Hello! My name's Junebug, and I played a fucking bajillion steam demos this season to try to find anything that's interesting. Some of them were! Some of them weren't. I'm gonna do 4 categories of games:

• Games you should go try, right now, this fucking rules, top tier stuff

• Games that are interesting enough that you should consider taking a look if you get a chance

• Games that might interest you if you care about a specific niche or type of game; but not necessarily winners to everyone

• Games where the demo had serious problems or otherwise weren't interesting but there's a seed of something great, and could become something awesome

As a note, i played basically anything i found, so there might be games on this list that were made by weird shitheads or in the end have weird stuff in them; if so, let me know and I'll remove em.

Lets get started!

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GAMES YOU SHOULD GO TRY RIGHT NOW

BIONIC BAY

I'm starting with this one cause I had never heard of it, unlike some of the games on this list. Think... Inside/Limbo, but instead of slow and methodical you run fast, jump high, and are absolutely tiny compared to the massive, horrifying, really beautiful machines surrounding you. The central physics puzzle mechanic manages to be both interesting AND keeping with the Dying Is Hilarious tone of the game. Could be something real special, if it comes together, and a delightful demo if you like physics puzzlers and big evil machines that are 100 times your size

SHADOWS OF DOUBT

My god this is some of the most high quality jank i've played in a WHILE. This is a... Procedurally Generated Detective game immersive sim. You have a mental corkboard in your head where you can connect things with post it notes to solve a case. Every single item, every item in the game has a note you can connect. Not a game for playing to like, win, but rather one of those beautiful jank experiences where you accidentally eat raw meat, get nauseous, follow a stranger into their apartment to throw up in their toilet, beat them up to not get arrested, see their wife coming home, and dive out the window breaking both your legs before they see you. PLEASE try this one.

DUNGEONS OF AETHER

From the same team that made the platform fighter Rivals of Aether comes a great little furry dungeon crawler. Has a central dice drafting mechanic that's fascinating and fun. The only real problem is that it's way too short, it ends as soon as the tutorial finishes and you'll be thinking "dang I wanted to try more!!!".

RADIO THE UNIVERSE

I don't really know how to describe this other then just asking you to look at it. like. holy shit. what an aestheetic. it's BEAUTIFUL. This is something incredible. please, please try it out, it's fun to play and I cannot stop thinking about it.

DARK AND DARKER

I'm going to describe this and you're either gonna go "huh?", decide to never try this, or immediately download it. This game is escape from tarkov but instead of weird russian gun stuff it's bad skyrim combat with kiting skeletons and casting spell of Explosion at players. Get 2 friends and run into a dungeon and die horribly a few times. Great stuff.

KING OF THE CASTLE

NOTE: I was not able to play this game, because it's a 4+ person party game. Thus, the game may secretly have huge problems or something, but the premise is too good for me to not suggest it. The game has you as a monarch making decisions for your kingdom as your houses of nobles vote on all your decisions. ...And those nobles are controlled by all your friends, jackbox style. That's a great pitch. Is it good? I dunno, but I wanna put together a group to try it.

GAMES YOU SHOULD CONSIDER TAKING A LOOK AT

BLEAK SWORD DX

A little hack and slash with a great visual style. A good time, and has the best "doing something really stupid 100% seriously" gag in the opening cutscene i've seen in a while.

TESLAGRAD 2

They made a sequel to a game that you probably got in a bundle in the late 2010s! And this time, you're a girl, which is all that matters. Love the new art style, a fun little indie metroidvania

Project Anomaly: Urban Supernatural Investigator

Cute game about taking pictures of cryptids and helping people out. Writing is something you'll either describe as "twee" or "cute", depending on who you are, but i liked it a lot. Does a bit more with the game then other similar things i've seen. Has my wife, the flatwoods monster, in it.

Roots of Yggdrasil

Halfway between a citybuilder and a boardgame-esque resource management game, this one is really, really interesting. The demo's feels a bit weird, but i'm pretty sure that's just due to it missing some of the things that will really flesh out the whole game; when it is fleshed out, this could be fucking incredible.

Mika and The Witch's Mountain

You deliver packages by flying around on a broom. This demo is so, so short, and i'm so, so sad about it, becuase it's a great pitch. If the whole game has enough content and doesn't suck, could be real real special. Better then other games about being a witch/wizard that came out recently.

Dust & Neon

It's a roguelike cover shooter. Looks very cool. Has a lot of flaws, but they can be forgiven when you've got good style. Could be cool as hell.

NICHE PICKS

MEATGRINDER

Edgy as fuck cross between an fps and clustertruck. Desperately needs some pacing correction, but is already pretty dang fun.

Swarm Grinder

Interesting take on the vampire survivors genre. Has a lot of promise, could be pretty cool.

Gravity Circuit

It's a megaman. Play it if you like the megamans.

COVEN

It's a boomer shooter. Might be gross. Play at your own risk, but has some goofy fun guns.

Fabledom

A citybuilder that doesn't really have much interesting in the demo, but promises to eventually have... dating sim mechanics? Which is something. Still, a pretty alright citybuilder.

Oblivion Override

Ooo you wanna be deadcells soooo bad oooo you wanna be dead cells SO bad

Affogato

Really interesting premise; half visual novel/city exploration/rpg sort of game, half coffee making restaurant sim, and half... reverse tower defense game? Fun premise, and honsetly this would be a step above except for some writing issues and...

...half the art really looks like AI art, even though I know it couldn't possibly be. Just. Weird.

Dungeon Drafters

Do you want your turn based strategy dungeon crawl games to have card playing mechanics? what a bafflingly specific thing to want! also, here you go!

Tape to Tape

Hockey roguelike. This game was made for northernlion and no one else.

Townseek

What if sunless sea had no horror and only good vibes? This game asks such questions. It also has great cute art, and really... "wholesome" writing. The problem is, I like sunless sea and it's horror. I want good writing. Without it, you're just kinda sailing around aimlessly trying to trade.

But if you want to sail around between ports trading, congrats, we found the game for you.

DEMOS WITH PROBLEMS

Gonna rapid fire these off.

• Full Void: edgy spooky 2d puzzle game. play bionic bay first.
• Super Adventure Hand: haha wacky physics puzzle platformer. Good for a laugh. I have doubts about it being good for much else

Will fill in more tomorrow.