Next Fest June 2025 - LIVE NOW
store.steampowered.com
Steam Next Fest is a week-long celebration featuring hundreds of FREE playable demos as well as developer livestreams and chats. Players try out upcoming games on Steam pre-release, developers gather feedback and build an audience ahead of their Steam launch, everyone wins!

Let’s share our lists and opinions on the demos. We’ll help each other find promising games.

This Next Fest runs until Monday, June 16, 10 am PDT.

  • coaleh@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 hours ago

    Surprised nobody has mentioned Wildgate. It’s really fun! Different take on the Jumpship idea with a lot better execution (but they’re at different stages of dev to be fair!).

  • innocentpixels@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    2 days ago

    Jump ship, rogue point, and mycopunk. Pretty solid demos to try out. They definitely need more content for release, but all of them are decently fun.

    I want to try disco as dead (rhythm beat’em up) and pioner (mmo stalker looking game)

  • LCP@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    2 days ago

    Platypus Reclayed
    https://store.steampowered.com/app/2912430/Platypus_Reclayed/

    Remake of the 2002 shoot-em-up game led by the original creator Anthony Flack.

    It felt so good playing the demo. It feels just like the original but with significantly higher fidelity visuals — just how it should be. I have a lot of nostalgia attached to this game and I can’t wait for the full game to release.

    • RebekahWSD@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      I tried it out and man I hate getting motion sickness from games. Got the ship ready to go and launched and instant hurgh stomach. Unfortunate, as it looks real cool!

  • Ashtear@lemmy.zipEnglish
    15·
    2 days ago

    I tried a bunch of these today and yesterday.

    In the “Shut Up and Take My Money” tier:

    • Bits & Bops - Sure, it’s a total Rhythm Heaven clone but, hey, why mess with a winning formula? Still, I worry about devs borrowing this heavily from Nintendo titles these days 😬
    • Dispatch - I only needed 10 minutes with this to know I’m sold. The animation is gorgeous and it has a hell of a cast. Between this and Expedition 33, how are new studios getting these people!?
    • Mina the Hollower - Shovel Knight’s the best retro game I’ve seen and I didn’t need to see much of Mina to know that Yacht Club delivered again. It’s got a Zelda vibe (the jump especially feels just like it did in Link’s Awakening) along with all that other 8-bit-with-present-day-game-design goodness. I also cut this one short so I can enjoy it in full later. Day 1 for me.

    Pretty good but a couple hiccups:

    • Forestrike - Hey, PlayStation gamepad glyphs! Always appreciated. Outstanding atmosphere in general. The pixel graphics are interesting; the character design reminds me of old Sierra games. I wonder if at some point during dev they considered just not going roguelite? There’s real storytelling talent here and I think a linear game with increasing complexity might have been even better (and helped to not undercut the narrative as roguelite progression tends to do).
    • inKonbini - Very short demo, but the gameplay seems it’d be good and vibe is cozy. Really strange that the written Japanese is gibberish. It seems too elaborate to be placeholder text, so I wonder what the story there is? It takes me out of the life sim aspect of this a bit.
    • MIO: Memories in Orbit - This one was up and down for me across the board: music, gameplay, systems, visuals. The tutorial sections are outstanding work and worth the download for that alone (there’s one right away). While I think the metroidvania design here is good, I wasn’t sold on the graphics. At times it’s difficult to parse out what’s a platform and what’s background, and there are weird blind spots with camera on top of that. I also can’t believe they went with the map system from Hollow Knight, the only real negative of that game.

    Not for me:

    • BALL X PIT - The gameplay pacing on this is unpleasant, with the roguelite elements stopping the action too much. Kept wanting to get into a flow state and was constantly interrupted.
    • Bloodgrounds - All the other demos I played came ready with story and this one feels underbaked in that department. What I played of the demo was almost all gameplay. Didn’t see much that sets it apart from the pack.
    • Dice Gambit - I don’t think this strategy game gets the basics down well enough to add on the dice layer. Feels like one move should be guaranteed regardless of rolls (and lack of move undo is unfortunate also). The art style also isn’t for me.
    • Nora (She/Her)@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Woah! BALL X PIT is shocking to me! This was easily my favorite second favorite next fest game I’ve ever played, just behind Balatro. The action is insanely cool, the combos are very unique and interesting. Loved every moment of it. Very curious to see how much the full game will have/add.

    • Silverchase@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      It was surprising to see that it’s rated mixed on the store page. It looks like a lot of the complaining is about how it’s not like Patapon?

      • mariusafa@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        2·
        20 hours ago

        Maybe because is very different. But i like it. Idk people where so hyped by their nostalgia Patapon and probably feel robbed by the new way you move the character.

        But once you get used to it it feels great. It also felt weird for me at the beginning but I chose to give it a try and don’t judge it with the Patapon Glasses.

        With the new mechanics the game relies more on you being able to dodge enemy attacks, you cannot spam that hard. It feels more dificult. Just new mechanics.

      • Domi@lemmy.secnd.meEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        It looks like a lot of the complaining is about how it’s not like Patapon?

        Most of it, but not all of it.

        I played a little bit of the demo and was excited for a Patapon clone but it felt…off?

        My main issues with it:

        • Moving your own character does not really add anything to the game
        • It’s really easy for the music to sound off-beat by narrowly missing the timing
        • The metronome was replaced by a fixed Guitar Hero-like note display
        • There is too much going on at times, mostly due to the more complex art style
        • The beat between enemies and yourself does not match, making it impossible to counter some attacks
        • You cannot cancel the beat by failing on purpose; If you fail, you have to wait until you can input the next command

        I really hope they can improve things but right now I don’t really enjoy it.

  • Silverchase@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    19·
    2 days ago

    I spent a good long time browsing through the piles of thumbnails to make myself a tall list. It’s a mix of games I’m excited for, games that look interesting to me, and weird games. Since I spent so much time today browsing for games, I haven’t actually played much today on day 1.

    Some thoughts on my list

    • Bits & Bops has already had a demo for months now, but for Next Fest, there’s a new minigame to play. Also, I backed this game on Kickstarter, so I’m obviously interested in seeing this game be good. And I think it is.
    • SourceWorld is a Half-Life 2 mod participating in Next Fest! It’s an FPS dungeon crawler! The Source engine isn’t dying anytime soon.
    • Oddcore has a really flashy trailer. I actually first heard of it from seeing it get front page attention on Newgrounds. It could be the first game set in “liminal spaces” that isn’t utterly boring or crap.
    • Funi Raccoon Game is on this list because the trailer is stupid and I want to see more of it. I have high hopes.
    • Why, yes, those are three games featuring a black cat as playable character.
    • shrodes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      How is Moonlighter 2? The first one is a game I always felt like I should like but I never really enjoyed the loop of the game for some reason.

    • Novamdomum@fedia.io
      31·
      2 days ago

      I know right. I think it’s the worst I’ve ever seen. I kept scrolling through for something good but all of it is was like those bargain bins you used to see in petrol stations full of old DVD’s. Honestly they should be ashamed of this. I went through my whole wishlist to check if any of the games on there had demos and literally none did. Last Next Fest most of them did. That’s some impressive enshitification right there…

      Actually I was wrong… Probably just needed to eat something and be less grumpy lol. Just found a fantastic demo that I’m downloading now. it’s called Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream. Amazing people animation and great dialogue. I love top down games and this is easily better than anything I’ve seen before. Thanks to a NextFest roundup from Nookrium or I would never had spotted it.