Steam Next Fest, Feb. 2024 - An in-depth look at the Steam demos of this year

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Asian tech support said:
@Ughubughughughughughghlug you've got to step on the gas in Star Trucker, unfortunately. There might be a module you can get for cruise control but I only played for about 30 mins. Chill game, not much else to say. It's exactly what you expect. I'll probably end up buying it as a time waster while away for work.
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That's odd. I also played that game for 30 minutes. A big problem I had was with the steering. They need to make it a bit more subtle so it doesn't go all the way when you push the thumbstick.
 
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The Pulverizer said:
That's odd. I also played that game for 30 minutes. A big problem I had was with the steering. They need to make it a bit more subtle so it doesn't go all the way when you push the thumbstick.
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Forgot to list my gripes. The first was as you said, the steering is a bit touchy. The second is, and correct me if I'm wrong about this, that you can't see the entire truck when zooming out into third person view. Maybe there was an option to move the camera around and I didn't see it but still. If the player is ever in a situation where they have to maneuver in a confined area, it'd be nice to see where the tail end of the cargo is. I get that the game is about manually piloted semi trucks in space but ffs just say there are observer drones all over the place.

I played BioGun but could not the Bit Esc demo to work. It runs fine and plays fine. I'm not the biggest fan of the art style but it does have some soul. I wish you could rebind the controls but it was serviceable. The little gun hits like a wet noodle.

Did anyone play Dungeonborne? I'm not interested in another Dark & Darker but the magic looked neat.

I'm checking out of playing demos for now. The best ones I played so far have been Realm of Ink, Mullet Mad Jack, Star Trucker, and Pacific Drive in that order.
 
It is done. I have fully caught up with (almost) all of your recommendations. I am stopping here but I'll include any games you want on the list if you're willing to rate them yourself.

In the past week I've personally played a total of 25 demos. Out of those I responded positively 11 of them. Two games really caught my eye though: Demon Spore and Mullet Mad Jack.

Demon Spore boasts a great premise combined with a really fun rogue-like experience. It's not a bullet hell or a beat 'em up, but rather an intense top-down shooter that requires you to think. Like FTL, you must plot a course and avoid an imminent threat. There's a margin of error in how you approach each room. It makes for a very intense engaging experience that's way better than the sum of its parts.​

The most competitive genre right now is boomer shooters. I predict Mullet Mad Jack will rise above its competition because the demo was the most fun boomer shooter I've played in years. I don't even like anime, but its 2D animations are much more interesting than your typical generic retro low polygon graphics with pixelated textures. Unlike Demon Spore, there isn't a lot of strategy here.​
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Your task is to cross the level quickly and clear enemies to put a delay in your inevitable demise. Each kill increases the time on your death countdown, but you get rewarded for taking your time and looking for environmental hazards to use to your advantage. If you're low on time, then you can use a melee weapon and shove it in your enemy's face to marginally increase your timer. DOOM (2016) had a minigame that was exactly like this.​
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Big thanks to @Belegar Ironhammer, @Asian tech support, @TheCrackMonkey, @JudgeDredd, @The Feline Solution, @ZMOT, @LowLowHighLow, @Gender: Xenomorph, @BibiLivesMatter, @Counterfeit Obol, @Deadwaste, and @Biggie Smalls' Taint for the recommendations and reviews. We should do this again next year!
 
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Today Steam will release their numbers and show us the most played demos of the fest. Judging from their list of the most wishlisted games it seems the best games didn't make it to the top.

I'm not that all of the top games are trash. Just a bit disappointed to see miserable games like Lightyear Frontier and Indika so high up on the list. Some of the top games literally have "walking simulator" listed as one of their associated genres.
 
