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URBAN JUNGLE

Unless Urban Jungle really beefs the landing when it releases sometime later this year, it’ll make it’s way onto my GOTY list for sure. The demo puts forth what seems to be a spiritual successor of sorts to my favorite indie of 2021, Unpacking. Tasking you with organizing a kids’ room while slowly filling in every nook and cranny with shiny new plants, you’ll have to puzzle out a place for everything (and everything in its place). Each plant has its own likes and dislikes, and there are a plethora of variants from each category to unlock. Arranging and rearranging each of these beautiful spaces is going to make my brain so, so happy. Just be sure to keep your plants away from your golden-child sibling’s side of the room, and don’t put any of your beloved green cuties next to that loathsome pothos. Why did I buy one of those to begin with? Ahh, he’s cute too, he can stay. All the plants, none of the real life commitments. Become the devoted plant person you always wanted to be here.

Dungeon Clawer

I am so violently tired of Slay the Spire-likes. I go out of my way to avoid them, even if the concept looks promising. The branching map and prospect of drafting a deck gives me hives and makes the tiny walnut that is my brain shrivel into a pea and recoil in horror. I took a chance on this one, braved the over-done trope, and dove in. A screenshot of the game tells you exactly what you need to know of the gameplay: grab items from your “deck” with the claw, and use the selected items to defeat the endless horde of enemies that await. The mechanic gives you just enough mix of control and chaos to leave you wanting more. At a surface level glance, Dungeon Clawer seems like it might succumb to the more tedious aspects of the genre. However, it really shines in presentation and practice. Did I end up drafting my tried and (semi)true poison-plus-defense build? …yes. Did it work blindingly well until it didn’t, like it usually does? …again, yes. So while what you’ve learned from other games of its ilk still apply, Dungeon Clawer holds itself apart in the uniqueness of its main mechanic and special stages. The gumball-machine special stage alone is such a special if superficial twist on “here’s a random buff, because we have to”, that it made me hold on for one more round, which lead me to play more than one run of this adorable demo. Stray Fawn Studio took a risk in treading an over-worn path, but they’ve done enough to set Dungeon Clawer apart to make that path feel exciting all over again. Releasing winter of this year, you can get a taste of the claw machine here.

WARCANA

If you ever spent hours playing the Warcraft III Tower Defense mods with your friends or online, you’ll already have a foot in the door with 1000 Orks’ Warcana. The screenshots and videos immediately caught my attention, and the in-game visuals didn’t disappoint. Viewing the battlefield from on high, thousands of units are rendered at a time. But as you zoom in, the details and intricacies of the wildly beautiful pixel art and animation truly come to life. A combination of TD, RTS, and Deck Builder, Warcana takes its shot at combining multiple complex genres into one genre-bending package. The level of complexity seems to be there, as well. For example, each card has its own skill tree to explore, giving me hope for the deep level of customization I’m looking for in a strategy game like this. Let’s hope the online multiplayer pans out with their proposed 30 player battle royale mode, as well. This is one demo I stopped playing early in anticipation of the full game, as I know the campaign is going to take up a lot of my gaming hours later this year. I could do without my shadowy advisor calling me “master” all the time, but I’m a sucker for a tutorial with a personality. The sizable 10 level campaign demo for Warcana can be found here.

Lost and Found Co.

I am duck. Now I am roast duck. Now I am Ducky. Now I must find. Fiiiiiind. This one might be the most satisfying offering on the list. Lost and Found Co. offers an in depth hidden object game in the package of an interactable, thick-as-malt piece of artwork at which to poke and prod at your own pace. The adorable presentation is a welcome layer on top of a very deep demo, boasting multiple multi-stage levels, along with a few side “request” stages. Every single object in a stage is clickable, and while most just jiggle satisfyingly, some have cute little animations a-la Humongous Entertainment (think the Putt Putt PC games you played as a kid). Needless to say, this demo delighted me at every turn. An adorable goddess dragon for a boss? A billion things to click? Side objective such as “experience something paranormal? Why yes, don’t mind if I do, Lost and Found Co., thanks for asking! Help Ducky and the goddess search every chockablock square inch for the one tiny glass of orange juice here.

