Steam Next Fest

who got the press preview link?

Oh shit. The next one already?

who got the press preview link?

Looks like editing the last URL works:
store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest_jun2025_press
Do not share or Gaben will eat your computer.

Eat the rich game

Why are they like this?
Plus, I haven't seen anything that doesn't look mediocre, and I mean, good for the devs for releasing a game, but they should work the miniature image a tad more since that's the first thing someone would see and quite possibly the last too.

Aw shit, almost time to have some actual videogame threads.

And here's the SteamDB link for the event for people like me who hate the new UI and prefer a list.
steamdb.info/sales/event/507329415345079726/?sort=followers_desc
steamdb.info/sales/event/507329415345079726/?displayOnly=Demo

Dumpster diving time.

Switch 2 releases in a week. Forget about it for the next month or two.

store.steampowered.com/app/2878220/Space_Adventure_Cobra__The_Awakening/

cobra game

ABSOLUTE SLOP DEV STUDIO

God damnit

I'll be taking refuge in whatever thread we have going.

I've seen actual videogame threads stay afloat for 24 hours during peak rosterfaggotry hours. We will find a way to make it work.

you had to take the E out of June to make it work

damn I feel stupid. oh well.

This demo hardly needs shilling from me with it's ALLSTAR CAST LINEUP.

I'm going to play it anyway I want to romance superheroes who look a lot hotter when they are cartoon characters than these studio headshots of their voice actors.

Jun is the abbreviation of June.

I am aware but it is generally stupid to abbreviate such a short word.

Jesas, how grim

I really hope this time around there isn't just an ocean of terrible AI/Asset Flip slop not worth even looking at

I'm ready for the gaming event of the year. Oneway.exe seems like one of those mascot horror games and it probably is because it has an evil version of female chipmunks, but there is a really well done deduction puzzler like in Obra Dinn.

For example, you'll get case reports of people mutilated in various ways, and have to match names to bodies/cause of death. Which person got crucified and stabbed several times in the face, making them unrecognizable? stuff like that.

Tormented Souls 2 is listed, but no demo yet. Maybe they will have one go live during the festival.

The abbreviation of all the months are three letters. It's for consistency for systems and formats that want three letters and no more or no less. It's the same reason dates might be formatted like 2025-05-30 even though the zero before the 5 is unnecessary for a human to understand. Standards exist for a reason.

standards exist for a reason.

must be why no one dates you. The STANDARD is to not abbreviate words unnecessarily to avoid confusion. you can shove you milk labelled JUN 25 up your ass because I can't tell if you mean jun or jan because your printing is all smudgy that's what I think of your motherfucking standards and by they way the STANDARD is ascending order, like this:

29 May 2025.

THANK YOU XBOX

Why haven't AI games gotten the banhammer yet? They will ban perfectly fine anime games but let this slop pass.

fuck yeah, SSR wives is getting a demo when the festival officially starts

Oh that's sweet

most people don't have arbitrary contempt for new technology.

go cry in your basement about how photoshop exists

Nice burn. But URLs aren't meant to be human readable the same way sentences, documents or milk cartons are so none of that applies.

Aw shit is it time to dumpster dive again? I love these threads and you guys because you actually play the video games.
Because the policy on Steam only bans non-disclosure of AI and it isn't retroactive and as long as that is the case and it doesn't break any other rules on Steam (with the exception of any legal cases about copyright at the moment with AI), it is A-okay. Doesn't mean that can't change in the future. The only thing I want is to be able to filter it or have some fine grained filtering based on it but I doubt Valve will do that.

store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest_june2024_press
GAAAAABEEEEEEEEEEEEENNN

NEXTFEST BABY LET'S GOOOOOO

x.com/APStylebook/status/1737465662677671976
I mean, he is right and so are you.
The main thing is that since URLs don't have a length limit, there is no reason to shorten the URL length in this way especially when trackers add a bazillion IDs already.

We had a couple of Next Fests that I kind of felt like were declining in quality. But the last Next Fest was real fucking banging so now I'm excited again.

yeah, okay, why not. It's been a while since I played solitaire anyway, I could play a round

wait there's no demo. I will never forgive them for this transgression. you were on the next fest page.

Only like 10% of the demos are up right now for the press review

Wait. Can this actually be right?
Are we actually getting a public demo at last?

I feel like it varies because of development cycles. There were some real lulls where there wasn't anything interesting from indies going on and the best games from those bad Fests were like the one or two games everyone played. I remembered Balatro was stuck in such a fest when its demo first came out. It was the same one with Tevi and Robocop and Talos Principle 2 demos coming out and everything else was trash because it was Metroidvania and Vampire Survivors everywhere.

fix your fucking website, how about that?

hope not. looks like furry garbage. Is it too much to ask for that the furry games at least be good?

