#dungeon clawler

[zodiaccloudart]

I'm addicted to Stray Faun Studio's game Dungeon Clawler, had to draw fanart of the main fella Sir Bunalot <3 Check out the demo on steam!! it's so good <3 🐰🗡

(Cross-posted with my twitter here <3)

[syrupspinner]

steam next fest 3 the finale maybe

i have recently become much less confident that nextfest is all one word, also

yeah, its missing some pizzaz, like music and sfx work, but the devs are pretty open about it being early so ill look past it. the gimmick itsself is fun! its simple and straightforward in a good way, and i like how it iterates on runs. the good items taking up more physical space and getting burried in your deck is a really good expression of balance. good little roguelike! wishlisted and played for way longer than i thought i would

straight up couldnt get this one to work. no buttons or keys do shit. i unplugged my controller, relaunched it, a bunch of stuff, still stuck on the first screen. shame, i was really looking forward to giving it a shot

this is a good demo! it does a good job at presenting the game and letting you know what its all about. i got the basics really solidly, and i see how the additional environments would iterate on the core gameplay loop. i dont think this ones for me, it seems a bit too sandboxy and score-based for me, but i recognize that this is a well made game and i think itll be really enjoyable for its target audience. check it out if you like simulator/management things, or if you want to try the genre out!

okay, just finished the tutorial, and im kinda split. first, the action feels great and the movement it stellar but yeesh this controller binding is messing me up. it only feels comfortable for me to keep one finder on the front of the controller, and i switch between the bumpers and the triggers with just my index. literally the only games that arent comparable with this approach, by expecting you to use bumpers AND triggers simultaneously, is this and hotline miami 2. the worst part is, i only figured out how weird this feels by the second-to-last tutorial, so i gotta redo all of it with kbm. after that, the game felt a lot more reasonable to get my fingers around (i probably wouldve switched spacebar and shift if i played longer), and i can confirm that the controller layout is my only obstacle to this kick-ass game. i will say that i wasnt expecting it to be a survival game? i thought itd be kind of a roguelike progression-through-a-dungeon thing, but its more about staying in a small space and defending. i already had this one wishlisted, and im glad i know what to expect now, this seems like itll be an interesting "kill 20 minutes before bed" game (in a good way! i love those)

right away, this feels like its to scotland what kisima innitchuna is to alaskan first nations. only its all stop motion and the entire ost sounds like a simon & garfunkle open house. maybe this comparison is stupid, the point is that this is awesome and you need to play it now. it may look like you get what the games about when you look at it, but it feels different to control. i dunno how to explain it, the artstyle makes the controls feel... different in a neutral way? please just try it, words fail me. this may very well be a once-in-a-lifetime game

game froze midway through the opening. man, bad luck today. it gotr working in the end, and MAN does this make me feel like a game reviewer. the game isnt hard per se, i can beat all the levels pretty easily, but the game asks you to be pretty damn talented if you want those a ranks. replay the level, route the best way to kill everyone as efficiently as possible. by the end youre gonna feel like harding. i feel like the full games gonna be a bit to tough for my blood, but im gonna have a stellar time watching the action from the sidelines. catch this at GDQ 2026

yeah i uh. went back to play more. damn this is more fun than i thought itd be, this is a good ass roguelike

before you read on, let it be known that this is objectively one of the best made and well put-together games ive tried this entire festival and all of my gripes with it are from personal preference. trying this game has led me to understand what people enjoy about punch-out (its clear inspiration) better than any 15 minute video essay could: its a puzzle game that relies on twitch reflexes and trial-and-error. its your job as a player to be attentive to the bosses's minute difference of animation to tell you exactly how to dodge and exactly when to strike. thats a great game! i feel genuinely remiss that i dont like trial and error and split-second weaknesses, or else i wouldve enjoyed this game way more. if youre on the fence about it, please give it an honesty try, this game knows exactly what to be and how to be it. the animation is great, both from the perspective of telegraphing attacks and just looking fantastic, the games vibe and personality is choice, and the gameplay itself is tight as hell. please just give it a shot

i guess thats the beauty of a demo, huh? it lets you figure out if youre gonna like a game before you commit to it. i hope if you take anything away from this 3-part... idk what youd call it, i kinda just gave my opinion about shit. look, im trying to tell you to try these games out yourself, hopefully this helped you figure out what is and isnt worth trying according to your own personal taste. and if youre not sure, give it a try anyway. demos are free, yknow

[knight-of-heart-and-art]

if dex on youtube plays a game there's like, a 90% chance i will be absolutely absorbed by it

[gemhunter178]

Dungeon Clawler!

