It’s once again time for a deluge of demos.
Valve is hosting another Steam Next Fest, and you know what that means: lots of demos. It also means that I’ll, once again, be recording my thoughts on the demos that I play. With any luck I’ll get through the bulk of these demos, and the associated write-ups before the weekend. That’ll provide some of you with the opportunity to try anything that catches your eye. Hopefully.
There’s also one other thing that I wanted to mention before I start. I don’t know that it’s always clear, but every demo I cover in these posts is played in good faith. That is to say, I won’t play demos for things that I’m not actually interested in. If I downloaded the demo then there was something about the game that peaked my interest.
And if there is a game that sneaks through where I completely misread what was on offer, I exclude it from the write-up. I don’t believe there’s a ton of value in dumping on a product that I fall completely, and totally outside the demographic for. I don’t enjoy writing stuff like that, the devs (probably) don’t benefit from reading it, and fans of the thing will usually just get upset. It’s a net loss for everyone.
So I’d ask that you keep that in mind for the game that I’m going to slag off. I actually played the demo in good faith, as I attempt to do with all of the demos I’ve covered in previous iterations of this series.
Are we all on side? Promise? Handshake on it?
Okay. Onto the games.
The Rise of the Golden Idol
Elevator Pitch: a Point-and-Click detective game where you piece together a mystery across several self-contained vignettes.
Frosti’s Thoughts: I loved it.
The Rise of the Golden Idol is a sequel to 2022’s The Case of the Golden Idol. This is relevant because I rather enjoyed the first game. It didn’t quite make my best of 2022 list, but it was a contender.
As such, I went into Rise with some existing expectations, and I was completely blown away. The same set of elements that made the prequel so enjoyable are all still present in the sequel. However, based on my time with the demo, the sequel is much better at presenting questions to the player in a way that doesn’t totally give the game away. What I mean is that in the first game players were immediately given a prompt with missing information that outlined what happened in the scenario you were viewing. The order of the blanks, and the words you were provided would sometimes lead the player’s line of thinking, which, at times, could feel as though the solution was being spoon fed to the player.
By contrast, Rise doesn’t provide this prompt until after the player is able to name all of the actors in the scene, or deduces some other key information about the scenario. Ergo, providing the final card where players outline the events no longer has the potential to give away what happened before the player has a chance to work it out for themselves.
Limiting what information the player has available is a fantastic change. Having those “ah ha” moments is imperative to my enjoyment of these kinds of titles, and I think The Rise of the Golden Idol nails this. It might be a little early to call it, but this has easily shot up to being my most anticipated game for the rest of the year, and will very likely make my best of list for 2024. The folks at Color Gray Games are absolutely cooking with this sequel.
Wishlisted: obviously
Nurikabe World
Elevator Pitch: a logic Puzzle game where you create islands with beautiful Japanese scenery.
Frosti’s Thoughts: I liked it.
I actually found Nurikabe World while browsing through Eurogamer’s coverage of the Steam Next Fest. It looked vaguely like Sudoku, which I’m a very casual fan of. As such, I immediately downloaded the demo, and played through the whole thing in the next 15 minutes. Then it claimed a spot on my wishlist.
The premise for Nurikabe World is fairly straightforward. Players are presented with a board that has a handful of numbers on it. They’re then tasked with figuring out where to place water around those numbers to turn them into individual islands. There’s a couple different rules that dictate how exactly you’re allowed to make those islands, and keeping those in mind is where the game’s challenge stems from. In a lot of ways, I found it just as fulfilling as filling in a Sudoku puzzle, hence my earlier comparison.
Plus, Nurikabe World also gives the player these nice little scenes after they’ve completed each level.
I’m always on the lookout for new bite-sized puzzle games that hit just the right amount of challenge, but don’t completely overwhelm me. Nurikabe World fits nicely into that mold, so I’m looking forward to playing more of it when it launches.
Wishlisted: yes
Rift of the Necrodancer
Elevator Pitch: a Rhythm game based on the 2015 Roguelike, and break-out Indie hit Crypt of the Necrodancer.
Frosti’s Thoughts: As I was trying to think how to write this section of the article, I had that face that Steve Carell makes in The Office during season 3, episode 7. You know the one.
I have a weird relationship with Crypt of the Necrodancer. It’s a game that I think is really fun, but also total bullshit. I’ll download it every few years, play it for a dozen hours, and invariably uninstall the game when I become frustrated with it again. I still recommend it to people because the premise of the game is so compelling, regardless of how unreasonably challenging it is.
And to be clear, I have finished a handful of runs in Crypt of the Necrodancer. Mostly with Melody. I find the bulk of the other characters way too challenging to play as.
Regardless, I still wanted to see what the folks at Brace Yourself Games were cooking with the next Necrodancer game. Unfortunately, I am way too shit at Rhythm games to play Rift of the Necrodancer, and the demo made that abundantly clear.
Based on a lot of my recent experience with Rhythm games, I’m fairly certain that I have no sense of rhythm. I can muddle my way through if the rhythm is consistent though. That’s a big part of why I was able to both play, and enjoy last year’s Hi-Fi Rush, as well as older Guitar Hero titles. Once I find my footing, I can (mostly) maintain pressing buttons in-time with the music. It’s not easy, nor is it intuitive, but I can do it once I get my brain focused on the pattern.
However, Rift of the Necrodancer features off-beat enemies, and those completely fucked me up even on the game’s easiest difficulty. It’s already an uphill battle for me to try and stay on-beat for 1 timing. Having to swap between 2 different timings on-the-fly in split-second intervals is simply something I can’t do. As such, I had a fairly unpleasant experience playing Rift of the Necrodancer’s demo.
Wishlisted: no
Glitch Dungeon Crystal: Babushka Quest
Elevator Pitch: a Puzzle Platformer where you play as an old lady cleaning up all the glitches from the bottom of a well.
Frosti’s Thoughts: very fun, also very silly.
I’m not huge on Puzzle Platformers because I tend to find that they’re not very satisfying to play from either a Puzzle, or a Platforming perspective. Regardless, I still occasionally check new ones out to see what developers are cooking.
And boy am I glad that I checked out Glitch Dungeon Crystal because it was very fun. The basic premise is that you’ll find different abilities, and you can store 2 of them at a time. Then you’ll try to solve puzzles built around how these different abilities can intersect with one another. For example, one of the abilities in the demo was airwalk, which let you walk straight off platforms without losing your current vertical height. You could then swap to another ability, feather fall, to jump onto another platform from your previous position in the middle of the air. It was really neat, and I had a lot of fun working my way through the handful of different levels in the demo.
I also really liked the goofy writing, which reminded me a lot of early 2000s internet speak. That feels like a uniquely millennial thing to find funny though, so your mileage may vary with Glitch Dungeon’s humour.
Wishlisted: yes
Well that’ll close us out for Round 1. I’ll be back, probably tomorrow with Round 2. Until then, stay safe, and thank you for reading.
Frostilyte Writes 