Damn, that's shocking. Good shit.

There was this one demo that I wanted to play, and they never published it despite being on the next fest page, there was only this "joing the playtest lol" button.

this game contains AI gene-

ignore

competition is heating up in the occult solitaire genre

I fucking wish it was arbitrary.

New Technology

Photoshop

Get the fuck off my internet you fucking jeet

Gold Gold Adventure Gold will have a demo

Neat. Hope it scratches my Majesty itch

it's not the nuclear weapons or the deforestation we have to stop it's the naked anime girl generator

christ, go join greenpeace and bomb some gas stations if you're really an anti-technologist. you're probably too stupid to pull off domestic terrorism though.

There's no reason not to either. Like I said, URLs aren't meant to be readable and the guy setting it up can use whatever scheme he wants and even make it complete gibberish. But it's reasonable enough to assume if you see a format then that format will be stuck to. But yes, this is all a very pointless argument.

it already does. I played it. Or maybe they took it down before the festival to tweak it, that happens sometimes.

Here's how this is going to work. I'm going to play the Crime, Lawn, Repeat demo. You are going to stay mad.

Maybe. Many developers withdraw before the full Next Fest starts. During too, even, if they can't put out their demo in time or change their mind.

Looks like that one WEG that always gets posted. Then again, they all look the same.

The main reason is because you only get one shot as a dev for a Next Fest ever since rules prohibiting multiple appearances because of abuse went through.

It's good for voice acting
Keeps obnoxious people out of a paycheck

Also genuine question, you think Valve at all considered that Deltarune's probably going to suck up all the attention independent games likely would have gotten since it's releasing 4 days before it?
Like, that's Microsoft intentionally murdering the Blinx IP levels of bad timing.

uh uhh AUGH

The FREE MARKET isn't fair. we need to have two tiers because it's totally unfair everyone has to complete on an even playing field. some games, that I choose, will get extra special benefits because they deserve it and that'll be what's fair!

you only get one shot as a dev for a Next Fest ever since rules prohibiting multiple appearances

I saw many repeats before and I'm seeing them again, like this game

Here's how we'll do it to make things fair. Every game will get a gender identity of either male or female, sort of like ships, but if ships were named after men and women instead of just women.

Anyway, some games will be girls and others will be boys and the girl games will get an automatic +1000 review score bonus to make things fair.

Maybe I just lack faith in ZB Studio, but somehow I doubt Dungeon Legend Party has the rights to include all of these anime properties.
It kind of looks like some kind of unity clone of that old WC3 custom game or something.

Settle down you stupid faggot, I'm just saying this is probably bad timing for a next fest.

Looks like there's not one right now. I'm guessing they're doing a new build specifically for NextFest then

They might have thought about it but big game releases come out all the time so what can anyone do really. If the indie devs themselves are worried about audience overlap with Deltarune or any other game they can sit this one out and wait for the next one. Plus, June's always a busy time of year for vidya so you should know what you're getting yourself into or you can reason that the increased hype about games can be good for awareness, especially if you get your game into a showcase.

The show hasn't started yet so of course a bunch of the demos aren't up. We're secretly looking at advanced information we're not supposed to have, remember?

Or you could hire theater actors which has the same benefit of not supporting the American VA mafia but also gives you a much better performance than AI.

shut it down bros. next fest is over. we just can't compete with shitty rpg makers games like doublerune

Sharing secret press release links is theft !

THEFT !!

You're supposed to only get one shot, but gaben is a lazy ass and doesn't enforce his own rules.

I'm not sure if I played this demo properly? There wasn't actually much in the way of instructions and supposedly it was about drilling but I never actually used my drill for anything. I got a whole inventory full of stuff actually that I never even used. Not even sure what the character's goal was.

nevertheless, it might be worth purchasing when it releases fully. Just because I'm clueless doesn't make the game bad.

kek. almost choked on tea

Are people really not aware of how popular Deltarune and Undertale actually are?
Or is this just like, the weird malignant "I hate gamers" retardation that possesses gaming shills and for some reason developers.

Damn, algolemth isn't on the list.

Now THIS is sloppa

This one was all over the place. Every minute or so the tape would change. One time I was vandalizing a billboard, another segment had me poking a dead rat. Later there was a rat funeral. Then someone complained about their period, and their tamagotchi even though those things were out of fashion in the year 2016 so having one was weird. Whatever. The dates in the bottom left corner kept changing and I didn't really bother to pay attention to them to try determine the sequence but it seemed like the "big disaster" happened in the past? If something big happened in the past, shouldn't everyone be dead? I don't really know what was going on.

I don't get it. These all have playable demos right now?