A game I had my sights on finally has a demo - it's Dungeon Clawler!

Here's Sir Bunalot grabbing a hand mirror - which on some battles can be such a huge lifesaver.

Happy Fan Art Friday, everyone

[videogaems]

Steam Next Fest - June 2024

Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers It feels easy to say 'Balatro Clone'. BUT if you say that about this game, you are openly admitting that you only see playing cards and have no nuance, just like everyone said. Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers (Or D&DG as I'm going to refer to it, to save my little fingies the typing) is a roguelike blackjack battler. Those words feel confusing to stitch together but just follow me.

You choose your suit (different suits have different abilities, and the game equates this to difficulty) and begin playing blackjack against an opponent. You are always able to see their cards, unlike regular blackjack, and whoever of the two players wins does damage to the other players health pool, amounting to the difference between your final hands. Going over 21 results in your hand value being reduced to zero, in which case be prepared to take 17 full points of damage to the face.

As you win against opponents, you will acquire new cards for your deck, much like Balatro. Your opponents will also be acquiring these cards, much unlike Balatro.

There is also a mechanic of some cards being manually 'Exploited' (Read as: Activated), but in order to Exploit a Card, you must have Advantage (Read as: Points). This isn't explained well in the game *at all* in my opinion, but as you can see I figured it out using my brain and eyes, much to my chagrin.

I don't think I'll be Wishlisting D&DG, but it does the thing I like: It's a weird spin on a concept you know. And it works! I'll be curious to see if this catches on with the Balatro crowd, but I will certainly recommend it to roguelike and deckbuilding fans.

Dungeon Clawler I won't lie, when I saw that this was a dungeon crawler where you play a crane game to fight people, I automatically assumed this was my shit. I will say that it's kind of my shit, but it's not as 'my shit' as I originally thought it would be. Gameplay is cool and straightforward, you get two chances per turn to drop a claw into a claw machine and pull out symbols. The symbols you pull out will have some kind of effect (swords do damage, shields block damage, etc). By winning fights, you amass coins and new symbols to add to your crain machine that have varying effects.

By and large, the game is a cool idea but I'm not wild about execution. Now, Baron Mind® that this game is still in development so the following critiques may not apply someday BUT:

The art style is that kind cel-drawn images squash and stretch to imply movement, but it ends up kind of looking chinsey. It was the first thing I noticed, but maybe that's just because of how offput I am by that artistic choice.

Second, a banger of a soundtrack, even if it is just a remix of the Type B song from Game Boy Tetris, it's pretty good. But, zero sound effects. None at all, which filled me with discontent. I'm seeing attacks, I'm getting shields, I need noise.

Again, probably not a Wishlist for me but good execution on a great idea.

Tactical Breach Wizards

This was probably the breakout hit for me this Next Fest, and I will absolutely buy this day one (And hope the demo works after the fest is over). The third in the Defenestration Trilogy by Tom Francis - Which also includes Heat Signature (maybe one of my favorite games of all time) and Gunpoint (A game that, years after it came out, I found out I have a friend whose brother did the music - small world).

In Tactical Breach Wizards, it is the modern world, but magic exists. You are a team of magic users who are also a SWAT team. And when I say SWAT, I want you to imagine all the straight-to-DVD action movies that are marketed to the people who are military nerds, but never actually joined the military - It's that. I mean, one character is effectively Gandalf in Desert Camo with an M14 that has a staff sticking out of it, another has a wand with a laser sight and a silencer. It whips ass.

