Hello, and welcome back for Round 2 of the February 2025 Steam Next Fest. If you missed the first post then you can find it here. It covers the following titles:

  • Asgard’s Fall – Viking Survivors
  • Ghost Hand
  • Is This Seat Taken?
  • Gnomes
  • Haste: Broken Worlds

I’ve played another handful of demos, so let’s get straight into things.

Mudborne

Elevator Pitch: a frog breeding sim in the vein of Minecraft’s Forestry Mod, or APICO.

Frosti’s Thoughts: I think this one might have been a bit of a misfire from my end. I thought the trailer looked neat, and decided to give Mudborne a shot, but I just do not have the temperament, or patience for this sort of thing. I got about as far as breeding my first several frog variants in the demo, and decided I probably sit well outside of the target audience for Mudborne. I need a little friction to keep me going, but Mudborne is vibes all the way down.

That said, I do think there’s something here worth checking out if you’re the type of player that is into the vibes that Mudborne is putting out. The demo was very relaxing, and I will admit that it was pretty cool to discover how to breed new variants of frogs. So don’t take my lack of enjoyment as a shot against the game. If it looks like your sorta vibe then it probably is.

Wishlisted: no

Isopod: a Webbed Spin-Off

Elevator Pitch: a 3D Platformer built around simulated physics where you control a Roly-Poly with a magnet backpack. Also, there’s something about overthrowing capitalism.

Frosti’s Thoughts: I enjoyed it.

Normally, I find physics based games to be extraordinarily frustrating to play. Half the fun of these titles is the inherent goofiness when you bungle something, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. I just…don’t find that very fun. Maybe I’m dead inside. I dunno.

However, I felt like the level included in Isopod’s demo was tailor built to keep players vaguely on track regardless of how bonkers things got. This really subdued a lot of the frustration that I normally feel while playing this sort of physics-driven experience. Instead, I could just focus on having fun with the somewhat unwieldy movement, which ended up giving me a really positive impression of the demo overall.

Also the magnet backpack is peak. There were too many times where I fell off something, but then I was able to save myself with some careful manoeuvring, and magnetism which felt awesome.

Plus there’s a bunch of bright, colourful costumes that you can spend your collected currency on, and I think that’s pretty rad.

Wishlisted: yes

Demon Tides

Elevator Pitch: a funky 3D Platformer with free-flowing movement that gives the player a lot of room to creatively solve different movement based problems. 

Frosti’s Thoughts: Bit of history for this one – I played, but did not enjoy the original game that Demon Tides is a sequel to. I made it about halfway through Demon Turf, and wasn’t having a great time so I decided to put it down. The short version of the story is that I found the game way too frustrating to play, and never actually spent the time I’d have needed in order to play it in a way that I would have found more fun.

Regardless, I still wanted to try out the demo for the sequel to see if developer Fabraz had changed anything that would make my experience more enjoyable. Worst case scenario, if I didn’t have anything nice to say, I could just skip writing about the demo.

Well, I’m glad I gave the demo for Demon Tides a shot because I had a lot of fun with it. It features a lot of the same movement based abilities from the original game, which means that players have a ton of room for expressive platforming. Granted, what you’ll see from the attached trailer is a far sight better than anything I could manage to pull off. Though, there were a few times where I platformed my own way to something only to discover afterwards that there was an easier “intended” route, which made me feel very accomplished.

The big game changer for me though was how the checkpoint system has been changed. If memory serves, the original did something similar to Ori and the Blind Forest wherein players could make their own checkpoints, but they were limited in how many they could make. Demon Tides does away with that restriction, so you’re able to make as many checkpoints as you want now. That does wonders for mitigating a lot of the frustration I felt playing the original, and also gave me purchase to take more liberties with the game’s movement since there’s virtually no punishment when you bungle a sequence of jumps. This meant I spent most of my time actually trying to use the full breadth of the movement system (which is very fun) instead of relying exclusively on simple jumps while staying glued to the intended path through a level.

I also really dig the new fully 3D look, and the deluge of character customization options. If every game had skins that were this quality, no one would ever complain about cosmetic items in games. Bonus points because you can unlock all of this stuff by simply playing Demon Tides.

Wishlisted: yes

Dark Deity 2

Elevator Pitch: a love letter to classic Strategy RPGs with an emphasis on replayability.

Frosti’s Thoughts: I need to start this one with another history lesson as well. I played, and reviewed the original Dark Deity. I did not enjoy it for a variety of reasons. However, I’m not above giving developers second chances, especially with sequels, so I tried to go into the demo for Dark Deity 2 with an open mind.

As with Demon Tides, I’m glad I gave this one a shot because I really liked the demo. Hell, I’d even go as far as saying I could, and probably should write an entire post dedicated to it. Unfortunately, I do not have enough time to do that. Maybe if the demo sticks around beyond the Next Fest?

Regardless, Dark Deity 2 feels like it takes multiple steps in the right direction, and directly addresses several of the pain points that I had with the original game. 

I want to keep this light because, again, I feel like I could probably write 2000 words about this demo. Though, my high-level takeaways are as follows:

  • Weapon customization has been completely overhauled to feature several modular upgrades, which means there are fewer instances of there being a single optimal upgrade path.
  • Character bonds have been expanded from 3 to 6 part episodic side-stories, which should take advantage of Dark Deity’s lack of permadeath to tell more compelling stories.
  • Class skills are mostly active abilities, which seems like it will encourage more interesting class routing with characters over the course of the campaign.
  • There are multiple story routes, which appear to have a greater impact on the direction of your campaign’s story.

Obviously I’ve only played a minor snippet of Dark Deity 2 by way of the demo, so I can’t speak to the long term impact of any of these changes. However, all of them demonstrate a lot of potential, especially when it comes to the full game’s replayability. I can already see myself potentially sinking hundreds of hours into Dark Deity 2 if I’m able to create several different build combinations across multiple playthroughs of the game. What’s even more exciting is that the different story paths seem to offer some narrative variety too, which is something sorely lacking from other similar games that I’ve spent far too long playing.

All in all, I really liked what I saw of Dark Deity 2. The demo has taken the game from being completely off my radar to being the release I’m most looking forward to in March. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’ll enjoy the full release as much as I’ve enjoyed the demo.

Wishlisted: yes

Well, that’s it for day 2. Join me tomorrow where I’ll hopefully be covering the games I played on Thursday. I’m…not totally sure that I’ll get that article out on time, but fingers crossed.

Regardless of what happens, thank you for reading. I hope my Next Fest coverage has helped to introduce you to a new game that you didn’t previously know about. If so, let me know about it in the comments. I’m also curious what other games people have been playing from the Next Fest, so feel free to tell me about those in the comments as well.

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