I have been too playing demos. Some of them don't necessarily deserve a mention, but might mention them still if somebody else has reviewed them. Have been watching videos on Youtube with event overviews, which now and then have gems that I have missed.

Into the Grid (Native): Cyberpunk netrunning deckbuilder. Basically a dungeon crawl in neon, but it looks very nice. Plays well too. A bunch of different directions to build your deck and the card art is good. Recommended.

It's nice, but I didn't feel urge to get back. Hard to say what it was lacking.

Thysiastery (Native): Another "Linux" game that has no Linux executable. Runs with forced Proton. Legend of Grimlock style dungeon crawler with monochrome pixel art. Runs quite well and the vibes are immaculate. Some oldschool roguelike elements, randomly generated characters and maps, turn-based, and permadeath, but not things like mystery potions and the like. Closer than most in that regard. Recommend.

Somewhat unique world building, but again missing something that would pull me back into the game. Probably there wasn't anything that would indicate progress during my run. Might have been back luck.

Witchy Business (Native): Cute magic shop management sim. Surprisingly hectic as soon as the tutorial is over and generally needs balance, but otherwise fine. Cat character kind of annoying.

Cat indeed is realistic and demands treats all the time. Needs maybe bit more polish and balancing. For example potion brewing is very picky where you drag the ingredients from. Game like this needs to feel rewarding, but this feels bit too much like collection of repetitive tasks.

Wirelight (Native): Right away the music is a groove. Weird little puzzle dungeon crawler with a low-res pixel art aesthetic. For some reason movement is on arrow keys, but that does play into precise directions as a mechanic so I'll allow it. Very cute, puzzles are intuitive, and commands are always on the screen so you don't have to keep track of everything. Recommended.

There's some mechanical complexity in learning the moves. I still got bit bored and couldn't finish the demo. Might need some drastic changes like transforming it into rhythm game. It already kind of leans into that direction.

Growmancer (Steam Play): Kind of an incremental game, but not about automation. You play as this Groot-lookin' dude running around a desert, and grass springs up where you walk. The trick is you have to run over it a second time to turn the grass green, which in turn spawns flowers. Green grass and various kinds of flowers becomes your currency, and all the upgrades revolve around becoming better at growing stuff. Very short ~40 second runs, with upgrades that add fractions of a second onto that total. Recommended but it does get a bit old so restrict it to short playtimes.

I can agree on short playsessions. It's practically incremental game at heart and requires bit of grinding to unlock everything. There were some fire related upgrades, but couldn't see any mechanic that would burn things. Still, oddly satisfying.

MIO: Memories in Orbit (Steam Play): This one's really good. An action platformer where you play this tiny android exploring a gigantic spacecraft in ruins. Very Hollow Knight vibes in the sense that your opponents are other bots gone mad, but the style veers off in a much different direction of grandeur gone to ruin. The intro sequence is stylish as hell, and the attention to detail in environments and animations is amazing. Highly recommended.

I got stuck and gave up. Though what I was able to play was intriguing and world building alone was pushing me forward (once I was able to clear bit boring tutorial). Maybe I was supposed to die some more to feed the machine or something. But I guess it's usual metroidvania problem as the games don't tell you exactly what to do.

OFF Prologue (Steam Play): What can I say? A surreal classic that's inspired a wealth of other games, most notably Undertale/Deltarune. The story of The Batter and his holy mission to purify the land, and the weird things he encounters along the way. The demo is basically the tutorial and Zone 1, so a decent amount of content. And did I mention the music is ridiculously good? Recommended.

The tutorial had bit boring guess the sequence puzzles. Zone 1 at least pushed the world building forward, but I wasn't intrigued enough to finish it. Kind of almost there.

Isles & Tiles (Steam Play): Puzzle/City Builder where you draw cards that have a variety of resource costs to construct buildings, and create the land to put them on as well. Pretty frustrating early on because it's hard to get your industry running due to not having the resources that industry is meant to create. Also got a BAD case of that Unity jank, so be prepared for that. There's the bones of a good game in here, just needs a few tweaks here and there.

