#demo review

[blerdyotome]

Fall in Love Like it's 1994! 'Snowkissed Romance' is a Love Letter to 90's Shoujo

Lovely Inc. the team behind the hilarious office romance, My Love For You is Evermore, has been hard at work on their latest title—a revamped version of their very first otome, Snowkissed Romance. The team launched a Kickstarter for he game back in January, but folks just did not show out and the campaign ended unsuccessfully. But the Lovely Inc. girlies are back with a new campaign and I need…

[dampbasementspitgirl]

First release of anything! Be patient with me!

Recently I’ve been playing around with music production, and I got part of my demo Have you Seen Me, recorded. Maybe one day this will become a more finished piece, but until then, I hope you enjoy the music and the poster.

[randomtangle]

NextFest Demos General Review

I'm gonna write what I think of the demos I played this NextFest. Each title is a link to the Steam Page, be sure to grab yourself a demo if NextFest isn't over (June 10-17, 2024). If not, some of them might still have public demos, and some of them might be out by the time you read this!

NextFest has ended but demos still remain! Check them out or wishlist them if they’re in pre-release.

500 Caliber Contractz

Mario 64 but you have a high-caliber sniper rifle. It's honestly more often a movement tool than a weapon, and the movement tech in this game is quite interesting. I haven't gotten it quite down yet. I’ll write more about it later.

Aero GPX

Reminds me of Kirby Air Ride.

Airborne Empire

This game is seriously addictive. I meant to give it 30 minutes (around the minimum time I’ve been giving there games), and it took 3 hours. The whole conceit of the game is that you are building an airborne city. All sorts of things matter, such as the tilt (you can’t just pile it all onto one side), the lift (you need to add fans, which need to be manned by citizens, to allow for enough lift to build more stuff), and propulsion (buildings will slow you down, so you can build propellers and stuff to help you move faster), as well as food and water and coal) to keep everything running) and various building resources which you gather by deploying workers to deposits on the land using a hangar. Light is also important to stop accidents at night… there’s all the little systems you need to manage. I really love it. Usually in city builders I get really stressed about strategic placement and how me not leaving space next to that big useless rock turns out to be a mistake when I advance in the tech tree and learn the rock is actually the most useful and I trapped it under an underpass. Airborne Empires can have the “I didn’t know how big this building is so I didn’t leave enough space here” problem (I really wish I could preview buildings before I had the resources to build them), but it’s mostly fine. The tilt and lighting systems lead to making a spread-out base. You recruit more citizens by hiring them from settlements below, but you’ll have to feed them all, and at least where I am in the game, you can only gather food and water, not generate it.it’s visually very cute, all the people are birds, and the talking sounds are birdcalls. It’s pretty chill most of the time, even the occasional pirate attack isn’t that bad, especially if you get defense towers, since you can repair pretty quickly. I could play the game for days on end, honestly. I love it.

Akimbot

A very fun 3D platformer, reminds me of Ratchet & Clank, Crash Bandicoot, Skylanders, etc. The whole game looks really nice and stylized. I played with the Acid Sprayer and found it to be very fun. The voice acting and dialogue were a smidge lacking at times (Exe feels compelled to go "Tch" every time Shipset talks, and Shipset cannot shut up, but it didn't annoy me.) Overall I'm excited to see how the full game turns out!

Aloft

I didn’t find Aloft interesting. It’s not that I don’t like survival games, per se, it’s that my patience with survival games is really low. (300 hours of DST has changed me.) They need to be really interesting for me to stick, because if not, I sink untold hours into them getting progressively more and more annoyed. Aloft is probably someone’s cup of tea, but it ain’t mine. Sorry.

Beyond These Stars

Coming Soon!

Dice & Fold

A very fun roguelike deckbuilder game that's more about rolling dice than drawing cards. Enemies have slots you must fill to defeat them. Some enemies require exact rolls (say, a 3), and some just have numbers that have to be reduced (say, a 5, and you could put a 2 and a 3 in it to complete the slot). And there's more like doubles slots, slots that only accept odd or even numbers, etc. Your hero has an ability that you can earn by filling in the required slot on your hero card, there's all sorts of items and companions that alter the game in little ways... it's really fun and I'd love to play more of it in the future!