I love the randomness of the recs. Last fest I was recommended a bunch of typing games out of the blue, even picked one up. Now this stuff is the first on the page, likely because I got back to Cuban Missile Crisis lately. It's a pretty random tag to have, huh.

I think it's that you can't put up the SAME demo multiple times, you can make a new demo for each Next Fest and it's fine

Pretty sure it's random until a few days into the next fest
I saw some of these games as well

heh

I'd almost respect it if only it wasn't most definitely 99% AI assets.

I am actually interested in this game but holy fuck

My contempt is wholly founded and reasoned.

I know what I'm doing after work and gym

nah I think using the crappy ui is part of the experience and your search results brought demos released in 2024, anyway.

Gaben. Gaben PLEASE add the ability to filter out games by dev country of origin. Please. I'm begging you.

yurifag

idiot

Yeah, that's how it works.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SAR PLEASE REDEEM MY DEMO SAR SAAARR

I still have a bunch of demos installed from the last next fest that I never got around to playing

Its for the Chinese. I expect the Indian flood sometime within the next 5 years.

I'd never filter out chink games because I found matchless kungfu through a demo

It would probably just end up going badly for American games, as every American nationalist movement goes badly

I don't care how it goes for American games, I just don't want shitty Chinese shovelware drowning out the rest of the shovelware

I mean it's bad for everyone, because everyone just stops bothering and only the most overmarketed shit gets any sort of commerce.
Google's been dealing with this problem for years because people can't fucking stand them and they keep just making up metrics to sell to advertisers and hope nobody bothers to check.
It's kind of like how developers don't even check into the Steam Hardware survey these days, and it's not even just because they're too lazy to optimize their games.

How do you read "I want to filter Chinese and Indian games" and interpret it as American nationalism?

What do americans have to be nationalist about? They don't even make any good games anymore

Probably like this

Are you calling me a squinty eyed chink

No the other guy

I raughed out roud

store.steampowered.com/app/3077570/MOMO_Crash/

thigh squishing rhythm game

Alright, I have a ton to get through now. Better start playing. I think I might keep track of how many I play too. maybe give myself a name for these threads too. I just saw one that will work, too.

Godspeed. I'm interested in your thoughts later.
I always try to share my own thoughts for the demos I play too. But I always end up running out of time to play most of them. I'll try to do better this year.

Also I will keep an eye out in case anyone posts good demos.
Shame about this happening so close to Deltarune's launch and most people will be playing that.

Demo #1.

The protagonist moved at this agonizingly slow molasses pace. There's no run button, pretty sure. Still, I gave it a shot. The game's instructions were to never wake up your girlfriend when she sleepwalks but didn't say why. So I woke her up at the first opportunity and she knocked me out and then somehow killed me by slamming my head in the door of the freezer repeatedly.

If you don't like jumpscares, you probably won't like this, though I imagine they would have been effective if I hadn't been looking away from the screen to get my cup of tea both times they happened. This game is free-to-play tier, not worth money.

this guy keeps trying to make us believe anyone gives a shit about deltarune

store.steampowered.com/app/3662590/The_Presidential_Assassins/

Trailer starts out with killing Shinzo Abe

Thumbnail is an AI image of Winnie the Pooh and Chinese Trump

Buy it now gweilos.

Demo #2

I didn't even leave the starting room on this one. I tried left clicking on the control room and the engine room, and it told me that I had no reason to go to the engine room and it wouldn't say anything at all about the control room. I think this one needed more work before release.

Russian language options

Hmmmm. Could be a sneaky Vlad.

I don't buy memes to virtue signal

but you do buy memes

Demo #3

So this had this anthropomorphic cat ask you to hunt some deer to get your car battery fixed, but when you get over there it turns out he just wanted you to murder his neighbours, but the family of deer invite you into have dinner with them and Jane Doe totally starts flirting with you and honestly I probably would have been down for seducing the unhappy deerwife but John Doe notices the flirting and attacks me so I kill him and his whole family anyway. Turned the demo off when it got to the part where I had to butcher the whole family. I probably saw enough and this game is hesitantly worth buying. Or at least getting on sale.

The gore wasn't so bad because it's PS1 graphics. Oh and I was actually impressed with the shadow textures they had. very cinematic. I don't know, I think I just like games that try to be original over formulaic stuff. Well. I like both, actually.

Any horro games that are not just hide and seek stuff?

store.steampowered.com/app/3763830/Dead_as_Disco_Demo/

Dead as Disco puts you in the shoes of Charlie Disco, a fallen icon with one chance to reclaim the spotlight from the Idols – Charlie’s ex-bandmates and musical legends. Confront the Idols in stylish combat that syncs to every song, and survive a world torn apart by music, fame, and betrayal In this action-packed, literal Beat ‘Em Up.

the first Rush-like game

Demo #4.

