Accessed Archive: Nextfest Winter 2024
Welcome.
These are all the demos I played in the second year of the event! From here on out, I started to be a lor more selective about the games I played- expect the average scores to bump up some. 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.
Loco Motive
Trash Goblin
This is a really cute addition to the workstation-style game space. If you like things like Potion Craft and Strange Horticulture, this is worth a look. You are a little goblin in a trinket shop who scavenges, cleans, combines, and sells little trinkets to people. It didn't capture me until it introduced the mechanic of unearthing parts rather than whole trinkets and combining them- and not necessarily correctly. Needs a little more time in the oven to have depth, but I'll be following this for sure.
Score: 6.5/10 Tags: Job Sim, Casual
Rift of the Necrodancer
As a big enjoyer of crypt of the necrodancer and cadence of hyrule, I'm sad to say this is an easy skip for me :( The devs have attempted to take the world of CotN and make a more traditional rhythm game, but in the process have lost what made it special. With so many good rhythm games out there, this one is, frankly, kind of boring. It's main mechanic of fighting different monsters for different beats doesn't feel good outside of the diagetic world of their older games, and ends up neither succeeding as a combat game or a rhythm game. Just play Spin Rhythm XD instead.
Score: 3/10 Tags: Rhythm
Symphonia
Every nextfest seems to have a platformer that clearly took HEAVY inspiration from hollow knight for its movement mechanics. The good thing about Symphonia is that of the ones I've played, its probably the one that does that best! Movement is responsible and genuinely feels fun. The bad thing is... thats kind of all the game is. There's no combat, and its a game themed around music with no mechanics that use music. It leaves it in an awkward spot where Hollow Knight is still better at being Hollow Knight, and Symphonia struggles to offer much in the way of alternatives. Very very pretty though! If they had more to the gameplay loop there's a lot of potential here.
Score: 6/10 Tags: 2D, Platformer
Lost but Found
You are an airport lost and found guy, juggling your time between organizing a constant stream of incoming items and getting them out to impatient clients. And it's just not that fun. The gameplay loop is there, but it struggles to find a hook to give any variety to it and ends up feeling monotonous very quickly. Unless the full game is hiding something much more than the demo offers, there's just not a lot of character or satisfaction to it.
Score: 4/10 Tags: Casual, Job Sim
This is just if LucasArts made Murder on the Orient Express. Which is basically tailor made for me. It has the soul of the classic point and click mysteries while keeping a lot of hcaracter of its own. I only have a couple small criticisms from the demo around the pacing of dialogue and a little too much hand holding, but I'll be picking this up on release for sure.
Score: 7.5/10 Tags: Point-and-Click, Mystery, Detective