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Author Topic: Steam Nextfest Demos  (Read 3983 times)

Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #15 on: December 23, 2024, 06:07:54 am »

Planetary Life has added the ability to walk around the planet, which is pretty cool. It's still really buggy but I think it's a game with big potential.



This is kind of buggy for two reasons. First, I let it run on it's own for a while after spawning a bunch of different starting organisms. This is a giant lungfish of one of only two lineages that survived; this one evolved to go on land first and from there spread to rule the rest of the world and waged eternal war on the other remaining lineage that looks like a manatee for the most part, one is in the background. Second, it can't evolve past this point without player help since being huge is a huge advantage, so it even kills the necessarily smaller creatures I evolve to add legs and all kinds of spikes and jaws, yet being huge takes up many "energy" points for parts, meaning this thing has a super advanced digestive tract and possibly lungs to support being huge but has no legs and single celled skin and is mostly stopped there other than minor variations like number of spikes or coloration unless it randomly loses a trait and then gains a different one (but not Huge because it dies right away). It will probably be on the ground rather than floating after some fixes I'd guess. The thing on the right looks cool but it's a tree with a creature's face poking out due to no collision detection yet. It makes a sweet screenshot though.

« Last Edit: December 23, 2024, 06:24:09 am by Duuvian »
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Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #16 on: February 26, 2025, 07:06:34 am »

Next Fest is back!

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest

There are so many demos now...
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Ozyton

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #17 on: February 26, 2025, 12:25:02 pm »

I haven't gotten to try any other demos so far but I definitely recommend the Lost Skies demo, especially if you were a fan of Worlds Adrift back in the day.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1931180/Lost_Skies/

Akura

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #18 on: February 26, 2025, 08:30:52 pm »

I haven't gotten to try any other demos so far but I definitely recommend the Lost Skies demo, especially if you were a fan of Worlds Adrift back in the day.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1931180/Lost_Skies/

Ooh, been waiting for that. Put in about 2 hours in the demo. Pretty decent, far better than what I was actually expecting. Not without bugs, though.

One tip for others who play it, the helm orientation is actually the opposite of what you might initially think: the flat part that sticks out at the bottom is not the front, it is not where you stand. That tripped me up, and apparently one other reviewer, though the reviewer didn't realize you could freely(at least, in shipyard) move structures around with the scanner tool.
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ZebioLizard2

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #19 on: February 27, 2025, 12:43:20 am »

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2973670/Hotel_Architect_Demo/ I really liked this one. I'm always fond of these full theme hospital style build and the ability to go full skyscraper makes it a plus.
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Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #20 on: February 27, 2025, 07:33:47 am »

I've only tried two so far. I had Lost Skies demo downloaded already, and I downloaded the Hotel Architect demo. I think you are in luck, there are a whole bunch of that kind of demo.

Here are the two I've tried:
The Phantom Demo
This game is a good old fashioned beatem'up game like the old Streets of Rage (which also had a pretty good remake, I actually own it since it was on sale from cheap). There are two characters and it appears to be capable of two player. I forgot to try The Phantom's female cave-peer (I think they live in a cave in the jungle IIRC). The Phantom has a large number of moves for the genre and can pull out some pistols for a second set of ranged attacks limited by ammunition (I forgot to use these), but the control scheme in the demo seems to be locked for keyboard. It also has controller support. It has the warning that it's required but the keyboard still works. This game has a larger number of moves for The Phantom than I am accustomed to in the Beatem'up genre. The art is pretty solid though I think the Toxic Avengers demo may have been slightly better art; the boss for that demo was slickly drawn (he was an oil spill) with some heavy metal that worked well for it. I think this will develop nicely for fans of the genre, though I am no expert in it. It could really use keybinds so I could set something close to my old Mortal Kombat or Injustice binds. Here is the one screenshot I remembered to take:



I think I found an impressive demo here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3525590/Chaos_Front_Demo/

This one is pretty great. I recommend trying this demo. It's kind of like a JRPG in space with gundams arms (that's what the robots are called I think?) The English translation is good as well from what I saw in the demo. Some handful of mispellings (far less than when I write probably) and a couple of alternative terms like Engage instead of Battle. I didn't see anything that was confusing because of it. You can use ships to fight as well as carrying the arms around and deploying them.

