Time for another Next Fest!
Airborne Empire
I loved Airborne Kingdom, and this is more of that with some additional combat and defense mechanics.
Galaxy Too Far
Looks to be a factory-builder like Factorio or Dyson Sphere Program. It looks fine, but the UI and structure naming is really obtuse; hopefully that can be fixed before release.
Heat Death
A fun little survival crafting game where your home base is a train. It’s pretty basic right now, but I’m interested to see how it turns out. There’s supposed to be combat in the final game, but the demo doesn’t feature any (even though you get to build a gun).
Ark of Charon
I love city builders where you live on the back of some giant creature. Ark of Charon has you building on the back of a World Tree sapling, which you name when creating a new game. (My sapling was named Petunia.) When your sapling is stopped at a location on the world map, it burrows underground and you can harvest resources from the environment. While your sapling is travelling between locations, you can build with your stockpiled resources and fend off enemy creatures. I enjoy the style (the animation is great) and the gameplay, but it needs a better tutorial and some UI upgrades. Looking forward to playing it once it’s had some more polish.
Heart of the Machine
An interesting 4X game where you play a newly-sentient AI trying to take over the world. A really interesting take on the genre, where you can play as a benevolent robot overlord or as Skynet or somewhere in between. I’ll likely pick this up when it releases.
The Alters
I’ve been interested in The Alters since I saw the teaser trailer a while back. The demo has me excited to play the full game; I love the base building, the exploration and resource gathering, and the whole process of creating “Alters”. Really looking forward to this one.
Beyond These Stars
I loved Before We Leave, and Beyond These Stars seems like an evolution of that game. The adjacency bonuses are more complex and the new terraforming system adds an entire new dimension to how you manage your city. And you get to talk to the space whale!
Usurper
Chess and deckbuilding.
Caravan SandWitch
An exploration game like Sable. Great art style.
The Observer
Puzzle game like Orwell or Papers, Please. Demo is pretty simple and introduces the underlying mystery of the game.
Eden Crafters
A cross between Planet Crafter and Satisfactory.
First Dwarf
It’s Lightyear Frontier except with combat and tower defense. And you’re a dwarf with a little dragon friend.
Thank Goodness You’re Here
A funny little adventure game. Like playing a weird British cartoon.
Citadelum
A Roman city-builder. I’ve played a bunch of these, but this one looks pretty solid.
Simple Trains
Not a bad game, but pretty much a straight rip-off of Mini Metro.
Honeycomb: The Word Beyond
A survival game with an ecological angle. Pretty, but I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be doing in the demo, though. Needs a much better tutorial.
Creeper World IXE
I love the Creeper World series, and IXE mixes things up a bit more with some new mechanics. The game plays more like Particle Fleet, with ships you build and move around, and the levels are like an ant farm rather than the typical top-down style of games past.
Creatures of Ava
An adventure game where you’re attempting to save the creatures of Ava by teleporting them to your space ark. There’s a focus on saving the creatures and the world instead of just killing baddies that are in your way.
Kaiserpunk
A city-builder and combat game. Something about it feels a little off; could just be a bad tutorial, but the production chains didn’t seem sufficient to meet needs (you need a ton of plywood). Neat idea; I’m just not sure about the execution.
REKA
A game where you play a young witch under the tutelage of the great Baba Jaga. You build a hut on the back of a giant chicken-legged platform, which serves as a mobile home base. Seems like a unique survival adventure game.
Tactical Breach Wizards
An XCOM-like tactical game in a modern world where magic exists. There are Navy Seers, Witch Cops, and Traffic Warlocks. There’s a lot of storytelling handled through dialogue between characters just before breaches. A lot of fun and the dialogues had a lot of humor that had me laughing throughout the demo.
Time Is Honey
A cute clicker game about beekeeping. If these types of games weren’t so boring, I’d be more into it.
Teeny Tiny Trains
A puzzle game with those wooden train toys I played with as a child. Cute and pretty easy to play.
Drill Core
A mix of mining and tower defense with meta-progression to unlock new abilities and buildings. I enjoyed the demo, looking forward to more.
Republic of Pirates
A pirate city-builder with ship construction and combat. Another one that’ll go on my wishlist.