#Demonschool

[alexissara]

Sapphic Games List Summer 2024

Welcome to the Upcoming Sapphic Games List Summer 2024. This is a series where I the divine goddess of the lesbians grace the video game information I painstakingly researched onto you my humble sapphic audience. This is not a review series or a series of pitches but a best guess series with some amount of impressions and details to give you an idea of games you might get to see yourself represented in if your a person who wants sapphic romance in their life. These are upcoming games so I really can’t promise their quality, the details, and even games with clear cut queer romance could idk pull a shocking homophobic ending or something so remember this is based just on trailers, demos, previews, interviews, and me asking questions to developers. These games are still in development, things can change and some of these are just strong guess although I try to make my reasoning make sense or put it in high probability rather than any other section.  You can check out the last two ones I did of these here and here.

I am making this before whatever Nintendo Direct in June happens, I attempted to wait it out but they hadn’t announced it by the 14th so I decided to simply wrap up this article. To that end I may do a quick extra addition with a few more games as I keep digging, which I am always doing plus whatever has potential from there if there is anything new. 

It takes a lot of research to make these so if you’d like to send any support at all my way Patreon and Ko-fi are the best ways to help me keep making these while I work on making my own lesbian art for sapphics of all kinds to enjoy badass sapphics. 

Action Lesbians

Nova Hearts 

Nova hearts is a magical girl dating sim RPG. While a bit closer to a Visual Novel then say a persona game Nova Hearts still has solid evolving RPG combat paired with social sim mechanics that grow relationships between your main character and the cast both in the party and outside of it.  It's really cute and you can play the first chapter of the game yourself for free with Nova Hearts: The Spark.

Food Devils 

This might be more of a Make Your Own Gay but given the roster has 3 women and 2 men plus an avatar of your chosen gender it’s pretty hard but I guess possible to make it where the game ends in all MF pairings. That said I have a strong feeling that there will be some degree of canon queerness outside of player choice given the game has chosen to default to the female avatar and the main romance they showcase is her romance with another woman. It's an SRPG with base building and it seems like romances will go beyond the devils too and give the player some options to romance maids and butlers as well thanks to kickstarter goals being met. It seems like it's going to have like an interesting twist on some coz vibes of cooking food and romancing hotties. 

Sword of the Necromancer: Resurrection

A remake of an amazing Lesbian Roguelike game is in the works and set to be released probably pretty close to when this goes up. You play as sword Lesbian Tama who is willing to do anything to save Koko who eas tragically killed recently. You gain The Sword Of The Necromancer and use that to revive monsters and fight through the dungeon to gain enough power to revive Koko. 

Sword Of The Necromancer: Revenant

The original intended game from Sword of the Necromancer: Resurrection, Revenant adds a man to the fold which, yes boo, tomatoes, tomatoes [or at least it seems to] but it keeps our main two adorable lesbians in the plot after their happy ending and brings them into the fold in this new chaotic story remaining main characters. Spoilers for the above game I guess, the lesbians are unburied in one of the possible endings and this game follows that.  We'll have to see how it ends up working but Tama and Koko both seem to be playable in it and so it seems like you'll just have a little party to use in the plot. 

Abyss  X Zero

This game is getting a gay benefit of the doubt. The creators are queer, their last game is queer, I can assume somehow it'll be baked into the story of A and Z probably them being gay for each other despite them both needing to fight the other.  The games a 3d metroidvania with a super nice art style, some level of customization and two Playable characters. They look great and the game looks great, very cool action and really brimming with style. 

BRIGHT RED SONG OF LOVE

A new game being developed by Lily Valeen, creator of Boss Game. Boss Game was a game about girlfriends being gay and working gigs and fighting monsters so and this game looks gay too, so expect some gay ladies doing some cool stuff. All we have is screenshots and it’s probably like omega early in development but I wanted to mention it because lily Valeen made a really cool game and this is a great reminder to follow her and maybe check out boss game on Steam or on your phone or on Itch.io. 

Crescent County 

You ride on a motorbroom and try to make some cash cuz your broke as fuck. You are a gay witch looking for cute girls, new friends and new rivals, maybe all three at once. It looks really cool and fun and she kisses a girl in the trailer so I know it’s gay. It sounds like you might have several romantic options but it doesn’t seem like optional queerness just romantic options. I didn’t have a queer racing game on my bingo card of types of games I’d update y’all on or see but here we are, so cool, I love it. This seems like it has a queer dev team making a queer story in a new interesting way that I haven’t seen many games do. It sounds like the romance system is pretty neat too the dev mentioned that like you need a bed frame to have a girl over cuz she is going to have more self respect then to fuck you if you just have a matress on on the floor. So like, it sounds like a lot of fun.

Unbeatable 

You are a pink haired girl who beats up cops and is in a rock band and the cast seems to mostly be women, if you are not gay in this game I believe it to be a hate crime and I will fight the developers. The game looks incredibly cool and the stunning hand drawn animation is just great. It is a kinda rhythm game I think in a setting where music is illegal and you love doing crime. I’m sold on this game I just need it to be gay, that’s it. I’ve bought it in my heart already but make it gay please, please, please.  Also it looks like it’s tagged as LGBT+ so you know, it’s possible, I believe, I chose to believe. It looks too good to not be gay. 

Make your own Gay

Demonschool 

In This game you do tactical combat against a flurry of demons and build relationships with other characters. I had romances confirmed and well the trailer shows our main protagonist reaching for another woman’s hands. I also had confirmed there is some side stuff that isn’t the main character Faye with someone so there may be some canon sapphic stuff that isn’t just player directed and optional. This is a tactical RPG with shin megami tensei flare but doesn’t play like any other SRPG I’ve played even SMTs own SRPG, Devil Survivor. This game is heavily focused on unit placement and doing things in really tight deadlines. I hope they have an easy mode or something in the full release because I utterly love the social sim elements here and would love a bit more room to fuck up. On the sapphic end the roster seems to have tons of cute girls even outside of the probably intended to be canon romance girl there is a haughty rich girl who seems like a perfect enemies to lovers arc and a cool delinquent girl, there is a lot of range for a lot of dynamics but we’ll have to see how all of those systems work on release. 

Long Story 2

A very kid friendly visual novel type experience. It’s cute, it’s sweet, it’s simple and it’s the kind of soft story you can get excited about if you just want something wholesome to enjoy. You really Get to craft your story so it's very craft it yourself. 

Moonlight Peaks 

We really do not have a ton of details but it’s likely to release in 2026 since that’s when they said it would and have have a pretty strong publisher in Marvlous behind it. This is one of the most exciting farming sims I've seen. You play as a vampire and unlock new vampiric powers over time. It looks as if there will be 7 women who are different kinds of super natural for you to romance in this. Also an interesting talked about feature is the werewolf romance options might shift in personality a little on a full moon and stuff like that which makes for a neat way to push for a different vibe in a farming sims cast.

