Demo Disc #3: Ski Sunday, live from the Mountains of Madness
Greetings, digital nomads!
This week I’m changing things up a bit. For the last two issues of Demo Disc (or, if you prefer, the first two issues of Demo Disc), I’ve spotlighted demos for games with imminent release dates. I opted for this approach this because it’s always a bummer to play a demo you jive with, only to find out the full game doesn’t launch for another six months. Plus, since games are avalanching off the slopes of Steam at present, it’s easy to lose track of ones you’re interested in, and part of this newsletter’s Raisin d’Erdtree is to prevent games slipping through the cracks like that.
However, if you’ve looked at the Disc Archive since I added it last week, you’ll have noticed several demos I recommended are already unavailable, because the developers have taken them down. I understand why developers might do this, although I’m not sure I agree with it. But either way, I don’t want my recommendations becoming irrelevant within days after making them.
From now on, therefore, I’ll be prioritising brand new demos, in the hope they stay available for a longer period. This is the more sensible approach anyway, and the archive will help you find the names of any games you happen to forget, whether the demo remains playable or not.
One last point of order before we commence testing. I’m away for most of next week, so there may not be a newsletter on October 10th. I don’t want to say there definitely won’t be one, because there is an outside chance I rustle one up in time. But if you wake up next Friday and your inbox is disappointingly demo free, don’t fret, it’ll be business as usual from the 18th onward.
Warside
Developer: Lavabird Release: 28 Jan, 2025
Let’s kick off with this supremely accomplished demo for Warside, Lavabird’s spiritual successor to Advance Wars. Its taster campaign provides three missions of disconcertingly cute turn-based warfare, including one tutorial mission that guides you through the basics, and two proper engagements that’ll test your strategy skills more thoroughly.
Cards on the table, my experience with Advance Wars is minimal, so I can’t speak to how similar it is much beyond the presentation. What I do know is that I clicked with Warside pretty much instantly. Its simple foundations support a surprisingly robust tactical challenge, and I love how stylishly its diptych battle scenes reflect your units’ positioning on the map. The demo’s trio of missions also let you play with a generous number of units, ranging from sniper squads to machinegun jeeps to the almighty Rhino, which can shunt enemy units into buildings and rivers. It’s worth noting that an expanded version of the demo is coming on October 14th (the start of Steam Next Fest), which will let you experiment with Warside’s multiplayer.
Download the Warside Demo here.
Voidwrought
Developer: Powersnake Release: 24 Oct, 2024
I’m often underwhelmed by games that play with cosmic horror, mainly because they tend to translate the concept in three tedious ways—insane cultists, squid people, and insane cultists trying to summon squid people.
Voidwrought wisely attacks the concept from a slightly different angle, placing you in the role of a newborn underling of the kind of deities who are normally busy driving librarians mad. Moreover, you don’t exist to serve those gods or to quail at their terrible magnificence. You're here to purge them from whatever plain they exist in. The cosmos has declared their reign over, and your job is to harvest their power in service of a newer, hipper epoch.
Structurally Voidwrought is a typical Metroidvania. Your amorphous avatar starts out feeling a tad underpowered, but as you unpick the crumbling temple complex that comprises the demo level, you soon unlock a violet-tinged smash ability and the power to swing on hooks as a cloud of inky smoke (or is it smoky ink? Neither seem like ideal grappling material, frankly).
Voidwrought is the one exception to my new "new demos only" rule, simply because I was intrigued by it. Even in a banner year for metroidvanias, Voidwrought’s moody art, gnomic narrative, and general otherworldliness distinguishes it from the likes of Ultros and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. There are still a few weeks before the full version launches, so hopefully the demo won’t disappear any time soon. The keyboard bindings aren’t the worst I’ve encountered, but hook up a controller before playing if you can.
Download the Voidwrought demo here.
Reflex Unit: Strike Ops
Developer: ROBOSARU Games Release: January 2025
I’ll be honest, half the reason I’m spotlighting Reflex Unit: Strike Ops is because of the gloriously cheesy title song. If you’re someone who likes your TV opening credits to explain what the show is about both in detail and in tune, then fill your ears with Reflex Unit’s Saturday Morning Cartoon banger.