Bee Welcome!

Low-fi Beets to search and relax to. Is that anything? If Lost and Found Co. impresses with its complexity and chaos, Bee Welcome! is a hidden object game that thrives in simplicity. What do you mean “delivery bee”? Bees are everywhere, but you’ve got to pick out the specific bees who need to checked into your bee hotel. The bees you’re looking for differ from the other bees oh so specifically, and oh so slightly, that even when you click the hint button – which circles an area of the screen, highlighting the area in which your target bee buzzes – it’s easy to find yourself at a loss for which bee your looking for. There were even times I haphazardly started clicking on bees in desperation only to go “oh duh” when I accidentally selected the right one. Sometimes we have to have something on in the background to watch while we play a game, Bee Welcome! is a game to play in the background while you do or watch something else. That’s a feat to be celebrated, especially for those of us who, uh, need multiple inputs… constantly. Bee Welcome! will be a welcome addition to my multi-stimuli-craving relaxation time when it releases this fall. Zero stress, zero consequences, varying levels of concentration, all beeeeees! Try your hand and running the check in desk at a bee hotel here. I’m never typing the word “bee” again.

Spilled!

Lente lives on a boat. A little over a year ago, Lente quit school to pursue her dream of making a game, and then concluded a successful Kickstarter to make her dream a reality. All of us, even if it’s just a small part of ourselves, wants to be Lente. The 20 minutes I spent in the Spilled! demo were perhaps the most satisfying minute-to-minute in this whole endeavor to chronicle my spelunking into this year’s Next Fest. I started small, cleaning up tiny oil spills one at a time with the vacuum at the front of my little tanker boat. Slowly, I learned to upgrade my tank size, boat speed, and vacuum width. Soon enough I was huffing up oil at lightning speed, spraying spills off the ocean cliffside, and scooping garbage piles into the collection plant – one of which was conveniently situated in each of the handful of distinct areas of the demo. The game looks great, with its low-poly / low-fi aesthetic, jagged edges and all. It feels even better. It was a perfect late night snack on my Steam Deck before bed, and I can’t wait to devour more. I can see Spilled! opening up into a sprawling ocean adventure, or staying honed in to this tightly packed, curated experience. Either way, Lente has created something here with an extremely bright future. Go save the virtual oceans, and don’t forget to rescue the most adorable low-res critters you’ve ever seen here.

Dungeons of Hinterberg

Not only did the jam-packed Dungeons of HInterberg demo give me a hoverboard within the first 5 minutes, present me with a digestible dungeon full of combat and puzzles, and tease me with the promise of a full blown skill tree, but it let me hang out with a popular youtube streamer in a bar. I’ve never felt so cool in my entire life. Combat feels fluid, featuring some special attacks that decimate the battlefield, and puzzles gave me slight pause without overly taxing my brain or frustrating me in the least. I even found all the secret bonus chests in the laser puzzle. And I’m bad at Zelda puzzles! The game played great on the Steam Deck (I wouldn’t recommend playing with mouse and keyboard), though I did prefer the frame rate at the lower graphics preset mode. The gameplay loop of Hinterberg has me stoked for its fast approaching July 18 release date. I’ve been tempted to replay through the demo just to hang out with some of the other characters, but I’ve decided to leave some of the mystery for the full release. Take a peek at your upcoming alpine dungeon delving vacation here.

Super Fantasy Kingdom

There is a right way to play this. My brain insists there is a right way to play this. I definitely didn’t put the wood gatherer building close enough to the forest, I definitely didn’t put the stone gatherer building close enough to the available stone outcroppings, and my mules had to walk so far to deliver supplies to my castle to be ready to use. I wanted to start over so many times to optimize my building placement and my unit choices. I could’ve filled out my town faster and more efficiently, I just know it. Super Fantasy Kingdom filled me with this kind of shoulda-coulda-woulda that I usually despise in games, but it somehow worked this time. The battle phases take place north of your town while you’re fretting away at worker placement and all of a sudden you’ve been overrun with baddies and, oops, now you’re sure there was a more optimal path. Walking the tightrope of frustrating, but in a good way, Super Fantasy Kingdom is “coming soon” to beat your brain to a pulp. Not soon enough. I’ll be dipping back into this demo again. If only to play the right way. Plan your kingdom better than I did here.