Monster Prom 4: Monster Con

The 4th game in the monster prom series, the potentially PVP dating sim is back at it again with more goofs, new monsters to fawn over and a new setting.  If you're fiending for more Monster Prom, Camp or Road Trip then you already are gonna be grabbing this but if you're new to hearing about this series or finally wanting to check it out because one of the characters designs it’ll be an exciting jumping on point. Romances are player focused, characters themselves though are canon queer sometimes having same gender exes and stuff. We have a canon queer trans woman as one of the main love interests this time so that is really excited and also a really cool set of two new women. If you come with a full party of lesbians as it stands you’ll have to fight over at least one girl given there is only 3 women to romance and 3 men but if your playing 3 players you can each aim for a different girl in a run if you want to avoid PVPing or simply play in single player for a chiller romance comedy vibe. This is a really silly game series that is all about the bits but there is a lot of good stuff even outside of the comedy. 

Arcadia Fallen II

Arcadia Fallen 2 is the follow up to Arcadia Fallen. The first game let you be sapphic and this game probably will also let you be sapphic as well. I think it’s a safe bet, they say there will be 3 body type so probably the typical choice of He/She/They pronouns with a chose whatever body suits you best choice. This should be a choose your own adventure style visual novel with a magical setting and while I haven’t played the first yet, I am keeping my eyes on this one’s kickstarter to see where it goes. The artstyle is gorgeous and it’s always nice to see artists from across the world making games where you can be sapphic, in this case some awesome Danish devs. 

Sensei! I Like You So Much!

This game bills itself as a fangirl simulator where you create your own favorite characters and geek out with fellow fans, take commissions and gather in community with others. My vine is this game will have no romance however, I feel compelled to bring it here because I mean you can be really into a lesbian ship and geek out with other women who are really into a lesbian ship or so it seems from the trailer. Obviously, like any of these I only have whatever the devs have said and whatever I see in trailers, screen shots, etc to go off of but it looked like you could make a girl and it looks like in the trailer they made yaoi so I am gonna guess you can make yuri. So, here we go, it’s sapphic but like, different than other sapphic games, probably, I’d personally be way more into romancing a fellow fan of something than a lot of other concepts for a dating sim so I’d love to be wrong and there is some secret dating sim element. 

Reanimation Scheme

It’s an Otome visual novel where you can date four men but also there is one sapphic wrote. I hate these kind of gender rations but hey, this exist, it’s upcoming, you should know about it, maybe it’s written super good. The art style is solid and if you like the design of the exactly one woman you can date in the game you can prep for some sapphic fun even if a lot of your time in the game will be interacting with men, You play as a Necromancer which is always really cool and ya, enjoy. 

The Crush House This is a reality show managing sim with a spooky mystery. It’s like putting you managing the sims lives in context where you try and push people to behave particular ways based on audience demands and what you feel like. You can make women be gay with each other and even run a show for Girls for Girls audiences and stuff so there is a lot cooking here for a silly and strange little game. 

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age, a little known indie series from abusive publisher EA from Abusive company Bioware now potentially hanging onto it’s last chance for life with a brand new game. Dragon Age is a fantasy roleplaying game where the people who look like lesbians are straight and the people who look straight are lesbians at least that’s the classic Bioware flavor.  This time though, unlike these other games, an actual queer woman is the director [after like 4 directors left] and she seems like a really cool person with good taste so I want her to be successful and for this game to not crash Bioware into the dirt like so many other studios under EA. You’ll likely be able to make a character of one of two genders and have them fill a role in this plot.  We know that every character will be pansexual in the game meaning you’ll be able to romance anyone and if you don’t romance characters they will romance each other. 

Grave Seasons 

Like farming sims, like murder mysteries, want to make sweet sweet passionate kissy faces with a murderer? Then Grave Seasons might be the game for you. You do typical farming sim stuff but a randomly generated one of the NPCs that are romanceable. You need to figure out the mystery, if the hottie you're making heart eyes at is the killer and if they are what you wanna do about it. If it’s not you might want to find the killer and fast lest your cutie get taken out too. At least that’s what it sounds like to me. There should be several women you can romance and it seems like a fun game to replay and a farming sim that puts the romance at the front even for people who want to be efficient because well you don’t want a bunch of people dying do you [unless you do]. 

Freeride

So this one is really making your own gay cuz I do not think they gender proto and proto is just supposed to be a stand in for you but I flirted with a cool looking bunny girl in the demo and she seemed to be into the conductor who was a demon girl so like maybe it'll even be explicitly represented in this. It's hard to know with so few details but you can gift people stuff and everything.  It's a physics based game mostly focused on choices and doing a secret personality test on you. 

Fable 

It looks like this Fable game just has you play as a woman, like I am just taking precedent here to say that romance to some extent will exist and you can in fact marry women. It be weird if you couldn’t so I’ll say that is very likely here. If you like RPGs with big budgets then this might be the one, it doesn’t seem to be as silly as some of the previous games but they weren’t always going for silly so I think the tone seems just about right. 

Narrative Games 

Cage of Roses

Lesbian vampires are always a good time. It's a visual about some lesbian vampires. You're in by the art style and visual novel or you're not. It sounds exciting to me. 

Rainbow Valley 

A game from yuri game developer and publisher Studio Elan. This is a collaboration with a monster high focused YouTuber and you can see the Monster High inspirations in the designs. I imagine this is really going to capture the vibes adult fans of monster high really have been wanting to explore while not being locked down by the big company. 

Tithe In Blood 

Another  game from yuri game developer and publisher Studio Elan. This is a darker yuri story about a woman practicing blood magic after the loss of a loved one.The romance and blood magic lead to a lot of deadly twists and turns. 

The Witch's Bakery

The Witch’s Bakery is a game coming to Kickstarter soon that’s about running a cozy bakery and being a little gay witch doing it. This game is coming to kickstarter at some point in the near future at the time of writing. It has a canon romance so I don’t think you’ll be picking who you swoon and instead you’ll get to play out a soft little love story while you bake, run a shop and make friends. 

Lost Records

Life is Strange and Tell Me Why Developers are back with a new game and the first trailer had the main four women of this plot kissing so it’s gay, that’s like locked in it’s not even like Life Is Strange 1 optional gay it’s just gonna be gay. It seems like a nostalgia trip featuring a bunch of sapphic women in the lead and that seems like the most perfect game for Dontnods main audience. 

Cabernet

A gothic vibe lays over this game, it tickles at horror while also not being terrifying, you are the vampire newly created and enter this society. This is another one that might be more of a Make your Own Gay but it’s vampires and that’s inherently gay so I gotta put it here. I had the devs confirm to me that this game will include gay romance and you can have your girl read Carmilla so as far as I am concerned I think her sexuality has a decent shot at being part of the narrative and not just an option. 

Tavern Talk

This is a game inspired by exclusively other queer games in the same style of those queer games, I am gonna say it’s safe to guess this is a soft little queer game that will take you through an interesting narrative perspective all while mostly being behind a bar and making drinks for people. 

Psychroma

This is a horror game with what seems to be a queer non binary protagonist but it may not be all sunny and rainbows, for sure prepare yourself for angst. The protagonist has amnesia and doesn’t remember who seems to be her girlfriend. This is a cyberpunk horror which is shockingly not a super standard combination despite the clear synergy between the two. It has a sapphic energy, it’s always hard to draw the line on a non binary character and if their sapphic or not before you get the context because well that’s a massive umbrella of genders, identities and feelings. Still the vibe test for me passes as sapphic and I am here to tell you about vibes, that’s the point of this series, I have an extremely high success rate and so I will take the shot here. If you're looking for something creepy and queer then this is for sure it even if the sapphic vibes are a false flag. 

