Six Demos From Steam Next Fest 2023
Number two is Wizard With a Gun!
This week is Steam Next Fest, Steam’s yearly showcase of upcoming PC releases. For seven days, hundreds of upcoming games have released demos, with Steam highlighting the biggest via live streams and developer interviews. It’s a great opportunity to play some free games and discover smaller games that don’t get much press. But with over 900 demos to choose from, choosing one can be overwhelming. You could, of course, just play the first handful of games on Steam’s “most popular” list, but where’s the fun in that?
In that spirit, here is a list of six demos from Steam Next Fest that may catch your eye. I don’t guarantee any of these games are good, let alone best in show, but I can guarantee that they are interesting.
Lies of P
I’m immediately going to betray the spirit of this list by talking about the most popular game in Next Fest, but after sinking nearly four hours into the demo I would be remiss not to give my two cents.
The unfortunately named Lies of P is an upcoming “soulslike” action game from Korean developer Round8 Studio. You play as Pinocchio (the titular “P”), a robot “puppet” who is indistinguishable from humans. You wake up in the city of Kratz, wwhich has recently turned into a bloodbath at the hands of its rampaging puppet population. Guided by the voice of a woman named Sophia (a matronly woman dressed in blue) and with the help of your AI “cricket” companion, Gemini (pronounced “jem-i-knee,” of course), you must fight through the hordes of puppets and find a way to stop their rampage.
While many games borrow elements of From Software games, Lies of P is almost a carbon copy of Bloodborne,only trading the gothic overtones for a more steampunk aesthetic. It adds very little to the established gameplay, but it doesn’t really need to when it imitates it so well. Any fan of From Soft’s games will feel right at home here, assuming they aren’t burned out on soulslikes yet. I’m also a sucker for grimdark re-imaginings of old fairy tales, and I love how straight-faced this game delivers its premise while giving goofy little nods to its source material.
My only drawbacks with the game are the weak dodging mechanic and the linear game design. The limited dodge rarely got me out of harm’s way and didn’t do much for my maneuverability. And Lies of P’s levels are so straightforward that a tough enemy can quickly become a frustrating bottleneck.
The demo covers the first two chapters of the game and takes about four hours to complete, depending on your skill level. I highly recommend it.
Wizard With a Gun
Quite possibly the best named game on this list, Wizard With a Gun is an upcoming action-adventure game by Galvanic Games and published by indie darling Devolver Digital.
Despite the punchy title, Wizard With a Gun is far less of an action game than it is a crafting/survival game in the vein of Don’t Starve.
You play as the last of the Wizards, tasked with preventing the end of the world at the hands of Chaos. Only problem is, you’ve already failed. Fortunately, you have access to a magic tower that turns back time, though only to about five minutes before the end of the world. Each time you go back, you get five minutes to explore a randomly-generated world, gathering crafting materials to build better guns, and searching for gears that will allow you to repair the tower and give you a fighting chance against the Chaos.
The demo is substantial, giving you unlimited opportunities to turn back time and gather resources. It only takes an hour and a half to two hours to complete, but offers almost unlimited replayability to get used to its mechanics, build better gear, and learn about the different elements.
Spirit Swap: LoFi Beats to Match-3 To
Match-3 puzzle games are a dime a dozen. It takes something special to get one to stand out. Fortunately, Spirit Swap by studio Soft Not Weak does that by combining a bright and colorful aesthetic with good vibes and surprisingly deep puzzle mechanics. There is both a story mode and a PvP mode you can play with a friend.
Story mode revolves around Samar, a spirit swapper whose job is to eliminate pesky spirits. When spirits start showing up all over town, it’s up to Samar to clear them out while checking in on her close friends.
Spirit Swap adds a competitive angle to the match-3 gameplay, most clearly seen in the PvP mode. You and an opponent play a match-3 board side-by-side. As you clear spirits from your board, you create blocks in an opponents board, making it more difficult for them, and they can do the same to you. To clear blocks, you must match-3 next to one, meaning that you can’t simply keep your board clear, you need to leave enough matches to clear any blocks that might appear.
