From June 19th through June 26th, tons and tons of demos for games soon to be released on Steam were released to the public as a part of Steam’s Next Fest – a celebration of upcoming games. My good pal Ducky and I are always on the hunt for new and exciting games to support, so we decided to fill up our virtual carts full of demos and report back on the games that we’ll be keeping an eye on.
tl;dr
Games I’ll absolutely be buying on day one
- Cuisineer (my favorite demo that I played)
- Sticky Business
- Venba
Games that I’ll likely pick up, but not immediately
Games I’ll likely pick up if on sale
Demos I wanted to play but didn’t have enough time
Games Reviewed:
(Click below to jump to review – links to games on Steam can be found in reviews)
Objectively Subjective Review Metrics
Audio
I’m no audiophile – does the music make me want to groove? Do I mute it immediately? Is it the same audio track on loop for 30 minutes, slowly but surely driving me insane? That’s noted here!
Visuals
Art is hard and is 95% of the reason I quit game making each time I try. This is simply looking at how the art feels as a part of the game – does it actively hold me, as the player, back from playing the game? Is it the most visually stunning pixel art I’ve ever seen? Who knows!
Plot
Not every game will have a plot, and not every game will have a unique plot, and both are okay! This will just be a quick snapshot of how the plot feels.
Gameplay
This will be something about how the gameplay actually is – fighting, jumping, whatever, the controls are discussed here in addition to the general user experience.
X-Factor
This is just anything else cool or noteworthy!
word factori
Genre: Puzzle
Developer & Publisher: Star Garden Games
Release Date: August 3, 2023
When I was first exposed to this game during the Summer 2023 Wholesome Direct, it definitely caught my eye. I’m always on the hunt for casual puzzle games I can curl up with on my Switch, and that was the exact vibe I got from seeing the trailer. After playing through the trailer, I could tell that there was absolutely more to this game than meets the eye, and I’m a big enough person to admit that I might not be smart enough for this game! I do think the game concept is very innovative and the demo is absolutely worth a try.
- Audio: I was grooving
- Visuals: Clean, cute
- Plot: It’s a puzzle game
- Gameplay: Placing objects was pretty smooth. Tutorial might have been over simplistic – I fell on my face immediately with the first letter, let alone first word!
- X-Factor: Creative, visually stunning puzzle game
While the Iron’s Hot
Genre: Adventure
Developer: Bontemps Games / Publisher: Humble Games
Release Date: Q4 2023
Also appearing in this summer’s Wholesome Direct, While the Iron’s Hot comes from newcomer Bontemps Games with a spin on the ol’ pixel art resource gathering + crafting game.
- Audio: Cute, generic
- Visuals: Lots of heart for sure – beautiful pixel art
- Plot: Interesting – work as a blacksmith, scavenge for ore, interesting world map feels very inspired by Final Fantasy. Feels like there is definitely something here, but missing something… player is thrown into the game with very little context, maybe additional plot in the final game will help?
- Gameplay: Feels tedious at the start – while mini games were fun for the first time or two, could see them getting old over time. I think you are able to buy upgrades later game, which could help with that. Some of the movement and controls feel a bit clunky (ex: when going in the mines, going up and down or jumping over platforms was clumsy)
- X-Factor: I really like this game concept, I think it just needs a little bit more refinement and it’ll be ready for additional testing.
Wood & Weather
Genre: Simulation
Developer & Publisher: Paper House
Release Date: TBD – Coming Soon!
Wouldn’t you know it – I ALSO saw Wood + Weather in this summer’s Wholesome Direct. This game immediately started with a land acknowledgement, which I thought was really refreshing to see in a game. I can’t tell how much content the final game will have, so depending on price point, I will likely pick up, most likely for Switch if possible.
- Audio: Didn’t hear a ton of audio, but nothing I didn’t like
- Visuals: Absolutely adorable – loved it
- Plot: Weather machine fueled by inspiration? Sandbox type experience helping out town
- Gameplay: Some of the hand movement was a little clumsy, but enjoyable
- X-Factor: Stunning visuals and just a fun experience
Sticky Business
Genre: Art / Tycoon (Maybe?)
