Time for the first Next Fest of 2025! There were a lot of demos I was interested in playing this time around, and while I didn’t get through all of them, I found a bunch of new games to wishlist.
I’m posting this late because I continued playing demos until well after the fest ended, and I completely forgot to publish along the way.
Badlands Crew
I’ve coincidentally been playing a bit of Bomber Crew lately, after watching Masters of the Air (great show). Badlands Crew is the third in the series (after Space Crew), and it’s ultimately the same solid foundation with a lot more customization. Badlands Crew is basically a Mad Max game, and unlike Bomber and Space, you build your “battle wagon” from individual pieces so you can completely customize its layout. You also direct your wagon over a world map, setting speed and steering around obstacles. There’s also much more gear to outfit your crew.
Cinemaster: Cinema Simulator
I enjoy the occasional simulator game, and this one sounded interesting to me. Ultimately, it was a bit dull, with a lot of waiting around at the start.
Scaling Up
A cute little farming game about ranching snakes. Can’t do a lot in the demo, but it seems like it’s pretty chill.
Icaria
An automation and base-building game where you program drones using a visual programming language. I just wasn’t really interested in the programming part. (I do enough of that during the day.)
Night is Coming
A survival city-builder with some RTS elements. I enjoyed the short time I played it, though the game crashed when I tried to take a screenshot.
River Towns
A cross between Dorfromantik and Tetris. Score points for placing various shaped pieces next to each other, for surrounding dead trees, and for building on both sides of the river to create bridges. The rules are pretty simple (at least in the demo), but it’s a nice chill puzzle game.
Tiny Connections
Basically Mini Metro or Mini Motorways, but using water and electricity instead of rails or roads. Plays very similarly, but doesn’t have the rushed feel of Metro and Motorways.
Machine Mind
A little bit like TerraTech, with some base building and bot management. I liked it, though I felt like it needed a better tutorial; I missed some important things and felt a little hamstrung.
Kingdom’s Deck
A city-builder where you choose between cards during the day to build structures and hire units, then fight back waves of enemies at night. Easy to play, interesting loop. I just wish the key to bring up the console didn’t match Steam’s default screenshot shortcut.
Outworld Station
A factory-builder with some combat. Plays really well, though moving long distances can sometimes be a pain.
9 Kings
A card-based battler. Very simple to play and a lot of fun. Has some Balatro vibes.
Final Outpost
A city builder with nightly zombie defense. Simple graphics, but they work well. Easy to play.
Wizdom Academy
Build your own Hogwarts, hiring teachers and enrolling students for a variety of courses, while fending off the occasional goblin invasion. Neat concept, and the graphics are pretty good, though the interface feels a little off at times.
Solarpunk
Pretty standard survival game, but a great aesthetic. The demo only runs through the basics, but gives you a set of power generation and automation tools toward the end to give you a taste of the full game. Seems like the sort of thing I enjoy, so I’ll probably pick it up at some point.
Drop Duchy
A cross between Tetris and a city-builder. Not sure I’ve seen anything quite like it.
Wheel World
An adventure game in a world where cycling is life. There’s racing and exploration, but overall seems pretty chill. Definitely needs to be played with a controller, though, so this might be a good Steam Deck game.
Wanderstop
A game all about taking time to relax and make some tea. Looks great and has a good message.
Dagger Directive
An old-school first-person shooter that reminds me a bit of classic military FPS games, back before they all got boring.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown
A turn-based strategy game with little standee miniatures. Each turtle plays differently, though the levels tend to feel a little repetitive.
Settler’s Domain
A simple city-builder. A little too simple, I think.
Fumes
A vehicular combat game that looks and feels like something from the 90s or early 2000s. Feels fantastic and I really enjoyed it. There are miniboss and boss fights and huge vehicles you drive up onto.
Do No Harm
Like Papers, Please, but you’re a doctor in a village balancing the humors of villagers with medicine, and there’s some Lovecraftian stuff going down.
The King Is Watching
A city builder where only the buildings under your gaze are active. You have to balance production with recruitment, moving buildings around so you can have what you need active at any point in time. The gaze mechanic adds a dimension that increases the pressure without making the game feel impossible. Also, your advisor is a cute goose named Gustav with a giant pair of glasses. (I’m assuming a goose and not a duck based on the name and my wife’s opinion.)
Star Crafter
A crafting game where you build planets. A little boring right now.
Hyper Empire
Advertises itself as a 4X game you can finish in about 40 minutes, but it’s not really. Feels like a mobile game, where you just click through turns, clicking buttons to make numbers go up. I guess technically the bones of a 4X game are there, but it’s got no soul.
Cardalaxy
An empire-building game where you play planets to gain resources to improve other planets in your hand. Easy to play, but the graphics are a little rough. I also didn’t really understand what I was supposed to be doing… I like the concept, though, and if the rough edges get smoothed out, I think this could be a lot of fun.
Skin Deep
A game where you sneak around spaceships and neutralize pirates in order to save their crew of cats. Story as old as time.
High Seas, High Profits!
A medieval trading game, where you can build a trade empire over time. Love the clean interface and the style, but it didn’t really hook me.
Autarkis
A bit of a puzzle game, but there’s not really much of a puzzle; just repeating the same steps over and over. I found it a bit boring.
Whisper of the House
It’s essentially Unpacking, but instead of unpacking a single person’s house over their lifetime, you’re decorating a bunch of other townspeople’s homes. Pretty chill.
Breathedge 2
Seems about like the first game, with the same weird humor and chaotic world to float around in.
HistoriCity Florence
Rebuild Florence after the Black Death. It’s a pretty chill city builder.
Monster Train 2
I didn’t play a lot of Monster Train, but it was pretty good. The sequel seems like more of the same.
Factory Planner
It’s Satisfactory as a card game. Which honestly isn’t too bad.
Lost Skies
Solid worldbuilding with a lot of lore, exploration with a glider and grappling hook, and base building elements. The combination is great, but I can’t help but feel like something feels just a bit off; though I can’t put my finger on it. And as a solo player, I’m not sure how a big sky battle would play out in the full game.
Survival Machine
Build a mobile base on a giant machine and fend off zombies. Starts out a little too slow for my liking, and I’m not sure how well it plays solo long-term. An interesting idea, though.
Cubic Odyssey
Obviously a Minecraft clone, but it’s sci-fi and has speeders, spaceships, and travel between planets. I enjoyed my time with the demo.
Mech Havoc
A solid action game where you can drive tanks or mechs through a level and shoot things. Style looks good, and it’s fun to play.
Curation
Currently, it’s a very bare-bones museum building game. The basics are here, but it’s mostly just a sandbox right now.