The queer-coded characters are delightful, the color palette is gorgeous, and the lofi beats to which you match-3 to are wonderful and relaxing. This is a great casual game to play after a long day or during a break. The story mode demo only takes half an hour, but you can spend hours in PvP if you let yourself.
Reanimation Scheme
Reanimation Scheme by Hong Kong developer Wind Chimes Games is an upcoming visual novel otome game.
You play as Raenelle Talisko, a government-employed necromancer, or Reanimator, whose job it is to summon the souls of the dead for a day in order to fulfill their last wish, a job she neither wants nor enjoys. One day, a spirit summoning goes wrong, nearly killing her and dragging a spirit into the living world as a corporeal body. Soon after, she learns that all necromancers in the land are no longer able to contact the spirit world, and they have all been recalled to the capital until they can figure out what’s going on.
Reanimation Scheme is a particularly good looking and well-polished visual novel. The writing is solid too, with lots of lore being dropped or hinted at without slowing the pacing of the story (which is good, because visual novels are very slow paced to begin with). Even in the demo, which covers at least the first three chapters (I did not have enough time to play it to completion) there are many decision points with lots of options, though it is unclear how much these decisions change the story in the long run. The store page boasts of “40 possible endings,” and as an otome game, your decisions will naturally determine who of the main cast your character falls in love with. But even if you’re not interested in the romantic elements of the genre, I think there’s enough here to engage a casual reader. Between the solid writing, beautiful presentation, and intriguing world building, I think this is a very good visual novel to pick up and try.
If you play the demo, be aware that there are bugs that will bog down your playthrough. Hitting “Ignore” when the game temporarily crashes seems to be the best way to see the demo through.
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
Runner up for best-named game on this list and winner of the most interesting concept, Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical is an upcoming adventure game by Summerfall Studios and published by Humble Games.
Stray Gods is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a musical adventure in which you take on the role of Grace, a down-on-her-luck musician who is suddenly accused of killing a god. During the game, you make choices via Mass Effect-style decision wheels to guide Grace down a certain path and determine her personality.
The story begins with the literal Greek Muse and minor God, Calliope, dying on Grace’s doorstep and granting her her godhood. The gods of the Greek pantheon, calling themselves the Chorus, accuse Grace of murdering Calliope and give her one week to prove her innocence or be executed.
The game has very little in terms of budget, but it more than makes up for it in heart. Scenes are played out in a series of still images, with hardly any animation to speak of. However, that hardly matters when the music kicks in, and characters begin to sing. The music is good, which the demo is rather proud of, showcasing key musical numbers rather than playing the story straight through. Stray Gods is definitely the best music video I’ve ever played.
The demo takes about an hour to complete.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Unlike the other games on this list, this one is not new, but I could not let it slip by. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective was a narrative puzzle game released by Capcom in 2010 on the Nintendo DS. Since then, it has appeared on countless “DS hidden gems” lists.
You play as Sissel, a ghost who cannot remember who he is or why he was killed. Fortunately, he has some ghost tricksup his sleeve. As a ghost, he can manipulate inanimate objects and, more impressively, he can time travel to four minutes before somebodies death, provided they died in the last 24 hours.
Ghost Trick was written and directed by Shu Takumi, creator of the Ace Attorney franchise, a franchise known for itswild, colorful characters and surprisingly complex and engaging stories. Ghost Trick carries on this legacy, with a mystery that stays engaging through the entire well-paced run and a cast of memorable characters.
For years now, the only way to play it has been on the original DS or iOS platforms, so I am genuinely excited that it is coming to PC and consoles this month. Hopefully, it will get a whole new generation of people interested in this fantastic game.
The Demo covers the first chapter of the game, which includes a full hour of gameplay.
If you want to explore the Steam Next Fest on your own, you can do so here until Monday. A lot of demos will stay up after the festival, but not all, so make sure to try out the ones you want sooner than later.
If you want a more detailed and less partial list of games featured, the folks at totallyhuman.io have compiled a detailed and randomized list of all 900+ games featured in the festival.
If you want more game recommendations, you can check out the lists by Rock, Paper, Shotgun, PCGamer, and Polygon.