Life is strange: Double Exposure

IDK if they’ll make Max and Chloe canon here or how they will right around it but also like the game studio making this game has a bunch of like allegations against them so I don’t particularly care too much. I do want to find out so I will look around for details but ya know I mentioned Lost Records earlier maybe look to that one instead if these come out around the same time at least. Otherwise, idk you do dialog and stuff in this one and mess with timelines. It does look like Chloe is dead so, you could go to your local library and read Life Is Strange: After The Storm for free instead, a possible suggestion too. 

Love Ghostie

Your a lil ghostie and you play match maker and you can make little sapphic pairings so, ya you can make sapphic stuff happen in this game and it’s like part of the point. It’s a very adorable game with very adorable little monsters and looks to be a great game to cuddle up and just live your best shipping life. 

Sigh of the Abyss Sigh of the Abyss is doing something really cool in the visual novel space and it’s bringing a feature I’ve wanted in games with mix gender romance for a long time to the table. You can in your options at any time say your looking to romance Men, Men and Women, Women or no one. In the game you play as a woman and the game defaults you to being bisexual but you can actually have it where the game simply does not have men push romance on you which is such a relief because it’s one of the world part of mix gendered dating games for me is being here for the women but having to be flirted with by every man and never able to say “Hey, I’m a lesbian.”  How deep these options will go I am not sure but it was really swift in easy in the demo. If you're looking for some dark fantasy story telling this seems like an exciting place to go for a story. 

High Potential 

Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2

I mean it’s got vampires and roleplaying like probably. Maybe it'll be too uptight and serious but we'll see what it's like. 

Sorry We're Closed

The games listed as LGBT and the main characters on the art and stuff are women so pretty clear. It’s a horror adventure and it seems really aesthetically unique, I think this is one to keep your eyes on it might just be a big new thing.

RPG Maker WITH

I mean it just depends on if people make a sapphic game in it and share it. It's like a game about making games. There's a good chance someone will want to make Yuri but also I wouldn't expect it near launch.

Ra Ra Boom

There is a vibe here, it's a beat um up which is a kind of game not famous for it's story but idk the vibe tells me these super cheerleaders are gay.  That’s all I got to say really, it looks fun and if it’s gay bonus points to me.

Fighting Games

So Fighting games are hard to cover on this because fighting game devs are cowards an also don't make their narratives compelling and their mostly about men with women relegated to the sides. I love fighting games though and I don't want to ignore them so I put just a general pin on potential sapphic characters dropping in 2024. Like Skullgirls recently added Marie who has some queer coding with Peacock and she's like a main villain so there's stuff. Guilty Gear Has a season 4 coming out which could add a story expansion and idk confirm Bridget is a lesbian. Granblue's next characters are likely datamined but there is a chance of a suprise appearance and many likely candidates are sapphic characters. Plus a new game might come out, maybe Diesel Legacy will have the cool mobster girl be a lesbian, we just won't know util stuff comes out. 

gillford academy 

This is an rpg putting a lot of emphasis on your choices mattering with characters. The characters are pretty young but there is a chance they might be sapphic at least in a if player chooses the right choices way. 

Mixtape

I think I saw a gay moment in this trailer. It's like 90s nostalgia the game, I have no idea how it’s supposed to play. I assume it's kinda standard narrative 3D gameplay  which I think is always a pleasant time.  I don’t know a ton about this game but I am keeping my eyes on it in the future that’s for sure. 

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If you enjoyed this post and want to help me do the level of research I put into these please, please, please consider funding me on Patreon or giving me a one time donation over on Ko-fi. I am a writer for a living so that means being professionally poor and any bit of money really helps so much. Every dollar helps me make new sapphic art myself from making TTRPGs to working on my own game project and lots more. If you don’t have cash following me, sharing, etc is always lovely and I love nice comments. 

There should be more of these in the future. I couldn’t fit every single game I saw with potential or even straight up confirmed into here so I am hoping to make this more regular maybe even pivot to video and do game by game chats or something. We'll see what the future holds but I hope you found at least one new game to look forward to.

[satoshi-mochida]

Demonschool launches this summer - Gematsu

School life strategy RPG Demonschool will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam and itch.io this summer, publisher Ysbryd Games and developer Necrosoft Games announced.

A new trailer was also released, introducing minigames like cooking, fishing, singing karaoke, lifting weights, racing beetles, and island hangouts.

Here is an overview of the game, via Ysbryd Games:

About

Demonschool is a new-style tactics RPG where motion equals action. Defeat big weirdos in between the human and demon worlds as Faye and her misfit companions, while navigating university life on a mysterious island.

Key Features

Tactics – Rewind any action during the planning phase and create combos to dispatch your foes.

Story – A light horror narrative told through huge avatars with side quests aplenty.

Schedule – Plan your school schedule to level your characters and build their skills.

Friendship – 15 characters with whom to build relationships.

Battle System Basics

Units interact contextually with their environment. Enemies will be struck, objects moved, or the character will simply dash.

Plan movements at your leisure, and execute them all at once. You can also rewind actions during the planning phase.

Buffing friendlies and debuffing enemies compounds damage output. Note the damage numbers!

Combos do big damage and produce unique elemental attacks, which you can use to exploit enemy weaknesses.

Characters

Faye – Last in line of the final demon hunting family on the planet Earth. Loves to punch up, cares about everybody.

Destin – A pugilist through and through. A good guy who believes in you to his detriment.

Namako – Photography nerd who keeps everything packed down in a tight little knot in her stomach ’til she explodes.

Knute – Pragmatic media enthusiast who always sees all the angles. Trying to be more positive these days.

Watch the new trailer below.

Minigames Trailer

[sorenblr]

speaking of fangames, have you heard of Artificial Dream in Arcadia, a touhou one based on the SNES SMTs that came out recently? i don't know if touhou's your speed, but i've been playing it recently and enjoying it a lot. the changes it makes to SMT mechanics have been pretty interesting to see, too

(This ask was timely when I received it two months ago). It looks neat! It's interesting that we're starting to see a minor wave of indie games that replicate, in various ways, the aesthetics/mechanics of early Megami Tensei. Probably thanks to a confluence of things: developers who were exposed to these games during adolescence via emulation coming of age, the expanding reach of the series, proliferation of dev tools and knowledge for reproducing that style, the persistent trend in commercial indie spaces favoring the 'rediscovery' of older genre forms (PS1 survival horror, boomer shooters) etc.

(From top to bottom: Demonschool, Touhou Artificial Dream in Arcadia, Labyrinth.os)

I imagine SMT is primarily a 'vibes first' series for a critical mass of developers, so recreating the presentational modes of the SFC/PS1 titles to service a wider array of subjects/settings is an easy fit.

And we'll probably stream Arcadia and Luna Nights at some point in the future. I can't hack it with bullet hell shit, especially while streaming, so it's always nice to have recourse to other genres like this.

[eolaiactis]

Have you guys heard of Demonschool? It's like a mix of Persona and strategy games with stylish demon hunters! I've been following this game for a long time and had to make some fanart of Faye, the main protagonist!!

