Thanks to reading a post in this community earlier this morning, I realised that I almost missed out on Steam Next Fest. The silly thing is I was aware that it was happening -- I had even seen a game advertised on Facebook, telling me to try the demo in Next Fest -- but I didn't know when.
I didn't get any emails like I normally do, I didn't see anything big and exclamationy on the main store page where they usually advertise these things... because it wasn't big and exclamationy; it was a small banner. Ughghghgh.
Anyway! It's Sunday: I only have this measly day to try out many demos! Let's begin!
There were many games that I wanted to try as I scrolled further down the list of things available, but there's only one of me and I only have today, so I couldn't download the larger demos. There were quite a few open world survivalcraft games I wouldn't have minded trying! Including one where you basically hunt robots, that looked cool.
As it was, I downloaded too many probably, but we'll see what I'm able to get through.
First of all we have...
⭐️Core Keeper⭐️
Core Keeper describes itself as a mining sandbox adventure for 1-8 players where you will enter an endless cavern of creatures, relics and resources. Mine, build, fight, craft, and farm to unravel the mysteries of the ancient Core!
I quickly make myself a little purple-haired lady and give her the Miner background. It's nice to start with a copper pickaxe but that's very quickly whittled away and your initial "skill" doesn't really matter from what I noticed.
So far it seems like your average little digging sandbox. You dig around, find resources, go through a progression of worktables and things so you can craft and create better things.
The game starts you off in a little area with three giant constructs I think you're supposed to put crystals into, but it doesn't quite tell you. I'm going to make a guess and say that's your initial "goal" in this sandbox. One of them is inactive in this demo so I ignore them and just fudge around, exploring and mining and seeing what I come across.
After equipping wooden armour and a copper sword, I very quickly discovered that the combat in this is very unforgiving. I fought my way through slimes and spiky slimes, and you really need to dodge them and make sure you don't get hit because those things will annihilate your health bar.
...And I was soon vanquished by this giant arse blob that jumped on my head like Mario would a Goomba.
Despite its simplicity, it seems like it'll be a cute little game; likely better with friends. Unfortunately most of my friends outgrew Minecraft/Terraria/Sandbox games a long time ago so I'm all alone when it comes to these things.
Either way, this is something I've decided to put on my wishlist. It could make for a good little time-waster. 🙂
⭐️Coromon⭐️
Next on my list is Coromon. Which very simply looks like a Pokemon clone. Apparently it's a "modern take" on the classic monster-taming genre.
Part of me really wants to get into a new Pokemon style game -- I had a lot of fun with Monster Sanctuary -- but at the same time, I don't want to get into one right now. But I thought that I'd just give this a quick once over as I've seen it advertised here and there and it did look like a good Pokemon alternative.
After creating my person, leaving home and boarding the train, I came across ingame NPC versions of the developers of the game! Who informed me that in this demo my creatures could level up to 25 and my demo save could be transferred to the full game if I wanted.
That's cool! If I do get the game though, I'll be starting anew. But it's nice to have that option there.
In Coromon, you're not just a trainer trying to be 🎵 the very best, like no-one ever was 🎶 but you're an employee of a corporation trying to understand these creatures and it's your job to go out into the field and gain information.
Before you set out you get to choose your difficulty, and even better, you can return and change your difficulty at any time. Definitely adds some oomph to the game and some extreme challenge if you want it.
There's a unique way of choosing your starting Coromon too. You get to hop into a machine and answer a bunch of questions and the researcher beside you will recommend which one you should choose based on your answers.
The battle screen is typical and easy enough... BUT...
I love this right here. Instead of your creature auto-levelling, you get to choose its progress! That's fantastic.
Continuing on through the initial quest, we discover that there are basically super Coromon out there -- titans, if you will -- and I've been hired by this corporation to join their Titan Taskforce to catch the essences of these creatures.
I spent a good two and a half hours in this and I'm really enjoying it. So far it seems like a pretty good Pokemon clone and I will definitely be adding this to my wishlist too!
⭐️Fata Deum⭐️
With that Pokemon Clone Adventure solidified and out of the way it was time to check out Fata Deum, a city builder that caught my attention when scrolling through the demo list.
The developers describe this game as inspired by the God Games of Old and allows you to mold settlements and the townsfolk in your own image. "Will you raise the settlements to splendor, or spur them on to violent debauchery and demons? Watch as a living world grows under your whims."
Intriguing!
Unfortunately the sound of it is better than what it actually is.