Spoiler: Many images (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: February 27, 2025, 07:55:01 am by Duuvian »
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ZebioLizard2

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #21 on: February 27, 2025, 07:36:18 am »

Oh yeah the Chaos(?) series has always been lowkey pretty good. If you like that one I'd recommend checking out Chaos Galaxy 1/2 on the side as they're just bigger scale versions of it where you command entire factions rather then just a small mercenary group.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2025, 07:38:47 am by ZebioLizard2 »
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Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #22 on: February 27, 2025, 07:42:19 am »

Hey, thanks for the tip. I added those to my bloated as heck wishlist. If those go on sale often I'll probably pick one or the other. I've never heard of the series before.
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Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #23 on: March 02, 2025, 02:52:26 am »

Spoiler: Yes! (click to show/hide)


Spoiler: N..noo! (click to show/hide)

The concept is pretty good. It's sort of like an educational game. The Doors operating system worked flawlessly, did not inexplicably run like crap after initial updates. <hits Dellbox with club from throne>

It does however suffer some bugs. I remembered my PINs long enough to progress through to what looked like a stock exchange list screen, where the game wasn't able to respond anymore. I might give it a try again later. The sound effects are a little loud. Mervin is gassy at both ends, it could be lowered in volume slightly. There are weights so maybe Mervin can take a page from San Andreas and raise strength stat to punch a hole right through the monitor if necessary.
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Sort of finished and awaiting remix due to loss of most recent song file before addition of drums:
https://www.box.com/s/s3oba05kh8mfi3sorjm0 <-zguit

Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #24 on: March 03, 2025, 02:08:09 am »

I tried three more:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3197590/Alder_Forge_2/
This seems like it's a handheld port but I didn't check. I haven't played many of those, though I played SCARLET NEXUS on a free weekend which I was very impressed by. I've also never heard of the Alder Forge series before, or know anything about it. This demo featured a lot of flashbacks from the first in the series, and a lot of characters who probably were in both games.

Spoiler: Images (click to show/hide)

I tried this demo mostly because it was first on my list. However, I have sunken into a morass of demos after downloading about 40 of them, so I don't think I can get through them alphabetically before the 3rd and many of the demos lock back up. This one seems like a decent JRPG in mechanics. Hard difficulty was difficult, but not impossibly so. Type vulnerabilities and timing the stance changes from defensive to aggresive to clear the board before more damage comes in while you are aggressive was an interesting mechanic. I came close several times to a party wipe and had to retreat to a healing point. Running around the map does make the party vulnerable to ambush mode, where they earn half xp and can't flee, which eventually got me on the way back to the rest stop with two wounded characters. Overall it's pretty good if you like this type of game and art style, imo if it can beat things like SCARLETT NEXUS on price.

Here is a really cool looking one:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3194740/FUMEHEAD/

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/3338540/The_Great_Villainess_Strategy_of_Lily_Demo/
This one seems like a JRPG with the characters being assigned to lead formations of three different types of troops. It might be a cell phone port of some sort but I didn't check.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It was okay, played well enough mechanically. It seems like a thing to put on a phone in your third hideout, but maybe it will emerge victorious in a pricing war on Steam. There was a lot of voice acting, but though it was good afaik it was all in Japanese. However it was subtitled so no worries there. Scarlett sounded pretty cool when she was yelling at stuff.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2025, 04:21:21 am by Duuvian »
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Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #25 on: March 03, 2025, 05:08:46 am »

Oh




https://store.steampowered.com/app/3294300/Dinosaur/

EDIT: This game looks pretty good. There is some clipping but it's not that bad.

Here is a video. These work now I think, I haven't tried one here yet.
https://cdn.steamusercontent.com/ugc/20933049968081077/EADC8A979A106BD6DE27F9E616C51F868473E8DB/
Oh, the video is only good for two days. After that it collapses under it's own storage infrastructure cost and dissipates back to fuel Shang Tsung's powers in Outworld.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1820100/DREAMOUT/

This game is sort of like how I hazily recall from the '90s how Zelda was. The setting appears to be an unusual place with a rude main character. Here are some videos.
https://cdn.steamusercontent.com/ugc/20933049968166423/5EC639DA49CA40086AF0DCA811171758D78DD240/
https://cdn.steamusercontent.com/ugc/20933049968173999/0D8EF0903A06581FA2BDF9B24DAF8CCDD90E9042/
https://cdn.steamusercontent.com/ugc/20933049968179929/264DC202F85BFFB897ED67B1C7B5495564F057C9/


https://store.steampowered.com/app/3499150/Breathedge_2_Demo/

Haha, this game demo is pretty funny so far. It has a thing that says it's privacy settings are in the settings but the settings tabs are not complete yet. If I wasn't so relaxed after that Dinosaur game I'd be more frustrated by this.
https://cdn.steamusercontent.com/ugc/20933049968219356/43488A562BE8F9BAC18C00CE32EFFFC053488728/


