Less today, but better quality.

Beneath [External Link]
Beneath is Cthulhu inspired horror FPS. Demo has less Lovecraft though, but trailer has stronger vibe. Practically it seems to be some mix between Doom 3 and Half-Life. I guess worst thing is that it really doesn't do anything that hasn't been done before, but towards the end there's bit more sense of purpose. There's even more hints about the storyline.

Kind of mixed thing is that there's no manual saving. If things get too difficult, it gets frustrating. But when the balance is just about right, it's more tense than it would be possible with a save anywhere system.

Kind of almost wishlist material. Don't know though if I would have enough patience to play it all the way through. Though at least there's easier difficulty level available.

The Last Caretaker [External Link]
The Last Caretaker is openworld survival crafting game, but it does things bit differently. In the demo you do lot of door opening and connecting cables. And draining batteries. Didn't get a chance to punch a tree at all. Based on the store page, it's vaguely similar to Raft if it had robot as player character.

Store page hints also that there's more. For example small things like saving humanity.

While the demo was fun, there were some issues though. The recycler seems to be quite poorly introduced. And it's pretty essential in advancing the demo. Had to read the discussions to figure out where it could be.

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I played few demos tonight, but most had issues

Best one first:
Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown [External Link]

I'm not sure if this is actually part of the fest, but as demo is available right now, it doesn't matter that much.

While not perfect, having possibility to diverge a bit from what happens in TV series is fun. And resource management and base building is fun enough too. Space battles seem to be bit too simplistic though in practice. Though it still could be even more fun with voice acting from original cast and with original music.

There was article a while back if you want to find more discussion about it.

Stellar Archipelago [External Link]
Steam though I like openworld survival craft games. And Stellar Archipelago does have little bit of charm with practically building stuff on a small asteroid. But problem is that there the fun ends. It's way too basic, even when the premise is kind of cool.

XenoHaven [External Link]
My Japanese is not good enough to play this. Store page claims having English as option, but couldn't understand the menus enough to find where to enable it. Maybe they could just modify the store page a bit to advertise it as Japanese learning game.

But if actually understand Japanese, you get to enslave monsters and run cafes. Or something.

debris [External Link]
This should be drone building and asteroid mining simulator. It's just bit convoluted with barely any tutorial. If you actually try to play it, the top left corner thing can gather resources if you browse through the options. That actually should make it possible to launch a drone. What happened me though was the the freeplay dialog refused to close. So I gave up.

Trade Anchor [External Link]
Space trading game, what's not to like. Though intro wasn't very promising as it was very laggy. Problem is though that there doesn't seem to be easy way to scroll the screen. There might be ways to work around it, but they're bit too inconsistent.

But basically you fly between star systems and buy resources. Then you try to find systems that wants the resource and is willing to pay higher price. I didn't saw any indications how much profit or loss you are making with the sale, so you need to rely on your memory. Or make notes.

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Do you play Janeway? Or are you the captain in the timeline where Janeway never existed/died/didn't join Starfleet?

Think I saw Chakotee and Janeway in one of the shots near the end of that trailer, so presumably you're playing her, as captain.

I didn't play the demo all the way through yet, but practically you're playing as Janeway as captain. Don't know if they're going to do some kind of switcheroo in the full game, but probably not.

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side note: something is super wrong with the steam desktop app for the next fest home page. At least for me. The top recommendations for me are "parkour time attack anime third person" games. I have absolutely zero interest in that whatsoever, and have exactly 0 games in my library with those tags.

Then moving down, the next recommended category is "minigames games" (terrible recommendation) and the next recommended category after that is "soundtrack games" (terrible recommendation) and then it goes to "all titles".

It's like they swapped my recommendation profile for a total stranger?

That's odd. I have space sim and openworld survival craft games, which would make sense from No Mans Sky perspective.

Though for me, finding unsuitable game categories is somewhat hard. I probably have at least one game for large number of genres.

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Just had time to empty my demo backlog a bit and two of them happen to be part of Steam Next Fest

Marvel Cosmic Invasion [External Link]
There's a article a while back, but for those who missed it, it's basically beat'em up from developers of Shredders Revenge. Character are bit different and you get to switch between two of them during the levels. All the basic hitting, grabbing and special moves are there. There's even flying characters, though I didn't get landing in my muscle memory as I always tried pushing downwards direction, but it's apparently A button.

Monsters are Coming! Rock & Road [External Link]
This one had article also a while ago. Basically it's bit similar to Ball X Pit, but without the balls. It has moving city that attacks enemies and you can build with level ups. Levels also have resources you can gather, though it's always compromise between defending the city and gathering resources. Luckily city can be enhanced with resource generation, so you don't always have to risk yourself and the city.

I guess it would be more fun, if Ball X Pit wouldn't exist. Also the music in the demo is bit repetitive.

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I have over half of the games. Didn't play Chicken Police more than an hour, but what I remember it was kind of noir conversation game with unique style. Store page indicates that there might be also something else to it.

Strangeland is bit more traditional point & click adventure. World building is deranged in a good way. There's plenty of mystery as it kind of goes Twin Peaks and Dark Seed route. Got probably preoccupied with something else and played only 90 minutes.

The Excavation of Hob's Barrow is better than Strangeland in some ways. It does kind of Stephen King style of mix of mundane and pure horror. Then ending is maybe not as good as the beginning and the middle, but still good enough that I actually finished it.

Disco Elysium I have, but haven't really played. I guess waiting for suitable moment, which probably doesn't come soon. I have heard plenty of good things about it though.

Genesis Noir is game where you have to figure things out on your own. But at least it's not too difficult. Though when I tried to resume it after long time not playing it, it got too confusing.

So all in all, seems to be good bundle.

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I'm not sure how many people have this issue but for me game recording hasn't been working since months ago, only recording a few frames then freezing the image.

I'm not sure if Valve is even aware of that or if it's my configuration but it seems a lot of people have that problem, not just me

I checked and I have full working two hour recording. I checked few discussions and they seem to mention Flatpack. Didn't dig down very deep though.

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What has EA ever done for Linux as a gaming platform?

Released Command & Conquer source code (not that it compiles as is on Linux though). Though whole thing seems to be rather exception than a rule.

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won't be playing in 4K as I have 2K monitor

"4K" is 2160p; what are you calling "2K"? 1440p?

Exactly that. Though looking at Wikipedia, it's practically 2.5K. Must have remembered 2K from some old marketing material or something.

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My setup seems to be bit lopsided. CPU is just bit different variant for the minimum specs. GPU is somewhere in the recommended range. I have some extra GPU memory and system memory hits the the high requirement.

Though I know I won't be playing in 4K as I have 2K monitor.

Maybe no need to update the computer just yet, but maybe in year or two. I don't play lot of AAA games anyway.

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