A very nice looking game about rock climbing, from Don't Nod (Life is Strange devs), seems like a departure from their usual stuff. The gameplay in the demo was pretty good, the climbing is a lot more involved than the press forward climbing you're probably thinking of from most games. You individually control each hand's grip (think GIRP or Mount Your Friends, but less awkward), and can freely place spikes in the wall to attach your rope to which can save you from falls or give you places to swing from. You're exploring this abandoned cliffside village, and there's notes and stuff to piece together the stories of the people there, I didn't pay too much attention to them in the demo because I'd probably just forget and read them again in the final game but it seems not bad as far as that kind of thing goes. Main complaint is that the performance was pretty bad, hopefully that gets polished up by launch.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1977170/Jusant/

I always look forward to anything new from The Behemoth, but was a bit skeptical about this one because I really did not enjoy the original Alien Hominid. It was brutally difficult while feeling quite shallow in gameplay. Thankfully, this is much better. I was immediately impressed by the movement, you get a dodge that turns into a long dive in the air, shooting in the air can boost you upwards, and a double jump that resets your other options. This doesn't have the 2.5D movement of most beat 'em ups, which I'm glad for the lack of, and probably wouldn't fit well with the chaotic pace here. The level structure is quite different as well, with bite-sized levels that you pick from a grid map for each mission, where you can select levels with varying levels of challenge and loot you can earn. You can use the loot to change your loadout, and it seems like there's a bunch of different weapons, perks, and cosmetics. This mostly seems like it'll be fun in co-op, and I did play it solo but the game gives you some AI companions. The level objectives seem like they could get a little repetitive, as I did see the same ones a couple times already in the demo, but maybe I was just unlucky or there will be more as you progress in the full game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/843200/Alien_Hominid_Invasion/

⭐ This is a turn-based RPG from the devs of The Messenger. I was a little skeptical going in with the genre being very hit or miss for me, but I'm pretty impressed. The game looks amazing, in a way that I feel like doesn't fully come across just from trailers or screenshots. The traversal is pretty fun, you're able to climb up and down ledges and jump over gaps, and the world has a lot of verticality. There's also puzzles that you solve through a combination of that "platforming" and stuff like pushing boxes around and flipping switches. That aspect doesn't seem as good as something like Crosscode, but did feel a lot better than the similar platforming in Chained Echoes. The combat takes a lot of inspiration from both Chrono Trigger and the Mario RPGs. It has the positional attacks and combos between party members from Chrono Trigger, with the timing mechanics from Paper Mario and the like of button presses on attacks landing or while defending, with some more involved little minigames for special attacks. The dungeon you go through in the demo was pretty fun, the puzzles were a little basic but I liked the structure a lot, and assume it'll build up in complexity. While it doesn't have the full heal/mana restore between battles of Chained Echoes, it does encourage you to spend your resources a bit more than most RPGs by giving you a pretty generous mana regen from your basic attacks. There wasn't really enough story here to judge that yet, but it didn't seem bad. I also want to acknowledge this being the best structured demo of any in this group, it gets you right into the game, and skips ahead to give you some variety rather than just making you play through a full intro section.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244090/Sea_of_Stars/

This looked like a promising little score attack arena shooter with some cool movement options. Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed by the demo. You have some cool movement options like wall running, shotgun jumping, and a grappling hook. These really don't feel natural to string together though, especially in the environment in the demo. I'm not sure if there will be more arenas in the full game but I felt like that really held the game back. There were a lot of spots to fall to your death, and one movement option not working exactly like you expected could kill you. There also seems to be only one weapon, and a severe lack of enemy variety. I've enjoyed a lot of similar games and there's some good ideas here but I hope this one gets quite a bit more work before release.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2197850/Van_Hellswing/

A boomer shooter made in the GZDoom engine, though don't let that set your expectations for how it plays. Pretty movement heavy, with a fair bit of platforming and dashing around during combat. Your first weapon is a katana, and while you do get guns pretty quickly, you'll be using melee a lot and it uses a system similar to modern Doom of special execution kills being your most reliable way of recovering health. The difficulty is kind of brutal, and even as a veteran of this type of game regret playing the demo on hard. I didn't love some of the enemy types, but the combat is still pretty fun overall. It's also very cool looking, I love the look of this engine and this is very unique to anything else I've seen made in it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1665260/Beyond_Sunset/