Dimhaven Enigmas

I love the graphics, just to get that out of the way. Pixilated textures are to die for, I’m a huge sucker for PSX or DS/3DS-style textures. It’s an interesting puzzle game, it’s pretty intriguing, but dangit if I’m not bad at puzzles, lmao. It’s tough! It really makes you work for the answer, I like that, but I can’t really write review of a completed demo because of it. Try it out!

Dustborn

It seemed… interesting. The graphics look good, the fight mechanics seem to have a bit of meat, but are sorta unseasoned. (They don’t feel like they flow that easily into each other but that might just be a personal skill issue.) The humor and writing isn’t really my cup of tea, it feels sorta like they’re always talking, and the lines in combat seem to overlap sometimes but I’m sure that’s unintended. Idk if I personally will be buying the full game, I’d rather wait for a review of the full game to see if I wanna buy it, but I don’t hate it.

Gladio Mori

Gladio Mori explores an interesting concept of a physics-based medieval weapon fighting game that oftentimes feels a bit like TABS if you were in complete control of a unit. It's definitely interesting. Right now there's only 3 weapons and no move editor, but I feel like the simple existence of a move editor means that in the future, there's untold levels of complexity to be found in this game. Has multiplayer!

Goblin Cleanup

It’s fun. There’s not much to say about it, as it’s just a simpler Viscera Cleanup Detail, but it’s cute, honestly. There’s some interesting quirks and level progression things, such as being able to light slimes on fire to be semi-infinite, faster mops, and you can do a lot with traps and stuff. Sorta simple as-is, unless I just missed the really cool stuff. (I haven’t played all of the demo yet, only the first two levels.)

I Am Your Beast

This game is amazing. The presentation of cutscenes is phenomenal; I really love the big bold letters and colored background. It's simple but it does its job. The voice acting is great, too. And the gameplay is just amazing. The amount of speed and precision you can move and attack with is on point. I'd suggest everyone

Kaiserpunk

Coming Soon!

KILL KNIGHT

Kill Knight has some wicked graphics. They look like they’re crackling with an unchained energy, power so great it corrodes the world. The gameplay is tough, I can barely survive a few waves, but the combat is promisingly meaty. Sword kills fuel the heavy weapon, and enemy drops can fuel the bfg thing (forgot its name). I’m not used to twin-stick shooters so I don’t know how much is innovative and interesting and how much is in every twin-stick shooter, but I certainly found the game really interesting. Really tough, but really interesting.

MACHI KORO With Everyone

Only the offline tutorial as of now, which is kinda annoying since i can't even try to run an offline hotseat game. But, it teaches Machi Koro pretty well. I like Machi Koro I like this game. It is nothing more or less than being just Machi Koro.

Metal Slug Tactics

Coming Soon!

Once Human

Open-World Survival Horror MMO. I’m only into survival horror, really, and was playing alone (I’m not that into MMOs except with friends). The systems seem okay, the combat is about what you would expect with heavy and light attacks and simple chains… the character creator is pretty good. (And I love myself a good character creator.) Not my cup of tea.

One Btn Bosses

It’s a bullet hell but you only need one button. Your “ship” moves on a ring outside the boss, and you use the button to change directions. The faster you’re moving (you gain more speed the longer you travel in a given direction), the faster you shoot. That’s about it for the systems (that I could see, at least. I haven’t beat it.) it’s fun, I’d recommend it to anyone. After all, you only need to press one button!

SCHiM

A very cute puzzle game where you play as the shadow of this one guy. You jump from shadow to shadow to navigate the levels. The art is beautiful accented neutrals, the music and sound design is really cute and musical, reminiscent of Untitled Goose Game. It’s really cute!

Screw Drivers

It’s Lego Technic as a racing game. To be completely honest, it just didn’t click well with me. The building aspect of it felt like every Lego Technic I’ve ever built, plus actual engineering. You need to connect the engine to the axel to the drive wheels, and set those to steerable… I know that’s simple, but it’s a bit too complicated for me to play that much. I’m a simple woman. Seemed fun to drive the cars, tho.