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2437570/Chambers/

It sort of looks like Doom but it's a pretty good first person shooter game from what I saw of it.
https://cdn.steamusercontent.com/ugc/20933049968313400/213B79C4436840D09007386EB366C9D84C6A496D/
« Last Edit: March 03, 2025, 09:30:20 am by Duuvian »
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Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #26 on: March 07, 2025, 04:59:29 am »

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2428800/Nom_Nom_Cozy_Forest_Caf/



In this game, you make Boba. Beastmen purchase the Boba from your establishment. You add the ingredients they prefer, and there are minigames for making it. You can customize the inside of the store but I didn't do that much because I took hella long to make the label for my signature Boba. I think those two things were the strongest parts I saw currently. It seemed to have some potential for the business aspect of the current demo to improve so that the character can become a tycoon to rival McBobald himself, but that's not there currently. It could be it's not supposed to be so much business tycoon-style and instead be more of an artistic game, which it did pretty well.


Spoiler: Images (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/3218530/Best_Served_Cold/

I liked this one. It's sort of like https://store.steampowered.com/app/1590230/Tyrion_Cuthbert_Attorney_of_the_Arcane/ which I won two years ago in the X-mas giveaway. Basically, you tend bar at a speakeasy during a prohibition. An investigator arrives and after I served him a margarita looking thing he busted out a badge and conscripted the bartender. I was like no way man habeas cornchips but the bartender didn't have an option for it. He wanted to help anyways despite being a wiseass former train thief, which is because there was a SPEAKEASY MURDERER in the news and the investigator was going to shut the place down otherwise. Your mission as bartender is to ask questions of customers after figuring out what their favorite drinks are so they don't go home. There are no tips. There is only justice. And a service fee.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2843190/Camper_Van_Make_it_Home/
This one was pretty rough still. I was hoping I could drive the van around, maybe fight it against other vans. It also froze up before I could figure out if I could paint a wicked mural upon it's mighty steel flank. Or are they aluminum? I'd like to have one made of mithril so during the NASVAN races I can drive the opposite way and crash into the other vans. I did like making everything pink...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2431790/Cyber_Paradise/

This game demo is really good. It's a platformer. You can pick up powerup cards that give boosts but in a reversal make the bad guys bigger. They also move faster and hit harder. However the boosts stack for the most part and do things like have the character fire a whole bunch bird or reptile eggs behind with jumps.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/3261900/Dinocop_Demo/


This game was fun. The character is the only dinosaur peace officer in existence. He was created in a lab specifically for this role, because other dinosaurs do not like being police. A dinosaur is handing out Human Meat, which as far as regulation goes is worse than Brontosaurus meat which is worse than Mammoth meat. Only Human meat is illegal however.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: March 07, 2025, 08:29:09 am by Duuvian »
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Sort of finished and awaiting remix due to loss of most recent song file before addition of drums:
https://www.box.com/s/s3oba05kh8mfi3sorjm0 <-zguit

Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #27 on: March 08, 2025, 08:35:26 am »

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2133520/Ertugrul_of_Ulukayin/

This seems like a good game in it's early stages. I actually haven't made it to Witcher 2 yet (Witcher 1 injured my soul with an uncompletable in later Acts or something quest to return this ring that is being carried around everywhere in all the Acts on the savegame I was going to import into Witcher 2, I looked for the NPC so many times!) but I think it's sort of like that type of game. It sort of reminded me of Mount & Blade but seems to be on rails rather than sandbox and without using the mounts beyond transport, the characters dismount before fighting in the demo. The fighting is much simpler as well, with no directionals. It worked alright with just being mouse 1 combos instead. The enemies have attacks that are interruptable, counterable with a block, and unblockables that must be dodged. It has a lockon to keep the character facing the opponent. I wasn't very good at this but it seemed functional. I wasn't very good at this one because I was familiar with the quick block times from Mount & Blade. The blocks in this are somewhat sluggish. There is a dodge button that works pretty good on the spacebar however, and a kick that works pretty well for an interrupt if you see the notifier in time. I think the blocks are delayed or interrupted by animation conflicts but I'm not sure. The game demo does animations for being knocked down and then scrambling away well, better than Mount and Blade:Bannerlord despite all that game's excellence. I was on Hard mode and the demo boss is tough. Overall this game demo looks decent for coming to Early Access soon, things in the demo looked good but small details like the horseback riding animation might be able to use some work, Mount & Blade team did great work there for example.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1872970/Food_Truck_Empire/
This is a solid game demo! I don't have many of this sort of game, so I don't know how it compares to rivals for the supply of Steambux. However, it seemed to be a solid economic buildup game. The food trucks, at least in the demo, are limited to one food production chain which I thought was unnecessary. However there is a nice variety of combinations so it should work with more trucks. You can customize parts of and paint the food trucks though it's freehand rather than a grid mosaic applied later like in the Boba screenshot in the previous post. It's difficulty wasn't terribly high so I'd guess it would be rebalanced with expenses for release. I was able to sell burgers, veggie burgers, grilled cheese, and sloppy joes using the three trucks in the demo. There are other options that are locked or that I didn't use, such as selling Bowls (of food).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2794290/Grimshire_Demo/