The other half is that Reflex Unit is an action-packed ode to Desert Strike and its helical offspring. In the demo, you select one of three choppers parked on an offshore aircraft carrier, before flying to a peninsula guarded by tanks, drones, and turrets, all belonging to a shady corporation called NeoTech. You can explore this island freely, with a range of objectives that include destroying radar installations and rescuing some stranded allies. But ultimately, the mission is about wrecking as many of NeoTech’s toys as possible.
This amounts to a twitchy, fast-paced isometric shooter where you’re constantly weaving through enemy rocket fire as you lock in targets an unleash a barrage of your own ordnance. As with the Strike games of yore, you can also collect various items using your helicopter’s cargo winch, including special, high-tech crates that provide power-ups like a rocket boost.
Reflex Unit’s fireworks could be a little more impactful, and this is another demo you should play with a pad, but otherwise, this is a gleefully silly slice of arcade action.
Download the Reflex Unit: Strike Ops demo here.
Lurks Within Walls
Developer: Here be Monsters Release: TBC
I love the premise of Lurks Within Walls. This is a dungeon crawler that harks even deeper into the past than last week’s Monomyth, transporting you back to a time when everyone believed the world was made out of tiles. Yet it swaps out the traditional fantasy oubliettes for a survival horror scenario, one of decaying hospitals, pulsating anomalies and shapes shuffling in the shadows.
The combination produces a survival horror with a distinct timbre from its brethren. Because of its tile-based movement, jump scares aren’t really viable, so developer Here be Monsters instead opts for a general atmosphere of creeping dread. You’ll turn a corner amid the demo’s meticulously rendered corridors, and spy a thing silhouetted at in the far doorway, as you tread reluctantly forward, it too slouches and judders toward you until combat commences. It helps that the monster design stands slightly to the left of your typical zombies and ghosts, all crooked necks and spasming limbs. They don’t shriek or hiss or gurgle as they approach. They just move quietly toward you, looking unsettling without making a big deal out of it.
Like Monomyth, Lurks Within Walls was very nearly demo of the week. However, two things held it back for me. First, the demo is very short, and would benefit from a second area to explore where you can see its ideas evolve a bit. Second, while the atmosphere is fantastic, the combat’s a little limp, with enemies feeling like they’re pawing at you rather than trying to rip your kneecaps off. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my brief time with Lurks Within Walls, and it’s definitely a horror game to watch.
Download the Lurks Within Walls Demo here.
DEMO OF THE WEEK: Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders
Developer: Megagon Industries Release: 2024
Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders zipped across the finish line just in time to be included in this week’s Demo Disc, shocking the gathered crowd as it somehow clinched first place. A sequel to 2019’s Lonely Mountains: Downhill, the follow-up swaps out the original game’s mountain bike for a pair of skis. But otherwise, it’s a similarly unusual blend blissful countryside vibes and deceptively serious sports simulation.
In its current form (more on this momentarily) the demo offers a tutorial mission and a single slope to slalom across. But that’s more than enough to comprehend just how gratifying this game feels to play. It has the pitch-perfect physicality of Downhill, and its open-ended skiing challenge at once allows you to take it at your own pace, while luring you into repeated runs in search of perfection. The real treasure here though, as hinted at by the title, is the snow. The way it sparkles in the game’s simulated sunlight, the way your skis slice through the powder, the way your character builds up exhilarating (and sometimes alarming) momentum as they glide down a pristine slope, it’s a beautifully textured interaction.
The demo practically begged me to use a controller, so you should probably plug one in before playing. And like Warside, this is a demo that arrives in two parts. Right now you can play only play it solo, but the demo will also unlock multiplayer functionality on October 14th at the start of Steam Next Fest. Multiplayer is the big new addition to Snow Riders (aside from the snow), and it does seem like it’ll be blast to play with pals. Right now though, it’s merely a blast to play on your own.