Didn't even get past the title screen, it was so laggy. This can happen with demos. It's possible I give it a second chance on my more powerful, gaming exclusive PC. But that one is running a linux thing, so it's essentially a steam deck that isn't portable. Sometimes demos don't run on the steam deck either, but for entirely different reasons that keeps them from working on Windows.

store.steampowered.com/app/2052300/Glaciered/

Glaciered. I already played this demo and it's good. Soulslike but you play as a dolphin-person. Bosses were actually hard and I had to dig down to beat them. You edit your DNA to level up.

nobody wants to buy your ai generated garbage jeet

And it has English voice acting now according to the trailer

store.steampowered.com/app/2488540/Crimson_Capes/

What's the hall of fame for games that succeeded following demo hype?
Off the top of my head, Pacific Drive and Signalis were both total unknowns before their Next Fest demos got people interested.

Balatro, Nine Sols

Balatro. People wouldn't stop shilling it in the threads.

Nine Sols kicks so much ass
If Elden Ring's DLC is disqualified, it easily won GOTY 2024.

Demo #5.

Tentative yes for this one. Only played up until I died for the first time, which is another way I get through demos quickly. Some cultists dropped a boulder on me and I actually did dodge quick enough but the game is glitchy. That can happen. So about seven minutes of gametime on this one but it really doesn't take much to get a feel for games. Plotline seemed interesting, slightly more interesting than a generic resident evil knockoff. There still will be a hidden lab segment, but as an offshoot of an ancient vampiric bloodline. So, 2D Resident Evil with vampires, good enough for me. Wishlisted.

GOTY
INCOMING THIS FEST
store.steampowered.com/app/3743400/Drunken_Rogue_Demo/

i've been tracking this one for years, i'm amazed that it might actually release. it gives me hope for other games, like routine

Routine

it got a full rebooted trailer less than a year ago, it's not abandonware anymore

Demo #6.

This one was straight up, not very good. The AI art made all the male characters look like Bogdanoffs, although the women were admittedly hot. Male protagonists have always struggled with appearance in visual novels, though, even before AI. they are best as formless blank slates, or someone you never even see at all.

Anyway, whatever, I had hoped they would explain pretty quickly what crimes/lawns meant, but I didn't care enough to sit through desperate housewives stuff until they got to the point.

What I've got lined up so far.

I personally think Servants of the Dark is Inti Creates's best game of this type.
Loved the demo. Loved the full game. Got what I asked for. And it had a lot of pleasant surprises.

Nevermind, I'm retarded, I was looking at a reupload date
It was actually re-announced three fucking years ago and it still doesn't have a release date
yeah this is abandonware again

more than half of the games are rougelike

you just don't know how to count

A drunk dungeon crawler but you don't get to play as a hot oni? Come on.

wow this guy's taste is purely awful. I always knew spreadsheeters were totally dismal but now I have proof. Who makes a spreadsheet for a dozen games, anyway?

Demo #7

This one has you controlling people from the perspective of a bank of surveillance cameras. So fixed camera angles but you can see several angles at once. The plot is that the tests get more disturbing as time goes on and the people you control start getting constrained by straitjackets and blindfolds for some reason so they have to pick up keys with their teeth. I might play it but I probably wouldn't pay full price for it.

just so you know, giantess dating sim actually came out for real today

I want to recommend some Nextfest graduates.

9 Kings - Simple yet shallow number go up game. EA. Has potential for 1.0 release.
Doll's Nest - Better than expected for an indie. Decentish enough customization but the level desin is lacking.
Haste - Fantastic GO FAST game. However, it's also roguelike sloppa so mileage may vary.
Blue Prince - Everyone already knows how this went.

Any other recent graduates you liked?

Wait. When did Chronicles of the Wolf get a public demo?
Is it unrelated to the Next Fest?

Oh fuck
All I want to know is if there's a romance end

I still can't tell if this is a fetish thing or not

Holy Steam AI Slop Fest

BRO I'M GOING TO REPORT THIS TO VALVE

THE PRESS PREVIEW SHOULD NOT BE SHARED
THAT'S ILLEGAL BROS

Demo #8

Decent enough, I suppose. A perfectly serviceable SRPG. It's not just management of a guild, you go out and control the adventurers that get sent. I guess it depends if you only play the of the best SRPGs or are fine with run of the mill entries in the genre.

I enjoyed the following games enough to pick them up when they came out, specifically because I either found them myself or the Anon Babble thread at the time piqued my interest

Gruel

Randomax

Redline Crooks

Frogun

Vividlope

Maiden Cops

Fashion Police Squad

Rabbit & Steel

balatro

Vacant Kingdom

Take me to the Dungeon

Of the Devil

There were a few games I was expecting to enjoy because I knew of them prior to the next fests they participated in but I excluded them from my list, these have been great for spending a weekend just trying shit out. Rapid fire through a few games in the span of a couple hours and have something to look forward to more of later. Makes me feel like a kid getting a gaming magazine with a demo disc inside.

if it helps, i thought it was going on five years at this point. three years isnt THAT bad right?
right???