Gameplay is a lot like XCom, with one cool feature being that your wizard can see one second into the future, so after finishing your turns, you can forsee how the enemy will react, and rewind your turn as far back as you like, as many times as you want in order to achieve your desired outcome.

Honestly, I could rave about this game for a while. The gameplay, the style, the writing, everything is just aces, and this immediately breached the door to my Steam wishlist and killed everyone inside. Can't wait for August.

Caravan Sandwitch

I was unsure how to feel about Caravan Sandwitch. You play a girl who is returning to her hometown after a long time away, and reuniting with friends while driving a van.

The art style? Fantastic. Really just an absolute dream to look at and play. The setting? Eh... Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of games that don't hold your hand to explain the world lore, and just kind of let you figure it out through context. Caravan Sandwitch does try to do that, but it falls short, and you end up feeling like a third wheel to these characters, rather than being in the shoes of the character you're playing.

While you explore, the game will have pillows sitting about in hard-to-reach places that effectively serve as collectible lookout points, where your character will just chill and observe the surroundings. These moments are peaceful, and personally I'd love to see more games do something like this, in an effort to make the player really observe the effort put into the environment (A thing I fail to do often)

However, other than that, Caravan Sandwitch didn't really grip me and I probably won't keep up on it.

Dustborn

Another entry in forgettable-single-name-game-titles-that-are-portmanteaus. Dustborn has you follow a group of characters in a band, traveling across the country on a tour in an effort to get to Nova Scotia, which seems to be some kind of safe haven in a military-state America.

Again, the Art style in this game is fantastic, everything is very comic book stylized, even the button prompts, but the demo jumps between moments in the first couple hours of the game without giving you a lot of info as to what is going on. I was surprised when combat was introduced, and thrilled when it included a baseball bat that you can throw and retrieve like the Leviathan Axe in God of War. Well, not quite like the Leviathan Axe... it's posited that way, but ultimately ends up being a ranged attack that just automatically returns to you. Combat was very floaty and just didn't have that je-ne-sais-quois that makes combat feel good.

The game also contained a rhythm action sequence that was reminiscent of Gitaroo Man, another fave of mine, but that wasn't enough to make me want to follow up.

BUS: Bro U Survived

I dislike this game on name alone, and playing it didn't really help much. Points to it for having customization options to let me have a handlebar mustache, but this game just kind of boils down to a co-op zombie survival game in a cartoony style where you have to drive a bus sometimes. I only clocked 26 minutes in this game, and to be fair, I was playing solo (What, I'm supposed to make friends?), but this game didn't hold me for very long. Even as I write this I'm trying to remember much about it, and it just ended up being very forgettable.

Wizard of Legend 2

Hell yeah. HELL YEAH. I forget how I even found out about the original Wizard of Legend, but it's a fun roguelike that I recommend. I was unaware that a sequel was even in the works, so this was a delight to find out about, and an even bigger delight to play.

Players will play the role of a wizard attempting to complete a legendary challenge, with the idea that each run is a new wizard's attempt, since the last one died. Choose spells of different elements, speed, and power, and try to find combinations that mesh well together. I had a lot of fun using a wind vortex to pull all enemies to me, and then hitting the lot of them with chain lightning. Even for a demo, I could see myself sinking a lot of time into this (and I'm hoping it's still playable after Next Fest). This one makes the Wishlist for sure, and I'm looking forward to the release.

Aloft

I found Aloft very disappointing. Yet another first person crafting survival game with the hook being that eventually you make a glider that you can use to zip around the world.

The demo is in Alpha, as the devs will make known quickly, and the game made known to me quickly, since I encountered a bug early on that I had to visit the steam forums to make sense of. While going through the tutorial prompts, after collecting leaves and wood and shit like that, I was prompted to craft a Glider at the Glider station. Oh boy, it's finally my time to fly! But wait, I don't have a Glider Station. What's more, I can't build a Glider Station. Where is the Glider Station? Is this 'Glider Station' in the room with us right now?

