It’s Next Fest 2025, which means there are so many demos out there that are trying to get eyes on them! I may just be an ordinary garden-variety Pocha, but I still wanted to say a little bit about every game demo I checked out! These are in the order I played them, with no other system of rating in place. I'll continue to update this as I play more games, and all header images are taken directly from their steam pages!
Ratatan - I cannot WAIT for this game. I am a massive Patapon fan (the PSP was honestly amazing for unique game experiences like Patapon and Loco Roco), so I’ve had my eyes on this for quite some time. The demo did not disappoint! While I’m a bit tired of how prevalent roguelikes have become, all of the classic Patapon love that I was hoping for is on display here. The music is catchy, the rhythm/strategy gameplay is strong, and the character design is fantastic as always! Playing the demo to Ratatan made me mad because it’s not the full game. Release date NOW!
Kumakichi&Nyanzou Birth ☆ Destruction God DX - I checked this out because I love bears and found it to be a cute little game! The idea is that you walk around a map smacking stuff so it explodes, and the more you smack, the more you level up. The more you level up, the more items become smackable. Your goal is to wipe the entire stage out so you can move onto the next one. It was undeniably a repetitive game, but I could see this being a fun little mess-around game while you watch something on a second screen!
Metal Eden - The next project by the devs behind Ruiner, a game I enjoyed very much, Metal Eden is an FPS with a sleek presentation and a fun gameplay loop. The game is also gorgeous, though apparently that’s caused some people to have some issues with running the game even on PCs far better than mine. I can only say WORKED ON MY MACHINE (I say that not to be dismissive but to acknowledge that I can’t comment on that)! My only complaint so far is that the main narrator character in the first stage talks like he studied r/atheism for a personality. There was a line that was something along the lines of “I would love to flex the muscles of optimism, but I find they’ve atrophied.” GET OUT OF MY HOUSE.
The Horde Wants You Dead - Do you remember “This Game Has Zombies In It?” This game immediately hit me with those vibes. TGHZIT meets Vampire Survivors, The Horde Wants You Dead is simple in presentation and gameplay loop, which is perfect for what it wants to be. I immediately took to the game and found myself getting hit by the “just one more round” bug! I didn’t try out multiplayer, but I can tell you right now that if this game is priced right on release, I’ll be trying to get my buddies online for a few rounds while we’re chatting.
No, I’m Not A Human - I can tell you right now that this horror game is gonna be POPULAR. The art style is disgusting, and I mean that as a positive. It immediately sells its fantastic atmosphere and even playing the game in a brightly lit apartment on a warm summer day, I found myself getting a little uncomfortable at time. The idea is that you’re surviving a deadly summer by hiding within your home, and Visitors (basically Alternates from The Mandela Catalogue) have begun climbing out of the ground and killing people. At night, people knock on the door looking for refuge and you have to choose who to let in and who to send away. During the day, you talk to those people you chose to let in and run tests to try and determine if they’re human or Visitor. Once you let a visitor in, people start dying, and it is STRESSFUL. It’s already great, and it has the potential to be something really special.
Mala Petaka - A classic doom-style FPS (quite literally made in GZdoom!), this game is fast, stylish, and HARD. At least it was to me! I got my ass SLAPPED on stream and eventually had to move on just because I was brick walled in that moment, but the game is lightning fast and tightly designed! If you like Doom, check this one out! Also the soundtrack goes CRAZY and does this really cool thing where every level opens up by telling you the name of the song and the artist who composed it. As an audio person, that made me really happy!
SOLSTORM - Listen, I suck absolute CHEEKS at bullet hell shoot ‘em ups (shmups), but I also think they’re fun as hell! So when SOLSTORM showed up on my feed, I had to add it. Shocking no one, it is a bullet hell and so it gave me hell. The aesthetic is really pleasing, with the enemies being made up of things like bats and skulls and your controllable character being a little ghost thing that reminds me of a Chao from Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s got some interesting mechanics, too! This is one that’s not for me, but I can see shmup lovers having a lot of fun!
Dead as Disco - THIS GAME GOES CRAZY. A rhythm game that challenges you to do reactive counter-based combat Arkham-style whilst a great soundtrack helps you time your movements, Dead as Disco’s demo was compact and immediately engaging. I am desperate for the full release of this game. There wasn’t much to the demo so I don’t have much to say, but check this one out! It’s stylish, fun, and if they can figure out how to add a Beat Hazard-style mode where I can play to my own music, this is going to steal a lot of my time once it releases.
Mina the Hollower - The next game by Yacht Club, Mina the Hollower reminded both my stream chat and me of Link’s Awakening. It’s Yacht Club, so you know there’s gonna be quality here! There’s also some pretty intense difficulty, too. You’ve got three different weapon types to try out, and the stages are well built. The platforming can be a little rough due to the quasi-top-down viewpoint, but I still liked it overall!
Kitty Loves Birds - I’m gonna be honest with you: When I saw this pop up, I thought it looked like a mobile game I would have downloaded on my iPod Touch back in 2012. That being said, I do love me some kitties and platforming, so I said “why not?” What I ended up playing was a handful of levels of a surprisingly competent platformer! You play as a kitty that uses birds as jump-renewals to navigate your way through stages, looking to collect a big coin per stage to unlock other kitty designs and otherwise complete stages. I can't say it's something I'm in a rush to get the full version of, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the time I spent with it.
Jetrunner - The gameplay of this game is a blast for people who love time trials! It centers around parkour platforming with a little bit of fps gunplay to hit targets and unlock the finish lines in each stage. Restarting when you make a mistake is instantaneous, which helps to encourage chasing lower times. It’s a really fun gameplay loop! That being said, I feel bad admitting this, but the writing and voice delivery of the framing narrative is rough. I ended up playing the game with my own music because listening to the way the dialogue is both written and delivered was just too grating for me. This is just my opinion, though, so I strongly recommend trying it out yourself, because the gameplay is fantastic!
UNBEATABLE - God, I really wanted to like this game. It is stylish as all get out, with a unique art style of what appears to be paper cutouts for the characters and a 3D world for everything else (think Paper Mario), great scene framing/character designs, and some really good music. The problem is that the actual rhythm game constantly has this mechanic where the rhythm game will randomly switch which side of the screen notes come from. I found that when the notes would flip from one side of the screen to the other, my inputs would have seem to desync, and the way that the screen would actually shift to focus on which side was receiving notes did nothing but disorient me. The story mode also drags its feet, with minigames like drinkmixing stretching out the time between actual rhythm game moments. Maybe it's just my personal tastes, but I found these to make the whole experience drag. I'm totally cool with story modes in rhythm games, but this one felt like it existed as a seperate game from the rhythm stuff instead of as part of it! I might give this one another try down the road, but for the time being, I feel like it isn't for me.
Okko The Exiled - Now this is some classic ass side scroller! Great pixel graphics, fun character designs (PanPan please I am begging you for a chance), a solid mix of exploration and combat that takes no time to grasp, and just enough challenge that I couldn't just mindlessly progress whilst still not being annoyed by ultra difficult bullshit. This one's got a lot of potential, so I'll be keeping an eye on it!