I'm just going to wait for the Manlybadasshero playthrough.

lmao I thought the same thing.

not so much "recent" but The Last Oricru. it was a total jankfest but I had fun with it. on the more visual novel/interactive fiction side of things, Sky Caravan was also pretty neat.

and despite checking out lots of demos from lots of Next Fests throughout the years, those are the only two i can think of right now

Friendly reminder that the first two days of Next Fest is going to recommend you LOTS of sloppa and shovelware.

Day 3 is when the algorithm settles.

There are so many decent looking games this time.

store.steampowered.com/app/2579620/Wild_Horse_Racing/

ahhhhh what are they doing to the horsies

Names?

SEXXXXXOOOOOO

greek soldiers = roguelike deckbuilders

the lake = my library

i agree shame about the hermaphroditism

Won't stop me with hips like that.

another dimwitted loser with no taste of his own and literally has to wait to be told what he likes. very pathetic.

he said it was a friendly reminder to others doe

AAAA MAKES THE GAME STOP store.steampowered.com/app/1631980/Away_From_Home/

Demo #9

This one was clearly high budget, but apparently not high budget enough to include a skip dialogue button so I couldn't rampage through quickly like other demos. It might be worth getting the full version so I can romance whatever Supergirl's name is in this game. I've probably played way worse VNs so may as well play this one.

I looked for a couple of seconds, too many rougelikes. This looked cool
store.steampowered.com/app/2860870/MonoRace/

so weird that people hate AI when it comes to making art but they LOVE AI when it comes to telling them what games they should play?

I hate AI because all of my enemies in games use it

Oh god I actually started the demo and it has a male voice, yeah i'm out.

If there's one thing that computers are actually good at, it's collecting and parsing data
Game tags are an obvious thing, but picking up metrics such as "time that user spent on webpage", "time spent playing game", and "speed at which they skipped trailer" are incredibly difficult for a human to curate a list for but are incredibly relevant to what people are searching for in a digital storefront algorithm, since that tells the systems where there's a strong bias AGAINST, and thus all the slop and asset flips get shoved to the bottom of the queue never to be seen again.

You really thought the dolphin-creature was a female

Good old clone slop, never as good as the original

Nice.

keep your hope alive, anon. the guiding voice might also be a dolphin-penguin-fish creature! also ten bucks says she's the bad guy and final boss, but that just makes it better!

Demo #10

Point and click and apparently the gimmick is because it's prehistoric there's no such thing as language? Not even to have the main character describe what is in her inventory? So I dunno what that low-resolution pixel thing I picked up is, or what it's used for. Whatever. this one got misfiled anyway since it apparently got released three years ago and still there's no full game? pass.

cringe cope.

no one's going to buy a game you didn't even make
maybe you should try getting a job

Umm. Are you really this retarded? People buy games I didn't make all the time. A million people bought Final Fantasy 7 and I didn't make that.

A billion people bought Minecraft which I also didn't make.

Demo #11

Another game that froze up on the title screen. Hate it when that happens, it messes with my flow. Pharmacists should stick to dispensing medicines.

Dolphin pussy jelly is real anon.
Does have a decent voice, and she is clearly holding back information. I believe.

You're wearing yourself down on the worst demos at the pre-festival lol

As a dev who thought I had at least until maybe later tonight to launch my demo for press to see this happening already is kind of stressful. Oh well. I knew "by friday" actually meant thursday at noon and somehow I still felt for sure there was no way press was going to start unwrapping gifts under the tree this early.

Oh nice, my game made it in: Dungeon Drops

Now I am quite excited!

store.steampowered.com/app/3625870/Dungeon_Drops/

Such little faith in my ability to play demos. Well fine, if no one believes I can play video games I just won't believe in you guys either.

Finally, the best Anon Babble threads are back

Demo #12

This one was actually pretty good. It certainly made me laugh more than that comedy super hero visual novel with Jesse Pinkman. I liked our protagonists dopey reactions to everything. She just focuses on the completely irrelevant aspects when a clown is stalking her.

Since the game was a mixture of comedy/horror I actually wasn't sure if I should try give the clown a pizza when it stalked towards me and demanded pizza, or try running away. I tried delivering the pizza but it just killed me. rats. fun game, wishlisted.

And by the way, it looked like total garbage from the outside so if I didn't play every single demo that looked like trash, I wouldn't have known about this one.

Holy shit, early this time. I always wondered how you guys see the demos before it actually started.

