Steam Next Fest - February 2025 Edition
The Steam Next Fest has become a tradition by now on Steam. For us gamers it’s a great time to try out upcoming games and see if there’s anything exciting coming. A difficult endeavor since there are dozens or hundreds of demos available. We covered it before, for example below in 2024:
Now let’s see what’s up in this edition.
Eki
This time I tried more demos than usual, while Nils had less time and Podiki could not try any demo during the planned schedule.
Kathy Rain 2
Steam Page: Kathy Rain 2
This looked like a very nicely point’n click adventure. It even featured reflections of your character’s sprite when passing in front of a window! Really nicely done. However, the beginning of the game managed to put me to sleep. To be able to get inside the cabin where a writer was murdered, I need to go past a fan who asks me questions about that writer. And to answer such questions, you have to travel to the library, and read books to find the answers. And enter the answers using your keyboard. SO. BORING. Beautiful art killed by a lazy script. Not wishlisted.
Among Us 3D
Steam Page: Among Us 3D
Among Us returns in 3D! It’s exactly what you would expect. It’s pretty much the same game, but viewed in 3D, which means things are quite different: you don’t see beyond walls, and your view is very limited this time around, so it makes it harder to observe murders or to follow someone. Also, the game really wants you to give it access to your microphone as they expect you to talk by voice during the discussion sessions and not by chat this time. That goes a bit too far. I’m not too convinced by what I have seen so far, while the 3D environments do a good job of recreating the 2D style.
Not wishlisting it just yet.
Nitro Express
Steam Page: Nitro Express
Wow, cool trailer! 2D action a la Neo Geo! Lots of shooting and blasting on screen. Decent 2D pixel art! Ticking all the boxes right!? Hey game devs, I have got a tip for you. When you have a great trailer but your demo sucks, don’t release it! I know, I know, Valve has been pestering you guys to have something out for February, but you don’t have to give in their requests.
Because that was baaaaad. The pixel art has a strange aspect ratio. No options to customize shite. The performance is so bleak I had to push my poor Steam Deck at 15W TDP for a fucking 2D game to do its thing and stay at framerate-locked 30FPS (where’s 60???), just because someone was not able to optimize their game ahead of time. Oh, and the controls suck, not sure who gave you the idea that a short press on the L1 button was a smart way to make your character jump down. There’s nothing redeeming this one.
CERTAINLY NOT wishlisted.
Nitro GEN OMEGA
Steam Page: Nitro Gen Omega
The trailer was amazing. Kids entering huge robots (mechs) and fighting against other large adversaries in a turn-based tactics setting? Add to that fantastic animations that showcase the movements of the mech during their actions? Sign me up! Sadly, the trailer did a very good job to hide the flaws. The animations are good, but you don’t see mechs hitting each other, even in close combat mode. It’s like some anime sequences that are put together back to back to give you the illusion of a fight. The whole navigation is very confusing too. This was hugely underwhelming and smells like poor design. I have to congratulate the guy who manage to make a good trailer out of it. I’m not sure I could have pulled it off.
Not wishlisted, obviously.
Is This Seat Taken?
Steam Page: Is this Seat Taken?
A cute little game based on a very simple concept: you are given 2D levels with empty seats. Be it a bus, a limousine, a movie theater. Well, anything where you can put your butt in, really. You have God powers and with great powers come the great responsibility to… put a bunch of people in the right seats.
For example, a person want “to sit next to the window”. The same person wants “to sit on a clean seat”. So you’d avoid dirty seats and make sure they are facing a window at the same time. Someone else “wants to sit alone” so you need to make sure nobody is next to them. Every time you manage to satisfy the desires of a person, you get points for it, and you need enough points to reach the next levels.
As you can imagine, you end up with a bunch of assholes who have more and more complex requirements, and before you know it, this becomes a clusterfuck, well, the other world for a puzzle game. But I admit, Is This Seat Taken? is quite funny. You have people surrounded with black puffs of smoke who admit “I forgot to shower!” and others who rightfully request “I don’t want to be next to stinky people”. I can’t blame them. Been there, done that.
I can see where this is going, however. It will become fairly repetitive quite fast. This feels like a Flash game from the 2000s that made it big, got a star on Hollywood boulevard, did drugs, vomited in the pool, and ended up on Steam because no reason. I’m weak and gullible, so I wishlisted it, but will only pick it up on sale, promise, unless I’m high when it’s out. It works perfectly on the Steam Deck. It’s nice. The UI, presentation and controls are very, very good. It oozes good design, like sugar from a Krispy Kreme donut. Still, feels. like. a. flash. game.
Not judging. Just saying.
Drop Duchy
Steam Page: Drop Duchy
You know all the hipster startups these days have to have a stupid elevator pitch. Like my startup is “Facebook for dogs” or something. It seems like things went too far and game developers are starting to get weird ideas. Drop Duchy is Tetris in a Strategy Game. Almost sounds like a haiku. The concept is simple: blocks fall from the top just like in Tetris. You gotta make lines. The end. Wishlisted.
