OK I have to split this demo roundup post by themes otherwise it will never be ready. This time: bloodsuckers of the night! I have a notorious weakness for urban fantasy and vampire politics so these ones are starting with a bit of an advantage.
Desvelado: heh
A cute platformer about a vampire jumping around trying to turn off all the lights in his castle. Ghosts keep lighting them back up so that's a problem. It's pleasant! Seems a little light on features though, and there really isn't much going on with the story or the characters. I would need a little more ideas in mechanics or level design to stick with it.
Vampire Therapist: GREAT
The art is fantastic. Look at these backgrounds! I need those for my arkham campaign. The characters are extremely charming, especially this vampire cowboy that stumbles into learning to be a therapist with a very "aw shucks" attitude. It feels like the devs are very familiar with the classic archetypes of vampire fiction (Vampire the Masquerade, Anne Rice, your Draculas and Carmillas) but manage to take them in a more grounded, modern direction that makes them feel like more complete people. Also the voice acting is very solid, lots of polish in this one.
...the game is weirdly horny? Ok it's not that weird for a vampire story to get horny but here it's more, people talking very casually about sex and the stuff they're into which feels a little, out of step with the therapy talk? I dunno, I'm ace so take my opinion with a grain of salt. A bigger issue I have is that the main gameplay system is deploying therapy concepts while you're talking to people, and it's not all that interesting to do. But the characters are strong enough that I do want to spend time with them and discuss their mental health problems, like feeling aimless after five centuries of unlife, or murdering people but then feeling some kind of way about it, you know, very relatable stuff
VtM - Reckoning of New York: GREAT
Draw Distance is making another Vampires of New York VN?! Amazing, Shadows of NY is one of my absolute faves. Though they should call it the 'Qadir Roasts Your Ass' trilogy, honestly. The sprite art seems to have gone for a more realistic look, I'm not sure I like it as much but it doesn't look bad. The plot of this one involves a Ravnos/Caitiff duo looking into suspicious blood trade deals while some kind of global strike against the New York Kindreds is about to go off; I'll be honest, I played just enough to see what the setup was and closed the demo because I want to go into the game fresh.
ALSO JULIA'S BACK IN THIS ONE <3 <3
Cabernet: Good
A slightly clunky introduction to a promising vampire lifesim. You're a freshly awakened vampire in Eastern Europe and need to start figuring out your place in the vampiric society there. It's a visual novel lifesim, so that means managing your stats (art, literature, science and politics), planning your social agenda on your calendar, keeping tracks of your relationships with the important society figures. There's also a set of vampiric powers you can deploy freely, and a "X will remember that" consequences system. The demo stops after having introduced all of these systems so it's hard to tell how it will feel once launched in the gameplay loop, but the writing is good so far, the voice acting decent; I'm hopeful for this one.