Developer: Spellgarden Games / Publisher: Assemble Entertainment
Release Date: 2023
Likely not surprising, I learned about Sticky Business through this summer’s Wholesome Direct, and I was pleasantly surprised that this might be a must buy for me. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into this game, but I very quickly fell into a trance of creating stickers, printing stickers, shipping stickers, rinse and repeat. I enjoyed trying to make what I would consider to be creatively mature themed stickers, with liberal use of rocket ship and donut sticker templates. I think one thing that would take this game from good to great for me would be a tycoon extension of the game – ex: can we set prices? can we track what sells well vs. not? etc. – as opposed to just a sandbox experience, but even if that isn’t a part of the experience, Sticky Business seems to be good fun.
- Audio: Looping audio track, but I was bopping.
- Visuals: Super cute pixel style.
- Plot: You’re running a sticker making business – you create stickers from stamps, design and print out sticker sheets, and mail them out to customers. Day is limited to number of actions, which feels weird for sandbox, but maybe a sign of more to come.
- Gameplay: Seamless experience for me – picked up on the concept super quickly. Wish it was easier to duplicate stamps in sticker creation, but that’s a nice-to-have, not a dealbreaker.
- X-Factor: Good mindless fun
Venba
Genre: Cooking / Narrative
Developer & Publisher: Visai Games
Release Date: July 31, 2023
Venba is a game that I’ve seen pop up a few times – from Nintendo Directs to this year’s Wholesome Direct – and I’m ashamed to say that each time I shrugged it off as just another cooking sim. Despite that reaction, when I saw there was a demo available, I was drawn to it – whether it was the art style or the familiarity, I had to try it. I’m so grateful I did – Venba is gorgeous through-and-through. The only time I was frustrated during this demo was when it ended too quickly – and thankfully there’s only about a month until the full release!
- Audio: Remarkable – I was boppin’ to the beat.
- Visuals: Wildly gorgeous – I’m so drawn to the art style of this game, and the bright color palette used makes everything pop.
- Plot: This game is absolutely going to make me cry in one way or another. The story is from the perspective of an Indian immigrant to Canada in the 1980s who restores her mother’s lost recipes.
- Gameplay: The gameplay itself is through puzzle-style cooking. While not overly complex, the cooking in the demo took me a few tries to get right, yet it didn’t feel overly frustrating to have to try and try again. Moving between tools and foods I was unfamiliar with felt easy and I quickly got the hang of it.
- X-Factor: This game is all x-factor for me. This is a day-one buy.
Cattails: Wildwood Story
Genre: Adventure
Developer & Publisher: Falcon Development
Release Date: Q4 2023
Oh Cattails. I’m a simply lady – you put a cat in a game, I’m going to try it. I viewed the original Cattails game as an extension of the Warriors book series, and this game continues that same feeling. While this might not be a day 1 buy for me, there’s no doubt I’ll be picking this up and burning quite a few hours exploring a dangerous new land as a cat.
- Audio: The audio quality is really, really nice, but it’s quite intense at times! I saw this game had a dedicated composer, and it shows.
- Visuals: Charming pixel art, the character portraits are stunning.
- Plot: There’s some absolute cheese to the plot, but that’s not a bad thing!
- Gameplay: Feels very similar to the first game – some of the text is a little hard to read at times, but gameplay itself is pretty smooth.
- X-Factor: Did the original game have a spirit lion? Because if not, that’ll be the x-factor for this game.
Paleo Pines
Genre: Farming Sim
Developer: Italic Pig / Publisher: Modus Games
Release Date: September 26, 2023
You can pet a dinosaur. Need I say more?
- Audio: Whimsical – fits the art style + plot perfectly.
- Visuals: Human models are a little uncanny valley (feels very My Time at Portia), but everything else is vivid and incredible. Almost immediately in town, a random NPC walked through a conversation I was having in a cutscene (meeting Marlo), got stuck, and then just disappeared, which was hilarious. Soon after building a pen, Lucky tried to run through Marlo, so it’s possible that pathfinding is in need of slight refinement before the official launch!