Scratch that, I went too fast. I skipped a few parts. On the blocks themselves, there are parts of maps. Like pieces of forests. Towns. Prairies with flowers and shit. And if you put them in a nice arrangement as the blocks fall down, you get bonuses and can expect to increase the strength of your kingdom, for some reason. There’s rules, you see. You GOTTA do the tutorial, fellows, otherwise you won’t get past the first level. Don’t be like me and skip most of the explanations, because then you’ll have trouble explaining why you wishlisted the game. Anyway. It’s pretty. Things move after you fill the whole thing. And then there’s fighting, and sometimes you win. Whatever.
I’m looking forward to when it comes out. By then, I hope to have mastered the rules.
Wordatro
Probably my favorite so far in this Steam Next Fest - As the name suggests it’s inspired by Balatro, but here the game is a kind of a new take on the Scrabble word game, with roguelite elements between levels, to increase the number of points you generate. Did I already tell you that I hate Scrabble and word games in general? Well I do. I usually can’t figure out long words and guess my ass kicked by 6 years olds.
That’s why you need to cheat! I mean, roguelite stuff right?! Each level requires you to pass a certain threshold of points to clear it, and the demand in points goes increasing faster that the Federal US debt as you go up in levels. To win big, you need to find very long words (well scratch that, or use ChatGPT I guess?), or be smart about using the different bonuses you get to make shorter words count for more than they should (I’m slightly better at this). Now that’s a game I like!
It’s very well designed, it plays perfectly on the Steam Deck (apart from the very short intro video that does not display properly), and is 100% addictive. Can’t wait for the full game to come out, this will certainly be a good time killer. Wishlisted.
Nils
This Next Fest was a bit weak for me. Part was my fault for not being able to play as many games as in previous editions, but also because I could not make some games work. It did not help that I was disappointed by some games that I had high expectations, like the remake of Gothic - weirdly enough it worked worse than the demo they put out ~4 years ago, and Game of Thrones: Kingsroad that would work great as single player game but overwhelmed me with MMORPG prompts “congrats for walking crouched for 10 meters, here is some stuff that you have no idea what to do with”, and constant disconnect from the servers.
FUMES
Steam Page: FUMES
Imagine Twisted Metal meets Shadow of the Colossus. This game got into my wishlist when I had to drive up a gargantuan tank while destroying weapons and key points.
I liked the customization options and variety of equipment. The combat is also fun, with different enemies, and you can use the environment to your advantage.
The demo takes quite long to finish compared to other demos (~4 hours), what is good because I could check for some potential red flags. In this case, it gets repetitive fast, there was only one Colossus fight at the very beginning and the rest were all cars fights with very similar mechanics. I wonder what the devs will do to keep it fresh.
Wheel World
Steam Page: Wheel World
Exploration and racing cozy game. I liked the biking driving and tweaking mechanics, and how you are rewarded by exploring the world, like finding new bike parts, hidden paths or just beautiful scenery.
It also made me get my bike out of storage, clean it and go for a ride.
Do No Harm
Steam Page: Do No Harm
Papers Please with Lovecraft mythos. You move to a remote island to work as a doctor. There, the townsfolk will come to your office, and you will need to administer proper medicine based on their symptoms. Shady figures will try to recruit you for their own cause, to the point or harming your own patients. It does not help that you are also losing your sanity and need to keep that in control.
I like the diagnosis mechanics, as you do not need to get right at first - as long as you don’t kill the patient. Sometimes the symptoms are not that clear, and you will have to watch the reaction of your patients to small doses of the medicine, while chugging Laudanum because your clock started spinning backwards. As long as you have enough medicine and laudanum for the day you might be fine, you can only replenish them at the end of the day and there is a cost involved.
Castle V Castle
Steam Page: Castle V Castle
It is a very interesting and simple game, but with a nice depth o tactics to it. At every turn you can use or discard your cards, those cards will let you improve your castle or damage the adversary. You can only use cards that your economy allows, if you have enough bricks to build something, swords to attack the enemy or magic for the most diverse effects.
I played against an adversary that focused on growing the economy early on, while I did not draw any cards to compete, I was able to counter it by playing very aggressive from the start. I also liked how straightforward the cards are, I could counter a strong robot timed attack by placing a mirror at the right time.
I was not expecting this diverse and deep tactical choices from a simple game, I enjoyed a lot the demo and I have good hopes for the full thing.
Void War
Steam Page: Void War
In short, FTL clone on 40k universe. In reality, so much more. I like the HUD improvement and the default keyboard shortcuts.
The King is Watching
Steam Page: The King is Watching
Base defence with “powering” mechanics.
You build in a grid, resources generating and army creation buildings, but only the ones being “powered” are active. The powering here is the gaze of the ruler, you start powering 3 tiles in L, and can upgrade to 6 tiles (3x2) in the demo.
You have a nice variation of defensive units and resources, but I found out that focusing on 2 is the ideal, and what made the game a bit repetitive for me. I hope that changes for the release.