NextFest: June 2024

So it was NextFest on Steam a few weeks ago. That meant a million super-cool demos to play. I did not get chance to play a million of them, or even all the ones I wanted to play, but I did get to play a bunch. So now, much later than anticipated, here are some games I played during NextFest that I think you should keep an eye out for when they release! 

Storage Hunter Simulator
A Storage Wars type game set in a town that reminds me of Postal 2. Hard to gauge too much from the demo but it seems to work exactly how it should and thus it’s a day one purchase for me. Buying up storage units, selling the contents of storage units, living in a trailer I can decorate - the dream life. 

Flintlock
The demo didn’t run very well on my PC, but what I did get to play was great fun. Enough that I preordered it… but on PS5 so I know it’ll run (my PC is starting to show its age). It’s structured like a soulslike but easier, which I guess is where the soulslite tag they’ve given it comes from. Combat is satisfying and fast-paced, and is based around the titular flintlock pistol. It’s also released in 2 days as of writing this blog, so I’m excited. 

Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo
A surprisingly acrobatic 2D Zelda-style action adventure in which you beat up baddies with a yoyo that is also your aunt. You also use it to solve puzzles and pick up big bags of money. The characters and writing are great, the game is exciting and fun and I can’t wait to play more of this and recover the Mega-Batteries from some bad animals. Top quality stuff. 

Parking Garage Rally Circuit
A retro arcade-style racer set in a parking garage. If that sounds a bit boring and dreary, it’s not. Within a couple tracks, you’re busting out of the garage and driving around wild and whacky locations. You just always start in the parking garage. It’s a really neat framing device. Feels like something you played a demo of on the PS1 or Saturn then the game never came out. This is high praise. 

Nocturnals
A first person narrative adventure focused on difficult, life-changing choices in what seems like a post-apocalyptic world. The demo was extremely short, but enough to majorly intrigue me. The decisions you could make were genuinely quite dark and varied, although with such a short demo it’s hard to tell how divergent the narrative will be. Here’s hoping we’ll find out soon, whenever the game releases!

Iron Meat
If you’ve read my previous blogs, you’ll know I love Contra. Iron Meat is like if Contra and a bunch of entrails got thrown into a blender. Which is to say it’s a Contra-style game that is very very bloody and body-horror focused. And it plays fantastically. I cannot stress how excited I am for this one to release. 

Gori: Cuddly Carnage
From 2D viscera to 3D, Gori is a game where you play as an adorable (possibly robot?) cat on a hoverboard, who has to kill hundreds and hundreds of demonic unicorn toys. It seems to be set in a world where cuddly AI companions were created, and unsurprisingly turned on their creators. The combat is fast and fluid and the movement with the hoverboard is great. My one concern with this one is whether it’ll offer enough variety, as everything I’ve seen has you fighting the same unicorn enemies in very similar locations. Hopefully it can sustain itself over the course of a full game, because the demo was great fun. 

No Players Online
This single-player game starts on a fake desktop and eventually takes you to a seemingly dead alpha build of an old online multiplayer game. But all is not as it seems! The demo keeps its cards close to its chest, as it should, not giving away too much other than an eerie horror vibe and mysteries to uncover. I’m a sucker for games that revolve around fake operating system interfaces like Hypnospace Outlaw and Emily Is Away at the best of times (please message me at @Real_Child_Dog if you have any lesser-known recommendations of the genre!) so I’m all in for this one. 

The Operator
The Operator is another ‘fake computer interface’ game. This time you’re an agent in the fictional FDI, assisting field agents in solving crimes. The demo is very very short, but enough to completely sell me on the game. There’s clearly a wider conspiracy going on, and I damn well intend to uncover it. As of writing, the game releases in 5 days so I shouldn’t have to wait long either!

Thank Goodness You’re Here
This demo was absolutely legitimately hilarious. I’m not the biggest fan of comedy games, but this one had me laughing at absolutely every joke. Just wonderfully pitched. You play an inexplicably tiny man sent to a Yorkshire town to sell them… something, and end up having to help the bizarre inhabitants with all their problems. These range from a cop with their hand stuck down a drain to, well, a lot of people with drinking problems now I think about it. You can also hear ‘On Ilkley Moor’ playing from just about every radio or sound system, so it’s sure to be GOTY. 

Schim
Another game that’s releasing in a couple days! I’d been looking forward to Schim for a while. You play a little blob who can leap from shadow to shadow, but can’t stray into the light for too long. This leads to a very unique platform game, with a poignant and interesting story being told around you as you try and reconnect with your human. Everything I’ve seen of the game, between the demo and the trailers, suggests a huge amount of creativity in the puzzles. I can’t wait. 

Zero Protocol
A sinister retro-styled first person horror immersive sim type game. Gave me major System Shock vibes, and genuinely caused me to yell out in terror at least twice. Trust me, as a horror author, gamedev and general genre obsessive, this almost never happens to me. The demo didn’t give much away in terms of what to expect from the full game, other than the fact it’s gonna be scary, tough, and feature clever puzzles. In other words, a perfect demo. 

Victory Heat Rally
A cute, cartoony racer filled with blue skies and golden sand. Yep, it’s clearly an homage to Outrun, Ridge Racer and the like, but it has its own unique style. There’s a squishiness to the racing, which sounds really strange until you play it, but it fully embraces the concept of ‘cartoon cars’ and, yeah I can see this one being a local co-op fave for many. 

The Crush House
I’ve saved the most intriguing till last. When Devolver first showcased this, I thought it was going to be a Sims-style game with a Love Island type edge. It was clear that there was a slightly weird vibe to it as well, but I wasn’t prepared for what I found in the demo. Firstly, it’s a first-person game in which you play the camera operator for the show. Secondly, it definitely is inspired by Love Island, Big Brother and co, but… well. This is one of those cases where I don’t want to actually say any more. The demo’s still available to download. Go play it, even if you think you’re not into the type of game this looks like it is. It isn’t that type of game. It’s something very special. Please just go play this and develop a crush on it like I did. 

So there we go, a bunch of NextFest demos I loved. However, there are more! But the few remaining demos I want to talk about require their own blog post (and also they’re not specifically NextFest demos), so that will be coming in a week or so. Keep an eye out. 

Anything you particularly loved during NextFest? Any thoughts on the games we covered? Anything you want to share with us at all? Reach out to us on X at @creeperhost to say hi!