Eventually I learned that this is a bug - the game is supposed to give you more prompts to guide you up the mountain in the game, where you will learn how to make the Glider station, and THEN you are supposed to get the prompt to build your glider. To drive that point forward: The. Tutorial. Is. Bugged. The thing that teaches you how to play the game does not work correctly. I know it's Alpha, and I know I don't make games, but this seems like such an oversight.

Finally, I made my Glider, and took off. It was... fine. The camera cuts to third person when this happens, but your character is so stiff and rigid flying around. It felt cool to zip around, but it didn't feel good if that makes any sense.

Maybe I'll circle back around on Aloft when it's in Beta or 1.0, but this just wasn't it for me.

Goblin Cleanup

But this was!!! Play as a goblin henchman whose job it is to clean up and reset all the traps in the dungeon before the next group of heroes arrive! For some reason, gamified mundane shit always gets me, and this game was no exception.

Goblin cleanup is almost beat-for-beat a reproduction of Viscera Cleanup Detail. Instead of a mop, you stab a slime and poke bloodstains with it until it soaks them all up (and dies?!). Instead of washing the mop, you feed the slime to a mimic, so on and so forth. Some improvements include:

Structure. You're given a list of tasks to complete, and they are checked off as you complete them. As a person with ADHD Inattentive Type, lists are key for me, so this was a big improvement over Viscera Cleanup Details approach of 'Clean until you're done and we'll tell you if you did good'. I'm neurodivergent with a praise kink, you've gotta tell me I'm doing good while I'm doing good.

Scanning. Hitting Q at any given point will highlight on your HUD where there are still items to be cleaned up. Massive improvement over Viscera Cleanup Detail, where you just have to kind of eyeball it.

I liked this! A lot! I could see myself buying this, or even just going back and trying to finish the level proper before NextFest is over.

Pawn Planet

I'm a massive mark for shop-owning games, and even more so if the game has a mechanic for haggling. Pawn planet has both, and by and large, I enjoyed it. The premise is simple, you run a pawn shop on a remote planet. Aliens come in an buy the stuff you have, or try to sell you things. When they approach the register you are given stats on the customer, like Anger, Knowledge, and Greediness. Using this, as well as the condition of the item you are buying or selling, you haggle on a price until one of you coughs up the cash. After the day is over, you can buy supplies to repair the items to make your money back.

Some days, there will be an auction at a storage planet where you roll the bones and bid on a Storage Locker of random items, storage wars style. Not going to lie, this had me hyped until I got fleeced on a board game I paid way too much for.

Other days, you will travel through a portal and ostensibly raid an alien base in order to murder civilians and take their stuff to sell. Okay, so the game doesn't say that, but the game also doesn't explain who these people are or why you are shooting them in the face. This section was underwhelming - The shooting isn't super tight, and you just sort of strafe and click on the aliens until they blow up. Not to mention there was some confusing placement of items in the alien base; Why are you putting what is obviously a safe in this room if it is not intended that I should try to crack it open and steal the rest of whatever was left in these creature's will?

Other bugbears included the fact that when you buy an item, only that item will come to your shipping bay, and you must remove it before you can buy another item. So in a situation where I needed three separate items, I needed to leave the computer, go to the shipping bay, retrieve it, and return to the computer... three separate times. Also, when traveling to the storage planet, I had to click where I wanted to go on my computer inside, then go outside to the spaceship to leave. These are small grievances, but the question and the sometimes vowel remains: Why?

This one gets a rec from me, I didn't spend too much time with it but I did enjoy it overall. Hoping that the finished product has a bit more polish.

The Alters

From the trailers I've seen of this game, it seems cool, but I didn't get far enough in the demo to really see the meat and bones. Which is to say I didn't get far enough to see any of the titular Alters. I, instead, ran headfirst into some radiation at some point, and lost about 10 minutes worth of progress that I just didn't have the nerve to redo, so I bailed. Luckily, these NextFest demos seem to not have expired, so maybe I'll go back and give it another shot.

In the meantime, there are a lot of Death Stranding vibes, a game I loved, and a base building mechanic similar to XCOM, yet another game I like. I think this has legs, and I enjoy the idea of alternate versions of the main character helping him out, but again - I didn't get there.