People, I was sceptical of this one. However I think if I were to unfairly rate these demos by some arbitrary method, this one would be #1 in the 17 Women's Day Sale demos I downloaded as of yet. It is very well drawn. The demo's gameplay reminded me of Elona/Elin except only the farmsteading aspects of it. I don't know if there is some sort of fighting later on after the end of the demo chapter, but the story includes accounts of the animal people in the city and nearby villages turning "feral" and otherwise acting like zombies so I'd guess it's probably planned to be included. The story is that you are a refugee from a nearby city who is rescued by a ship captain and taken to a rural river village. The gameplay is producing food and trade items so that the village does not starve, and also build new things like a mushroom hut. Some villagers are carnivores and some herbivores. I sucked at fishin' in this game so the carnivores were on the verge of starving before I realized I could buy meat and donate it. Ranching is an option too but I didn't try that. I'd guess that if you like games where you use the watering can tool to water crops once per game day this would be a fun game for you. I don't own any so I don't know how it stacks up, but I think once this goes on sale I'll pick it up if it's in my price bracket.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/3021170/Lords_of_Ravage_Demo/
This is a turn based game where you place minions on a small grid to fight an opponent's grid. It was a solid demo. The main character is an evil warlord who did regicide and then had to find a super artifact to claim some sort of ultimate power. You go across a map to different locations in which there are rewards or fights. In the fights you can send the warlord in as he is a super combatant but the opposing grid could beat him if he goes in too early. He has an option to gain permanent powerups from defeating enemies so it's probably smarter to have him finish the last 5 enemies as that is the cap for the gain. There was some levelling up or at least unlocking of new abilities involved with the minions and possibly warlord. I only took 3 screenshots since I was getting tired after so many demos and they wren't very descriptive, but here they are.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2616800/Merchants_of_Rosewall/
Demo expired, no licenses.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2066520/Ritual_of_Raven/

Okay, there are some good and bad things with this in my opinion. The art is pretty good, and overall this is a pretty solid demo. It appears to have some homesteading elements to it, but this is done via automaton after inputting proper orders. This seemed like unnecessary tedium, but I also began to suspect at that point this game may be intended for a younger audience than me and perhaps this is educational to encourage thinking about processes or fiirst introduction to coding or something.  The main character is randomly generated so I did that until I generated one that seemed like had potential to be the blackest hearted of sorcerers and then named appropriately for this. However it turns out that despite appearences the character is a grad school student who fell into a portal and seems unlikely to become a vessel of unholy power. The character seems quite cheery actually, without any hint of foreboding brooding. The character would prefer to learn magic from the good character alignment witch who lives on the other side of the portal. He learns how to summon a familiar, a smartmouthed raven, after learning how to program the automaton. I was nearing the limit of my herculean capacity for demo-imbibing on the day I tried it so I rushed it a little in between falling into a demo overdose coma. I think depending on how it pans out this could be a good game for young people unless I'm missing something about the intended audience.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1780070/Seeds_of_Calamity/
This one is very similar to the Grimshire demo in gameplay. In this one, there was a big war and resources and cash are needed to rebuild. This one seems acceptable to people who like watering their crops with a watering can tool once per game day, in the same way as Grimshire. I never had Harvest Moon and the like but I thought playing these that is probably what that is like, but I could be wrong. However this one includes some dungeon delving and monster fighting, though I did not reach that point. I believe this game demo is where my bodily strength finally fled and I had to be carried, protesting, from the Chamber of Demos. Like the one just above it's quite possible I did not do this one justice as I didn't make it through the demo content. I will train harder at these demos! <flexes demomuscle>