- Plot: A 3D farming sim with dinosaurs got my attention, but find a missing dinosaur species? Now you have my interest.
- Gameplay: Not quite sure when the game wants me to left click versus right click, but gameplay other than that was fairly smooth + intuitive.
- X-Factor: I’m going to be keeping an eye on this one. The demo was charming, but I had a hard time getting a sense of if I could sink hours upon hours into this game. I’m excited to learn more as we get closer to the launch date.
Mind over Magic
Genre: Colony Builder
Developer: Sparkypants / Publisher: Klei Publishing
Release Date: TBD – Coming Soon
I wasn’t really sure what this was going into the demo, but I saw that Klei had backed this game and that was all the convincing I needed to try it. I wasn’t very successful in my first time playing this demo, but I went back a day later and tried again. I wasn’t especially successful in my second run either, but I did make it further this time.
- Audio: Super eerie – absolutely fitting.
- Visuals: The visuals were dark and moody for this game – just like how I felt trying to figure things out!
- Plot: I love this spin on a colony builder. I’m still trying to process the plot, but there’s essentially dark forces that attack your colony every few in-game days, and to delay that, you have to send some of your dark academia students to face underground battles to fight the baddies off. You – as the player – don’t do any fighting; instead, you build out the base, train the students, and decide who to risk in battle and who lives to see another day.
- Gameplay: The tutorial on this demo was a demo in itself – I had no idea what I was doing. I don’t mind being dropped in the middle of a story, but characters were walking off screen and it took me a few to realize I had to follow them. That’s player error on my part. But once I got to the main game, I could not figure out the game’s building mechanics at all. I figured out how to build walls and a roof, but then I realized my building area was tiny compared to the play area. I tried to build a second level to my building and the stairs were not cooperating. I ended up destroying all my walls and roof and tried again. This time, the stairs worked! But, I had an issue where I build a support wall under my second floor, and because of that, none of my characters wanted to cross over that support beam on the second floor, cutting the amount of room I thought I had on the second floor in half. I’m willing to bet that’s more player error on my part, but the building for this game doesn’t seem to come intuitively compared to something like Oxygen Not Included, another Klei-published game.
- X-Factor: I know it seems like I just ragged on the gameplay, but there’s something stunning and innovative here and I’m wanting to try again. Now that I’ve gotten over the initial confusion of “what is this game? what did I just walk into?” I’m ready to get back into it to see what Mind over Magic has to offer.
Fishing Nation
Genre: Fishing
Developer: Beneath Studios / Publisher: lunatic studios
Release Date: TBD – Coming Soon
Honestly, there’s not a ton in the demo to fairly review this game on. I’m curious to see where this game development goes because I feel like this could be a fairly cozy concept, but it’s hard to tell with how early this game is in development right now.
- Audio: The music was actually pretty strong – feels like it looped between two tracks over my 10 minute playtime, but wasn’t bad.
- Visuals: Okay clearly I have an issue with human models, but I do appreciate how these human models – as geometric as they were – weren’t the overly smoothed human models that were seen in games like Paleo Pines.
- Plot: The demo didn’t get into the plot of this game much, but you play as a fisher who sells their catches to a local market. It seemed like there would be somewhat of a fish economy in the game, which I think could bring some dimension to this game.
- Gameplay: There wasn’t much gameplay to be seen in the demo. I walked to a designated area (fell in the water twice…), and then upon casting a fishing rod, the player character auto catches fish. I was both bummed and relieved to see there wasn’t a fishing mini game to struggle with as I usually do!
- X-Factor: It’s too soon to tell what the x-factor of this game will be.
The Last Alchemist
Genre: Crafting / Narrative
Developer: Vile Monarch / Publisher: Marvelous Europe
Release Date: TBD – Coming Soon
Ooh, this one is going to be good. I originally installed this demo because the art style and title intrigued me, but this game is going to be deeper than I expected, which I absolutely should have guessed based on the publisher! I’m not sure if this will be a day-one buy for me, but I’ll absolutely be picking it up when I need a good crafting sim.