Follow POGS
Bookmark POGS
Search POGS
I'm a Anon Babble local been posting in the gamedev threads for over a year.
I'm in this nextfest and launching the early access demo in like 3 seconds, or 7 hours or 2 days. Soon, soon.

store.steampowered.com/app/3640790/POGS__Power_of_Golden_Slammer/

So who are the Anon Babble devs this time

Anon whatever you do, don't look above you

thats not how you play pogs

Are any of them actually like rogue?

I guess I am one. The Dungeon Drops guy.

Let me rephrase the question. Whoare the GOOD Anon Babble devs this time.

nobody
or at least there's no one in the press preview
maybe Project Landsword will have a demo

Found it
Casual - Simulation - Sandbox
85 games total

Demo #13.

Another decently schlocky one. I can't remember if schlock is good or bad. whatever. So the concept of losing limbs and being prevented from solving puzzles because you have no arms is interesting enough.

Does it have fake gigapets/digimon? JNCO jeans? Yoyos? I think you'd be better off just calling it a 90s simulator and banking off nostalgia instead of going mostly in on POGs. I personally never knew how to play the game, I just had a stack of carboard coins like most kids. Maybe I'm in the minority though?

I assumed the pogs name would be owned by someone still.

Are me and my game gonna get swatted for opening that link?

the invisible struggles of (job)

almost everyone has "invisible struggles" you faggot

Demo #14

Not bad. I think I would have liked it better if I had more freedom of choice. Start the game off with me getting dressed but if I don't wear a hijab when I step outside, I get murdered. And I also should have gotten my hand chopped off for theft because I was going around pilfering stuff I found lying around.

anyway I better eat supper

Yoyos is a good one. Digital pets are coming, I already have LCD handhelds and it's basically another type. JNCOs are in the list yes
steamcommunity.com/app/3640790/discussions/0/594022553707673597/
POG limited is a company with a registered name but pogs as a subject are okay. I stopped being afraid and just call the game POGS now.

There are so many fucking indie games now it's not even possible to find out about all of the decent ones. We need some kind of organized way to categorize these games by their scope and/or how unique they are.

Love to see it. Competition giving the ick.

cringy bitchy little whiner

chad game player who just gets on with it

I heard last fest had 3,000 as well so it hasn't increased exponentially or anything which is a relief.

Yeah last fest had 3k games and I had no problem finding the decent ones

Browsed the colony sim & base building tag, this is the most interesting one for me so far.
store.steampowered.com/app/3547300/Children_of_Mare_Demo/

Literally just play what looks good. It works like 95% of the time. 70% of the games are genuine incredibly low effort and no, those aren't the games in the top 500.

the snifftest works 90% of the time

Demo #15

This detective game might be good, but I felt it would take too much effort to properly get into it. I'm speedrunning demos at the moment and to do this one properly would probably take an hour all by itself. The surnames are completely retarded and I have no clue why.

Just mark this one down as a maybe and move on. I do like detective games. Some demos just don't lend themselves well to quick playthroughs. (usually visual novels)

I'm gonna slap you in the mouth.

This looks good.

FX show as a VN

Interesting concept.

Any Character Action 2D/3D Games in this fest event? I need my fix now.

Demo #16

loading screen

cutscene

loading screen

cutscene

opening credits

cutscene where I tell some spooky lady to get lost

she leaves but for some reason a bunch of stranger teleport in front of me and do the chicken dance

finally get character control

tutorial screen pop-up

journal screen pop-up

I take two steps

another tutorial pops up

exit game

steam crashes

holy shit can this one ever fuck off. pass. pass!

Had high hopes for this one too.

I like the huge list of added things. Have you tried any marketing research? With simulators, even meme ones like goat simulator or that druglord sim, doing well, I think it's worth at least polling people to see if they think the game would be better branded as something like 90s simulator instead of focusing on POGs. Don't change any of the gameplay, I just think updating the name and logo would help you reach a bigger audience. Even zoomers who "were born in the wrong generation" might bite if it was billed as a 90s sim, when they'll have no fucking idea what a POG is.

Demo #17

average nothing-burger. next.

sure you did

Nice trying this out

cozy

Wish I could filter that word. So fucking tired of hearing it.

I am a wanter of the cozy and not rogueshit.

Demo #18

another one that just got stuck on a loading screen. That's quite a few sucky ones in a row, I'll pick one I think is good next instead of just going by the order I downloaded them.

store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest_jun2025_press

Fpbp

Because there's no reason to do it and it would be too much work. Putting a disclaimer is much more efficient and lets consumers choose.

They will ban perfectly fine anime games but let this slop pass

those bans are against Steams own rules and done by one specific shrew within Valve. It is known.

store.steampowered.com/app/3479420/Okko_The_Exiled/
Not the most satisfying game but it has a solid presentation

store.steampowered.com/app/3031290/RnGesus_Slayer_Demo/

Funny name

store.steampowered.com/app/3436440/Whimside_Demo/

Bongo Cat is no longer my best friend. Now Whimside.