I dunno... seems neat.

Demonschool

This came at the recommendation of a friend, and I simply could not wrap my head around it. I'm a real sucker for teenagers at a weird school doing paranormal stuff, but the combat system felt very obtuse. One character only buffs, and two characters only attack. You choose the actions they will take but just kind of clicking around (not actually selecting the skills, just sort of running the character into targets), and then they play out those actions once your turn has concluded. Which I sort of get why, but it's still very disorienting. I only stuck around for two combats, so I can't say this is for me, but if you're into visual novelesque storytelling with Into the Breach Combat, this may be your cup of tea.

Reka

I think I remember seeing a trailer for this game during the Wholesome Direct or Cozy Direct or whatever the hell in 2023, but it seemed cool, and it is. This is effectively a base building game, except you're a young witch training under Baba Yaga and the base is a giant chicken house that you can drive around. It's pretty tight. Your character only looks like a haunted doll, regardless of what features you choose, and the controls are very floaty but I think this has a lot of potential. My first action once getting my Bird House was to see how big I could make the platform it sits upon, and the answer is 'pretty big'. This was one of a few demos that I actually saw through to the end, so I think that says quite a bit. Hoping the full release has some meat on these Chicken House Bones.

Thank Goodness You're Here!

I'm going to file this one under Biggest Disappointment of the Fest. I typically try to give games about 15 minutes at least so I can get a feel for what they're doing. This demo was 13 minutes long. It being by the creators of Untitled Goose Game had me excited, but ultimately you just kind of run around and slap things and everyone has a funny British accent. I was very un-wowed by the game, and very wowed when the demo ended so abruptly. Oh well, I suppose.

Tiny Glade

Not so much a game as it is a toy, but oh boy is it a fun one. Intuitively whip up little castles with no problem, and then walk around with them in the first person. I was so charmed by this that I called my artist wife in to sit down and take a look at it, and I didn't need to explain anything about it before she had build herself a little castle. You build little castles! What's not to love? I'm hoping there's more to it in the full release, or at the very point that the price point reflects what it is exactly.

Tiny Bookshop

Another one I saw in a cozy direct that I had my eye on that ended up kind of falling flat for me. This game boils down to a shop simulator, which I'm a huge fan of, obviously. But then there's the whole aspect of have percentages of book genres, and how many books you have affecting your likelihood to sell... it just didn't hook me in the way I hoped. The art style, however, was very good, and it's a delight to look at. This might be another one I take a stab at when I'm in the right headspace.

Wild Bastards

I heard Void Bastards was good, but I never actually played it. Wild Bastards seems pretty neat though... you are a couple of Wild West Robots (hell yeah) who are venturing across the galaxy and resurrecting your dead team members with a magic ship. Levels consist of beaming down to a planet and taking out enemies meticulously while not being killed yourself. You can only take down two team members at a time, but you can hotswap between them which is a neat mechanical way of changing weapons. Unfortunately, once I got my third team members, I was summarily shithoused by a bunch of plants and my run was ruined. Still, I had a lot of fun and I will be keeping a close eye on this one. Maybe not a day one buy, but certainly something to pick up.

That's my NextFest, folks. Love it or hate it, I love videogames and I like that demos are coming back in vogue. Til next time.

[gumi-megpoidd]

MY WABERBOTLE

[savingcontent]

Dungeon Clawler Early Access Preview

Continue reading Dungeon Clawler Early Access Preview

[hardcoregamer]

Underrated Demos You May Have Missed During Steam Next Fest 2024

It's worth noting that even though Next Fest is technically over by the time you're reading this, all the demos from it should still be available, and it's absolutely worth checking out these upcoming indies, cool double-A projects, and good times, all for free.

Check them out!