The spiritual successor to Super Puzzle Platforming Deluxe, an old favorite of mine that I think about 5 other people played. It's a falling blocks arcade puzzle game, except rather than control where the blocks fall, you control a little guy who platforms on top of them, can kick them around to set up combos, and shoot blocks to break them. The core gameplay still feels quite similar to the previous game, which is not a bad thing, but the main new thing here seems to be a meta progression system where you unlock new weapons and abilities to create a loadout. Didn't play a ton of this one because I was already pretty sold just from loving the previous game, but it seems good so far.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2087610/UFO_Unidentified_Falling_Objects/

A new game from the devs of Shadow Tactics, which I haven't played but have heard very good things about. This seems similar to what I know of the gameplay from that, but with a pirate theme and magical abilities. The gameplay was fun, it's good about giving you full information so it's more puzzle-like, and the built in quick save system works well to remove the frustration of any trial and error. You also have some fun abilities like being able to teleport to enemies and being able to freeze enemies in time to sneak past them. It makes your character feel very powerful, but sets up scenarios that are still puzzling to solve. There was too much focus on story in the demo, which I mostly ignored as I just wanted a taste for the gameplay and will pay more attention to that in the full game. Not the best structure or pacing for a demo, but the game itself seems fun.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1545560/Shadow_Gambit_The_Cursed_Crew/

A metroidvania where you play as Ebenezer Scrooge is such a ridiculous concept that I had to check it out. Unfortunately, it's pretty rough. It opens with a movie length cutscene setting up an unnecessarily convoluted story, after which NPCs still constantly interrupt you with dialogue. The gameplay feels very clunky, the movement and attacks aren't fun, and the enemy types are very frustrating to fight. I did get one movement ability that seemed potentially fun, but you could really only use it in predetermined spots and there wasn't that much creative to do with it. It also had some very frustrating backtracking. Not the smart metroidvania kind where you get a new ability and go somewhere you remembered to use it, but the kind where it's unclear where to go and you hit a lot of lengthy dead ends.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2351120/Ebenezer_and_The_Invisible_World/

⭐ This sword dueling game is just as lovely as it looks. You can immediately tell the effort that went into the animations, everything looks and feels great and there's a lot of character to it. The dialogue is short and amusing. There's some light platforming, which feels pretty good, but the main focus of the gameplay is the sword fighting. At first I thought it was going to be too easy, with a very generous parry timing and easy ways to stun enemies, but the game pretty quickly started kicking my ass. The fights get pretty chaotic with multiple enemies involved, but in a way where it doesn't feel unfair and when you do execute everything successfully it feels great. There's a lot of fun options to use the environment to your advantage, like kicking crates and barrels into enemies, knocking enemies off of cliffs or into hazards, throwing a bucket over an enemy's head, etc. It really makes the combat stand out from similar games that you need to be running around the arenas a lot, sliding over tables and kicking things into enemies. Fighting dirty is encouraged and it's very fun. Really loved this one and will 100% be playing the full game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1654660/En_Garde/

I'll play any new anti-gravity racer that comes out, and I somehow hadn't heard of this one until now. On the F-Zero to Wipeout spectrum it definitely leans towards the former. The standout differentiating feature seems to be how your boost works, there are little orbs around the track you collect and you can spend all of them that you're holding for a boost with the intensity depending on the amount you had. This adds some decision making to your racing lines of whether you want to go for the mini-boost pads or gather orbs for a larger boost. These are also shared between all the racers, so if someone is in front of you they can grab all the orbs. This seemed to give a little too much of a snowball effect to first place, but the game is only focused on singleplayer so it's probably not a huge deal. The handling of your ship also feels a bit looser and more floaty than most games in the genre, I'm not sure that's entirely a bad thing, just different. The visuals are decent, not as standout as F-Zero GX or BallisticNG, but not bad. There was only a tutorial, one track, and one ship in the demo, so not a lot to judge there but I'll probably check out the full game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2277110/ArcRacer/

