Game News Steam Game Festival, February 2021: Demos of upcoming RPGs available from February 3rd to 9th

[Infinitron]

Tags: 68k Studios; Geneforge 1 - Mutagen; Inferno - Beyond the 7th Circle; Pahris Entertainment; Shores Unknown; Sinister Design; Space Wreck; Spiderweb Software; Steam Next Fest; Together in Battle; Vallynne

It's time for another one of Steam's periodic game festivals, during which hundreds of demos for upcoming games are made available to the public. All of the games which appeared in last October's Autumn Festival are disqualified from participating in this one, which means we've got an all new batch of RPG demos this time, available from today until February 9th. The most notable of these is probably Space Wreck, the Fallout-inspired space RPG by Codexer Kamaz. It's received a new trailer for the occasion while its Early Access release date has again been postponed to July 2nd. Also participating is Spiderweb Software's Geneforge 1 - Mutagen, which is coming out on February 24th. Here's the full list of noteworthy RPG demos:

Geneforge 1 - Mutagen
Inferno - Beyond the 7th Circle
Shores Unknown
Space Wreck
Together in Battle​

As usual, you can check out the Steam pages for details on developer livestreams and Q&A sessions that will take place over the course of the event. Enjoy!

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Thanks for this! Time to get to demo'ing.

Finally, news I can appreciate (j/k, Infin)

 

[lukaszek]

not all of them appear to be taking part in festival, as such finding download button can be annoying

 

[luj1]

Interested in Geneforge remake and Space Wreck. Really like the art direction in Space Wreck

Shores Unknown and Together in Battle look like dogshit. Inferno looks like a Grimrock clone but maybe it has some original mechanics

 

[lukaszek]

Inferno looks like a Grimrock clone but maybe it has some original mechanics

it does feel like it when playing. However it does need some serious ui changes. Also its weird that you can see everything that can be picked from ground/interacted with on the map. To make it worse automap also shows secret areas so you know where to look for hidden switches.
As opposed to grimrock there appears to be interesting crafting and survival edge... It does seem nice. Also you deal with single character which is always preferred(for me).

 

[jac8awol]

Geneforge looks amazing! It's amazing they've updated the graphics from a 20 year old game to just an 18 year old game now.

 

[sstacks]

Grabbed demos for Geneforge and Star Wreck

 

[MrBuzzKill]

Thanks. I love it when games have demos

 

[Galdred]

Some RPG adjacent demos I have tried:
Rise Eterna: Japanese tactical RPG: the game really lacks opponent AI, and mouse control, so it is very hard to predict how it would turn out in the end, but the game is certainly nowhere near ready because of it. Demo is relatively short.
The last spell : Resist with your 3-4 heroes against unrelenting hordes of undead. It is a kind of tactical/tower defense RPG: days are split in 3 phases: production (worker allocation), combat preparation (where you position traps and barricades if you have the resources for it), and combat itself. It plays well, but I didn't go too far. The strategy thread on the forum indicates that there seems to be several viable approach.
Loop Hero: Single character RPG auto-battler, with goregeous art. It is pretty addictive. You just let your character run endlessly on the same loop, choosing what he will equip, and where to place the terrain tiles you unlock along the way (they grant you resources whenever you cross them, but also generate monsters). It could do with even more speed up options, though. I am also not sure of the depth of the complete game, but I found the demo quite fun.

 

[lukaszek]

Loop Hero: Single character RPG auto-battler, with goregeous art. It is pretty addictive. You just let your character run endlessly on the same loop, choosing what he will equip, and where to place the terrain tiles you unlock along the way (they grant you resources whenever you cross them, but also generate monsters). It could do with even more speed up options, though.

hey this one is quite great! thanks for sharing!

 

[sstacks]

Here's some of the Geneforge 1 Mutagen demo

 

[felipepepe]

Tried some stuff, I'll post here the ones that felt worth talking about.

Inferno - Beyond The 7th Circle: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1251850/Inferno__Beyond_the_7th_Circle/

Single character blobber with turn-based combat. I didn't enjoy it much, felt too dry, but feels like some hardcore min-maxers here might enjoy it... maps are huge, resource management is tough and the game is quite difficult overall. Shame that the single-character combat feels too simplistic.

Black Book: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1138660/Black_Book/

A deck-building RPG, with gorgeous art and a story-heavy approach. Will probably be a decent normie hit when it comes out.

Loop Hero: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282730/Loop_Hero/

The treasure of this demo festival, I bought it right after finishing the demo. Your hero automatically walks & fights in a circular map, you must add tiles to that map, which give you recourses & loot, but also spawn enemies.

Guilt: The Deathless: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1047950/GUILT_The_Deathless/

Roguelike dark souls with slay the spire map progression and a weird "guilt system" - you can kill harmless NPCs and loot bodies, but will give you debuffs. The demo is solid, combat actually feels good, it all depends if they'll manage to expand & polish it for the full release.

Shores Unknown: https://store.steampowered.com/app/899460/Shores_Unknown/

Looks like a tactical RPG, but it's actually plays more like a JRPG, with a linear story, fixed party and simple turn-based combat (you can't control how they move). Feels very polished and solid, but doesn't do anything new.

