I'll Take Six To Go - Better Make Them Small Ones.

Well, that sure snuck up on me... is something you'll only ever hear me say when I've been playing a game set in the Old West. Which is what I've been doing for the last half hour. 

To be strictly accurate, it was the demo of a game. And it's more like the Alt-West than the Old West because there's magic but we'll get to that. First, back to what it was that snuck up on me.

The Summer Next Fest on Steam, that's what. I am so out of the loop with everything right now, all because of this damn obsession with making music with AI. I can barely drag myself away to go to work or write this blog so there's not much chance I'm going to stay on top of anything else.

I don't suppose I'd know Next Fest was on even now, if I hadn't spotted something about it on MassivelyOP yesterday. Not that I looked at whatever they were on about. I just saw the headline in my feeds and went straight to Steam to see how much I'd missed. 

Four days! I'd missed four days, nearly. And it only lasts a week! And I'm working all weekend, so that left me just yesterday evening, today and Monday to pick a bunch of demos and play them, all so I can write about them here. 

I did the first part, the choosing, last night. It was surprisingly easy, which makes a change. From my perspective, Next Fest seems to swing wildly from being stuffed full of games that look like they might be interesting to having hardly any at all and this one's a glut.

It took me less than fifteen minutes to settle on half a dozen demos that looked like they might make a reasonable selection both for my own interests and to write about. I could have taken twice or even three times that many, if only I'd thought there was any chance of playing them. There have been Next Fests where it's taken me a couple of hours to find even half a dozen I could contemplate spending time with.

For these posts, usually I take on about half a dozen, play the demos all the way through if I can and then write the kind of ridiculously long, over-detailed reviews that anyone in their right mind would save for release. Then I wishlist the ones I like and never think of them again, Or if I think of them, I never buy them. Or if I buy them, I never play them.

Seriously, I should go back through all the Next Fest posts I've written one day and write a follow-up about which games ever came out, which I bought and which I played. It would be like a pyramid, with a huge base of demos I reviewed at the base, going all the way up to a point for the handful I ever played in full. If indeed there have ever been any. Can you have a pyramid with just a base?

With barely any time to play the demos, I decided I wouldn't insist on playing any of them all the way through. Hardly anyone who posts about demos ever does that because most people actually treat demos as a vehicle for deciding if they'd be interested in the finished games, not as games in their own right. 

Not insisting on finishing the things turned out to be a very sound idea, when I actually tried playing some of them. I've played three so far, which means, since I only picked six, I'm already half-way through! Almost back on track...

I'll save the reviews for another post because the blog doesn't have a timer running the way Next Fest does. Makes more sense for me to get through all six before writing about them for a change. And I can already say that they're not all going to need a post to themselves. When I've finished, I'll be better placed to pace myself, too. Some of the demos might only need a paragraph or two while others might require the full treatment.

For today's post I'm just going to list the six and give the set-ups. There is a seventh, BitCraft, but that one came with a head start and I've already played and posted about it. Still counts though!

In the order I picked them, here are the six complete with their Steam Store Page descriptions and a screenshot, which is just about all I had to go on when I chose them:

 

Dispatch : "Dispatch is a superhero workplace comedy where choices matter. Manage a dysfunctional team of misfit heroes and strategize who to send to emergencies around the city, all while balancing office politics, personal relationships, and your own quest to become a hero." 

The first demo I picked and probably the one I'm most looking forward to playing. There are a lot of familiar buzzwords in there and it could turn out to be quite generic but I'm hopeful. I do love a good superhero comedy.

 

Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive - "Solo Leveling, the webtoon with 14.3 billion views worldwide, is now an action RPG game! Help our hero grow from his humble E-Rank beginnings." 

I mostly picked this because I've put the manga on the shelf at work countless times and I've often wondered what it was about. I had no idea it was a webtoon.

 

Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile - "Death on the Nile is an adventure-detective game, offering a fresh twist on Agatha Christie’s famous story. Set in the lively 1970s, play as Hercule Poirot and detective Jane Royce as they solve two connected mysteries. Dive into a journey filled with intrigue, deception, and unexpected revelations."

It's really rare to see a video game adaptation of a famous novel these days, let alone one I've actually read, albeit more than fifty years ago. Very curious to see what they've done with it. I can't say the screenshot above reminds me of anything I remember from the story, which was set in the 1930s as I recall. I think they may have made some minor adjustments...

 

Elevator Music - "You're the newly-hired elevator operator at the Matterhorn Hotel in Dernich. You make it go up, go down, go fast, and go slow. And yet by the end of the week, you'll have been the deciding factor in either devastating continental war, or an uneasy peace."

This one has a great title and a great promo poster. I had very good feelings about it. And I've already played it, so were those good feelings justified? You'll have to wait for the full review but - SPOILER ALERT - I lasted seven minutes.

 

Board Game Society - "Board Game Society is a turn-based RPG soaked in 80s VHS horror vibes. Play as a misfit crew of teen archetypes — the goth, the jock, the nerd, and more — as you explore the cursed forest of Timber Falls. Roll the dice to fight monsters, collect loot, and race to defeat the Boss."

I picked this because I thought it was going to be like The Breakfast Club. Once again, I've already played it and - SPOILER ALERT - it is not.

 

Dancing Bones - "Wild West, ancient magic, non-linear plot, puzzles and colorful characters are all waiting for you in “The Dancing Bones”! Deep drama and humor intertwine in a unique world where every choice you make changes the story. Are you ready to uncover secrets, break curses, and change your destiny?"

Last but definitely not least (Played it, liked it, more later.) comes this one set, as I said at the top of the post, in a version of the classic American West that also includes magic and, apparently, the Spanish Inquisition. I've put in half an hour so far and I'm more than happy to carry on until the demo ends.

That's the lot and given the time constraints, I should probably stop writing about them and get back to playing.