[simplyclassified]

My fave opera moments #iruma #demo

[dragaorpg]

Demonschool, RPG tático com toque de terror, aparece com novo trailer no PC Gaming Show

Demonschool, o RPG tático com temática escolar e inspirações em Persona, Shin Megami Tensei e no cinema de horror italiano, desenvolvido pela Necrosoft Games e publicado pela Ysbryd Games (WORLD OF HORROR, VA-11 HALL-A), ganhou um novo trailer. O lançamento de Demonschool está previsto para o terceiro trimestre de 2025 para PlayStation 5|4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck e PC via…

[febrilepenguin]

This was the first year I played demos in the Steam Next Fest (I didnt even know it existed before), and I will be doing it again, cuz it was pretty fun. I played a lot of games, and I thought maybe I could talk about each of them a little, so that more people know about them, and also to keep a little record of my thoughts and feelings about them for myself.

I'll list them in the order I played them cuz why not.

1. Mech Builder: I've never had any of those cool mech model kits that you have to cut out of the frames with pliers and then assemble yourself, but they've always looked really cool to me and I've always wanted to try assembling one. Well, this is that, but in video game form, and it was pretty fun! It was satisfying to snip the parts out of the frame and then snap them into place according to the manuals. There was also decals, coloring options and more. I just wish there was a way to pose the models a bit after they're done, or maybe see them from behind and the sides? Though I understand that it'd take a lot more work to make all the art for that and it might make it unfeasible but i think it'd be fun to play around with the models a bit after they're done. (Can you even pose the real mech model kits? I cant remember.)

Anyway, good game for relaxing and futzing around with cool mechs.

2. WHAT THE CAR?: This one was just delightful. It's just such a joy to play, being this silly little car with legs going through increasingly ridiculous iterations of movement with their accompanied puns and jokes. I was smiling and laughing the whole time i was playing, even in the harder skull stages, and i tried and got all the gold crowns for all the levels. (Also I still have that "What the caaaar" jingle stuck in my head, and Im not even mad about it). Just about anywhere you looked was a wordplay joke, or a visual gag, and I love it for that, and can't wait for the release. I will also be getting the other games from the devs, Triband. I also checked their website and they seem like really cool people too. (There was also a secret puzzle hidden in the game, that I was too late to solve for the rewards, but i had fun doing it nonetheless)

3. Mind Over Magnet: I've been a longtime fan of Gamemaker's Toolkit, and I've also been watching Mark's Developing series of devlogs, so I was hyped to actually play a demo of Mind Over Magnet, and it was cool to see how polished it had become. Cant wait for the full game!

4. SCHiM: Adorable little game that emulates that feeling of childhood playfulness you had when you used to walk through the sidewalk only stepping on shadows or you'd "lose". Loved the art style and the environments for this, though it was a bit hard to tell where you were meant to go sometimes.

5. Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus: I've been waiting for this game for a long time, since a game that combines hollow knight with japanese folklore is a must play for me. The movement felt really fun, and its focus on staying midair and air control was a cool feature of it, because you basically get a double jump every time you hit something mid-air, and can hover around and over enemies while you hit them. It's basically floor is lava the metroidvania. And when you get the dash it gets even better, cuz you can chain the dash with the blue midair jump, and the momentum from the dash will carry over, (which i think was intentional, cuz whenever you do it there's a small glint of light happening) Kinda like a celeste super dash. The demo made me look forward to it so much more.

6. Tactical Breach Wizards: So, recently I've gotten into tactics games despite myself, (it's all Into the Breach's fault, maybe I'll talk about that too another time) and wow did I love this one! The gameplay was really fun and the abilities were varied, the concept and world were cool (imagine wizards as military strike teams, and a world where magic is pretty common so there are P.I. Storm Witches and Traffic Warlocks) but my favorite thing about this game was the characters and the dialogues and humor. My favorite bit was:

"You can't throw all of life's problems through windows, Jen."

"Maybe not, but we owe it to ourselves to try."

Look me in the eyes and tell me that's not hilarious.

It's like god dropped this game in front of me as soon as he heard I've gotten into tactics games.

So so excited for this one!

7. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo: really stylish game with fun mechanics and gameplay, a good light-hearted adventure for whenever I get tired of dark and grim stories and games. Also did not expect I'd be able to jump in this lol. Kinda reminds me of Mina the Hollower, another game Im excited for.

8. Demonschool: first off, I gotta say i didnt finish this one, not because I didnt like it, but because I left the game and when i came back it wouldnt open from where I had already progressed, (it kept crashing when i clicked "continue") and I didnt wanna do it all over again, so I gave up. But! I really really liked it. Another cool tactics game, with a beautiful artstyle weird occult world and fun characters. And even though i havent played persona, I could tell that it was inspired by it, what with the school life sections and whatnot. Cant wait to be able to continue on with it when the full game comes out.

9. Cato: i'd played the older demo before and liked it, so it was nice seeing the game had progressed further and gotten more polished. Pretty enjoyable puzzle game, if a bit simple. Also the cat liquiding through tubes never stops being funny.

10. Metal Slug Tactics: I loved the old Metal Slug games as a kid, and we used to play them a lot with cousins at sleepovers, and I have fond memories of it. So im really excited for this game, with all the nostalgic characters and sounds, and now with a (again, someone must be stalking me) tactics coat of paint. The shield and cover mechanic and also the sync mechanic are pretty clever and fun to play around with. Im sure I'll enjoy this one a lot when it comes out.

11. Tiny Glade: A relaxing and lovely little game that made me feel creative and like a kid playing in a fantasy sandbox. I've been waiting for this one impatiently ever since watching the trailer ages ago, and it's so wonderful. I didnt get to play around with it as much as I wanted to, but im definitely going to make a whole bunch of different little towns and castles when I get my hands on the full version. The camera mode was also so detailed and nice. Best I can describe this game is Vibe.

12. One Btn Bosses: Clever idea, and cool minimalist artstyle, but it wasnt really for me

13. Tavern Talk: This feels like being a bartender in a D&D world, and I enjoyed it a lot. The art is lovely, and the characters are all interesting (Fable's anxieties were too relatable, man.) (And Caer...Lin was so cool) (i cant wait to meet the whole cast who's on the posters) the mixing part was also pretty fun and Im sure it's gonna have more drinks and variety to it in the full game, all in all a nice and cozy fantasy visual novel type game for when I wanna chill.

14. Caravan SandWitch: kinda solarpunk/hopeful sci-fi game, with a cool van. Seems like it's gonna be a wholesome cozy time. Roadtrips through gently postapocalyptic-looking places? Im not sure what the correct vibe is for this game, because I dont know a whole lot about the setting or the story, but it was pretty cool. Also watch the trailer, the french song is stuck in my head, it's so good.

15. Mira and the Legend of the Djinns: Im gonna start this one with things I liked and then things i disliked about it. I love the art style, and I think the game as a whole looks gorgeous. I like that it's inspired by moroccan culture and how it infuses every aspect of it. I loved the instrument playing, even though there was only one song to learn in the demo and it didnt get a lot of time to shine. (I havent played ocarina of time, but im pretty sure I'll enjoy it for the same reason of it having the ocarina playing, among other reasons) i liked the pickaxe too, and how it allowed you to climb and mine.