Basically a Celeste clone, everything from the art style to a lot of the mechanics seem to be just trying to copy that. Not necessarily a bad thing, because Celeste is a great game and I'm always down for more pure 2D platformers, but this one definitely needs some work. The basic controls aren't bad, but they're nothing amazing either, and interacting with any of the special mechanics in the levels it starts to feel really bad. A lot of the mechanics in the demo are basically copies of level mechanics from Celeste but not executed as well, and the few more unique ones felt really awkward to use as well. Hopefully it has a while until release and can get polished up.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1712700/Memori/

I've liked most of the other SteamWorld games I've played, and while this one didn't look too interesting to me on the surface I figured I'd give it a try. The first half of the demo is a pretty basic city builder, didn't really feel like it had much of an interesting twist on the formula and was pretty easy. When you get access to the mine it gets a lot more interesting. The mine basically plays like a second city, with resources shared between the two areas and many only available from one or the other. Rather than building houses, you have tile by tile zoning control for different types of mining camps. You can choose which walls to dig out and have to build support structures to stop cave ins, and bridges to cross chasms. Planning paths with your limited resources to most efficiently dig minerals out of the walls feels like a great adaptation of SteamWorld Dig to another genre. This part of the game was way more engaging, and while I like the idea of having to balance the two areas, it was only really an annoyance when I had to go back above ground and plop down some more buildings to keep things going in the mines. It's not as innovative for the genre as something like Against the Storm, but it does have a pretty unique hook that is worth checking out if you're into this sort of game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2134770/SteamWorld_Build/

This is a Sokoban (block pushing puzzle) game, with the main twist being that the blocks are now cards. Cards have to go in specific locations, and sometimes form solitaire-like sequences. The main mechanic other than that in the demo are these special tiles where you can stack multiple cards, but only if they're in numerical order, and you can push them out in a last-in-first-out approach. The puzzles pretty quickly got quite difficult for me, I'm familiar with this genre but usually bounce off of these games after a while, and while this seems like a decent one of those I don't think it's really for me. You probably already know if you'd be interested in this or not. Also, you play as a cat wearing a suit.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2318680/SokoSolitaire/

A first person shooter take on Vampire Survivors, this got my attention from seeing the screenshots of your character holding a dozen guns with them covering half the screen. Unfortunately, it's not really as fun as that sounds. The guns don't feel particularly good, and the gameplay entirely consists of walking down a narrow corridor and shooting incredibly basic enemies that just move towards you in a straight line, which doesn't really translate well from top down games to this. There's also a pretty bad lack of variety here in all aspects, and the meta progression seems very grindy for some very uninspired upgrades. Hopefully this gets a lot more time in development, because it could turn into something pretty fun.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2206270/Vampire_Hunters/

A monochrome first person mountain climbing game, with some intentionally awkward Bennett Foddy inspired controls. You have a book of mountains of varying difficulties to pick from, and the starting few at least are quite short but quickly get more challenging. You get a stamp to put in your book for each climb you complete, and go back to your cabin between missions, where you get unlocks and decorations delivered to you in packages. I think this is really well executed, and while it's more fun to play than most games of this type, I'll probably enjoy watching someone play it more than playing more of it myself.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2236070/Peaks_of_Yore/

⭐ A gardening game sort of in the vein of a city builder. I had not heard of this, and just at a glance I probably would have passed by it without caring, but I saw a recommendation for it with someone saying the demo was so good they put 10 hours into it which intrigued me. It's really good. It's one of those games where the presentation comes across much better playing it yourself than just through screenshots. The gameplay is very accessible but interesting, you plan out a garden and try to create habitats for different animals which each have different needs. It's got very fun progression with a bunch of quests to do. I decided to stop after a while to save the experience for the full game because I was 100% sold, definitely recommend checking it out.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1928540/Horticular/

Sort of following the plant-based theme of the previous game, Botany Manor is a puzzle game about exploring a mansion and the surrounding gardens and figuring out how to grow exotic plants with specific requirements. It's got a very nice art style that reminds me of The Witness. The puzzles are an interesting concept, but I found the ones in the demo overly simple, it boils down to just looking around the latest room or rooms you gained access to, and every interactable object is a hint for your current puzzle. You have a book where you can assign which clues go to which plant, which makes me think maybe it gets more complex later, but from what's in the demo I didn't love it. It's a unique idea for a game and I can definitely see some people liking this, but I'll probably pass unless the reviews are really good and say it gets better later.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1425350/Botany_Manor/