Don't remember the jank, though there is some learning curve at least. Buildings require certain kind of land and I think tutorial doesn't go through all the land types clearly enough. Seems like you're supposed to grind upgrades to solve the problems you're having, though demo ends before you get to utilize the terraforming cards properly.

Word Play:
Another form a word from letters roguelite. Simpler than Watchword and it seems to be a benefit. The upgraded letters were bit on the boring side, but full game at least has more of them. It has lot of hype factor from developer being bit famous already, but still would give it bit hesitant recommendation.

Cleared Hot
This one seems to scratch the itch for good followup for Desert Strike followup than Megacopter. Compared to original there's physics also. You can pick up enemies and throw them around or pick up objects and them ram then into enemies. There's also machine gun and missiles too. Demo has varied selection of missions, so it doesn't feel so it doesn't start to feel repetitive. Liam made a review about it maybe week a ago. Can't do proper link, but here's one anyway: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/nostalgic-helicopter-shooter-cleared-hot-has-funny-physics-and-a-demo-worthy-of-your-time/

Probably fun for also people who are not familiar with Desert Strike.

CloverPit:

If Spinny Dungeon feels bit flat, CloverPit is in 3D. It leans on you actually being there, though restricted movement maybe isn't a good decision. Otherwise all the upgrade and odds manipulation systems are there. The upgrades are physically on the table and things start to look cluttered once you hit the limit. Having the odds visible is nice touch.

Tries to be it's own thing, though 2D variants are way more readable. Kind of hesitant recommend.

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I tried the demo much earlier and back then the map was bit small (the shroud of mystery at beginning suggests something bigger and more dangerous). But there was clearly fun game in there and it sounds like it has only gotten better.

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By the way, what version of Proton will be set as default in this state? For those familiar with Linux and Proton, it's not too much trouble to switch to the latest stable Proton version with each annual update. But for users who aren't aware of this, couldn't they potentially get stuck with an outdated Proton version a year or more down the line?

If it works like before it could be just what's stable at the time. Then you have to remember to update the choice once the default Proton version starts to be bit stale.

Hopefully they have better system in the update, but based on the screenshot looks like they don't.

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Just finished the demo (though it lets you grind more if you want to). It sure is fun. Unlocked all three characters in the demo.

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Few more.

Ball X Pit:
Arkanoid meets SHMUP in Loop Hero style. Simplified version of the game loop is that you go and fight in area where you move constantly forward. You shoot enemies with balls that bounce from both walls, but also from enemies.

Pickups can give you XP, resources or more seldom upgrade that lets you gives you few levels worth of upgrades or possibility to few two balls together into one that has features from both balls. For example fire and earth can be fused into magma. Most fusions don't have fancy names though.

When you die, you return to town that you can improve. You can also harvest resources by bouncing workers into resource tiles.

Played it with gamepad, so I don't know what kind of experience game would be with keyboard and mouse.

Definatly worth trying out.

Jump Ship:
Co-op space hunter gatherer simulation. OK, maybe just gatherer as you don't get to eat what you kill (they're robots anyway). Didn't play the game further than missions further than tutorial, but at least the first missions are just resource gathering. Though resources are usually guarded, so there's lot of combat too. I played single player, which is doable, but I feel that game must be more fun with friends.

Basically with two players, one would be controlling the ship and fighting enemies and gathering resources floating in space. Other player would be crafting stuff, loading weapons and repairing. Some of the repairs need to be done outside the ship, but didn't experience what it would be like in moving ship.

Don't know if it gets as hectic as Barotrauma as the first missions are quite easy.

If you have couple of friends who would like to play it, probably worth trying out.

Bloom:
Puzzle game about making flowers bloom again. Basic game mechanic is that you create chain reaction that finishes the level in few moves. First two chapters are very easy tutorial levels, third chapter has some puzzles that need some thinking. Some I finished bit by luck as I didn't realize what order things happen in.

The game over screen is in odd way satisfying even when it's sad.

Once the game actually gets started, it does something bit unique. But I still didn't grab me. So I think mostly agree with Nezchan. The game might be good game for somebody, but it wasn't me (or Nezchan).