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The Pulverizer said:
Some of the top games literally have "walking simulator" listed as one of their associated genres.
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hey sometimes they're comfy, and given the average entertainment these days what else you gonna do and "experience"?
different strokes and different folks, at least most of them don't demand every game turned into a walking sim (journotards whining about darksouls difficulty notwithstanding).

once it's over it should go back to the placeholder page, if you're still in the mood for more you can check the earlier ones like https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest_oct2023?tab=1 (you have to go by tab, the home/trending tab is broken atm).
word of warning tho, you'll inevitably find more interesting looking games - which might even be released already. just grabbing the link made me spot these two:

fuck, three four more:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1606180/_/ (no english language but looks quite nice. bad performance apparently)

also reminded me of one of the higher rated game from that next fest, you probably want to check that out in any case:
 
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The Pulverizer said:
That's odd. I also played that game for 30 minutes. A big problem I had was with the steering. They need to make it a bit more subtle so it doesn't go all the way when you push the thumbstick.
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I don’t get the sudden push for “job” games. Like seriously. The point of games is to not work and relax. Not eat sleep and breathe wageslavery.
 
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Stimjim said:
I don’t get the sudden push for “job” games. Like seriously. The point of games is to not work and relax. Not eat sleep and breathe wageslavery.
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I couldn't get into ATS partially because it removed all the fun from driving the roads.

Games are supposed to amplify the fun parts and tone down the boring parts. For example, being a police officer has a lot of drawbacks but if you can shoot a fleeing suspect with a dozen rounds to the head before reading him his rights, it can be fun. (I don't know of any games where you can do that and the game doesn't reprimand you for being too rowdy).
 
Stimjim said:
I don’t get the sudden push for “job” games. Like seriously. The point of games is to not work and relax. Not eat sleep and breathe wageslavery.
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because they arent like real jobs. you fuck up a job in a game, it isnt that big a deal. you fuck up a job in real life, its gonna cost you a lot.
besides, those sim type games where you run a big farm or drive a truck from point a to b is considered relaxing to some
 
Stimjim said:
I don’t get the sudden push for “job” games. Like seriously. The point of games is to not work and relax. Not eat sleep and breathe wageslavery.
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Its escapism into an idealized fantasy of a different kind of career. Truck simulators are a great example, the idealism of being paid to just drive, none of the hassle of coordinating finding loads at all your destinations, making timelines while not violating maintenance and rest regulations less you get fined to hell and back, and not having to chase people to actually get paid for the work you did.

Some people just have extremely low bars for what they consider better than their dayjob.

The Pulverizer said:
Today Steam will release their numbers and show us the most played demos of the fest. Judging from their list of the most wishlisted games it seems the best games didn't make it to the top.

I'm not that all of the top games are trash. Just a bit disappointed to see miserable games like Lightyear Frontier and Indika so high up on the list. Some of the top games literally have "walking simulator" listed as one of their associated genres.
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Tends to happen a lot, marketing is still king when it comes to these events. You don't need a better game, you just need more eyes on it. If you have a great game with a 1 outta 10 player conversion rate for wishlists, and a boring game with a 1 in 100 conversion rate, the boring game will still blow the great game outta the water if they manage to put it in front a hundred thousand players via marketing, while the 'organic' reach of the great game might be just a couple hundred.

There's a few games from communities I'm part of in the steam next fest, and I can tell you its been a complete flop for all but one of them, and it comes down to marketing and appeal. Their games don't look great and they did nothing to really get extra attention on them, so nobody seems to realize they exist. The one outlier is a game that actually has visual appeal, and is already successful on mobile, and he's leveraging that success to market the port.
 
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Ok here are the most outstanding Steamfest Demos/Awards:

The "There's no winners, but if there was a winner..." award
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Balatro is a great combination between roguelikes and poker and WILL get you addicted to gamlbing.

The "Should be an Esport" award
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Crackpots a fun party game, with potential to pull some great shots and great to watch gameplay.

The "Would have caused a ruckus 20 years ago" award
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Maniac is what Hatred/Postal tries to be, except instead of being gritty and grim, it's fun and manic.

The "Interesting use of hexagons" award
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Moduwar lets you control a growing creature, or break it down into smaller creatures, and control them as individual units.

The "English would rather you buy their ships off G2A" award
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A great ship game that allows you to live out your pirate dreams: board enemy ships, fire your cannons, and die because your crew hates you.

The "Great vehicular combat" award
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Fumes has great vehicle combat. That's it.