SWORN

It’s Hades but with Arthurian Legend. I don’t really know what more to say. It controls like Hades (well, I played Hades on the Switch, so maybe keybinds are different than I expect) it’s got similar systems of boons, in-level currency and cumulative secondary currencies, et cetera, et cetera. This isn’t a slight against it, I really like it! I can’t really speak for its writing since I can’t find much and I’m sure not all of it is in as of yet, but what I could find in-game was interesting. I don’t quite understand the world and how the Holy Grail and pagan deities and King Arthur all feed into why these monsters are about, but I’m assuming that’s elaborated on as you go through. I’d be willing to get the full game.

Tactical Breach Wizards

I adore this game. The graphics are really cute, the combat puzzles are really interesting and fun (I like this genre of games, I’m totally blanking on the name tho) and the writing… oh the writing. The writing is so good. The jokes are right up my alley, the story is really interesting, the world is the right amount of absurd that the characters can be deadpan about always having newt bones on their person that you can tell that it’s just as much of a half-joke in-universe as you’d expect. It’s really fun and I’m hoping to play the full game upon release.

Tavern Talk

I loved this game. The sound design is so peaceful and soothing, the writing I really like, there’s a lot of good jokes and just tender moments. I love Fable, the main other character in the game. They’re an anxious ranger who wants to get out into the world and go on adventures, they’re so cute. The other character, Caerlin, is nice too. The art is beautiful, I’m really invested in it now! I need to get the full game!

Tiny Glade

Cute game where you can do a bit of finely-controlled procedural generation of a little landscape, and take photos of it. I played game last NextFest called Dystopika that was like this but with a cyberpunk city. Tiny Glade is cute, simple, and allows you to make little houses and landscapes. It’s cute, I’m sure people will like it, but it just ain’t my genre.

[stylized-corpse]

This demo from Anéantix is sick!

[elitheaceofalltrades]

Wylde Flowers - Demo Review

Late to the party as always

I've had this on my wishlist for a while now, i think after a Cozy K rec a couple years back. The demo was available for the Cozy & Family Friendly Games Celebration 2024 on steam so I decided to get it cause I like to demo games before spending money on them, if possible.

I had so much fun.

I forgot this was voice acted, and I didn't think I would like it but I did! The voices matched the characters well and really brought them to life. The characters were diverse, both in looks and personalities, and really unique and (mostly) loveable. The plot was magnificant and had me hooked from start to finish.

The character art style isn't my favourite but it grew on me as I continued to play. The mechanics were intuitive and very smooth. I was so disappointed when the demo ran out and money issues is the only reason I didn't immediately go to buy it.

I originally had this wishlisted on nintendo but I think this is a sit down and look at a computer/tv screen game and since i only have a switch lite, I'm switching it to my steam wishlist instead.

Overall, I had an absolute blast playing this game, and I highly recommend checking it out.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

~Eli

Ace of All Trades, Pro at None😆

[alexissara]

Unicorn Overlord Demo - Quick Review

Unicorn Overlord is a game I was not interested in but given the demo was taking over my feed I decided fuck it I'll give it a shot like I did for the Project Triangle Strategy Demo. The presence of a dude main lord already is a massive turn off for me so I did go in with a negative feeling about the game and the game managed to not turn me around at all.

The story of this game is just bad, it's not good, it's not great, it's not good. We got no sense of conflict really, we get a fridge cool battle mom and then the good boy prince who is good and pure and perfect goes out to go fighting the bad evil emperor who took over the world. Turns out people betrayed his mom not because there was complicated politics or anything but because they were simply mind controlled. The game right away damsels another woman and then constantly fills it's plots with serious big boys. On my playthrough it took a long time for me to get any women at all to join my army outside of my starting character Chloe.

The game provides a choice system but the choices do not tell you what you get from either choice and the choices are simply "Do I murder this guy or do I let them live". It would really benefit from letting you know what it is your gaining on the gameplay side instead of having you go in without knowing as a means of trying to push or pull you in different directions.

These are paired with how boring Alian is as a protag. He is a proper good noble boy with proper good noble boy morals. You get to make choices for him but their either being a good boy who believes in people or being like a lawful guy who is still seen as good maybe more good who punishes enemies more often. He talks and has his own personality kinda outside of that but honestly he is so low impact he could have been a blank slate Persona protag who never speaks and it make no real difference. There was really no reason this character couldn't have been a selectable gender or customizable player avatar and kept basically all the work on the character already done, hell he is just ando enough you coulda just picked pronouns on him.