Mirthwood

“Your journey begins in darkness”. Mirthwood seems to revel in the concept of “what if cozy game but bleak” from the very get-go as it plunks you down in a countryside village set ablaze from by bandits, your family in dire straits. Immediately the character creator pops up prompting you to select a name, appearance, origin, class, and profession. The appearance options are lacking pretty significantly at this point, but the other options intrigued me. Origin, class, and profession each give you a positive (such as your crops grow faster) and negative (such as you are more prone to hunger) effect. I made myself a peasant farmer from the forest of the elves, and set off for the docks to find out what in the hells I’m gonna do now – but not before adjusting the graphics settings; the optimization seems a little wonky at the moment. A bit of combat (deeper than I’ve come to expect from similar fare), a moral choice, a level up with a peak at a skill tree, a boat ride, and a horse ride later (yes, you can pet the horse), and Mirthwood promises you “a new medieval tale chartered by you”. Here, the real gameplay loop begins, and while farming-sim-cozy-games like this don’t truly show their hand and how viable they are until about 20 hours in, from what I’ve seen so far I’m incredibly impressed and very much looking forward to the release. It helps that the setting is one of my special interests, but I love the way everything is laid out, from the radial menu to the crafting screen. Mirthwood has a promising start – if a few endearing rough spots – and I can’t wait to really dig in when it releases in Q3 of 2024. Charter your own medieval tale here.

Tails of Iron II: Whiskers of Winter

Either I’ve gotten even worse at Soulsborne games, or they really cranked up the difficulty on the second installment of the Tails of Iron series. In their defense, I should’ve played on the casual difficulty. Not only ’cause I’m bad at games, but also because I’m playing a billion demos here under a self-imposed time crunch. However, Whiskers of Winter sits well-near the top of my most anticipated games list. I’m getting really tired of this “coming soon” tag I keep seeing. “What if Souls but 2D”, “What if Game of Thrones, but Rats” (yes, Redwall exists), and “What if Tails of Iron, but 2″ don’t really do what Odd Bug Studio has on offer here justice. There seems to be a “well now we have the budget to make what we wanted to make in the first place” kind of vibe happening, and you can feel the excitement the studio is putting forth. Doug Cockle (Geralt of Rivia) broods as deeply as ever as the narrator, and the world is as bleak as you remember. A few additions like the grappling hook, a Monster Hunter-esque whetstone, and a world map make some promises I’m excited to explore. While the first major boss ate up the entirety of my self-allotted time with the demo (and gave me the sense of accomplishment only a Souls game can when I defeated him), the minute I hit publish on this article I’m doing myself a favor and starting the demo over… on the easier difficulty. You can suffer along with me in a world of tails, fur, and steel here. Just uh… judge your ability wisely.

Caravan Sandwich

It’s really difficult to nail down what exactly Caravan Sandwich… is. The demo drops you in its world with the brief exposition of “your sister is missing, your neighbor gave you this weird bus, and your friends are throwing you a welcome home party… enjoy”. Objectively, it’s a resource gathering, narrative driven, third person adventure game, but it has a vibe I don’t think I’ve experienced before in gaming. Or elsewhere for that matter. The dialogue is puzzling and off-kilter, and the premise leaves you so enthralled you’ll be thinking about this demo long after you’ve scoured its every last bit. What happened to your sister (spoilers [kind of] available)? Why did you leave home in the first place? Why are we living in ruins? Who are these frog people? And why is everyone so obsessed with these omnipresent components? I need to know more. The demo concludes just as you feel like you’re coming to grips with the world and the concept of the game itself. I could say more about how great the bus handles, and how I’m happy there’s no fall damage, and how I really enjoyed the panoramic view from the bench atop the cliffside, but – out of this whole list – this is the one I urge you to go experience for yourself. Maybe you’ll be able to glean even more from it than I could. Is this 3rd wave gaming? Wait… is this like, 5th wave gaming? I’m stoked. Be puzzled here.