[rolledcabbage]

tried the dungeon clawler demo and it was really fun! ended up spending the whole night minmaxing the vampire lmao. got to floor 15 before the enemies gained the ability to delete 80% of my health bar in one turn

[psystirene]

HE'S SO SILLAYYYY this game is awesome

[fluffy-moth]

over the past month and so I've been doing these streams where I play a bunch of really cool Demos (and some short games) on my twitch, doing 4 of them per stream.

from left to right, up then down, we have:

Vividlope / Myths are 100% True / Gimmiko / Kipidon

BOOM! Buster / Susan Taxpayer / How Fish is Made / AutoNecrochess

Who's Lila / The Big Catch: Tacklebox / Mouthwashing / Blink and Die: Replay

Mask Around / Dungeon Clawler / Stardust Demon / Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines

you should go and play all of these RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

and also, if you have any cool demo (or short game) recommendations, lemme know, so I can do more D.DAYS streams ok bye!!!1!!

[sangfielle]

okay here's my initial list. i pulled a bunch of shit but honestly this next fest looks way less promising than the last one. the last one had cryptmaster.... if u have any standouts so far that arent on this list lmk. i'll try anything but the total absence of platformers and driving games on this list is because i tend to be bad at them

Wizard of legend ii

Vampire therapist

Tavern talk

The crush house

Amber isle

Of the devil

Afterlove ep

Elation for the wonder box 6000

Mexico, 1921. A deep slumber

Midnight ramen

Ophelia’s chapter

Grifford academy

Threads of you: beyond the bay

B-project ryusei*fantasia

Dog eat dog: scam to survive

Techno banter

Ghost girl lasling

Adventure forge

Dev_hell

Dungeon clawler

Dice & fold

Rune coliseum

Technotopia

Once upon a rogue’s tale

Through the thorns and curses

Pyrene

Perfect hand of nostalpix

Dawnmaker

Elemental exiles

Paper kingdom

Witching stone

Hollowbody

Creatures of ava

Steel seed

On your tail

Bloodless

Keylocker

Fading skies

Closer the distance

The august before

Beatrider

Mythwrecked: ambrosia island

unheil

This Magical Girl is a B☆tch

Saint ceri

Anchored Hearts: A Tale of Destiny

Unheim

Devil’s hideout

Going down

BURN

Sigh of the abyss

Lethal Honor - Order of the Apocalypse

Vampire dynasty

Evilvevil

Vampire: The Masquerade - Reckoning of New York

Kickback

Metal slug tactics

Wild bastards

About a mouse

Spill the beans

Love, ghostie

Obscuria

Be the Ruler: Britannia

Jousting manager

Last Dream Fishing Arcade

Hollywood animal

Tavern manager simulator

Sunset motel

Enotria: The Last Song

SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim

Broke Signal Badlands: A World of Desert Adventure

SWORN

Warden’s will

Shell runner

Where is my cat

Ash & Adam's GOBSMACKED

Evilspunk

Duelant

Sporeborn Dark

GUNCHO

Necrophosis

Fomo

I am your beast

Kill knight

Sophonce

Morn

Goblin cleanup

Rainbow sea

Repent

Shapehero factory

Handmancers

Falling mountains

幻兽纸牌

Spirits of the sicilium forest

Dice captain

The dragonhood

Sea of brave: beast island

Warlords of the deck

Demon’s mirror

Pape rangers

Dungeons of hinterberg

Bloomtown: a different story

Dimhaven enigmas

Honeycomb: the world beyond

Brokenlore: follow

Elise

Trap for the heir

Dustborn

No more noise

Security control

Dark hours

Bane murrain

TRADESMAN: Deal to Dealer

Medieval Crafter: Blacksmith

Sovereign elect

Mercyful Flames: The Witches

Debtor’s club

The vigilante diaries

Blood typers

Fraudulent idols

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

Echoes in the Deep - A Fateforge Tale

Mirthwood

Go to hell must

Dust courier

Raining City: Millions Recollections

[knight-of-heart-and-art]

i've been obsessed with dungeon clawler (free demo on steam rn!) lately so. sir bunsalot is going to live on my shelf soon. he still needs his lil earrings and the claw tho.

[catastrophic-crisis]

My toys...

