The week long Steam Next Fest draws to a close and we’ve been busy trawling through as many of the demos as possible. Miles has already highlighted 20 demos that he enjoyed here and here, but we’re back again with another batch of 10 that deserve some of the spotlight.
From slapstick escapes to dice driven RPG’s, tense extra-terrestrial racing to peaceful gardening, we have chosen another batch of the best that the Steam Next Fest had to offer. If you hurry, you still might catch the demos (link), but if not, here are 10 games we think you should add to your Steam wishlist.
Dogpile
Some of you might remember a lesser known PS3 title called Trash Panic. I got hopefully addicted to this game back in 2009, and while playing Dogpile (Steam Link), It reminded me of everything I loved about that forgotten classic. I also got the feeling that Dogpile was going to become my next favourite time sink. This deck building roguelike about merging cute dogs into bigger dogs as you drop them into a yard has a way of making an hour feel like fleeting moments. The demo was charming, with a lovely bold art style and disarming music that blended into a thoroughly enjoyable experience. While it wasn’t particularly challenging, the demo showed a great foundation that I’ll certainly be checking out when Dogpile launches ‘soon’.
Monster Lab Simulator
Monster Lab Simulator answers the question that I never knew I needed the answer too: What if Pokemon’s Professor Oak wasn’t just a kindly chap that gave monsters to kids, and instead be made monsters in a lab to sell for profit?
I’ll be honest, I’ve become apprehensive of downloading any game with “simulator” in the title, as I imagine some of you have, because of the sheer volume of slop out there. I’m happy to say that Monster Lab Simulator (Steam Link) is turning into one of the good ones. The demo had you set up a lab in a warehouse that would be your base of operations. Here, you take monster eggs, infuse them with elemental essences and then hatch monsters. Once they have hatched, you can then pop them in a sphere and sell them for profit. Of course, if you have a soft spot for a particular monster, you could keep it around, feed it up and care for it.
While the demo of Monster Lab Simulator had me entertained for a good half an hour, there were hints of more to come from this game, including using more exotic eggs and even battling. Listed as “coming soon”, this is certainly one to keep an eye on (go on, add it to your wishlist).
Winnie’s Hole
I’ll be honest, I went in to Winnie’s Hole (Steam Link) expecting this to be cash in on the fact that Winnie The Pooh is now part of the public domain. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Blending roguelike progression with deckbuilding mechanics and Tetromino-centric mini-games, this game has a deceptive amount of depth. The fact that this is a twisted take on the inhabitants of 100 Acre Wood was just the icing on the cake.
In the game, you play as a virus that has effected Winnie, and as it spreads around his body, is augmenting him into a killing machine. Between encounters, you can use Tetromino shapes to extend the virus’ reach around Winnie, hopefully granting him a new mutation. When you meet another character however, you’ll do battle by carefully selecting icons using these same shapes. Balancing attack and defence with each turn becomes paramount, and is something you might have to approach differently with each run of the game based on the mutations you’ve unlocked.
Winnie’s Hole has the potential to become something of a cult hit if the finished product delivers on the quality shown in the Next Fest Demo. I can see a flock of people coming for the macabre take on Winnie The Pooh and staying because the game is really enjoyable to play. Wishlist now.
S.E.M.I. – Side Effects May Include
It’s always a strange experience when you play a game designed for co-op or multiplayer on your own. It’s usually a little off-putting, so that fact that I had a blast playing S.E.M.I. – Side Effects May Include (Steam Link), even when I’m playing solo, says that developers Two Horn Unicorn might be on to something quite good.
In this game, you and up to 3 friends (so 4 players) play as patients in a clinic that are attempting to escape. This includes beating down guards, platforming over electric platforms to unlock doors and dodging flame throwers.
The kicker here is that around the clinic are pills that you can eat. Each of these pills give you special abilities that are… unpredictable. One pill gave me the ability to throw fireballs, which was handy when faced with a room full of guards. The next pill I took however made it so I shrank and grew at random. The next pill made it so that I would move really quickly. Balancing these side effects while trying to complete the objective of escaping certainly put a smile on my face. I can imagine that with 4 players, all going through their own trippy experience, this could be really fun time. S.E.M.I. – Side Effects May Include is launching in November 2025 and is certainly worth adding to your wishlist, and potentially adding to your party night rotation.
Shelf by Shelf
Shelf by Shelf, a bookstore simulator from Genco Interactive (Steam Link), reminded me a of few popular indie games – Wandershop and Wilmot’s Warehouse – in the best possible way. In this game, your task is to satisfy the customers that come in to your store by either supplying them with the title they’re after, or by selling them something similar. At the start of the demo, I spent time arranging the books by colour which is handy as each hue represents a different genre (cream for history books, for example). Each customer will only wait for a time before giving up, so once you’ve understood what they want, you can go searching for it on your shelves. There’s no penalty if you can’t satisfy their need however. You just don’t make a sale. It’s calm, chilled and ever so relaxing.
