Game News Steam Next Fest, October 2024: Demos of upcoming RPGs available from October 14th to 21st

[Infinitron]

Tags: Burden of Command; Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector; Cyclopean; Dreamate Games; eBrothers; Eternal Vigilance Entertainment; Evil Gingerbread Studio; Flint: Treasure of Oblivion; Green Tree Games; Jump Over The Age; Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch; Never Second in Rome; New Arc Line; Ocean Drive Studio; Savage Level; Schmidt Workshops; The Adventurers; Those Who Rule; Whispers of the Eyeless

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

Burden of Command
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
Cyclopean
Flint: Treasure of Oblivion
Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch
Never Second in Rome
New Arc Line
The Adventurers
Those Who Rule
Whispers of the Eyeless​

 

[Fenix]

Citizen Sleeper looks interesting, though didn't look into anything other.

 

[Saint Scylla]

The original Citizen Sleeper was outstanding. I'll try the demo, thanks.

 

[Lyre Mors]

I wish more developers would explicitly state whether or not the save data from the demo will carry over to the full game. The only way I'll devote time to a demo these days is if the save data carries over.

 

[flabbyjack]

New Arc Line

'New Arc(anum) Line'

Nice, probably an intentional reference by the dev.

There are 487 RPGs listed in the Steam Next Fest 2024....

 

[Alienman]

Best one I tried so far is the Amerzone remake.

Very nice atmosphere and mechanics, from the little I played.

 

[0sacred]

The Adventurers looks neat. Anyone tried the demo?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The Adventurers looks neat. Anyone tried the demo?

I very briefly.
Wrote a bit about it on game's thread.

 

[Jaesun]

Best one I tried so far is the Amerzone remake.

Very nice atmosphere and mechanics, from the little I played.

The original Amerzone was a lot of fun. It was however a bit old but still playable. Am hoping they do the original justice with this remake.

 

[mediocrepoet]

The Adventurers looks neat. Anyone tried the demo?

I tried a handful of Steam demos recently:

tl;dr: A bunch of shit, the only ones I'd consider picking up so far are: TMNT: Splintered Fate and Those Who Rule but not in that order.

Depths of Faveg: Bizarre, it's like a roguelike with blobber combat that strips out actually moving around or exploring the dungeon with clicking "explore" and giving you a random battle every time you do that, choosing to either fight random battles or fight a boss and descend to the next dungeon level (or die). Descending a level provides a rest that refills your hp and mp. Class picks for level up are random with your choice to pick one of three to go up a level each time. Not my cup of tea, I'd rather just play a blobber for this sort of thing.

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion - not sure yet, I got stuck in dialogue hell and had to run out. What little gameplay I've seen before makes me skeptical, but I reserve judgement for now.

Magic Cauldron - Dungeons: Complete hot garbage. Eye of the Beholder but with one guy (as I recall, I basically uninstalled right away and barely remember it other than noping out pdq)

Never Second in Rome: Sweet mix of ancient Rome and clicking next to read text while watching numbers go +1 next to a skill or something. I don't even want to play this again if you paid me.

Saturated Outer Space: Interesting idea, play a space search and rescue team in tactical turn based combat... with the jankiest shovel ware presentation I've seen in years. Probably not worth a $0.35 coupon to Taco Bell.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate: Isometric action roguelike TMNT brawler take on Hades. I sort of like this one, but there are better games in this space. Only worth it if you both like this style of game and are either a TMNT fan or a kid.

The Adventurers: We have Battle Brothers at home.

Stellar Terminus: Like playing a space blobber on your graphic calculator in 1990. Nope.

Combat Complex: Some sort of progression oriented twin stick shooter except moderately slow paced and clunky. There are way better games to scratch this itch.

Those Who Rule: Let's make Fire Emblem as a westernized flash game. ... I actually really like this, but I also have a soft spot for this genre. I'd totally buy this if I'm looking for something to play in this space. Assuming it's not coming out priced at like $60 or something.