Black Hole Fishing:
Incremental "fishing" game. I don't want to spoil the intro too much. Lot of buying upgrades and waiting for money to accumulate enough so that you can buy more upgrades. Background music feels like it's two or three minute song which will repeat maybe too much many times if you grind long enough for the upgrades. Demo ending condition was bit of a surprise.

I have played far more varied incremental games, but at least there are some bits that are funny.

Abstractpunk:
First I didn't get the game to start, but it probably was just compiling shader cache. But it sure is weird. It takes a moment to be able to navigate as everything is such a mess. But basic FPS stuff is there, just implemented in weird way. Like the gun that shoots happiness. The songs for different activities sound kind of funny.

Uses AI generation for several different things.

I have no idea if I should recommend this. I guess if you love jank and weird games.

Into the Grid:
Cyberspace hacking combined with card battles. Cyberspace is moving from room to room and hacking things. The card battles are somewhat usual for the genre, but at least there are few mechanics that are not that common. Like resource that you can generate during combat and lets you do few different things as the fight continues. Also enemies attack animation is nice touch. They actually come toward you.

Didn't feel any urge to get back to it, so maybe it's good for somebody who has run out of card battlers.

The Organized Capy God:
Puzzle game with plenty of jank. Basically you need to organize same kind of things into piles. Once you have made all the similar tiles to touch each together, the vengeful capy god gets hungry for one category of items. Then you try to drag them on top of the capybara and if you lucky it eats everything in one go, if you 're less lucky you need to feed them one by one and unlucky case you feed it wrong item. If you do that, it throws up items it ate and might get your neat piles into disarray if they're too close.

If you feed it everything it wants, it throws up new items and again might get your neat piles into disarray if they're too close.

This same cycle just keeps repeating and I decided that I'll better hide from the vengeful capybara god by closing the game. If capybara god asks you to install the game, try to resist.

Organised Inside:
This game is either organizing puzzle or busywork tidying up. First level has you fill up car with stuff by figuring out what game lets you do. The second level is about cleaning a kitchen. It even teaches that you can wipe plates clean with just a cloth.

I did kind of enjoy it. Not sure I want to wishlist it though

Gold Miner: Classic Edition:
Kind of claw machine simulator with gold digging theme. Basically claw keeps swaying back and forth and you just decide when to launch it.

Basically seems to be something that usually is available for free on some web page. One thing to note is that it really doesn't seem to support fullscreen.

Seems like it's not worth it, though it might be fun for a moment at least.

Puzzle & Stack:
Another organizational puzzle. Doesn't seem be too picky where you put things, which is good as some items are hard to identify. Later levels let you rotate items and in one level you can polish dirty items.

Prepare some time for playing it. If you think that level is quick, once you're done the game will throw you more items. It would be nice that there would some indication how far you actually are in the level.

But solid enough entry into organization puzzles.

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Had time to play few. Downloaded also few recommendations, but haven't gotten to them yet.

I'm trying to play demos in order I installed them in order to avoid getting distracted. Usually I have plenty of leftover demos that I have never played and probably never will.

Replicat
In short it's memory game rogue-lite. There's lot that's borrowed from Balatro. There's gameplay loop of meeting target score, boss fights with modifiers, modifying cards with essences.

Difference to traditional memory game is that by default there's several same pairs, so it's bit more likely to find matches. But of course you can slowly modify the deck to your liking.

Good fun, though there's another that's quite similar: Matchstone.

Matchstone
Most of the things that apply to Replicat apply to Matchstone too. Main difference is that Matchstone has gray quite simplistic theme. Also joker analogue is quite simplistic as there's no choice what you can get. Getting new tiles with new functions is pretty cheap though and you can increase the tile category value.

Tiles have maybe can have more wild features than I saw in Replicat, but all in all Matchstone feels bit more boring. Maybe it's the gray plain feel, but it could also be generally making things look and sound satisfying.

Still, could be fun for somebody.