Now for the dislikes. I did NOT like the combat. The fact that all of your momentum just dead stops when you swing your sword was pretty jarring to deal with, and it made those floaty eye pricks so annoying to deal with. Especially because of the way they space themselves and distance themselves from you so fast, and also the fact that there's no upwards slash (not in midair anyway, there's one you can buy that only works from the ground) which means you have to jump in very close and level with the enemy, so it doesnt have much time to fly away, during which time there's a high probability of it shooting you and making you fall, also if you're a little below it, the third attack which is very horizontal misses, so you have to do it again. The final boss of the demo was also pretty much a slog, due to the one-pattern attacks and the huge health pool. And you had to first break away the shield to be able to damage him, (and it would not register multiple attacks on it at once, if you hit the shield it became intangible until the boss changed position again) so it just became a repetition of: dodge through projectile, *ding* hit the shield. Dodge, ding. Dodge, ding. Dodge, ding. Dodge, ding. Dodge, ding. Shield broke. Stab stab stab stab stab. Dodge big attack, and start over. Rinse and repeat for like, seven more times. It became a chore almost. There was a general stiffness in the combat that made it hard to enjoy.

Also a minor nitpick about the UI is that it was a bit hard to tell how much mana it took to heal how much. If there was a small line or indication in the mana bar to show if you have enough for a heal, it would be really helpful in combat to know at a glance if you can heal in the moment or not.

All in all, this is not to say i disliked the game itself, I actually really liked it, and think it has a lot of potential, given a bit of fixes and improvements.

Anyway, these are some of my thoughts on all the demos I played during Steam Next Fest. I hope you'll check out some of the games in here and wishlist them to help out the games you like!

[cherriblossm]

played the Demonschool demo! oh fuck oh shit im crazy im insane im mentally unwell im gonna be sick. im going to be thinking about this game forever and it PISSES ME OFF thatt its not out yet and i cant buy it. this shit makes me wanna create.

[syrupspinner]

top 10 most anticipated indie games!

in no particular order, not affiliated with any of em, etc etc

of the Devil

so, funny story. i had some fanart of this game set as my phone background when i went to get a new phone. check it out here! anyway, the cleric who only really plays ff14 looked at it and went "woah, what's that? it looks like danganronpa." and i was like. yeah buddy! sure does! then, of course, i began proselytizing, about how the game's demo did an amazing job at establishing not only the game's wonderfully directed art style, with the ui and the music and everything else working together to make a perfectly opressive cyberpunk atmosphere, but how the writing of the mystery and morgans character is so intriguing and compelling and auuuugh i wanna play this fucking game dude. i love morgans smile i hope she makes me eat a bomb

2. UNBEATABLE

so imagine muse dash, but instead of high-contrast anime girls and dubious dlc practices, it's just punk as fuck. theres nothing i can say about the game other than linking the side-story/demo and telling you to just go with the flow and dig the vibes. the soundtrack rocks hard, and the visuals are so well done. everything looks like a poster collage for a garage band youve never heard of. also the trailer for the full game showed off a graffiti mechanic and thats all i need

3. Demonschool

i talked about demonschool a lot back in my nextfest post, and my thoughts havent changed at all. im a slut for strategy rpgs, and a big reason for that is i like planning my moves in advance and seeing what the best use of all my ally's abilities are. so the game's mechanic of the shared ability meter that you use for multiple moves over one turn, plus the ability to rewind moves before committing to them, AND the high level of combo potential in everything's interactivity? pumped as hell. there was recently a dev update about how you can light yourself on fire and spread that damage to the environment with every attack if that helps sell you

4. Roman Sands RE:Build

i dont need to say shit. just look at it. LOOK at it. this is so ridiculously catered to my tastes on presentation alone that i cant even come up with a hyperbolic simile. its y2k dreamcast beach artstyle, its time loop with routing optimization, its arbitrary celestial puzzle with unexplained mechanics, its stupid gomotion noodle people, its abstract nonsense that is actively and literally hostile towards the player for trying to understand it. im gonna CUM dude

5. Sorry We're Closed

how often do you see a fixed-camera shooter about a woman with three eyes? the fucking atmosphere, man. even from the demo i can tell that a la mode knows what theyre doing. i love how there isnt like, a limit or meter on your third eye, thats something i can easily see another game doing. but the downsides of only being able to hurt enemies in range AND having to aim at their weak spots is already a good balance to encourage you to switch it up. its so deliciously frictional that you have to go in first person to attack anything, and theres a delay when you do it so youve gotta be really cautious and defensive. and oh man, the cleaver enemy! that was so tense, and so much of that was from the expert audio design that made it so unclear how close he is or where exactly he is, just that hes getting closer. im gonna lose my shit about this game when the full thing drops. fun fact: this releases tomorrow, so this is literally the last day that i can post this. oops!

6. .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND

how often do you see a fixed-camera shooter about a woman with three eyes? ive never played parasite eve, which this is purported to be a spiritual successor to, but the action seems really interesting. sukeban's website explains it like this: "you move and dodge in real time while you wait for an Action bar to fill at a speed determined by character and weapon stats. Once that’s done you can then stop time and plan your offensive". that sounds stupidly fun. judging by the trailers and shit, theres gonna be a big focus on combo chains and your character having multiple attacks she can switch between, but theres not much i can really say about that until theres a demo or something.

7. YIIK: A Postmodern RPG (Update I.V)

i know an update is cheating a bit, but ackk studios considers it to be a thorough enough reimagining that it almost constitutes a sequel. if you havent played the demo then you should give it a shot. my only experience with yiik before it was secondary, through discussions and lets play compilations, and i was totally blown away. the combat was totally reworked, so instead of those repetitive and drawn-out minigames its a way more engaging system where you can use "karta" as defensive shields with passive buffs or sacrifice them for spells. its one of those things that sounds weird and complicated when you explain it, but in gameplay it just kinda clicks. it also seemed to double down on he surrealism and abstract psychological themes, which is my fucking jam. i think missed potential is the worst flaw something can have, so hearing that yiik is growing into its most flawless form is exciting as hell

8. FreeJack Online

unfortunately, i found out about this game about a month after its last online playtest. the dev's discord says they wont reopen unless they find a publisher, and theyre not sure if thats gonna happen reasonably soon. but secondhand, this game looks like a killer time. you guys know im super into this hip hop skatepunk urban style, so even if the gameplay is total shit ill still be all over the ost and character design. but this gameplay doesnt look like shit! you build up trick combos and that contributes to your speed as you parkour around and try to win races. its been a while since ive sunk myself in a competitive online game and i think thisll be what gets me back into it, someday

9. Hyper Light Breaker

yknow im kinda surprised this list hasnt been more roguelikes considering how much i play em. hlb looks like its aiming for an interesting combo of roguelike and open-world, and im really interested in how that shakes out. the combat looks like a really good transition of the speedy high-stakes fighting from hld into 3d. im really hopeful for this game, especially everything heart machine is going through with gearbox and the fanbase backlash for the delays.

