liked this way more than i thought i would

gonna end this one on a low note. you know i hate shitting on indies, but i'm really not feeling this one

it feels too random? like, okay, peggle, right? you have really fine control over each individual ball, and level-based powers that give you even more control over your shots. this game just has you spew a million balls out at once, and sure you can kinda control the angle, but it never seemed to matter to me where i pointed it. there's too many pegs and too much up to random chance

you can get items, but it feels like they're not strong enough to do anything to your run on their own. a good roguelike, the genre classics, all have kinda shitty normal items, but each item still brings something to the table. like, all the normal guns in gungeon still do a lot to help you out and build your run up. in pop pachinko, i got items like "makes your pegs wet" and a coin that makes you luckier. it was stuff that only works if you get a combo going, making each run feel samey and making getting a good run way more luck dependent. even luck be a landlord, a slot machine roguelike, isn't this strict about combos

Flamecraft

NOT for me. It's like one of those extremely complicated board games that takes an hour to set up and 5 to play except it's a video game. Maybe that's your thing! It's not mine. I didn't even make it 5 minutes.

Offbeat

Make music in offbeat! I like that they give you ownership of all the songs you make in this. That said, I have never been good at these kinds of games. But if making music with weird little digital instruments is fun for you, you might enjoy this! (I thought it was going to be more of a management game haha)

Last Night Last Call

This game will tell you it is set in the 30s. It will tell you prohibition has just ended. And you will look at this woman and most of the other characters and think. Are you sure? Are you sure it is ~1933? Because I'm not. Anyway if you can get past that maybe it'll be fun for you. Supposed to be a spy bartender game or something? I got too annoyed by the character art to get very far.

Sovereign Tower

Finally something I actually enjoyed. It's a bit like Yes, Your Grace in play style and I realllyyyyy really like the art. A magical tower has named you sovereign of this region! Collect knights and send them on quests! Resist the empire that is about to invade!

Neat!

Yet another organization game, which are oh-so-popular right now. The art is cute but I kept finding I had to click in really specific spots to do the thing I wanted which annoyed me. Not the biggest fan of this one.

Joy Malignant

I'm intrigued by this one. It has similar mechanics to Citizen Sleeper and an interesting roleplay/character building mechanic. People in this setting are made up of "mosaics," bits of their past that other people can see (Nibb, in the screenshot, doesn't actually have the head of the mouse, but it represents their life of anxiety). You are without a mosaic to begin with and it slowly forms over play and changes depending on your choices.

Fortune Fragments

Simple narrative puzzle thing where you build runes on a scrabble board. Nothing really bad about it but it didn't really grab my attention, either.

World's Greatest Author

Clicker game. Cute. Not my thing.

Object Impermanence

A puzzle game playing with the idea of not looking at stuff. Bad description of a fun game. Give it a shot!

Heavydelic