Insider Trading
It's kind of Balatro meets stock market. The stock market part is bit weird and could maybe explained better with the tutorials. I was first confused about the different animal icons and though they were different stocks. It all makes sense, but it takes maybe one failed run to see all the mechanics clearly. It does work like shorting in real stock market that you buy when stocks and sell when they're high, it just took a moment to figure out how to apply that in the game.

Could spend lot more paragraphs explaining the mechanics. Good variation of the theme that changes things around enough that they things feel different. Maybe missing some of the fun factor, but it's not totally obvious what would fix it. Still worth trying out if you have some patience figuring things out on your own too.

Become the Moon
Become the Moon describes itself as deck building auto battler, which kind of explains it. Basically gameplay loop is that you play cards that can be minions, spells or battle spells. Spells usually give some kind of bonus to minions, but there are other kind of spells too. Battle spells are spells that play during battle.

Once you end your turn, battle spells trigger and minions fight to the death. Ones that survive attack opponents mastermind (don't remember what term the game used). If mastermind is still alive after that, both master minds fight to the death. If player wins, there's few rounds of rewards and everything repeats. That's the high level view of it.

Cards do have all kind of different ones that have synergies and/or modify the game rules somehow. On top of that cards can be discarded, deleted or exhausted. So pretty common deckbuilder stuff, maybe with just bit changed naming.

It was fun enough, that I might try the demo again.

Spinny Dungeon
This one is easy to compare to Luck Be A Landlord as it's slot machine rogue lite. And there are similarities, but few differences that go nicely along with the dungeon theme. Like enemies that move between rows towards you. Also instead of paying rent, you just have to stay alive. Which you can't do if you starve (there's hunger meter). Mana helps also and money helps too (not sure what happens if you run out. So you need all kinds of symbols to stay in balance.

For protecting your health bar, there's weapons and for healing some rare symbols and spell. For hunger meter there's food, for mana there's at least scrolls and mushrooms. For money I don't remember anything else than gems, but there must be some default symbols too that I forgot.

Also there's the usual symbol synergies. Some delete the other symbols, some transform other symbols. Some get even improved when they get to transform or delete.

Feels different enough to the inspiration and pretty good fun.

Sunken Engine
I left this one as last as dishonorable mention. First of all I didn't check the mention of AI usage, but there seems to be bit more to it than that, which is a shame as developers might otherwise be onto something.

What irks me a bit that they take bits out of Dredge bit too directly. Red eyes everywhere is straight from Dredge and the AI generated NPC:s ooze so much Dredge style that I would have to do side by side comparison.

It's nautical themed cleaning simulator with some ship repair and shopkeeping thrown into the mix. With some horror elements thrown in.

I guess this one is rare don't touch so it stays sunken.

Forgot to mention Watchword and The Drifter. I played Watchword before the event started and what probably killed it for me is that I started optimizing it to death. The crossword format gives so many options that going through them all takes lot of time. Also it accepts some nonsense words, which means there urge to try some random stuff just in case. Should try out Wordplay, which AFAIK is bit more simplistic.

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omg yes!! Love a good nextfest :) Are there just a ton more this time around than last time, or am I just imagining that?

After I enabled Proton by default few years ago, there has been more than you have time to play. I couldn't find any actual numbers for each year, but this year doesn't seem to be making any records. Might be just the new normal.

I played two demos today, both enjoyable, but neither caused urge for immediate wishlist.

Rentlord: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3546440/Rentlord/ [External Link]

Rentlord is Balatro inspired "deckbuilder". Instead of cards, you buy properties and collect rent. There are multipliers and jokers (though game calls them plugins). There's bit less randomness as without plugins the profit would be static. Demo gives you a taste, but hopefully final release has lot more content.

Wander Stars: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1575810/Wander_Stars/ [External Link]

Wander Stars is vaguely deckbuilder like game with anime theme. Anime theme is even followed by re-using same animations, which was back in the day used for budget reasons. Though at least animation looks gorgeous.

It's built around the cliche of shouting movement names before doing them. In Wander Stars the movement names are actually constructed from verbs and adjectives and they each have slightly different function. In overall it's maybe slightly too simple after you understand how everything works (it's bit more complicated than what I explained). But at least map view has other things than battles and plot while not highly original has potential for some drama later on.