10. The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-

im saying this counts as indie because im in denial. so, i mentioned how the phone clerk guy was a danganronpa fan, right? he played all the mainline games, and even got into zero escape looking for more (he played VLR before 999? lmao) but he had no idea what too kyo games was. never heard of Death Come True, or Akudama Drive, or World's End Club, or Rain Code, or Tribe Nine. really goes to show how much publicity matters, huh? anyway, in case you couldnt tell, i am a 'fan' of danganronpa. theres a lot you could say about it, like how the writing is juvenile and contrarian and how it consistently struggles to write unpredictable mysteries despite this and also how kodaka just fundamentally fails at writing minorities and the pacing issues and flat characters and... you get it. but its never boring. and considering they officially hired the guy who wrote the spin-off novel where kirigiri gets cloned into a houseplant, i feel like its just gonna get less boring from here

look at this shit. im along for the ride at this point

[riadoodles]

Just finished playing necrosoftgames 's Demonschool demo the other day!

I am so hyped to play the full game~

[videogaems]

Steam Next Fest - June 2024

Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers It feels easy to say 'Balatro Clone'. BUT if you say that about this game, you are openly admitting that you only see playing cards and have no nuance, just like everyone said. Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers (Or D&DG as I'm going to refer to it, to save my little fingies the typing) is a roguelike blackjack battler. Those words feel confusing to stitch together but just follow me.

You choose your suit (different suits have different abilities, and the game equates this to difficulty) and begin playing blackjack against an opponent. You are always able to see their cards, unlike regular blackjack, and whoever of the two players wins does damage to the other players health pool, amounting to the difference between your final hands. Going over 21 results in your hand value being reduced to zero, in which case be prepared to take 17 full points of damage to the face.

As you win against opponents, you will acquire new cards for your deck, much like Balatro. Your opponents will also be acquiring these cards, much unlike Balatro.

There is also a mechanic of some cards being manually 'Exploited' (Read as: Activated), but in order to Exploit a Card, you must have Advantage (Read as: Points). This isn't explained well in the game *at all* in my opinion, but as you can see I figured it out using my brain and eyes, much to my chagrin.

I don't think I'll be Wishlisting D&DG, but it does the thing I like: It's a weird spin on a concept you know. And it works! I'll be curious to see if this catches on with the Balatro crowd, but I will certainly recommend it to roguelike and deckbuilding fans.

Dungeon Clawler I won't lie, when I saw that this was a dungeon crawler where you play a crane game to fight people, I automatically assumed this was my shit. I will say that it's kind of my shit, but it's not as 'my shit' as I originally thought it would be. Gameplay is cool and straightforward, you get two chances per turn to drop a claw into a claw machine and pull out symbols. The symbols you pull out will have some kind of effect (swords do damage, shields block damage, etc). By winning fights, you amass coins and new symbols to add to your crain machine that have varying effects.

By and large, the game is a cool idea but I'm not wild about execution. Now, Baron Mind® that this game is still in development so the following critiques may not apply someday BUT:

The art style is that kind cel-drawn images squash and stretch to imply movement, but it ends up kind of looking chinsey. It was the first thing I noticed, but maybe that's just because of how offput I am by that artistic choice.

Second, a banger of a soundtrack, even if it is just a remix of the Type B song from Game Boy Tetris, it's pretty good. But, zero sound effects. None at all, which filled me with discontent. I'm seeing attacks, I'm getting shields, I need noise.

Again, probably not a Wishlist for me but good execution on a great idea.

Tactical Breach Wizards

This was probably the breakout hit for me this Next Fest, and I will absolutely buy this day one (And hope the demo works after the fest is over). The third in the Defenestration Trilogy by Tom Francis - Which also includes Heat Signature (maybe one of my favorite games of all time) and Gunpoint (A game that, years after it came out, I found out I have a friend whose brother did the music - small world).

In Tactical Breach Wizards, it is the modern world, but magic exists. You are a team of magic users who are also a SWAT team. And when I say SWAT, I want you to imagine all the straight-to-DVD action movies that are marketed to the people who are military nerds, but never actually joined the military - It's that. I mean, one character is effectively Gandalf in Desert Camo with an M14 that has a staff sticking out of it, another has a wand with a laser sight and a silencer. It whips ass.

Gameplay is a lot like XCom, with one cool feature being that your wizard can see one second into the future, so after finishing your turns, you can forsee how the enemy will react, and rewind your turn as far back as you like, as many times as you want in order to achieve your desired outcome.

Honestly, I could rave about this game for a while. The gameplay, the style, the writing, everything is just aces, and this immediately breached the door to my Steam wishlist and killed everyone inside. Can't wait for August.

Caravan Sandwitch

I was unsure how to feel about Caravan Sandwitch. You play a girl who is returning to her hometown after a long time away, and reuniting with friends while driving a van.

The art style? Fantastic. Really just an absolute dream to look at and play. The setting? Eh... Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of games that don't hold your hand to explain the world lore, and just kind of let you figure it out through context. Caravan Sandwitch does try to do that, but it falls short, and you end up feeling like a third wheel to these characters, rather than being in the shoes of the character you're playing.

While you explore, the game will have pillows sitting about in hard-to-reach places that effectively serve as collectible lookout points, where your character will just chill and observe the surroundings. These moments are peaceful, and personally I'd love to see more games do something like this, in an effort to make the player really observe the effort put into the environment (A thing I fail to do often)

However, other than that, Caravan Sandwitch didn't really grip me and I probably won't keep up on it.

Dustborn

Another entry in forgettable-single-name-game-titles-that-are-portmanteaus. Dustborn has you follow a group of characters in a band, traveling across the country on a tour in an effort to get to Nova Scotia, which seems to be some kind of safe haven in a military-state America.

Again, the Art style in this game is fantastic, everything is very comic book stylized, even the button prompts, but the demo jumps between moments in the first couple hours of the game without giving you a lot of info as to what is going on. I was surprised when combat was introduced, and thrilled when it included a baseball bat that you can throw and retrieve like the Leviathan Axe in God of War. Well, not quite like the Leviathan Axe... it's posited that way, but ultimately ends up being a ranged attack that just automatically returns to you. Combat was very floaty and just didn't have that je-ne-sais-quois that makes combat feel good.

The game also contained a rhythm action sequence that was reminiscent of Gitaroo Man, another fave of mine, but that wasn't enough to make me want to follow up.

BUS: Bro U Survived

I dislike this game on name alone, and playing it didn't really help much. Points to it for having customization options to let me have a handlebar mustache, but this game just kind of boils down to a co-op zombie survival game in a cartoony style where you have to drive a bus sometimes. I only clocked 26 minutes in this game, and to be fair, I was playing solo (What, I'm supposed to make friends?), but this game didn't hold me for very long. Even as I write this I'm trying to remember much about it, and it just ended up being very forgettable.

Wizard of Legend 2

Hell yeah. HELL YEAH. I forget how I even found out about the original Wizard of Legend, but it's a fun roguelike that I recommend. I was unaware that a sequel was even in the works, so this was a delight to find out about, and an even bigger delight to play.

Players will play the role of a wizard attempting to complete a legendary challenge, with the idea that each run is a new wizard's attempt, since the last one died. Choose spells of different elements, speed, and power, and try to find combinations that mesh well together. I had a lot of fun using a wind vortex to pull all enemies to me, and then hitting the lot of them with chain lightning. Even for a demo, I could see myself sinking a lot of time into this (and I'm hoping it's still playable after Next Fest). This one makes the Wishlist for sure, and I'm looking forward to the release.

