Hello. I played 40 demos so far, here are a few paragraphs for my favourites.
Some of them were played during the puzzle fest but the demos are still available.
Balatro
Not really part of Steam Fest but my favourite so far. It’s probably one Northernlion stream away from being at worst a SNKRX size success, and at best a Vampire Survivors.
The game’s a roguelike deckbuilder based on poker, you only play against a blind and need to get a certain score in a limited number of hands. But of course you have joker (basically artifacts) that increase your multipliers, and other kinds of cards like planets that can level up poker hands (making pairs score more for example) and tarot cards that kind upgrade your cards, like making one card come back in your hand when played. There’s a huge potential for combos and every round was satisfying.
Billy Bumbum
Puzzler about a rolling (and farting) cube. The level tiles are destroyed after you, so that avoids puzzles being about rotating 3 times on yourself to be in the correct orientation. Instead it’s more about execution order. Some levels look overwhelming, but the possibility space is pretty limited so it turned out okay. I can see this getting really complicated, there seems to be a lot of levels, but so far it’s okay. Not sure about the theme though, it’s just a lot. It even has a screen where you can talk to the friends you saved.
Bumpstick
Super fun platformer, half Pogostuck half KuruKuruKururin. The levels are short but they all felt good, the demo introduces a lot of different features, and I could already feel getting better, taking advantage of the controlled bounce when you hit a wall with the side of your stick. Seems like it’ll have a lot of room for improvement, but there's weirdly no leaderboard nor timed medals. There’s a multiplayer race mode, and a future level editor. Seems like a really good one.
The Court of Wanderers
Sokoban style game about rotating parts of the levels, and pushable blocks too. Really solid puzzles and structure, and there's even a cool showcase of future levels on a catwalk at the end. Maybe a little too simple visually for now, but it works.
Crime O'Clock
A video game version of the board game MicroMacro Crime City. It even has the black and white art style and anthropomorphic animals. It’s not a low effort game at all though, the levels are super detailed and they’re a joy to comb through (even if I’m the worst at Where’s Waldo).
The thing I’m not a fan of is that it’s super guided (and tons of dialogues...). Each level has multiple moments in time you can explore, but the game always decides when to switch. And you can’t really follow the little stories yourself, it’s always “look for that character” and then “look for that item they had”, etc. I wish you could just look for clues yourself and follow characters at your own rhythm.
They also have some mini games that are really unnecessary. Really as a whole it feels super inelegant, every system around the main game felt a little wrong, but I’m sure the game will still be really good.
Oh and the menu music is a banger.
Dream Swing
First person grappling platformer in a sky arena where you just need to grab as many flying orbs as you can in a limited time. It took a few minutes to get used to, but for around half an hour I kept getting better.
It opens with a list of tech but that’s because it wants to be accessible. Even the bunnyhopping is automated and you just have to hold jump. It’s really a super satisfying game that executes a simple premise perfectly.
En Garde!
For some reason I expected the swordfighting to be closer to a simulation. It’s very arcadey, like the Batman games you have a magnet towards enemies etc. but it also has some more recent feelings with parrying and a pretty big focus on fighting with your environment. I was able to play way better by remapping the controls to be like Sekiro :D It basically felt like a more welcoming Sifu. And the few parkour sections were nice distractions, never too long and it’s just a few button presses but it helps make the level something other than just running.
Escape From Mystwood Mansion
Super creative escape room game. Lots of similar games recently have been relatively predictable, but I feel like this one really tries to come up with new ideas every time you need a new code. There’s a couple of puzzles where I went “oh that was really cool” even after being slightly stuck. Pretty lengthy demo too!
The Invincible
I honestly expected the worst, and… it seems pretty good? It’s mostly narrative and it’s a short demo, so it’s hard to know how good the story will be, but I’m very impressed by the systems. First, you have some pretty cool tools you can use. Then, in dialogues you can select different options while still moving around, similar to Firewatch. And finally, the game does a pretty good job to guide you with minimal UI, like the character saying naturally “don’t panic, I’m going to check your hand” which leads you to look down and find the hand. Basically, excellent presentation, but the game will probably live or die by its story. At least the writing didn’t feel bad so that’s already a good sign.
Jusant
This might be the one Don’t Nod game I like! Climbing felt really good, using a trigger for each arm isn’t new, but the systems are really strong. I love the way you can anchor your rope almost everywhere and balance down with it. Also you can’t fall off if you’re not attached so you can safely explore and decide when to jump off. It’s really well made.
Let's! Revolution!
Wow this was great. Minesweeper variant as a roguelike. Every level has a set number of enemies, and enemies can only be on roads. Roads are the equivalent of mine, but not every road piece has an enemy, so you can move to one and take a risk. Your attacks are based on energy, which recharges as you explore new tiles. And there are a bunch of other systems in the mix that really work well together. The presentation is great too. I was doing alright but got destroyed by the boss because I didn’t pay attention. Really promising.
LOK Digital
Played the paper version of this one, it was one of the best puzzle games I’ve ever played. Super clever levels, all teaching you rules implicitly. Here you get an interactive version of it, so the rules are a little easier to understand (which might be a plus for some), but you also get absolutely lovely animations. It’ll have some exclusive content and I’m sure it will take advantage of being a video game. Same with the secrets, they can’t really do the same.
Shadow Gambit
Still haven’t finished Shadow Tactics, and I want to play Desperados 3 too, but wow this seems great. The setting is really promising, I love how magic lets them do new stuff. Planning synchronized attacks is still super satisfying. And there was one time when I got spotted and actually managed to use my powers to deal with the 3 or 4 enemies in a few seconds, and I might be mistaken, but this feels pretty new for the genre.
Station to Station
Very relaxing logistics game. At first I thought it was too permissive, with trains doing U turns instantly etc. while usually games like that ask you to do loops. But the way it scores stuff actually makes all that interesting, and building “inefficient” railways is rewarded. Basically you don’t care how much distance a train has to cover, what you want is a section of rails every type of merchandise uses, making a big combo and giving you lots of coins. Also there’s an adaptive soundtrack.
My only issue is that you don’t know where the new buildings will appear, so it’s possible to block yourself and lose money on unpredictable stuff, but I guess you can replay levels to get the secondary objectives.
Ugly
2010’s kind of puzzle platformers, but with beautiful visuals and sadly subpar gameplay. But it’s not too bad, at least for the demo, since platforming is just for getting around, there’s no precision needed. The main gimmick is a mirror you can put down that creates a plane of symmetry which lets you teleport to your reflection. The demo is short but it has some really cool ideas already. Not that into what I’ve seen of the story so far, but at least it’s told without dialogues!
Viewfinder
It's good, didn't really care about the story, though at least it has multiple characters, maybe they'll do something interesting with it. But yeah, the main mechanic is just super fun. I'm a little worried it's not enough for a full game, I'm guessing they'll bring in some different systems over time.
Word Factori
Zachlike about creating letters and words out of the letter i. It's a really cool concept, and the same letter can have multiple recipes. The UX isn't great though, moving buildings requires holding the click, and to link stuff together you need to click on small points. Making something that runs in fewer cycles also makes things less readable, so it's not super interesting to optimise it (basically just bringing buildings closer together)