Aussie nepobitch wants to play VA now

Oh boy here we go

store.steampowered.com/app/3087860/Medieval_Pig/

Kingdom Come 3 already

not hiring any old slag and cunt off the sidewalk to literally phone it in that distinct level of quality

amateur was always the supeior model in more ways than one.

all star cast

Lmaooooo

We always get multiple highly anticipated indies on the preview page that never show up during the event. Not sure if the organisers at Valve are baiting journos (no journos cover these events anyway) or if the developers are doing it for visibility.

Yacht Club is lifted at SGF. They might announce it there.

Only if there is a demo download button. These can appear on different places on a store page depending on where the dev put it, sometimes it's a small dark blue button in the right panel. Easily missed.
Most of the titles will get demos next week though.

store.steampowered.com/app/3307240/VoidWalker_Call_of_Insomnia/

I really can't tell what's AI or not. I don't want to down on any devs anyway.

AI needs to be disclosed I believe at time of making the page per the disclosure policy Valve set unless I misunderstood.

Demo #19

Played this one all the way through, it was good. Didn't notice any ink ribbons anywhere and that could be because it's a demo or maybe the game just autosaves.

It has seperate inventories for key items and ammo/health so you will never be unable to pick up a key you need. However, there was no melee weapon so I guess if you run out of ammo, you're sunk? And you know it's sort of bullshit how all the zombies were able to somehow simultaneously open closed doors on both sides of the narrow hallway to ambush me.

Sorry forgot to include the quote from the page itself.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

The game's development used neural networks to generate images of the faces of non-existent people (any matches are random), as well as to create sounds and partially music

Oh I could have just scrolled down lel my bad

Anything that makes extensive use of AI shart can generally be ignored. Unless some dravidian makes it his official duty to tell you otherwise. Not really worth sifting through the pile that never goes down the longer these fests drag on for.

it took me a second to place the poster on the wall

where do I know that nurse from?

oh right

youtube.com/watch?v=K7l5ZeVVoCA

The demo also has unlockables for beating it, like a legonly mode, where you run around without arms. Thought it might mean you can't use guns, but you can, your arms are just invisible.

You can try.

Blue Prince - Everyone already knows how this went.

terribly?

this definitely looks like a game someone from Anon Babble would make

Yes I have a business/marketing plan and have been interacting with the target audience which is millennials and 90s nostalgia enthusiasts my age, they know pogs and most of the list of suggested/added features comes from talking to them. Too late to change the name! The game is already has the "90s" and "simulator" tags so anyone looking for that can find it.

In the good way. It definitely looks like a game someone from Anon Babble would make in the good way. :)

Anon Babble will only take credit for Minecraft, not Dungeon Drops

I'm ready. I played >200 demos last time.
I'm more or less free for two weeks from now on.
I'll play 250 demos for sure.
Let's have some great threads again bros

Pulling out is strongly encouraged, like if you don't think the demo is perfect pull out pull out this is your only chance you'll never get this chance again.

As usual with these threads, I will wait until the last couple of days for the more dedicated anons to filter through the garbage for anything decent. We're counting on you!

name 200 demos you played. fucking poser.

I am astounded how these seasonal threads have never gotten worse even after years from when nextfest first started.

Still nonstop actual vidya discussion.

the events are to build hype for games that have literally none, so contrarians and schizos have nothing to latch on to.

inb4 Balatro 2.0 starts firebombing the threads

Dolls nest lived up to the demos promise for sure. Great game.
Blue Prince was a slog, but so was the demo.

Nitro Express released last week, awesome game. Everyone complains about the 30 fps mouse look, but it didn't bother me after a couple of minutes of play.

Cauldron also came out last week. Absolutely amazing game.
Actually there were like 15 games from last fest that released last week, damn.
Trying to find a tactical one where you fought against robots on a vertical board but it's lost in the river of games.

Nitro Express

550+ reviews

Well I'm glad it was at least successful

Not truly "recent" but The Matchless Kungfu will always have a special place in my heart.
I also loved Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers and SKALD: Against the Black Priory.

I'm at work but I'll reply to your post in four hours or so when I get home with my list from last time, u gay doubter

Worldless

Man, how did this garbage studio acquire a Cobra license?

it's not recent but Souldiers was great and I will shill it until I die

Did they hotfix that shit yet.

Demo #20

Don't know why I even bothered playing this demo. I played the first game all the way through. I don't need to be sold anymore on the sequel.

whatever.

store.steampowered.com/app/3694970/Draggin_Demo/

Inflation fetish game for the scalies
Over 30 inflation-based challenges

Should have just told them it's got an ugly mouse just like in Mina the Hollower, then they'd be all over it.

