As some of you are likely already aware, we’re in the middle of another Steam Next Fest. It’s been years since I’ve written about one of these for various reasons. Partly laziness, but also I don’t end up playing many of the demos I download. I intend to, but then life gets in the way. Well, that and my crippling addiction to playing Fighting games. And Roguelikes.

Regardless, I’ve actually been making an effort to play through a selection of the demos this Next Fest. I’m also going to be chronicling my thoughts here so I have them for future reference. There are numerous times where I end up going back to re-read my old articles to remind myself about what I thought of a game at the time, so I’m hopeful this will actually be an effective exercise for future me. It might also help more of these games reach their intended audience. Maybe.

One last piece of house-keeping before we begin: I actually got this idea from Krikket. She does something similar while covering Next Fest, and has already finished publishing 4 posts detailing her experience with the current deluge of demos. I encourage y’all to check out her stuff as she covered a completely different set of demos from those which I’ve been playing. You’ll get a much broader sense of what’s out there that way.

Anyway, enough of that. Onto the games.

Mind Over Magnet

Elevator Pitch: a Puzzle-Platformer where you use magnetism to solve a variety of puzzles.

Frosti’s Thoughts: I liked it. A lot.

I’ve actually been following the development of Mind Over Magnet for years now. It’s a solo project by Mark Brown who runs the Game Maker’s Toolkit Youtube channel, and he’s been chronicling his progress throughout the development cycle. It’s been fascinating to watch Mark iterate on the game, and explain what lessons he’s learned throughout the whole process of creating Mind Over Magnet.

It was nice to finally get to play a version of Mind Over Magnet that is hopefully close to completion. Most of the demo’s puzzles hit a sweet spot of requiring a bit of thinking, but never felt like frustrating head scratchers. The puzzles were also relatively quick to solve once you figured out the solution, which was nice. Puzzle games with a long time between solving, and actually implementing the solution always tend to get under my skin. I really appreciated that Mind Over Magnet felt quite snappy to play by comparison.

Wishlisted: yes!

SCHiM

Elevator Pitch: a Puzzle game where you play as a Frog-like creature that hops around the environment by jumping between the shadows cast by objects.

Frosti’s Thoughts: Eh.

SCHiM is a game that looked really cool from its trailer, but the contents of the demo didn’t exactly sell me on it. I thought it’d be more of a Platforming game, but the platforming is so deemphasized that SCHiM plays more like a Puzzle game. You’re tasked with figuring out what path you need to take to get through each of the game’s levels, which has a bit of charm to it. However, I found the lack of mechanical complexity didn’t really mix with me all too well. I also didn’t get a great sense of the game’s narrative, which was a focal point for part of the demo, during my time with SCHiM.

I’m sure SCHiM will be a hit with others, but after playing the demo I don’t believe I fall within the game’s target audience.

Wishlisted: no

Cataclismo

Elevator Pitch: a Strategy title with a focus on constructing fortifications to defend your base from waves of baddies.

Frosti’s Thoughts: This was my favourite demo until I played another game I’ll be covering later in this post.

Cataclismo’s demo doesn’t exactly have the strongest opening, but it is a Strategy title so I was willing to give it more time than I’ve afforded every other demo. The first 30-40 minutes was spent working through the game’s tutorial, which was maybe a little too heavy on world-building for my tastes. After that though, I was finally let loose, and I really enjoyed what I played of Cataclismo. 

The thing I enjoyed most is Cataclismo’s X factor: the fortification construction. Players are given a ton of control over exactly how their defenses are built. I really enjoyed trying to figure out where it made the most sense to spend stone, and where I could implement wooden scaffolds for my soldiers to stand upon. It doesn’t sound like much, but most base building RTS titles don’t give you this level of control. Turning fortification building into an actual game mechanic is genius, and I’m looking forward to sinking more time into Cataclismo when it launches in July.

Wishlisted: yes!

Arranger

Elevator Pitch: a Puzzle game where the entire world is set on a grid, and objects are moved alongside your character’s movement.

Going to be honest, this one is easier to show than explain, so maybe give the attached trailer a looksie. I really struggled to summarize this one succinctly.

Frosti’s Thoughts: Eh, but closer to liking it than disliking it.

Arranger’s demo was, I’m fairly certain, just the first 30-60 minutes of the game, and didn’t really start to demonstrate its puzzle chops until the latter half of that time. The unique movement system is really interesting, and creates interesting problems for the player to solve throughout its puzzles. There were more than a few times in the demo where I got stuck in my line of thinking, and wasn’t able to solve a puzzle until I started thinking about how to use Arranger’s unique mechanics instead of trying to brute force my first idea into reality.

That said, I’m not entirely certain how much puzzle variety the developers will be able to squeeze out of Arranger. That’s the thing that I think has me still sitting on the fence. The demo showed off a few interesting things, but I’m worried the remainder of the game might just be more of that, which would make for a bit of a slog. I kind of wish I’d seen a bit more of Arranger so I’d be able to more confidently give a yay, or nay to it.

Wishlisted: yes (for tracking purposes)

LOK Digital

Elevator Pitch: a puzzler where you blackout the game board by spelling words.

Frosti’s Thoughts: Loved it. Fastest wishlist of my life.

Y’all remember how I said earlier that Cataclismo was my favourite demo until I played another game that I’d be talking about later? LOK Digital was that game.

LOK is my favourite type of Puzzle game. It has simple mechanics that are very easy to understand, but also have depth. The demo, at least what I played of it, showed off the first two words that players can spell as well as the mechanical framework for the game’s puzzles. I thought it was super smartly designed, and bounced out of the demo before finishing so I could save as many puzzles as possible for the full release. I’m very keen on this one, and hope the folks behind it are able to deliver it sometime this year.

Wishlisted: yes! (obviously)

Dungeon Clawler

Elevator Pitch: a Roguelike “card game” where your deck has been replaced by a claw machine.

Frosti’s Thoughts: Eh.

As someone who plays their fair share of indie Card games, I’m always on the lookout for the next one that I can really sink my teeth into. I thought that Dungeon Clawler might be it, but after playing the demo I’m of a different mind.

I didn’t dislike what I played, but playing a claw machine doesn’t have the same volume of strategic decisions as playing a hand of cards. There’s certainly a skill element to Dungeon Clawler, but I much prefer the thrill of correctly playing my hand, or bringing a strategy to fruition through careful setup compared to the thrill of lining up a good pull from a claw machine.

Similar to SCHiM, I’m sure Dungeon Clawler is the right game for another group of people that I, unfortunately, don’t seem to be a part of.

Wishlisted: no

Double Shake

Elevator Pitch: a 2.5D Platformer that is an homage to the fifth generation of games with a focus on exploration.

Frosti’s Thoughts: I didn’t like it.

I’m going to be upfront here because I don’t want my negativity to be incorrectly interpreted here. I think that Double Shake absolutely delivers on its intended sales pitch. It feels like an early Playstation platforming game. If that’s what you’re in the market for then I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Heck, there’s a demo available for you to try it yourself if you’re so inclined.

However, I was expecting Double Shake to be a little more action-y based on the store page’s trailer. Instead, I spent about half an hour slowly exploring the tutorial area before I got bored, and put the demo down. I don’t know if the game becomes more interesting beyond that point, but I also don’t have an inclination to find out.

Wishlisted: no

Well, that’ll do it for round 1 of the Steam Next Fest. I’ll be back tomorrow with round 2, as this format makes writing about each game that I’ve played fairly easy. Hopefully I can actually get through all the demos that I’ve downloaded.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one.

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