Unlike my Survival Fest post, I’m going to update this one as I play demos since these demos are sometimes time-limited…
Most of these are still available now that the fest is over; I've noted them with a joystick icon: 🕹️
Masterplan Tycoon 🕹️
Your basic survival city builder boiled down to its most essential parts. You create a flow chart where each node is a building (woodcutter, well, storage), and link things together to transport resources from one to another (the woodcutter produces wood, which you link to the sawmill, which requires wood and produces planks for building). The sound effects and little building effects (“thwack” appears as the woodcutter operates) are a nice touch. Very simple and clean. Another one I might pick up cheap.
Potionomics
Create potions, sell them in your store. The haggling in this game is done through a card game and you expand your deck by forming relationships with various townspeople. I love the art style and the characters are very expressive (the animation is phenomenal). Definitely looking forward to playing this one more.
Techtonica 🕹️
First-person factory building and exploration, similar to Satisfactory. It’s interesting, but the controls seem a little clunky, and the visual style is a bit bland for my taste.
Forever Skies 🕹️
A story-driven survival game where you customize your blimp and travel between ruined skyscrapers above a green death-cloud. Feels a lot like Raft with a more sci-fi style. I’ve been looking forward to this one, and while it definitely needs some optimization, I like the survival and building mechanics. Demo is time-limited (20 minutes) after the initial tutorial.
Aquatico 🕹️
Survival city-builder set on the sea floor. Didn’t play this one too long – just enough to get a feel for it, but I’m looking forward to playing more once it releases. Could probably use some UI improvements (some things are a bit crowded), but otherwise it seems like it ticks all the usual survival city-builder boxes.
The Entropy Centre 🕹️
A first-person puzzle game like Portal. Instead of a handheld portal device, you get an “entropy” device, which rewinds time. I enjoyed the puzzles in the demo – they were pretty simple but require you to think four-dimensionally: you have to move things around in a particular order so when you rewind them, they end up where you want. The backstory to the game sounds interesting, too (with what little you get through devices in the demo), and the trailer makes it look like there might be some action-y sequences as well. Looking forward to the release.
Floodland 🕹️
A survival city-builder that appears to have some emphasis on story (hard to tell if it’s just the opener or the tutorial). Looks good and has a deep research tree, so there might be some nice complexity to it. I could see it being as good as Frostpunk. I’ll definitely pick it up once it’s released.
Against the Storm
A roguelite city-builder. You choose an area from an overworld map, then build a settlement there while attempting to complete a number of objectives before the queen becomes too impatient with you. If you complete all the objectives before the queen’s impatience maxes out, you win and gain materials to use to improve the Smoldering City and future settlements. If you fail, you return to the overworld map with little to show for it. After a few settlements, the Blightstorm comes, destroying all your towns and reshaping the world. Looks great and it’s fun to play. I’ll definitely be picking this one up.
Diluvian Winds 🕹️
A management game with cute animal workers. Fun, but I lost my woodcutter to a storm relatively early and could never get enough wood to keep the lighthouse lit and ended up losing. Needs an easier way to recover from that sort of thing, but otherwise it’s a pretty easygoing game.
Wormhole Adventurer 🕹️
An old-school adventure game where you explore and upgrade your ship with an objective to rebuild your space station. It’s pretty simple to play, and I like the retro aesthetic, but there were some bugs with graphics rotating too far when turning which got really disorienting.
Star Survivor 🕹️
It’s like Vampire Survivors, but you control a spaceship. Designed for twin sticks, so it’s a little rough to control on a keyboard (WASD movement, arrow key rotation). I might pick it up after it launches.
Manor Lords
The demo’s a little rough (missing text, no saving), and the tutorial isn’t very helpful, but I can tell the foundations of an amazing city builder are here. Very organic building (no grids), with some RTS-style army battles as well. This is another one for my wishlist.
Capital Command
A tactical starship command sim. There’s a lot of depth and complexity, but it’s relatively manageable thanks to auto-pilot. Some people might be turned off by the blocky interface, but I like it – presents a lot of controls and information without blocking too much of the action. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.
Scorchlands 🕹️
A city-builder with streaming resources, terraforming, and some light combat. Pretty easy to play but with a decent amount of depth. Also, everyone is birds. I don’t know why.
The End
That’s the end of this Next Fest. There were a few demos I downloaded but didn’t have a chance to play. Several of the demos above are still available and I’ve noted them (with a little joystick: 🕹️) in case you’d like to try any of them out yourself.