RathARCHIVE . . vAQ

Access knowledge.

Arch: Faron

User:

Raq Accessed Archive: Nextfest Spring 2025

Welcome.

These are all the demos I played in the Spring 2025 season of NextFest. Note that all these reviews are as written at the time- some of these games might have come a long ways since then.

See something that piques your interest? Click the thumbnail to check out its full steam page.

Wanderstop

Wanderstop This was made by the creator of the Stanley Parable- master of doing the same thing again and again and making it feel meaningful. His new studio, debuting with this game, is Ivy Rose. It was published by Annapurna. Music is composed by C418. You couldn't advertise this better to me if you tried. Wanderstop is a game about a very intense woman bulldozing through her life and being forced to stop and slow down at a whimsical tea shop called the Wanderstop. It's a slow pace, but in a way that feels very intentional. This game makes you breathe, and the design of the Wanderstop itself is delightful. I'll be picking this up for sure.

Score: 7.5/10    Tags: Job Sim, Story

Tales of Seikyu

Game Title I actually backed this one on Kickstarter! Don't 100% remember why. It's kind of a JRPG take on the Stardew formula with the big draw being that you are a Yokai on an island of Yokai and can unlock the ability to transform into various beast forms throughout the game that kinda function as HMs from Pokemon. It's nothing groundbreaking, but its fun- a big part of the appeal of the game seems to be the dating sim aspect which isn't as big of a draw for me. Probably wont get super duper into it, but ill do a run for a while when development is further along.

Score: 6/10    Tags: Life Sim, Farming

Architect Life

Architect Life Please. I am begging you. Stop naming your game 'X life'- it makes me 90% likely to skip over it. Regardless, I did play this one, and it actually has some unique things going for it! It leans a lot more into the business side than games like house flipper- you design homes in your studio and have to make decisions around material grading for heat, room proximity, etc. After you finish designing a home, theres an additional step where you actually have to choose your contractors to build different parts of it and have to manage your time and monetary budgets, and things can go wrong along the way that you have to deal with. very cool idea, although decorating is more like the sims than HF, and definitely lacks some depth in current form.

Score: 6/10    Tags: Building Sim, Sandbox