Welcome to the cute yet painful grind of claw machines! You can try your hand at trying to nab cute goods yourself by playing the demo yourself, or, if it pleases you, trying to escape the Circus.

If you want a more combat-focused claw machine, Dungeon Clawler is another claw machine roguelike deckbuilder with a demo out now!

Plenty of games have released in the past week or so, so to recap a few:

(Sunset Hills, a furry novelist adventure point n' click from the same publisher as Woolly Boy, it has a 10% launch discount and its demo is still up!) (If you like banter, Tactical Breach Wizards has you blasting, tactically, enemy wizes out of windows. 10% launch discount.) (Arco is a Western tactical RPG that has you fighting off colonizers with a “simultaneous turn-based” combat system, and is looking to get some more eyes on the game! 10% launch discount. Sound familiar?)

The GMTK game jam is live with the theme "built to scale", and is currently in its voting period! Why dontcha explore some cool lil ideas and help rate some games?

(Shutterbug is an insect photography game where the game window itself is part of the gameplay - resizing the window and moving it helps to frame your buggy subjects for the perfect picture!) (Overflow is a simple math game that has you testing your number skills to create large numbers using the tiles you're given.) (Hyperscale Red is a plundercore game that makes use of the newly open source (as of last week) game Anodyne 2 to say something about games as you scale a giant Mario, of Super Mario fame.) (Little Big Space Clicker is a cute clicker/idle game where you upgrade your retro game console and expand your little digital universe.)

(Gigantic, a MOBA that seemingly returned from death with a new release, is free on Epic right now and promises no micro-transactions. People like it, I hear.)

[19thperson]

So, every time it comes around, I get a bit obsessive about Steam Next Fest, trying an excessive amount of demos. I normally share my impressions in whatever discord channels I'm in. Decided to copy-paste them here too thIs time. Got a head start since a lot of devs uploaded their demos early for Summer Game Fest. Note that these are notes shooting from the hip, Won't be the most comprehensive or thought out.

June 2024 Steam Fest Impressions Day Zero

Lost and Found Co

Standard hidden object game that caught my interest mainly due to strong character design and good vibes. It delivers on those fronts, and each level has a nice variety of optional stuff to do alongside combing for the main hidden stuff. Also has a nice little home customization feature, but I do not know if it actually does anything.

Feels like it'll be one of the better hidden object style games, but I don't have the strongest affinity for them, so I don't know if I'll get full release.

Technical complaints include a couple signs this was designed for tablet first, such as the start screen saying "tap anywhere," and the game acts finicky if it's in superwide.

Dungeon Clawler

Yet another roguelite deckbuilder, this time gimmick is claw machine. It does do interesting things with it, like enemies whose debuff is making items larger and therefore harder to pick up. Or an effect that causes the board to fill with water, some items sinking some floating.

Was able to get a really good synergy going with the magnet bunny, filling my machine with metal objects and dropping a huge pile earch turn.

That being said, there were times when I felt at the mercy of the physics engine. Crucial items tipping away from the drop slot leading to my loss.

Overall, it is Yet Another One with a fun gimmick. Nothing revolutionary, and you can tell if you'll enjoy it or not at a glance.

The Big Catch

I'm torn on this one.

The presentation is top-notch, and when things are chaining together, it feels wonderful. When things are chaining together.

The problem is the game right now feels slightly too strict. You can grind on rails, but it's easy to not magentize. You can jump on individual pole tips, but you better get your jump centered onto it. You can use swings and springs to fling yourself, but it's easy to under/overshoot.

The thing is, I've seen what the game looks like when everything is going well. So I'm not sure how much of this is the game and how much of this is me.

Other complaint is that there's no map, just a compass. Normally, I'm all for that, but the demo's landscape is a huge desert with ruins in the distance. Crossing those distances isn't a problem with the sand surfing system, but it's easy to get lost.

Building Relationships

Incredibly barebones demo. Some intentionally awkward platforming, a fishing mini-game, and talking to various characters. It lives and dies on its writing and atmosphere.

But so far, it's nailing it.

[gumi-megpoidd]

dude.