For literary types that know their Art of War from their Utopia, this game will be a cozy, peaceful, no stress experience to spend a few hours with after a busy day in the office. If that sounds like your kind of experience, you won’t have to wait long as Shelf by Shelf launches on October 23rd. Wishlist below.
Exo Rally Championship
We’ve big fans of Exo One here at Finger Guns having given it a 9/10 when it released on Xbox. We’re pretty excited then that developers Exbleative are using the same impressive visual tech on a new type of experience – Colin McRae Rally, but in space.
Exo Rally Championship (Steam Link) tests players to cross rugged and challenging alien terrain between checkpoints in a high powered lunar buggy as fast as possible. Putting your foot to the floor isn’t always the fastest way between A and B however, and you might find yourself crashing, flipping and eventually running out of oxygen.
The Steam Next fest demo for Exo Rally Championship set out the stall for this game perfectly; this is not going to be an easy game. It tests the player to manage speed and momentum for the obstacles ahead, landing somewhere between WRC and Mudrunners in the process. Every bump, every crest of the hill, every bolder will ask you to react. If this sounds like something you can get your teeth into, wishlist below.
Dream Garden
I, for one, am all for the recent trend of games that are purely powered by the act of creation. There’s no objectives or timers, no pressure and just chill vibes as you make something you can be proud of. Dream Garden (Steam Link) is launching on November 3rd, and the Steam Next Fest demo convinced me that I don’t need therapy. I just need a zen garden builder in my life.
Dream Garden is, at its core, a set of easy to use tools. You’re given a blank canvas in the shape of a garden space, and you get to use these tools to design the garden of your dreams. Placing items, adding water features, raking paterns into the ground; it’s all so very relaxing. This is supported by a beautiful, soft soundtrack that complements the vibes perfectly. Dream Garden is the type of game I can imagine playing at 11PM when I’m struggling to sleep and I need to switch off my brain, or as soon as I get home from work if I need to decompress. I’ve wishlisted, and if this sounds like something you need in your life, you can do so below.
Pieced Together
I’ve never even considered scrapbooking as a hobby that might interest me, but after 20 minutes of playing Pieced Together (Steam Link), I’m starting to think maybe I should give it a try.
Pieced Together is a narrative-driven title about creating a scrapbook. With each page of the scrapbook you pull together, you unveil more about the childhood memories of the player-character and her relationship with an estranged friend. Mechanically, each page tasks you to do something a little differently, whether that’s piecing together the thematically similar topics relating to a photo, or cutting our bits of a magazine and finding the correct answer. There’s quite a lot of creative freedom in how you create these pages too, allowing you to flex your artistic side should you feel like it.
What I found most impressive about Pieced Together was how it managed to utilise the game mechanics in surprising ways to lay little narrative breadcrumbs. I won’t spoil them here, as they’re worth experiencing first hand, but the Steam Next Fest demo left me desperate to play more. Wishlist below if this sounds like your jam.
The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time
Many of you will have already experienced what it feels like to play “The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time” (Steam Link), or TRotEotGRPGoAT for short. It’s that same feeling you get when you boot up a game you’ve not played in a long time, load up the last save game (which is now years old), and try to figure out what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Insert Gandalf ‘I have no memory of this place’ meme here. At the same time, it produces a sort of critique on remakes of games. Especially those 3D remakes of 2D classics. The entire time playing this demo had me smiling or smirking, or a weird combination of the two. Smilking? That’ll do.
I came away from my short time with the TRotEotGRPGoAT demo with two overriding feelings. The first: Who ever made this game is some kind of mad genius. The second: I need to play this game when it releases.
Dustpunk
Finally, onto my my favourite demo that I’ve played in quite some time. Dustpunk. I’ve been wondering who would be the next big hitter in the blossoming dice-driven RPG genre since Citizen Sleeper 2 landed. It’s Dustpunk (Steam link). Oh Dustpunk, you gritty, oppressive, atmospheric beast of a game you.
In Dustpunk, you wake on the shores of a grimy, neo-Edwardian city having escaped ‘the War’. You’ve got little more than the clothes on your back and an empty belly. This city, Dredgeport, is rife with danger and opportunity, and the success of both with be determined by the role of a dice. The atmosphere this game generates with little more than text and a backing track is palpable. Scraping through a day with both your health and your sanity in check feels like a challenge, but an enjoyable one. While it borrows a lot from those that came before it, Dustpunk adds enough of its own character to make me feel like this is going to be something really special. Wishlist now.
If you’re looking for other titles from the Steam Next Fest to add to your wishlist, please check out our other articles here and here.
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