Kind of still on the fence adding it to wishlist.

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Why was the publisher banned?

There doesn't seem to be much information about it. Only reason I was able to find that there were fake reviews. But even that was guess from a Reddit poster. I guess though if reason was something like that and developers tell what the reason was, they acknowledge that they were complicit in the scheme.

As for the game, it has some learning curve. The organ system is not explained in full, but each organ has some text that describes the rules. I was able to glimpse into bit wackier stuff already. There's some rarity system, so I might not seen the best stuff yet.

Seems bit unpolished overall.

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Looks like you can only buy it as part of a bundle on Steam?

More or less seems to be true, though I found via checking the store page in incognito mode that that there's EA Play subscription option. Probably not good deal though.

Had no idea that Steam has forced bundles.

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Wanderstop

Wanderstop (Steam Play) - Farming/Life Sim about running a tea shop with a very intense protagonist. I'm more intrigued by her internal conflict than I am about the weirdly complex tea-making and gardening process, although those mechanics don't seem too bad. Also major points for frowny penguin-like birds. Runs pretty poorly on my machine with a lot of framerate dips, maybe the full version will be better optimized.

I love the fact that her internal conflict is relatable. There's maybe too much exposition, but it got much more interesting once story reached tea shop. Too bad demo ended before first customer, so that part of the game remains mystery for now. Didn't get to see multiple tea recipes either.

Cubic Odyssey

Cubic Odyssey (Steam Play) - Actually played this a couple days ago, but since it's in the Next Fest I'll comment on it here. Pretty good No Man's Sky-like but with blocks. Very pretty, although it can be hard to see threats in the visual clutter. Crafting feels decent, and resource gathering isn't a chore. My framerate dips pretty bad at times, particularly anywhere near water. I'll never understand why voxel games insist on lovingly rendered water. Generally a good time, although I'd like there to be a bit less combat focus.

I hope the blocks mean that you can dig everywhere and changes are permanent. Didn't do much testing on that.

Scope is not as in No Mans Sky either. Though if there's just hundreds of planets, hopefully there's some really unique ones in the mix.

I didn't go looking for water, so didn't test how much that affects framerate.

For me there wasn't too much combat, but compared to NMS there's a lot. Main plot seems to revolve around threat that you need to fight so probably rest of the game has combat too.

I guess the problem is that it's just decent. Had fun enough for few hours, but it's harder to say what it really makes it unique.

Twisted Tower

If you enjoyed any of the BioShock games, YOU MUST TRY THE TWISTED TOWER DEMO. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2506090/Twisted_Tower_Demo/ [External Link]

I tried it out and it seems to copy surface level stuff from Bioshock. There's a wacky circus theme, but story isn't very deep. I loved smashing the old fashioned telephone enemies and few other enemy designs were fun too.

Otherwise it's game with lot of almosts. Also having only gamepad button prompts was annoying. Had to check the keybindings several times.

Nautical survival

The setting for the game, of course, is the ocean; which adds an interesting twist to the the typical Bullet Hell gaming experience.

I think it as vehicular Vampire Survivors like Pest Apocalypse (though in Nautical Survival the boat is easier to control than the car in Pest Apocalypse).

I like that there's exploration and crew gives bit variety to gameplay. The map is quite small that makes trips to dark unknown feel safe once you realize that how quickly you can find everything. I had fun though there's a risk that it gets bit boring after a while when you have seen everything. Full game does seem to offer little bit more content. If priced cheap enough, could be worth it.

Duck Detective: Ghost of Glamping
Seems to be solid casual detective game. Never played the first one, but seems to be more of the same. Basically you look for clues from environment and discussion and then try to answer few questions by placing the clues in a sentence. Bit harder than it sounds. Reminds me of Detective Grimoire. Not straight to wishlist material, but might be tempted to get it in a some bundle.

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Haven't found yet found anything that's clearly worth for wishlist yet and the event ends soon. Luckily there has been lot of recommendations here and there, so I can fine more interesting demos also next week.

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