Whispers of the Eyeless: Cool art style, not much else going on. It kind of reminded me of a less interesting Darkest Dungeon. YMMV. I won't be looking at this again.

Things I will theoretically try for at least 3 minutes each before NextFest ends:

• Flint: Treasure of Oblivion - just to get into the actual gameplay loop and see if I hate it.
• Spirit of the Samurai
• Stone Madness
• The Precinct
• Neon Blood
• Worshippers of Cthulhu
• Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch
• Knights in Tight Spaces
• Lurks within Walls
• New Arc Line (less sure about this, I was pretty sure it was going to suck before I saw comments that say the demo sucks)

Honourable mention:

Not a demo but I finally got around to trying The Textorcist which is insanely discounted and I've had in my library for years. What a bizarre, yet inspired game. Love it.

 

[mediocrepoet]

A few more things down:

Knights in Tight Spaces: I haven't played it but from the dev's messages in the demo, I assume this is like their earlier game Fights in Tight Spaces. Some sort of deck building strategy game based on grid movement, positioning, and resource management. It looks interesting but wasn't really what I was looking for. Seems to be decent quality though as long as the visuals don't bug you.

Worshippers of Cthulhu: Anno Cthulhu fhtagn ia ia!

 

[mediocrepoet]

Wasn't going to do anymore tonight, but I decided to finish up the Flint demo before winding down.

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion: This is really interesting. Some of the UI stuff is a bit clunky, like having to hold the mouse button to confirm actions, but it also offers you more options than many games of this style such as environmental interactions and attacks, various weapon types, trips and knockdowns, etc. that fit with the swashbuckling pirate theme. The art style is fairly cool and the dialogues and story is done with captions and comic book panel interactions. The dice rolls, skill checks, and overall presentation reminds me of either a TTRPG or board game style presentation for both difficulty checks and for progression.

Not a perfect game by any stretch, but one that seems quite promising and actually feels "piratey" unlike most other "pirate" games. For instance, the XP for your captain and crew is actually your loot that you're sharing out, giving a tension between paying out your crew to level them up (and add a mechanical reason to pay them other than having a timer or something) versus keeping money to keep your ship repaired and supplied.

Added it to the wishlist, I probably liked it most out of all of these demos so far, or at least about as much as Those Who Rule (which isn't really fair because that's just re-skinned Fire Emblem). It's certainly the one that I've found most interesting and that felt like its own thing so far.

 

[Nortar]

Wasn't going to do anymore tonight, but I decided to finish up the Flint demo before winding down.

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion: This is really interesting. Some of the UI stuff is a bit clunky, like having to hold the mouse button to confirm actions, but it also offers you more options than many games of this style such as environmental interactions and attacks, various weapon types, trips and knockdowns, etc. that fit with the swashbuckling pirate theme. The art style is fairly cool and the dialogues and story is done with captions and comic book panel interactions. The dice rolls, skill checks, and overall presentation reminds me of either a TTRPG or board game style presentation for both difficulty checks and for progression.

Not a perfect game by any stretch, but one that seems quite promising and actually feels "piratey" unlike most other "pirate" games. For instance, the XP for your captain and crew is actually your loot that you're sharing out, giving a tension between paying out your crew to level them up (and add a mechanical reason to pay them other than having a timer or something) versus keeping money to keep your ship repaired and supplied.

Added it to the wishlist, I probably liked it most out of all of these demos so far, or at least about as much as Those Who Rule (which isn't really fair because that's just re-skinned Fire Emblem). It's certainly the one that I've found most interesting and that felt like its own thing so far.

Aye, Flint looks like a quality game.
I did not recognize what system they use, but it seem to be relatively complex and well fleshed out.

The controls felts kinda junky though and the game does need some extra polish.
During the demo I had a couple of glitches with quest objectives, so in the end I decided to wait for the full realease to not spoil my impression.

I've made a bunch of screenshots explaining mechanics, can post them in the game thread.