This is one of the demos I was most looking forward to trying, and it made a very strong first impression. It's an immersive sim with a cyberpunk setting, and the presentation is just phenomenal. The characters and environments look fantastic, all of the UI including the menus has a very distinct style to it, there's usable computer terminals that behave like actual computer terminals, it's got shockingly good voice acting. The game plays mostly like how you'd expect an immersive sim to, it does have some stand out features like a focus on melee, and some platforming sections with wall jumping, but you're mostly going to be sneaking through vents, reading terminals, and shooting people. It does have some issues that somewhat soured my early impressions. There's two boss fights in the demo that are just plain awful. Those usually aren't a strength of the genre, and it's no exception here with it being very confusing what to do, and annoying to execute even when you figure it out. The level is also huge, which is very cool, but also a bit too confusing to navigate at points. I got really stuck and almost quit a couple of times, the game will go a long time between giving you updates on your objectives and the map is pretty confusing in how it connects and which ways are blocked off. The dev seems to be actively talking to people about the demo, and I feel like some of this stuff might get improved. Regardless, it's very cool and really good at most of what it does, if you're into the idea it's worth checking out.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1692240/Fortunes_Run/

A train puzzle game, and it plays about like what you would expect. Different buildings appear on the map over the course of each level, and you have to connect them to deliver the correct resources to each one. At least for the levels in the demo, this is the sort of puzzle game where it's very easy to just complete the puzzles, and most of the challenge comes from optimization and meeting optional bonus goals. There's also a "card" system where every so often during a level you get some cards that do things like reduce the cost of one rail line or bridge, or a train car that can carry more cargo and gives a bonus multiplier to the money from that line. The style is a pretty nice voxel look, and it's got a pretty relaxed vibe overall. I wasn't blown away by it overall, but it's fun for what it is.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2272400/Station_to_Station/

This is a metroidvania that's trying to do a lot, maybe a few too many things. It takes some inspiration from action games and has skill trees with new combos and moves you can unlock through leveling up. The visual style seems ambitious and high budget for a game like this, but is kind of all over the place with what it's going for and didn't really wow me. The story seems pretty prominent, but I didn't like the writing much at all from what I played and it kind of just got in the way. The combat is decent, it's got a lot going on even at the start and I could definitely see this becoming very fun as you unlock abilities later in the game, but as far as the basic game feel it was just okay. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. Technically it seems like it could use some work, I was getting pretty bad stuttering during some parts, and I quit after the game crashed for me, but it seems like a pretty lengthy demo and I felt I had already seen enough. I don't want to sound too negative and this might be worth a look if it seems interesting to you, but it was a mixed experience for me.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1802880/The_Devil_Within_Satgat/

⭐ This anti-Subnautica is one of my favorite things I've found during Next Fest. It's a very laid back and relaxing game about cleaning up the ocean. The visual style reminds me a lot of A Short Hike. The controls are very simple and accessible but feel very satisfying, you can vacuum in trash with your utility gun, and sucking up goop to clean plants isn't a very precise action with an auto-aiming cleaning laser, but the feedback on it makes it feel really nice. It's a somewhat familiar loop of collecting materials and bringing them back to your base to get upgrades, but none of that felt burdensome and it seemed like it compliments the main gameplay loop of exploring and cleaning, rather than being something that holds you back while you grind for crafting materials or try to remember recipes. I liked the areas you get to explore in the demo a lot and 100%d what was there. A very nice surprise that I'm looking forward to playing more of.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1644940/Loddlenaut/