The Last Spell:

Tower defense + tactical RPG. Seems good, lots of tactics,.stats and options to pick... but I'm not a tower defense fan, it's not my kind of game.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

The treasure of this demo festival, I bought it right after finishing the demo. Your hero automatically walks & fights in a circular map, you must add tiles to that map, which give you recourses & loot, but also spawn enemies.

Huh, sounds weird. What is so fun about it?

 

[felipepepe]

The treasure of this demo festival, I bought it right after finishing the demo. Your hero automatically walks & fights in a circular map, you must add tiles to that map, which give you recourses & loot, but also spawn enemies.

Huh, sounds weird. What is so fun about it?

Hard to explain... I know it sounds bad, but the closest thing would be an idle game or tower defense, since you don't actually control the battles or character. The core of the game is choosing where to put tiles, what gear you'll equip, what spells you'll use and when to stop.

I scratches the same itch as a short roguelike run but, while your character resets every run, the resources you gathered can be used to unlock new tiles, items, spells and cards, as well as different maps and bosses.

 

[tripedal]

Loop Hero is very cool. Love the art style, and it's got a surprising amount of depth to it. There are all sorts of combinations between the building cards you place down (which are hidden), and what seems like a pretty huge meta management game between runs.

 

[Mortmal]

yes loop hero is a nice find,good artstyle, it brings something new while feeling like a roguelike . I tried some of the other games above , Inferno - Beyond The 7th Circle, nice artwork and atmosphere, feels like 90's game, it's turn based but sadly its turn based for dummy , far too simplistic gameplay its better suited for a phone. The other games, i dont even feel like trying now.. looks meh.

The real gem was spacewreck Space Wreck sur Steam (steampowered.com) , a fallout in space, as good as recent clones like atom for exemple. Still a long way from release i guess ,but the demo is very promising and has a few hours of content already.

 

[felipepepe]

The real gem was spacewreck Space Wreck sur Steam (steampowered.com) , a fallout in space, as good as recent clones like atom for exemple. Still a long way from release i guess ,but the demo is very promising and has a few hours of content already.

This looks great, and apparently is actually close to release, will come out on Feb 25... the demo is their early access and has the full game available, they'll just fine-tune it and add some extra content.

Seems EXTREMELY weird to give the full game out as a demo, even if it's early access, but I guess they are banking on making it as accessible and good as possible to get a fan base that cares enough to buy it.

 

[Mortmal]

The real gem was spacewreck Space Wreck sur Steam (steampowered.com) , a fallout in space, as good as recent clones like atom for exemple. Still a long way from release i guess ,but the demo is very promising and has a few hours of content already.

This looks great, and apparently is actually close to release, will come out on Feb 25... the demo is their early access and has the full game available, they'll just fine-tune it and add some extra content.

Seems EXTREMELY weird to give the full game out as a demo, even if it's early access, but I guess they are banking on making it as accessible and good as possible to get a fan base that cares enough to buy it.

Are you sure its so close to be the full game? , only takes a few hours to see everything. Fallout 1 was very short too however.This game should be developped to have as much content as underrail.

 

[felipepepe]

Are you sure its so close to be the full game? , only takes a few hours to see everything. Fallout 1 was very short too however.This game should be developped to have as much content as underrail.

The devs clearly state that that the demo is their early access, and that:

While we were aiming for 1-hour hardcore RPG experience, I've seen players with 5+ hours of gameplay under the belt that haven't still visited all the locations and seen all the content in the demo.

Seems like they are aiming for something like Way of the Samurai, not Underrail. I like the idea, better have an amazing and polished 3h paythrough than 30hs of fetch quests and filler combat.

 

[felipepepe]

Ok, ignore that. The demo is the early access release, complete with multiple endings, BUT it's just chapter 1, there will be more chapters. Dev explained to me on twitter:



Still, the Steam page says it will be an "intentionally short hardcore role playing game".

 

[Andhaira]

Any more good RPGs, or any good game demos in general? Only one more day left to get them.

By the way, will demos still be available to play post the 9th if you've downloaded them or do we lose access?

 

[lukaszek]

Any more good RPGs, or any good game demos in general? Only one more day left to get them.

By the way, will demos still be available to play post the 9th if you've downloaded them or do we lose access?

from my experience it depends on demo. I guess devs can choce to make it available all the time, not sure where to get the info if its the case though

 

[Kamaz]

By the way, will demos still be available to play post the 9th if you've downloaded them or do we lose access?

Space Wreck demo - which is essentially self-contained Chapter I of the full game - will be available for free after the festival. It will also most likely get updated as we keep fixing shit.

 

[pixelartgnome]

All ships in Space Wreck and whatš in demo

 

[Miserable Panda]

This one is not an RPG, but I strongly recommend it nonetheless. Its called Fate of Kai, is a puzzler in the style of a comic book. Besides the fact that it was illustrated by a dear friend of mine, it is really enjoyable and quite addictive. You basically use keywords taken from conversations to change the couse of the story, going back, forward or even travelling to the past. Demo is really short (tops 15 mins) but really fun, so give it a try if you want.

Fate of Kai on Steam (steampowered.com)