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2825060/Urban_Jungle_Demo/
I... uh... didn't figure this one out. In it, you have an ambition of having an indoor garden. However all I was able to figure out was how to place a few plants on the windowsill. The house it was in looked really good though!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1868070/Whispers_in_the_West__Coop_Murder_Mystery/
This is a mystery solving game. I think the key appeal is instead of singleplayer if you have 1 to 3 friends you could play this as a team with up to four other beings. Since my dad's dog wanted to play ball instead, I of course did not. There are four characters and each have a different ability. You go around asking questions and figuring out a mystery that way. The demo investigation was not very complicated but presumably it would become more complicated in later investigations. I took the character with lockpicks so I was able to solve it by breaking into the sheriff's desk (the sheriff character could probably access it too I'd guess) and taking what was either a naughty book or a coloring book, it was not clear, to return to an NPC of diminished mental capacity for a clue.
If you have a small group who plays games together, this might be fun. The time required to solve a mystery was somewhat exaggerated though, there's no way that one I did in the demo takes an hour. I have no idea how long the demo locked ones are.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2968460/Wizdom_Academy_Demo/
This was a fine game demo. You build a multi z-level magic academy. It probably looks quite nice when fully built up. There are classrooms for various subjects, housing for students and staff, and testing rooms where the students prove themselves for a degree. After they graduate they can apply again. There is a bachelors of magic I guess that includes alchemy, self-defence, and magic history. Completing the classes creates resources to use for building, such as Alchemy class producing uhh... stone equivalent basically. The research tree is unlocked by the stuff produced by Magic History class. There appear to be invasions from off the map as well so I guess that's what the self defence course is for. I think there are dungeons to send faculty and students off in to explore, but I didn't get to that point. There is a mana pool that is the upkeep for rooms, and there is a mana blackout that means shutting off rooms or having a big storage for mana until the income starts back up. The area for the academy was quite cramped, it's clearly meant for building vertically. In the demo it looks like the proving grounds are mildly bugged in that it doesn't grab students ready for the testing well. The demo's objective was to have a student earn the bachelor's degree in magic (not the real name) but that took a long time so I didn't complete that. I think it may be that having them graduate and then re-apply for one of the other courses might make that a bit easier as there is a time limit before the student leaves unhappy from not acquiring a degree of some sort.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2911500/Yes_Your_Grace_Snowfall_Demo/
This one is a sequel. It would probably be best in sequence. There was an import game option (you can answer questions to pick what happened in the previous title if you don't have a savegame from that) and there were some number of callbacks to the first in the series. It is a resource management game mostly. You solve issues which increases prosperity which is turned into gold or influence points for the next turn, which is a week IIRC. You have some employees to pay wages to replenish their actions so you can use them to solve issues. There is a map of the branching web sort, I am not sure of the correct name. You can explore a certain number per turn limited by IIRC the influence resource. The art was quite good. It seems like a pretty good game though I don't think I own any of a similar type I can compare to this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To finish off the total of 17 if I counted correctly, I had placed this free game in the demo folder I made for this. It's not a demo, you silly Duuvian! It is a free game, after all! It can be added to your steam account permanently! I will post it below even though I think I already mentioned it previously:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2516940/The_August_Before_Chapter_One/

As to a review, I cannot give one. This is simply not the place for it. It is a thread for discussion upon demos. Moreover I have not tried it yet anyways.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2025, 12:59:24 pm by Duuvian »
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FINISHED original composition:
https://app.box.com/s/jq526ppvri67astrc23bwvgrkxaicedj

Sort of finished and awaiting remix due to loss of most recent song file before addition of drums:
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Jopax

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #28 on: March 08, 2025, 10:42:36 am »

9 Kings a neat little autobattler of sorts. Pick a king, which is your starter deck, play cards on a 3x3 grid, they can be units, towers, buffers of various kinds. After each placement you fight a round against another king, you then pick a card from their set. Get random buffs, make peace or war with new kings, last a number of rounds before facing the final boss king fight thing.

Fairly simple on the surface, but the simplicity of the systems is nicely worked together so you can get some neat builds going after you've grasped the basics. Feels like it's gonna be a pretty fun little timewaster once it's out in a month or so.
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Duuvian

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Re: Steam Nextfest Demos
« Reply #29 on: March 08, 2025, 12:14:43 pm »

I gave it a download, though I should take a break for a day or two. I also still have a long list of Nextfest demos but that might have wrapped up, I didn't check if they give the no licenses message. Last time a handful ran for longer though so some might still work.
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FINISHED original composition:
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Sort of finished and awaiting remix due to loss of most recent song file before addition of drums:
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