Battle Shapers is an FPS roguelite, a subgenre that I've tried a lot of and largely been disappointed with. This one is surprisingly good and very promising. The weapons and upgrades actually stand out and feel creative rather than the generic stat upgrades that plague a lot of these games. One of the main unique things about this game is its Core system, where you select a primary and secondary core each run that modify your android protagonist. These determine the upgrade pool of perks that will be available during your run, and your primary core changes your gameplay substantially. In one run I had one focused on reflecting enemy projectiles with a bubble shield I could use, and in another I had a dash strike which built up charges on hit, and I could then activate an ability to freeze time and use each of those charges to dash through enemies and have them all blow up once time resumed. Another thing I really liked is the structure of the runs. Halfway through the run, you get to select which boss will be your final target for that run, and you get to select between a few which each have different random modifiers that apply to their area during the second half of the run. Only one was selectable in the demo but it seems like a very neat system. My only real complaints here are that the performance needs a bit of work, it wasn't unplayably bad but I did get some framerate drops during combat, and that the game will likely need some more variety in most areas. What's there in terms of cores/weapons/enemies/etc is really good, but I could tell from looking through the progression menus that it would probably get repetitive a bit too soon. The game is going to be in early access and that seems like something they're already planning to work on, so probably something to keep an eye on down the road. Really enjoyed it overall.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1421290/Battle_Shapers/

A supernatural horror take on Max Payne that very clearly wears its main inspiration on its sleeve. I liked the visual style of this alright but wasn't in love with the overall tone of it, even though I'm sure some people will be. The gameplay is a decent imitation of Max Payne, but doesn't play quite as well as MP2 does in my opinion. I feel like it suffers a bit from the enemy types, at least in the demo. There's a lot of monsters that are running towards you or leaping at you, which doesn't play as cleanly with this combat system as gunfights. There is a powerful melee attack you have using consumable wooden stakes, which you can replenish by breaking furniture, but I almost always took damage while using this and it doesn't feel very satisfying. The level design seemed decent but not great. It's very surreal and dreamlike, with some areas changing and shifting as you loop back through them. I also want to note, even if it's still early in development, that the performance was really bad for me, and while I'm not saying this as a slight against the visual style it really doesn't look like something that should be difficult to run. This seems decently good but I'm a little mixed on it, at least for me it depends on the price or maybe on a sale if I'm in the mood for this kind of game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1546310/El_Paso_Elsewhere/

This is a neat little mashup of twin stick shooters and top-down Zelda games. You explore an overworld fighting enemies and collecting resources to level up your ship, and find caves and dungeons to explore where you can unlock new abilities. The visual style is just serviceable, it's pretty generic looking and a lot of the overworld areas looked repetitive. A problem that made navigation a little confusing at points, enhanced by the lack of a map (it seems like there will be one in the full game, but not in the demo). I wasn't too impressed by the gameplay at first, but it gets a lot better over the course of the demo, and ends on a high note with a pretty cool boss fight. It starts out incredibly easy, and you start with no abilities besides basic movement and shooting. There seems to be a very strong variety of enemy types even early on, which is promising for this type of game. Not the most stand out game in the list for me, but it's fun and feels pretty well polished, I'll probably check out the full release.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1634860/Minishoot_Adventures/

A unique take on a top-down shooter, where you move around the inside of a rotating shape and can dash between the walls. It's a little confusing to describe, but if you see it you'll instantly get the idea. There's already some pretty cool variety of ideas even in the short demo, and it feels nice to play. Not a ton to say about this one and I expect it'll be a fairly short game, but so long as the price is reasonable for the scope of it I'll likely play the full game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1181610/Roto_Force/

Deadlink is different from the other games on this list in that it's been out in Early Access for a while, and has a full release coming up soon. I've been wanting to play it though, and it had a demo added to Next Fest so I figured I'd check it out. For those not familiar, it's an FPS roguelite with a cyberpunk theme. The core gameplay is pretty impressive, the movement and guns are very crisp and satisfying and it feels pretty polished, as I'd expect from something further in development than most of these demos. Rather than finding a bunch of new guns like most games in this subgenre, you play more of a class with a preset loadout that gets modified over the course of a run. If you start with a shotgun as your primary, you might modify that into a fire shotgun or an acid shotgun, but as far as I saw you're not going to pick up an assault rifle instead on that character. These upgrades seem pretty well done though, they have substantial visual changes to your weapons and their effects. The other gameplay system that stood out are these modifications you can equip that are activated by specific actions. For example, you might get one that says your next attack will set an enemy on fire, and you can equip that to your weapon swap slot so that it activates on swapping weapons, or on another slot that activates when using your grappling hook ability. This seems like you could make some pretty crazy builds with this system and I had fun playing around with it even with the limited content in the demo.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2370510/Deadlink_Tora/