Take Six

After a very busy day, I think I have just enough time to list the half-dozen demos I've decided to try from the latest Next Fest. It wasn't too difficult this time. I saw more that interested me than in the last couple of Next Fests but not so many more I had trouble choosing.

Most of the winnowing was done for me. I had a lot of trouble finding a good point-and-click adventure. In fact, I didn't find one. I also passed on the visual novels. There wasn't much in the way of MMORPGs either although there were plenty of MMO-adjacent survival sandboxes.

You can tell they're flavor of the month right now. There seemed to be literally dozens of them, most with a hefty dose of crafting thrown in. As a genre it does have the advantage of being almost infinitely replayable but the other side of that coin is that one survivalbox feels very much like another. 

I certainly didn't want to spend a whole week playing nothing else but now I look closely at the titles I have chosen, it seems I didn't pick a single survival title at all. That might be going a little too far in the other direction so I may throw one in later, if it turns out I have the time. 

The six titles I've picked, then, in no particular order.

Tiny Glade

Sounds like more of a toy than a game. Last time I picked something similar with Summer House and that was fun. This looks a lot more complex. It also looks gorgeous.

Caravan SandWitch

I didn't even notice the pun in the title until after I'd downloaded it. I was sold when I saw the camper van and read "narrative-driven exploration adventure" in the blurb. Now I'm wondering if it has magic in it, too. Not sure if that would be a plus or not.

Dungeons of Hinterberg

This is the one I'm really looking forward to. I've had it on my wishlist for a while. We'll see if it lives up to expectations. Next Fest has been responsible for dumping a few games off my wishlist as well as adding them on.

Dustborn

Really ticking a lot of my boxes, this one: music, travel, robots, America, wordplay... Graphics look great, too. Coming in with high hopes.

Neko Odyssey

Gameplay consists almost entirely of taking photos of cats and uploading them to fictional social media platforms. Apparently there is a plot, too, but who cares? It's taking pictures! Of cats!!

Freeride

This one comes with a Personality Test. No, wait, this one is a Personality test! Those are always fun, right? And no-one ever takes them seriously. Of course they don't...

Those are the six but I should also mention that Once Human is taking the opportunity to combine Next Fest with a short Open Beta, so if you want to give it a try, now's your chance. They had a promotion going where if you played for three hours on the first day of Next Fest (i.e. Yesterday.) you'd get a free paint job for your motorcycle but it's too late for all that now. I nearly got sucked in but then I realized  not only did i not have three hours to spare, I didn't fricken' care!

Probably going to pass on Open Beta and wait for the launch. I think I know all I need to know about the game at this point. I'll be there when the doors open for real next month, though.

Meanwhile, it's on with the demos.