Phew, this is the last one. I am NOT playing 30+ demos again for future Next Fests, let me tell you
Arranger - A Role-Puzzling Adventure: GREAT
Delightful puzzle game, I love having sliding tiles puzzles that aren't bloody Sokoban. I don't have any more patience for getting crates stuck in a corner, sorry. Here the puzzles are based around sliding entire rows and columns that loop around, which can get tricky but feels fresh, and you never get in a unwinnable position. The writing is cute and light but not cloying, and it's really funny to see the chaos you cause around the village just trying to get somewhere.
The Crush House: Good
They really nail the garish aesthetic of terrible reality TV lol. It's a fun concept and the gameplay part of deciding what to film, when and how while managing different audiences is actually pretty creative. I feel like they tip their hand a little too much towards the "dark secret" stuff but we'll see.
Observe: Good
Clever puzzler about escaping a bunch of rooms by lighting globes, the trick being that your actions are recorded in each room. So maybe you can leave this one immediately, but you'll need to send light through a window to the next room for a few seconds, so that you can open the exit in that one. You can take as much time as you need, to leave yourself wiggle room, and can start over any room freely without losing progress, thankfully. Good concept that promises to get quite mindbendy later on
Tiny Bookshop: heh
The management of the shop is too hands off for me: you just stock your shelf before opening for the day, which changes the odds of clients finding a book they want, and then wait. Sometimes people ask for recommendations and you have to pick the right book from a list of real titles, that part is really fun. It could use a little more spice, like competition, dealing with shifting supply and demand, I dunno. I think I just like my management games with more teeth (Potionomics, Black Closet), but it could be nice if you're looking for something chill
Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo: GREAT
Hey this one is a standout. An adventure game about helping souls stuck in Limbo, and also smashing into a lot of things. The environments are gorgeous, made of cardboard props like you're in a stage play but it's beautiful and full of colors. The writing is funny, charming and sad, just nailing the tone they're going for. And it has time loop elements, with people doing certain things at certain times of day, and forgetting what happened each morning. A pure delight, go play this
Psychroma: Good
A horror game about loss of identity and traumatic memories in some sort of haunted house. Pretty effective and spooky, especially the sound design; there's creaky noises and disturbing murmurs everywhere. The characters and story are very cryptic so far, I need to see more of it.
Blue Prince: ??
A puzzle/mystery game that's actually more of a board game. You're drafting rooms to create a path through the house towards the antechamber at the end, while trying to gather specific resources or clues that you need to open the doors that appear as you go further in. An intriguing concept, I thought this was going to be an escape room type game and it doesn't play like that at all. I need to spend time with it to really see how I gel with it.
Caravan SandWitch: Good
Open world exploration where you roam the land in your van in search of towers to climb and jammers to destroy; thankfully it's not a Ubisoft Game™. The verticality shown in the first area is great, you can climb everywhere freely. Everyone has a plant name and there are frog people, it's very French Cartoon in that way. It miiiiight be a little too frictionless? Everyone is nice and friendly, the van you drive handles like a dream, you can jump down 500 meters with no fall damage. On one hand it makes the exploration a breeze, on the other if every area is like this, it might lose my attention fast.