Why the FUCK won't they slow these down to half a year?
It's fucking impossible for anyone to care about them when they're this common.

You can get Acts of Blood now but that has the makings for a decent candidate just from the arena maps alone. I tried going back to Pork Bun Simulator for a bigger fix and that game was so slow by comparison. The AI could use some tweaks to their movesets and actually ganging up on you rather than waiting it out like a turn based RPG. The hardest part isn't the flashy moves or the melee weapons it's the sneaky king hits and rib kicks that you don't see coming. Two of these hitting you at the same time would jump the difficulty up immensely.

NED KELLY. What is a recent "trend" you notice in indie demos that you think is a move in the right direction? If there are any.

quarterly is fine

Damn, this is why I'm not a pro marketer

Impossible for you, maybe.

It's not, and the stats show that clearly.
Not to mention how little buzz they generate anywhere outside of Anon Babble's one thread.
Half-yearly they're events, quarterly and they're just normal.

store.steampowered.com/app/1653230/Guild__Gals/

this is some Bhutanese Passport-tier fucking trailer, goddamn. AI can never replace the autistic gamedev narrator.

If there were 2 a year each fest would have 10,000 demos. It also allows a faster churn to purge slop.

they should be normal

each fest would have more demos

So more people would focus on playing them at the time, causing more buzz, making the demos more effective.
It not being normal is the entire point of the event. You never needed next fest to put up a demo.

wanting to have to filter through 10,000 demos every time

how much free time do you have

where do you think we are.webm

I think of entering the fest as devs saying "I am ready to be filtered from among the slop, put me up against them right now, I don't want to be considered just another indie sloppa". And instantly good games rise above all the delusional sloppa. Should the store normally work like this? Sure, but it doesn't. Fests are essential slugfests.

store.steampowered.com/app/3557420/Legacy_of_the_Fallen/

3D AND AIslop RPG where your mom is a romanceable party member. I'll check it out later.

Trends I noticed that are good...I think most trends I pick up on are bad trends.

In survival horror there was a bit of a trend where the d-pad gets used simultaneously with the joysticks. So d-pad would be tank controls and analog sticks are modern controls, you don't have to go into the menu to change it. It's a good idea, so it's nice to see it catching on a bit.

Oh wait you're probably an indie game developer. One trend I despise is discord chats for everything. It's very unprofessional and leads to echo chambers. Set up an email account or monitor the steam forums. Or at the bare minimum, don't use discord exclusively. I don't know what got into Indie Devs heads about using one chatroom and nothing else.

But as for positive trends, they are harder to articulate. You'd probably want to make sure you have steam deck/cloud save/controller support. Those are big dealbreakers for games these days.

Maybe I'll think of more things if I ponder it longer.

I don't want to play through 10,000, I want to play through a few dozen each time in genres that interest me. Instead of about 3 and then some shovelware I can't even be bothered playing.
The first couple of next fests were fun events and everyone I knew was playing and trying countless different demos. Then it happened too much, and the amount of demos worth playing decreased, and everyone stopped caring.

Ultimately I DON'T have infinite free time which is why I'd rather a short sprint to play as much as I can occasionally and have fun doing it, rather than just some regular thing I struggle to care about.
I think that even rising to the very top in a next fest has way less weight as time's gone on. As you said, the best games rise to the top. Having whole pages of killer titles that have survived and proven themselves makes more people look at the page to find those games in the first place.

I am not just another indie sloppa put me in coach

get filtered

Better not be me.

steam community > discord

controller integration

Good. I knew it.

demo for an FMV game

that's what we call "trailers" dawg

Love Jmon and the threads we get then.

it's one every 4 months.
it's enough to space them out but not too spaced out to wind up encompassing way too many games in a 2 week timeframe. The only other timeframe that would make sense would be 1 every 3 months so they're quarterly, but they must have thought there aren't going to be enough games to fill that out.
there are anons here that clearly care enough about them to give them a good honest shake, so it sounds more like you're just too lazy.

the stats show

What stats

You know, one thing I really liked was the way Lunar Eclipse's developer posts these cute little doodles of the game's main character every time she makes an update.

That's actually pretty much Princess Hunter's marketing plan, too, although his comics and cartoons are always vaguely pornographic.

store.steampowered.com/app/3076910/UNDERGROUNDED/
Jap adventure game where you go looking for your dropped failed engagement ring. Simplistic, but the environmental art is nice and it has some arcade minigames to change things up.

Is this a Disco Elysium-like?

Demo #21

This one wasn't even in English. Pass.

doing their own form of chibi fanart

Soule

What game?

Yeah chibi art for a 3D game is actually neat.