- Audio: Fantastic – no notes.
- Visuals: I really like this 3D art style – it’s visually appealing and a good mix of cute and practical.
- Plot: I’m super curious to see where this plot goes – essentially you’re suffering from an illness and you’ve returned to where you formerly learned alchemy to try to find something to cure yourself, only to find your old teacher has passed and his castle is now overrun by mushroom-type creatures. So you have to work with the mushroom-creatures to try to find a cure, making friends and chosen family along the way and all those mushy squishy feels that I love.
- Gameplay: Gameplay was pretty smooth, honestly. I had issues placing objects a few times and the camera pans kinda weird when walking around in the outside area, but minor bugs relative to the overall gameplay.
- X-Factor: For me, the x-factor of this game is the unique point of view – we play as an older, disabled character (missing a leg) trying to save himself from a mysterious illness. I just think that’s neat.
Cuisineer
Genre: Action Roguelike
Developer: BattleBrew Productions / Publishers: Marvelous Europe, XSEED Games
Release Date: TBD – Coming Soon
When this game comes out, I am going to be absolutely insufferable. I love this demo. I love everything about it. I saw the premise and was in, but MARVELOUS AND XSEED? Get out of here. If you know me, you know I’m head over heels in love with Story of Seasons, Rune Factory, and a list of other titles they’ve published, and I have no doubt Cuisineer will keep up the high standard expected from both publishers. When I say I can’t wait for a release date to be announced, please know that I am so serious that I’m going to be reaching out to BattleBrew directly to thank them for this demo, that’s how good this game is going to be.
- Audio: Whimsical. Gorgeous. Flawless.
- Visuals:
- Plot: You are reopening your parents’ restaurant… managing customers, resources, time, recipes… using ingredients you forage for in dungeons… like I can’t. This is everything. Where has this been all of my life?
- Gameplay: So. Smooth. My only minor complaint might be that the keybindings to open up the journal and inventory feel weird, but that’s such a small thing that I can very easily get over that.
- X-Factor: This game just feels good. I could very easily see myself sinking hours and hours into this game, it’s that effortless to play.
Everafter Falls
Genre: Life Sim
Developer: SquareHusky / Publisher: Akupara Games
Release Date: TBD – Coming Soon!
Upon first glance of this game, it’s not hard to see the influence from wildly popular games such as Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing. So much so that the solo developer – SquareHusky – makes a joke about that within the first minute or two of the game. From that point, the game becomes its own expansive world for you – as the player – to leisurely explore.
- Audio: Great – it fit the gameplay well. I did notice there were some awkward lulls between tracks from time to time, but nothing terribly noticeable.
- Visuals: Here I go again – I think the character models are funky! Something about them screams flash game to me, maybe it’s the disconnected hands? Aside from that, the visuals are great. The character portraits and main game art style clash a bit at first, but I feel like that was an intentional stylistic choice that I’ll grow to love after picking up the game.
- Plot: You wake up from a simulation and – gasp! – you can’t remember living in animal-residing Everafter Falls! From there, you meet the local animals, including your pet – which is kind of a strange thing to have in a world filled with anthropomorphic animals, very much the Goofy vs. Pluto Disney argument (but I digress…) -, complete some tasks for the local residents, and the game continues from there.
- Gameplay: This game is big. Huge. I found myself very easily getting lost navigating from screen to screen, and getting + using the map felt a little clunky. I think that’s something that likely could be addressed with a minimap or a tutorial that I missed. Other than that, gameplay was smooth and I was able to figure out the controls with minimal help needed.
- X-Factor: I think the thing that excites me about Everafter Falls is the humor and diversity of characters. These characters crack jokes, say awkward things, they’re very dimensional which brings Everafter Falls to life. It gives you a reason to want to befriend these critters to learn more about them.
Jordan Serna 
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