The "Great use of dice" Award
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Dicemancer lets you reroll anything with your dice. Your current life? Attack? Mana? Hand? Enemy's attack? Enemy's life? Current number of girlfriends? You can reroll all of those numbers!

The "Gets the aesthetic right" award
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Menace From The Deep is your run of the mil Slay The Spire clone, except its nails its setting and aesthetics.

The "Most promising" award
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Vestiges is fun, and with great balance and more content, it will be an amazing game!
 
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Stimjim said:
I don’t get the sudden push for “job” games. Like seriously. The point of games is to not work and relax. Not eat sleep and breathe wageslavery.
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Work is inherently interesting and rewarding. There's tons of shitty TV shows on things like the History Channel to attest to that. But people don't want to work a million jobs IRL, because there's IRL bullshit and it's tiring and takes a lot of time. There's a ton of delayed gratification and you can't just walk away from it. Dad games and post-dad games capture in some way the core idea of what makes a job mentally or physically stimulating and then cuts out everything tedious and awful about a real job, as though you play the montage instead of the real thing.

You might say the same thing about what's "relaxing" about the horrors of fighting for your life in combat or bearing the crushing responsibility of commanding a vast army or nation. It's an exciting fantasy stripped of what makes that stuff horrible in real life.
 
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Gender: Xenomorph said:
Gave Touhou Empires a try
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Oh hey! This looks to be a sequel/remake of sorts of Touhou Boushuen ~ Age of Ethanols! It uses the same "fairies as infantry, books as siege engines, factions get unique heroes with special abilities" system that game used. In fact, looking into it, it seems to be the same developers.


Had a great time with that game, even though I'm bad at RTS games. The thing I absolutely loved about it is that the background music was a medley of the hero characters' themes specific to the faction you picked, so if you picked the Hakurei Shrine, you'd get a medley of Maiden's Capriccio, Love-Colored Magic/Master Spark, and Broken Moon all in one, since Reimu, Marisa, and Suika were your relevant heroes for that faction.


So thanks for letting me know about this game's existence. I honestly saw the manly buff promotional pictures years ago and wrote them off as an April Fools meme. I didn't think they were actually making another game.
 
Anyone try Pacific Drive? What’s it like? How’s it run? What did you run it on? How small is the text/will it be suitable to play on Deck?
 
Book Thief said:
Had a great time with that game, even though I'm bad at RTS games. The thing I absolutely loved about it is that the background music was a medley of the hero characters' themes specific to the faction you picked, so if you picked the Hakurei Shrine, you'd get a medley of Maiden's Capriccio, Love-Colored Magic/Master Spark, and Broken Moon all in one, since Reimu, Marisa, and Suika were your relevant heroes for that faction.
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this looks gay
 
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Almighty Space Duck said:
Anyone try Pacific Drive? What’s it like? How’s it run? What did you run it on? How small is the text/will it be suitable to play on Deck?
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I gave it the due diligence.
read the thread retard it's only 4 pages said:
@The Pulverizer

re: Pacific Drive

This is a combination of Stalker and Firewatch. The actual driving feels like trash and would benefit from at least going into third person but as per the trailer, there's a lot of instruments in the interior that you're gonna need to be referencing. There's a lot to do with the car itself and it's neat how they're going for making the car a character in its own right. The game itself is relaxing. You drive from POI to POI gathering resources, avoiding anomalies and enemies, and playing backpack fu. It's not much to look at but that's ok I suppose.

My gripe is that there's not that much actual driving. There's a hub base but you don't actually drive to the missions. You're teleported there and you drive within the mission zone which for the first mission is quite small. I wish it'd be open world but maybe the thought was that the actual driving mechanics weren't strong enough to justify forcing the player into the driver's seat for prolonged periods. Shame.

The game runs fine but there were a few very noticeable texture bugs.

Overall, the game is ok but not for the $25 they're asking (it comes out in a couple weeks). I'd pay 8 bucks for it on sale.
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I was running it maxed on a 3090ti and was getting close to 200fps. It was stable. It's not that good looking of a game so I don't think it'll have any problems running on deck.
 
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It sort of did. What you're seeing is Most Played of Steam Next Fest, which started on the 13th and ends on the 20th.
 
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