The other characters writing is not particularly exciting either the lesbian angel and her girlfriend are cute but they are no Aylain and Isobel even if they are functionally the same classes and similar dynamic they lack the passion and talent behind them. No one else really stood out to me, there were characters I thought were fine but no one felt stunning or particularly exciting.

Gameplay wise it's not super great it reminds me of so many better games. The RTS elements brought into an RPG make me think of Yugioh Falsebound Kingdom only idk for me it's less exciting. The maps so far are pretty boring lanes that don't get me to imagine a set piece very much with these wider war scaled battle it's painfully real of a setting for a plot that gives me no investment in the horrors of war, it's just fields and shit. There isn't a lot going on but also there is a skill system to dive into and honestly that seems like it's too in depth for me to give a shit about either since it wasn't really given the kind of slower introduction it should have been given to get used to adding skills and getting an idea of how that might improve a unit.

Overall, I guess it's fine but I really do not see what the hype is about. I'd play this game and probably do a full review if I was given a copy but mostly because I simply don't have other video games I'm looking forward to in the near future and I enjoy having something to passively do on my switch when I am feeling icky but I could also idk play my backlog or random gachas so idk. This could be a lot better.

[blazerwyvernmaster]

Played through the Unicorn Overlord demo, and its pretty good.

The game gave me a decent challenge and I like the mechanics, even if I...don't really understand them to well. The exploration can get a bit boring, at times but I still enjoyed walking around and discovering new things.

The story is what you'd expect from a typical JRPG, apparently being just...Shadow Dragon but with a different system??? At least the start of it. It's interesting enough.

The characters and the writing are my favorite part of it. Not only were the characters neat, but there were...a lot of decisions to make!!! Like A LOT! And I MISSED some of it!!! There's so much stuff and it's all so neat!!

Overall I liked the demo and can't wait to get the full game so I can play through it in full, and...learn how thr mechanics work lol-

[jay5464]

The Branded Hero Complete Demo!

The DEMO of "The Branded Hero Chapter 1" is now out with complete sounds and sprites of the main character Baxter! The beautiful artwork was done by the talented artist @abbear157, please go follow them and check out their other works! Also please follow and continue the support the game as we make more updates!

The amazing soundtrack is credited to talented artists such as Mykoll and yato! Please allow check out more of their music if you find the music in this game to be appealing! 

Thank you so much for your growing support! 

[tigerzim]

My most recent Demo Reel is on my YouTube channel check it out!

[blerdyotome]

Lost in Limbo Demo Sneak Peek Review - Seducing Seven Sexy Gods

Thanks to the awesome folks at @ravenstargames I had the chance to check out their upcoming dark fantasy romance visual novel, Lost in Limbo—and it is amazing! I streamed the entire demo over on my Twitch channel last week and I was impressed with the quality visuals, in depth storytelling, immersive fantasy world, and the endearing and fun characters.

[musicmags]

[stylized-corpse]

S.O.I.F. rips without mercy on their first demo.

[elitheaceofalltrades]

Crime O'clock - Demo Review

After a lovely day, I was having a terrible evening thanks to a letter from my local city council. I decided to sit down and play the Crime O'clock demo cause it seemed like it would lift my spirits. I think this game was a recommendation from Payton's Corner?? I'd have to go through my youtube and check. I'm pretty sure it was a rec though, as this is not the kind of game I would usually demo. It's marked as a hidden object and time travel game and I would not have looked twice at it if it wasn't recommended. But oh my goodness, I had so much fun and I absolutely adored it.

So the premise of the game is that there exist a True Timeline and occasionally, people try to disrupt this timeline through crime. As a time detective, your job is to solve these crimes in order to preserve the True Timeline. In the game, some mysterious force seems to be trying to disrupt the timeline by doing a lot of little crimes over a spread of time as opposed to one big crime. You have to figure out who they are, foil their plans and save the time as we know it. The demo only scratched the surface of the plot but it explained it very well in the short time and leaves you excited for more. Now, onto my thoughts.

First of all, I want to point out that this is a genuinely unique premise, like I've heard of nothing else like it. I feel like sometimes in gaming (in everything really), things are starting to feel more and more like a rift off an existing idea as opposed to something new and fresh. Crime O'clock is a true one of a kind story that feels like it's breathing a breath of fresh air into my gaming catalogue(or more realistically, my wishlist).