Aloft

I found Aloft very disappointing. Yet another first person crafting survival game with the hook being that eventually you make a glider that you can use to zip around the world.

The demo is in Alpha, as the devs will make known quickly, and the game made known to me quickly, since I encountered a bug early on that I had to visit the steam forums to make sense of. While going through the tutorial prompts, after collecting leaves and wood and shit like that, I was prompted to craft a Glider at the Glider station. Oh boy, it's finally my time to fly! But wait, I don't have a Glider Station. What's more, I can't build a Glider Station. Where is the Glider Station? Is this 'Glider Station' in the room with us right now?

Eventually I learned that this is a bug - the game is supposed to give you more prompts to guide you up the mountain in the game, where you will learn how to make the Glider station, and THEN you are supposed to get the prompt to build your glider. To drive that point forward: The. Tutorial. Is. Bugged. The thing that teaches you how to play the game does not work correctly. I know it's Alpha, and I know I don't make games, but this seems like such an oversight.

Finally, I made my Glider, and took off. It was... fine. The camera cuts to third person when this happens, but your character is so stiff and rigid flying around. It felt cool to zip around, but it didn't feel good if that makes any sense.

Maybe I'll circle back around on Aloft when it's in Beta or 1.0, but this just wasn't it for me.

Goblin Cleanup

But this was!!! Play as a goblin henchman whose job it is to clean up and reset all the traps in the dungeon before the next group of heroes arrive! For some reason, gamified mundane shit always gets me, and this game was no exception.

Goblin cleanup is almost beat-for-beat a reproduction of Viscera Cleanup Detail. Instead of a mop, you stab a slime and poke bloodstains with it until it soaks them all up (and dies?!). Instead of washing the mop, you feed the slime to a mimic, so on and so forth. Some improvements include:

Structure. You're given a list of tasks to complete, and they are checked off as you complete them. As a person with ADHD Inattentive Type, lists are key for me, so this was a big improvement over Viscera Cleanup Details approach of 'Clean until you're done and we'll tell you if you did good'. I'm neurodivergent with a praise kink, you've gotta tell me I'm doing good while I'm doing good.

Scanning. Hitting Q at any given point will highlight on your HUD where there are still items to be cleaned up. Massive improvement over Viscera Cleanup Detail, where you just have to kind of eyeball it.

I liked this! A lot! I could see myself buying this, or even just going back and trying to finish the level proper before NextFest is over.

Pawn Planet

I'm a massive mark for shop-owning games, and even more so if the game has a mechanic for haggling. Pawn planet has both, and by and large, I enjoyed it. The premise is simple, you run a pawn shop on a remote planet. Aliens come in an buy the stuff you have, or try to sell you things. When they approach the register you are given stats on the customer, like Anger, Knowledge, and Greediness. Using this, as well as the condition of the item you are buying or selling, you haggle on a price until one of you coughs up the cash. After the day is over, you can buy supplies to repair the items to make your money back.

Some days, there will be an auction at a storage planet where you roll the bones and bid on a Storage Locker of random items, storage wars style. Not going to lie, this had me hyped until I got fleeced on a board game I paid way too much for.

Other days, you will travel through a portal and ostensibly raid an alien base in order to murder civilians and take their stuff to sell. Okay, so the game doesn't say that, but the game also doesn't explain who these people are or why you are shooting them in the face. This section was underwhelming - The shooting isn't super tight, and you just sort of strafe and click on the aliens until they blow up. Not to mention there was some confusing placement of items in the alien base; Why are you putting what is obviously a safe in this room if it is not intended that I should try to crack it open and steal the rest of whatever was left in these creature's will?

Other bugbears included the fact that when you buy an item, only that item will come to your shipping bay, and you must remove it before you can buy another item. So in a situation where I needed three separate items, I needed to leave the computer, go to the shipping bay, retrieve it, and return to the computer... three separate times. Also, when traveling to the storage planet, I had to click where I wanted to go on my computer inside, then go outside to the spaceship to leave. These are small grievances, but the question and the sometimes vowel remains: Why?

This one gets a rec from me, I didn't spend too much time with it but I did enjoy it overall. Hoping that the finished product has a bit more polish.

The Alters

From the trailers I've seen of this game, it seems cool, but I didn't get far enough in the demo to really see the meat and bones. Which is to say I didn't get far enough to see any of the titular Alters. I, instead, ran headfirst into some radiation at some point, and lost about 10 minutes worth of progress that I just didn't have the nerve to redo, so I bailed. Luckily, these NextFest demos seem to not have expired, so maybe I'll go back and give it another shot.

In the meantime, there are a lot of Death Stranding vibes, a game I loved, and a base building mechanic similar to XCOM, yet another game I like. I think this has legs, and I enjoy the idea of alternate versions of the main character helping him out, but again - I didn't get there.

I dunno... seems neat.

Demonschool

This came at the recommendation of a friend, and I simply could not wrap my head around it. I'm a real sucker for teenagers at a weird school doing paranormal stuff, but the combat system felt very obtuse. One character only buffs, and two characters only attack. You choose the actions they will take but just kind of clicking around (not actually selecting the skills, just sort of running the character into targets), and then they play out those actions once your turn has concluded. Which I sort of get why, but it's still very disorienting. I only stuck around for two combats, so I can't say this is for me, but if you're into visual novelesque storytelling with Into the Breach Combat, this may be your cup of tea.

Reka

I think I remember seeing a trailer for this game during the Wholesome Direct or Cozy Direct or whatever the hell in 2023, but it seemed cool, and it is. This is effectively a base building game, except you're a young witch training under Baba Yaga and the base is a giant chicken house that you can drive around. It's pretty tight. Your character only looks like a haunted doll, regardless of what features you choose, and the controls are very floaty but I think this has a lot of potential. My first action once getting my Bird House was to see how big I could make the platform it sits upon, and the answer is 'pretty big'. This was one of a few demos that I actually saw through to the end, so I think that says quite a bit. Hoping the full release has some meat on these Chicken House Bones.

Thank Goodness You're Here!

I'm going to file this one under Biggest Disappointment of the Fest. I typically try to give games about 15 minutes at least so I can get a feel for what they're doing. This demo was 13 minutes long. It being by the creators of Untitled Goose Game had me excited, but ultimately you just kind of run around and slap things and everyone has a funny British accent. I was very un-wowed by the game, and very wowed when the demo ended so abruptly. Oh well, I suppose.

Tiny Glade

Not so much a game as it is a toy, but oh boy is it a fun one. Intuitively whip up little castles with no problem, and then walk around with them in the first person. I was so charmed by this that I called my artist wife in to sit down and take a look at it, and I didn't need to explain anything about it before she had build herself a little castle. You build little castles! What's not to love? I'm hoping there's more to it in the full release, or at the very point that the price point reflects what it is exactly.

Tiny Bookshop

Another one I saw in a cozy direct that I had my eye on that ended up kind of falling flat for me. This game boils down to a shop simulator, which I'm a huge fan of, obviously. But then there's the whole aspect of have percentages of book genres, and how many books you have affecting your likelihood to sell... it just didn't hook me in the way I hoped. The art style, however, was very good, and it's a delight to look at. This might be another one I take a stab at when I'm in the right headspace.

