Demo Disc #4: The Next Fest Thing – Day 0
Greetings, digital nomads!
Apologies for the lack of a newsletter last week. I was away on business for most of it, and as I suspected this left me too little time to delve the depths of Steam's demo dungeon. On the plus side, I'm about to make up for that.
You’re probably wondering why you’re receiving a newsletter on a Monday, rather than a Friday. Well, it's because this week is Steam Next Fest. If you’re unfamiliar with the event, it’s essentially demo Christmas, with jolly Saint Gabe stuffing demos down his gargantuan Steam pipe for the children to feast upon below.
I’ve thought extensively about how best to cover Next Fest in the newsletter, so here’s the plan: instead of one newsletter at the end of the week with five demo recommendations. I’m going to provide three suggestions every day this week, starting right now. Strictly speaking, Next Fest itself hasn't begun yet (festivities kick off later today at 6pm UK time) but there are a ton of demos already added to Steam in anticipation of its advent.
Needless to say, these will be shorter issues than usual. But combined, they should cover a decent amount of ground during Next Fest, while also keeping the number of recommendations manageable. That's my hope, anyway.
Windblown
Developer: Motion Twin Release: 24 Oct 2024
Windblown is Dead Cells developer Motion Twin’s answer to Hades, a volatile combination of words liable to make a substantial contingent of the gaming community explode. Playing as an anthropomorphic animal of your choice (I selected an axolotl, the spirit animal of journalists since we axolotl questions) Windblown involves battling through a russet landscape churned into chunks by a giant swirling vortex, using the memories of your ancestors to unlock new weapons and power.
Structurally, Windblown deviates little from Supergiant’s work, from the fast-paced isometric 3D combat, to the story that creeps forward each time you have the wind knocked out of you (although in this case it’s really you that is being knocked out of the wind). Rather than try to outsmart Supergiant, Motion Twin’s gambit appears to be to out-slick the Hades studio, folding a snappy traversal system into the format where you tap the dodge button to hop smoothly between floating islands.
Combat, meanwhile, sees you using one weapon to charge up the special abilities of the other, such as slashing up enemies with a big knife to power up a massive blast from your crossbow. It isn't wildly original, but it is superbly presented, and its action gets fun dangerously quickly.
Download the Windblown demo here.
Secret Agent Wizard Boy and the International Crime Syndicate
Developer: John Szymanski, Evan Szymanski Release: Tba
I love Secret Agent Wizard Boy's premise; an absurdist Harry Potter spoof where you’re tasked with infiltrating a sickeningly posh magic school whose headmaster is suspected of being less Dumbledore and more Blofeld. The demo admittedly doesn’t showcase the spy angle that much, but it does let you set fire to children, which is a fair tradeoff.
Although Wizard Boy clearly channels the look and vibe of the PS1-era Harry Potter games, it is nonetheless worth stressing this is an early build. But it makes up for its prototypical nature by being exceedingly weird and brimming with systemic potential. In the demo, you must collect a bunch of magical jewels to open the door, an objective you can approach however you like. One of the orbs, for example, you have to buy from a stall for 50 biscuits (famously the currency of wizard children). You can accrue these by exploring the map, opening treasure chests, or blasting the rich kid with a spell and stealing his fat cookie stash.
The whole experience is gleefully unhinged. The physics engine is pulled taut like an elastic band on the verge of snapping, which makes the game's kinetic spells fantastically farcical in their force. It's also stuffed with irreverent humour, such as an area that's off limits unless you wear an enormous goblet hat (one kid tries to get in wearing a duck hat and it does not go well for him). One button I pushed outright shattered my character’s upper body, resulting in his torso flopping around his knees like a sweater on a washing line as he explored.
I'll admit some doubts over how much extra juice a full length experience could squeeze out of this idea; currently Wizard Boy is a much better joke than it is a game. That said, there's more than enough chaotic fun in the demo to be worth a half-hour of your time.
Download the Secret Agent Wizard Boy and the International Crime Syndicate [inhales] demo here.
DEMO OF THE DAY: The Stone of Madness
Developer: TheGameKitchen Release: Coming soon
The Stone of Madness is a real-time tactics game set in a haunted 18th Century monastery, developed by Blasphemous creators TheGameKitchen, and if that sentence still isn’t enough to excite you, I urge you to try the demo. This is a sumptuous, incredibly promising blend of stealth, horror, and puzzling, where you control a party of talented yet traumatised individuals as they seek to uncover mysterious ongoings at an old religious sanctuary turned Inquisitorial prison.
As with most games of the genre, The Stone of Madness involves using your party’s abilities to outfox eagle-eyed patrolling guards as you peel back the monastery’s secrets. The priest Alfredo, for example, can use a lantern to reveal clues and hidden objects in the game world, and temporarily banish spirits he encounters. Yet as well as deploying your party’s skills, you also must manage their fears. The mute giant Eduardo can create new pathways by shoving large objects around, but he’s afraid of the dark, so you need to use Alfredo’s lantern to light up areas Eduardo moves around in, which is less than ideal when you're actively trying to avoid being spotted.
The demo guides you through the tutorial section, introducing you to numerous playable characters in the process. But I was mainly impressed by the general attention to detail, like the fact that signs and notices cannot be read in the dark, and how party characters have differing relationships with other NPCs in the game, affecting what actions they can take in their presence. It’s also stunningly animated and, considering the sensitivity of its subject matter, pretty well written. Keep your eye on this one.