On the technical side, the music was fun and upbeat and matched the mood of the game well. The graphics were very pretty, despite being mostly in greyscale, and the points that used colour were so distinct that it almost feels like each colour palette is distinctly for a certain part of the game. Mechanically, it was a point and click game, so not much there to mess up I don't think.

The actual game is excellent. In the game, you work with your AI, EVE, who helps you, provides guidance, tools, and if you ask, hints. The dialogue from EVE is funny (in my opinion at least) and is a perfect balance of informative and entertaining. The plot is fun and makes you think but it isn't overwhelming. The setting is so out there, and combined with the cute art, animal characters, and combination of past & present with outrageous technology like teleportation portals (yes it sounds wild, but it fits so well), it all makes it just silly enough that you don't take it too serious and use too many braincells.

The puzzles aren't easy but they aren't overly complex. I only had to use the hint system once and there's no punishment for using a hint. Despite it technically being a hidden object game, it didn't feel like one as I was playing, mostly because it's so unlike any hidden object game I've played before.

I feel like, the length of this review tells you how much I loved this game and this was only the demo.  I will definitely get this game once my employment status has been sorted. I feel like the last couple of demo reviews I posted have been "will buy when I have money" like Another Code and Wylde Flowers but that's mainly cause they've been the ones that excite me enough that I have the energy to write a review. I am working on a post called "Games I demoed and did not like" that's currently 6 games and counting, so it's not all 5 stars over here, that's just what excited me right now.

Overall, I definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes puzzle-ly or detective cosy games and is looking for something new.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

~Eli

Ace of All Trades, Pro at None😆

[prettydopegamereviews]

Thronefall Demo Review

Thronefall is an excellent minimalist tower defense game with a city-builder aesthetic. Playing through the demo was quite a fun experience.

The demo had two levels to debut and several systems that are a promising foundation for the game's full release. I highly recommend checking out this demo if you are a fan of minimalist-style games and want to play a unique take on tower defense games. The development team for this game has made Islanders (a minimalist city builder) and Superlight (a minimalist flying game) and has demonstrated that they are good at making games in this genre. I am excited to see how this game shapes up for its full release. If you want to try out this game or just wishlisting it you can find it at this link: store.steampowered.com/app/2239150/Thronefall/. The full release of the game is slated for August 2, 2023.

[pinkprettycure]

YAY SO EPIC!!!!

[seasonalbeauties]

Warning: Rambly discussion and pictures of inzoi and its AI features!

So this is just a quick experience of the AI system in the Create a Zoi demo: this is just to show what is capable of right now. I personally dont use AI period so I hope they take it out and just let people upload their own textures like in ts3 but with a better UI.

So the demo is limited to creating a zoi and the ai feature is for clothing and accessories. Typing in things like linen, plaid, and stuff resulted in things like towels showing up.

If you put in more detailed things like "small blue flower pattern"

You get this or a picture of an actual plant.

If you search "brad pitt" this is what you get:

So for right now, I'm not seeing the intelligence of this AI however for all that we know the development team made it this way so that art stealing etc is not a thing however it could also just be that this is still in development. Since this game is from Korea they might just have different ideas on what AI should actually be used for and what is ethical and as a person who is primarily living in the US I can't comment on that for them. However, I do believe their upload-a-pattern system is way better than ts3 because you can still do it from in-game and it does not lag. For both options, you can make the texture bigger smaller, and move it around.

This is showing a pattern that i uploaded from @wanderingsimsfinds to see how it could handle uploading png patterns.

I do think that this game should remove its AI options unless they can guarantee that it will remain ethical with its generative sourcing (highly unlikely since it's hard to control this if they want a big enough pool of data to my understanding?). I am heavily biased since I don't like AI however I thought that showing some of the images produced it would show how limited this AI is and just share my overall opinion on it.

The development team was very open in the sense that pretty much any feature has a chance of getting scrapped including AI so I hope that they listen more to the feedback on other things and just have people settle with uploading their own textures since you can share these items with custom textures to Canva their sharing platform.

I am not sure how the AI for the building works since I just have the demo but from the clips of users using it, it's not worth it yet again.