Wild Bastards

I heard Void Bastards was good, but I never actually played it. Wild Bastards seems pretty neat though... you are a couple of Wild West Robots (hell yeah) who are venturing across the galaxy and resurrecting your dead team members with a magic ship. Levels consist of beaming down to a planet and taking out enemies meticulously while not being killed yourself. You can only take down two team members at a time, but you can hotswap between them which is a neat mechanical way of changing weapons. Unfortunately, once I got my third team members, I was summarily shithoused by a bunch of plants and my run was ruined. Still, I had a lot of fun and I will be keeping a close eye on this one. Maybe not a day one buy, but certainly something to pick up.

That's my NextFest, folks. Love it or hate it, I love videogames and I like that demos are coming back in vogue. Til next time.

[marshvlovestv]

Okay, I think I was a little too ambitious picking out twenty demos to try. There's still time left in the event but I'll be honest I'm a little pooped for now lol. Luckily I was playing them more or less in order of interest, so the ones left unplayed were lower priority. All in all I played (or attempted to play) fifteen demos, most of them pretty decent or at least worth keeping an eye on. Here are my top six! (Would have been five but I couldn't decide between two of them)

The Crimson Diamond: A text parsing game is a very novel thing to me, and with the charming graphics I didn't find it nearly as tedious as I thought I would! Since it has a bit of detective flair to it, I'm especially excited for it.

Demonschool: Very fun tactical RPG with a high school setting - this could be a Persona I can actually finish, y'all. The story hasn't super gripped me so far but I can blame that on the demo dropping me in medias res.

Devil's Hideout: A horror game that despite the theme feels really cozy to me in its point-and-click mechanics. It scared me, it stumped me, I'm looking forwards to it.

Ophelia's Chapter: A second point-and-click horror game that really struck me with its art and aesthetic. Probably the shortest demo I played this week, but in those twenty minutes there was already a lot to love.

Pyrene: A fresh and unique deckbuilder with a unique mythological theme. It's tougher than it looks but I thoroughly enjoyed trying to master what was given to me. I have a bit of an issue with the way it chooses to promote synergies, but it's such a minor complaint that it's not dampening my enthusiasm for the game.

Spill the Beans: (I'm putting these in alphabetical order but this is probably the one I'm most excited for? This or Ophelia's Chapter.) A very, very cute reverse-whodunnit visual novel about framing a cast of colorful characters for a crime you committed. Finding all the routes feels like it would be a very simple and quick task, but I was so delighted by what was in front of me that I'll gladly sign up for something short and sweet.

[satoshi-mochida]

Demonschool launches September 13 - Gematsu

School life strategy RPG Demonschool will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam and itch.io on September 13, publisher Ysbryd Games and developer Necrosoft Games announced.

“We wanted to encourage experimentation in Demonschool, including the ability to undo moves or and redo a whole turn from scratch, providing freedom to tinker with different mechanics and abilities for maximum punishment,” said Necrosoft Games creative director Brandon Sheffield in a press release. “We’re looking forward to seeing new ideas we haven’t even thought of play out on the battlefield!”

Here is an overview of the game, via Ysbryd Games:

Survive a semester of screams as college freshman Faye, the final heir of the last practicing demon-hunting family, Upon arriving at a mysterious island university, she finds supernatural investigations on her syllabi. With newfound allies at her side, battle imps, demons, and class discussion boards, and close the breach between worlds before it’s too late. Form a demon-busting battle party by befriending (or romancing!) 15 different playable characters, each with a distinct set of abilities. Employ Knute to heal friendlies and cure poisons, or invoke Destin to kick enemies away as far as possible with the strength of his short shorts. Carefully balance class schedules, combat training, side quests, extracurriculars, and more to boost classmates’ skill sets while still acing midterms. Ready the party’s moves in the Planning phase, mindfully placing classmates in advantageous positions to utilize their strengths. Set or rewind movements to build the perfect turn, then confirm your intentions with the Action phase to watch the attacks, heals, and striking combos play out simultaneously. 2D and 3D art collide in a chess-like purgatory filled with macabre monsters and intense boss battles. Take on gruesome demons inspired by Japanese horror manga and ’60s to ’70s Italian horror cinema. Strategize on tactics gameplay influenced by Into the Breach and painted in the hues of JRPG classics like Shin Megami Tensei and Persona.

Watch a new set of trailers below.

Release Date Trailer

[tomorrowedblog]

Demonschool gets new trailer, releases September 13

A new trailer has been released for Demonschool, which is set to release September 13, 2024.

Demonschool is a new-style tactics RPG where motion equals action. Defeat big weirdos in between the human and demon worlds as Faye and her misfit companions, while navigating university life on a mysterious island.

[giantmetalrobotto]

Demonschool, juego de rol táctico inspirado en Persona.

Demonschool, el juego de rol de tácticas de vida escolar con toques de Persona, Shin Megami Tensei y cine de terror italiano del desarrollador Necrosoft Games y el editor Ysbryd Games (WORLD OF HORROR, VA-11 HALL-A), presenta un nuevo tráiler antes de su lanzamiento en el tercer trimestre de 2025 en PlayStation 5|4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck y Windows PC a través de Steam y…

[linuxgamenews]

Demonschool: Juggle Classes and Demons in the Release

Demonschool demo for the school-life tactics RPG game plus a release coming for Linux, Steam Deck, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to the creative minds at Necrosoft Games for keeping the ideas flowing. Coming to both Steam and Humble Store. Get ready to enroll in the weirdest college of your life. Demonschool, a stylish tactics RPG with strong vibes from Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, and old-school Italian horror flicks, is due to release in Q3 2025. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to juggle school life and fight demons? The Demonschool demo is for you. You play as Faye, a freshman who’s also the last in a line of badass demon hunters. She and her friends find themselves stuck on a haunted island where things get creepy fast. Think haunted classrooms, cursed hallways, and possessed professors. Since your GPA isn’t your only problem here. The Demonschool demo gameplay is like chess meets chaos. In battles, you’ll plot every move during the Planning phase, then unleash everything in a wild Action phase where the attacks go off at once. It’s fast, flashy, and feels very satisfying when your whole team syncs up for a perfect combo. If you're into games like Into the Breach, you'll dig this. Plus, the art style is nuts — a mix of 2D and 3D with neon vibes straight out of a JRPG fever dream. Expect monsters inspired by '60s and '70s Italian horror. Also, there are some very creepy designs that look like they crawled straight out of a Junji Ito manga.

Demonschool - Minigames Trailer (plus a Demo)

There are 15 playable characters to unlock, each with their own powers and personalities. You can befriend, romance, or recruit them — depending on how your school life plays out. One moment you're studying, the next you’re slapping demons with a giant rock or dashing through shadows, due to knock out a possessed janitor. In the Demonschool demo you’ll manage class schedules, train up your team, tackle side quests, and try not to flunk while keeping the island from falling into the abyss. No pressure, right? After a few delays, the devs at Necrosoft say this is the title they always wanted to make — and they’re pumped for us to dive into every spooky, stylish detail. So keep focused on the Demonschool Linux demo before launch. If the full school-life tactics RPG is anything like what we’ve seen so far, it’s going to be one hell of a semester on Steam and Humble Store. Due to release on Linux, Steam Deck, Mac, and Windows PC