Next Fest - Lucky Seven

Picking half a dozen interesting-looking demos last night from the couple of thousand available in Next Fest seemed to go about the same as last time, when I said "It wasn't too difficult". There didn't seem to be quite as many obvious choices this round but there were enough.

There did seem to be an awful lot of cheap, amateurish-looking efforts, more than usual, several of which I rejected after watching the promotional videos. I do think that if you haven't been able to program your main character to walk in a straight line without looking like Mr Bean applying for an internship at the Ministry of Silly Walks, you'd probably be best served not making a video at all. 

There also seemed to be more outright pornography than usual. There's always some but this time several of the more heinous examples appeared quite high in the "Most Wishlisted" category, which is a tad disturbing.

I didn't pick any of those but I did manage to find seven demos that looked like they might be worth trying. I made a feeble attempt to find some balance in genres and gameplay but even though quite a few of the better-looking, more polished demos were for games of the kind I don't generally play, in the end I decided there wasn't much point picking them, even to have a better range to post about. I am never going to enjoy pretending to be a shopkeeper, no matter how well the profession is emulated and I'm too old to learn how to platform, even if the reward is some stunning scenery to jump through.

The games I picked break down roughly into two mystery adventures, a point & click, a sandbox, an open world rpg, a visual novel and an "AI rpg". Two of them might also be MMORPGs. Let's fill in some details. 

I'll take them in the order shown in the post header, reading left to right. It's a screen grab from my Steam Library and I can't say I'm impressed by the three that don't even have a thumbnail to show. Maybe there's a technical reason for that but it really isn't a good look if you're trying to stand out from the crowd.

Noiramore Academy - "On the cold planet of Noivesse lies a mysterious old school called Noiramore Academy. When one of the teachers is violently kidnapped during the night, and a student named Judith Hovern is the only witness, she must use her wit, powers, and puzzle-solving skills to save him."

Described variously as a "mystery adventure" and a "3D puzzle adventure", this is a demo for a game currently seeking a measly $40,000 on Kickstarter. Even with that low ask, things aren't looking great. So far they've only raised just over $8k in pledges. The Kickstarter does still have three and a half weeks to run though, so maybe Next Fest will draw some attention to it.

The promotional video for this one, using pre-alpha footage, actually looks really impressive. It's set in a school for young wizards except all the students seem to be some kind of unicorn or goat. It's probably the demo I'm most looking forward to playing. If it turns out to be anything like as good as it looks, I might even pledge, which would make it the first Kickstarter I've backed in quite a while.

Story Crafter - "Storycrafter is an AI-powered online RPG combining simplified TRPG rules with advanced AI. Enjoy AI-generated characters, dynamic storylines, and AI DM. Easy to start, it offers deep immersion and ultimate freedom. Customize characters and explore endless possibilities. Join for an epic adventure!"

I picked this for obvious reasons. AI is going to be in our games from now on, whether we like it or not, and I prefer to engage with that inevitability rather than hide from it. Whether this example will be any good is another question but the design looks quite slick at least. It's supposedly going into Early Access before the end of the year so if the demo is promising there's a chance I might pursue it further.

Or it might be total garbage. Could go either way.

 Au Revoir - "Use your investigative skills in this point-and-click adventure to retrieve human minds stored in synthetic brains in 2071. Immerse yourself in a retro-futuristic world with neon-noir graphics from the 90s, and uncover a conspiracy that will challenge everything you know."

I had to pick at least one cyberpunk title and this is the one I went with. I can see exactly the look it's going for and it doesn't do a lot for me. I'm not quite sure why graphics from thirty years ago are still so strongly associated with visions of the near future. It may have made sense then but it makes none now. 

Indeed,  a "retro-futuristic" setting that uses "graphics from the 90s" is verging on the paradoxical to begin with. I mean, are we in the future or the past or the past-future or the future-past or what?

These types of retro cyber-noir games tend to be quite bleak and depressing, too, which really isn't what I'm looking for these days. Still, I keep picking them so maybe I don't know what I want as well as I think I do. 

Ad Memoriam - "Ad Memoriam is a mystery game about a band with a curse: at every single one of their concerts, someone dies of an accident. Follow the band and the trail of bodies that they leave behind, reconstruct each accident from witness testimony, and unravel the truth behind Ad Memoriam and it's curse."

A mystery adventure with a rock band at the center and a couple of nosy Nancy Drews, who also happen to be superfans with their own podcast, on the case. What's not to like? 

I like mystery games but I'm not actually very good at them so I hope someone's done a walkthrough...

The Precinct - "Averno City, 1983. Gangs rule the streets and your father lies restless in his grave. Clean up the city, uncover the truth, and embark on thrilling vehicle chases through destructible environments in this neon-noir action sandbox police game."

At least this has its timeframe nailed down. 1983 is very specific. This one was very high on the Wishlist chart and it immediately appealed to me as someone who grew up watching cop shows on TV. I did think those had gone completely out of fashion now, with the police, particularly in America, being seen more often in the roles of villains than heroes but maybe that's swinging back around.

Or maybe they're bargaining on people just liking car chases where you can smash into things and not really caring who it is that's doing the smashing. 

Sentou Gakuen: Revival - "You are one of the students of Sentou Gakuen, a random school in Japan, filled with delinquents, rascals, and of course some good students. How will you spend your days in Sentou Gakuen? Forge your own path in this online interactive Visual Novel, make friends or foes, the choice is yours."

This one is really weird. It's a visual novel set in a Japanese high school (Ho hum...) but it's also an MMORPG: "The characters you interact with are not just NPCs—they are players with their own unique stories." How that's supposed to work I'm almost too scared to find out. It sounds like a complete nightmare.

Also, if that wasn't odd enough, although the game is set in a "random school in Japan", it doesn't come from a Japanese developer. It's made in Indonesia. It also uses AI "as a tool during the creative process to enhance the storytelling and dialogue" and is hoping to go into Early Access, once again before the end of the year.

Spire Horizon - "Discover a thrilling world of adventure in Spire Horizon, an RPG open world game, where you embody a skeleton protagonist, explore a visually stunning world, engage in battles against formidable enemies, and traveling in search of a beloved wife."

Steam told me this was an MMORPG but the developer doesn't seem to agree. It's also already on sale in a final version (i.e not Early Access or beta.) having launched in February 2024, although many of the reviews call it "unfinished", so make of that what you will. It has a Very Positive rating, anyway, albeit from only 174 reviews. What it's doing in Next Fest I'm not entirely sure.

It's cheap, too, at just £8.50 for the base game or a couple of pounds more if you want the "Expansion" that lets you have companions so you don't have to wander the world alone. (And there are a whole load more "expansions" for specific companions available separately as well, all for a couple of pounds or so each.)

It looks very cute and quirky and according to various reviews it was developed by one person, allegedly as a student project. I'm guessing it will never be finished but it could be fun to run around in for an hour or two.

And that's the lot. Now I just have to find the time to play them before the event ends. I guess I'd better go and get on with it.