The tutorial is long-winded and doesn't allow you room to try the game for yourself, the UI is unpleasant, and I closed it after about ten whole minutes and quickly uninstalled it.
It is in alpha at the moment, so I guess there may be the possibility that in the future the start of the game will improve, but as it is at the moment I wanted nothing to do with it.
⭐️GUILT: The Deathless⭐️
After my disdain at the godlike citybuilder, I was hoping GUILT would be a bit more appealing. GUILT markets itself as an action rogue-like with souls-like elements. Apparently it's also set in a persistent world that all players affect.
It's also a single-player game, so I guess it means that it's always online and every action of every person who ever plays it will affect it in some way? Further along the store page it says:
So I guess that's cool!
It was time to open it up and give it a whirl.
First of all, I really liked the character creator. But after getting into the game, things felt a bit clunky. That's to be expected I guess, the game is still in alpha after all.
After spawning on a bunch of skulls, I wasn't too sure of where to go or what to do. So I just walked around and fought various zombie/skeleton-type things until a great creature appeared before me and gave me a thread.
Apparently I am the Threadbearer! And I'm going to help save the land.
Now that I was the Threadbearer, I was able to leave this initial area and enter the map where I could choose my next direction. Obviously I chose the dungeon right next to me.
Here I entered an area with a frosty wind chilling my bones and hampering my movement, there were also many enemies to kill and a few corpses to loot. I'm not sure if those corpses are those of other players or not, but one of them had an iron helm for me to wear and another had a chest piece. Score!
I killed many things. And also found things that for some reason I just couldn't loot. Apparently I was feeling guilty and thus, I was unable to accept things.
That's a lie. I'm not feeling guilty at all and I just want to loot all the things! But alas.
Finally I completed this dungeon area, returned to the map, and headed to another dungeon area.
...where I very quickly met my doom. May whoever loots me enjoy my iron helm and stolen chestpiece.
I'm not sure what I really think about this game. I like the idea of it and I think I might put it on my wishlist, just to keep an eye on it. The UI is a bit clunky, combat doesn't feel smooth at all, and it would be nice if the mechanics were explained a little bit more. Like, what is guilt? How do you get guilt? How do you reduce it?
That would be helpful.
So I think I'll keep an eye on it and see how it improves over time.
⭐️Song of the Prairie⭐️
I'm a sucker for farming life-simulation games. There's one I really want at the moment called Pumpkin Days but I don't want to throw $40 at it at the moment. So, might as well check out the demo of a completely different one instead!
First of all, the very moment I started the game I was amazed at the quality. It's created by a developer-and-publisher called The Droplet Studio and by the looks of things this is their first game. The graphics are beautiful, the cinematic at the start was mesmerising to watch, and I was just instantly impressed.
The character creator is very cute, but it was here that I started noticing a few issues with the game. Well, not issues really. Just errors with translation.
Either way, ignoring the terrible translation, I jumped into the game and prepared to farm to my heart's content! However, even though I had seeds and plots of land, the game wouldn't let me farm just yet and instead sent me on a quest to go to the village and speak to the lady who runs the grocery store.
The map is straight forward and when you hover over the building it tells you what is there, so I soon found the grocery store and clicked on it, highlighting it in yellow so as I was exploring I was able to head straight towards it.
Unfortunately it was while I was talking to the grocery store girl that even more terrible translation leapt out at me and that combined with the controls that feel more suitable for a controller rather than keyboard-and-mouse made me close the game.
While this is a beautiful, beautiful game, I didn't feel a desire to push through the mildly awkward experience and just continue on. There are plenty of other farming life-sim games out there, and unfortunately I think they'll keep my attention more than this one could. Sad, really. It's so graphically pleasing!
And that was all that I had time for. Overall I'm happy with the ones I chose to download and try out, even if I didn't have enough time to try out a few of them. There were a couple of others I did try but they really weren't that great and I had nothing to say about them.
Most of all I'm looking forward to Coromon, the pokemon clone, and Core Keeper should be good too, in my opinion, upon full release. GUILT looks as though it might be something to keep an eye on if alpha and beta goes well. And I'm disappointed that Song of the Prairie is both so polished yet so unpolished at the same time. But that's okay, there are plenty of other farm-life-sims I'm interested in too.
Fata Deum is definitely the one I'm most disappointed with. I truly miss having a good god game to play. The only good one I've ever played was Black and White and I wish so much they'd make a new version of it.
Alas... at least I found a couple to wish-list for the future. 😃
Until next time! 😊🎮
