Usually, I’m pretty excited about Steam Next Fest, but this year was quite a drag to get through it. One week, more than 8000 demos, and then I’m here trying to look for games to play, and it’s just a lot of slop. Back during the Summer rendition, nearly 1 in 5 demos taking part used AI in their development process. This time around, out of over 8000 demos, more than 2500 utilised AI, be it for translation, writing, assets, music, voice acting, coding or all of the above combined. It’s crazy to see an event dedicated to indie developers have a third of it overtaken by clankers, and Steam has yet to add a good way to filter out the chaff from the grain.
That said, I still found plenty of gems, in large part to the SteamAI Warning extension for my browser. It basically just pulls up the AI Disclosure immediately upon visiting the store page and even blurs out entries that feature AI usage. I get that I’m more than a hardliner compared to other people, but this isn’t just about human creativity versus vibe-coded slop… It’s about making educated purchases. It’d be a shame to simply miss out on the disclosure and get a negative surprise afterwards. The extension remedies that.
Another great tool that I was only recently made aware of is “WeLoveIt.io“, a website created by Matt Martindale and Ichiro Lambe, two veteran developers in the industry who decided to give gamers a tool to easily filter through the many, many, many demos on Steam. I was genuinely impressed by their Steam Next Fest guides and the fact that you can easily filter through demos based on genre tags and even based on how many reviews of them there are, meaning you can easily find hidden gems that have yet to be discovered. On top of that, you can also select to hide games made with AI or even to only show games made using it. Pick your poison, basically!
Anyhow, with all the ranting aside, I did end up finding quite a few amazing games, so I wanna talk about them in no particular order. Many of these still have demos available on Steam, so make sure to check them out or go wishlist their store pages.
Towers of Babble
Towers of Babble is a word game roguelike tower defence game that has you play Scrabble to defend against hordes of enemies. The fun part is that every word you can form will create a harvester, tower or modifier based on its meaning. GUN is just a tower that shoots, FORT has extra health and armour, and DOCTOR is a healing aura. Verbs and adjectives function as modifiers to existing towers that increase their stats and even grant bonuses if they pair up well semantically.
As you play the game, you face off against stronger and stronger waves of enemies. To prevail, you gotta harvest wood to increase your rack size or upgrade the harvest amount of your harvesters, mine for ore to be able to reroll or purchase powerful relics, or collect crystals to upgrade specific letters. There are over 121,000 levels to explore, with each word providing a unique level and procedural challenges. The person who first clears any given level also gets their name engraved on the library tower, which feels pretty darn cool.
Frankly, I was positively surprised to see a game with such a cool and simple premise not be created beforehand. Towers of Babble is set to release on November 9th on Steam, and the demo is still available on Steam if you wanna help build up this word tower with the community!
GUNBOAT-8
When I streamed this minimalist incremental roguelike called Holding Pattern a couple of months ago, I recommended a roguelike autobattler called SNKRX to Matt from Orange Acorn Games, which he loved so much that he began a five-month journey to develop GUNBOAT-8, a SNKRX-inspired fast-paced naval bullet heaven game… which positively surprised due to how slick and creative it is.
I love it when developers put their own spin on existing formulas and put their own spin on it Matt did indeed. GUNBOAT-8 has you traverse real-world sea maps to fight off enemies and get enough experience and scraps to upgrade your ship and survive what’s to come. It feels like a mixture of the best parts of SNKRX and Brotato in that you navigate the sea maps, drift on your boat, and dodge incoming enemies while your various turrets shoot planes, ships and bosses down. Simultaneously, you build up an economy with interest to acquire new turrets, powerful artefacts, or even runes to modify existing towers. At the same time, the classes in the game incentivise using a lot of the same type of towers, which leads to so many different, unique and fun builds.
But wait… there’s more! On top of experimenting with different builds in the game, GUNBOAT-8 also features an extensive roster of captains and ships to unlock and choose to further influence your runs. I had such a blast with this game and can’t wait to see it release later this year. More than anything, though, I’m just happy to see the Holding Pattern developer make something new… and it’s an honour to hear that I inspired this brand new title.
Quiet Express: Cabin 909
From Kazuhide Oka, the developer of Moonless Moon and GIRLS MADE PUDDING, comes a new and fairly unique title in the form of Quiet Express: Cabin 909. You’re on a seven-day train ride set for the other side of the continent, but something terrible occurs right in the last tunnel of your long journey. Due to a recent quake, the tunnel collapses, derailing the train in the process and causing the death of all the on-board passengers… but then you wake up again a couple of days earlier, on the same train, on the same long journey, except with more information than before.
In Quiet Express, your job is to prevent the train from derailing. Besides that, the main character is also very invested in finding the mysterious cabin 909, except… official records state there is no such thing. So, you navigate three cabins per day before you call it a night. During this time, you investigate objects, talk to the train staff and passengers, explore their stories, and find clues. Very much inspired by Blue Prince, you have to draft from a set list of cabins whenever you open a new door… but you don’t lose everything once you meet your untimely death. No, on the contrary, you still keep your inventory, information, and somehow others also appear to retain the connections they made to you, despite not remembering their past demise.
It’s a peculiar little game that I was pretty excited about because GIRLS MADE PUDDING’s writing really showed in it. The world is whimsical and sort of lonely; the characters are all a bit odd but relatable, and the stories showcased in the demo added enough questions for me to become rather invested. The game’s set to release over the course of 2027, but with three different ways to escape the train’s demise as well as a bunch of mysteries to solve, the demo has a fair bit to offer!
Celestial Decks
Celestial Decks is a hidden information Trading Card Game set in the afterlife where you form “stories” with your cards to guide spirits to the afterlife – and it’s been lovingly dubbed “hippie gwent” by the community more recently. Each turn, you gain more “breathe” (think mana) and get to play higher-cost or more lower-cost cards. At the same time, most cards are only revealed when you actually get to the scoring phase where the total “worth” tally is totalled and the player with more points gets one point.
The fun part about this game are that you have full creative freedom for your 15-card decks. You can run as many copies of a card as you want, combine any amount of different colours, and there are a lot of flavours that work really well together. I’ve been having a ton of fun with the “nurture” archetype that lets you essentially just play cards to feed the “Pet”, which is a card that permanently retains all changes to its worth. Similarly, I’ve also been a huge fan of this “Fish” deck where I just permanently grow the worth of my fishes (and a leviathan) by cycling and drawing a lot. There are also lots of other fun combo decks that require a lot of thinking and many lines, more straightforward swarm and aggro decks to overwhelm your opponent, as well as very unique and complex combos you can pull off using more experimental cards.
Celestial Decks has been a surprise addition to this year’s releases for me. I was raving about it in my review of its beta more recently. The art is phenomenal, the writing is great, and the deckbuilding is a ton of fun. The game’s set to release on November 18th of this year as a “truly” free-to-play title, and progress made in the demo will also carry over into the full release, so make sure to check it out!
Ember and Blade
Now, I will say that I’m not sure how much Ember and Blade counts as “indie”, given LINE Games Corporation is a subsidiary of LINE, a pretty huge company… but it’s a lovely game and I’m pretty hyped, so I’ll naturally talk about it here. Initially, I thought this would just be yet another Bullet Heaven / Vampire Survivors-like, but as it turns out, it merely borrows the way level-ups work in those games and it combines that kind of mechanic with cool relics, lots of great storytelling, and incredibly satisfying hack-and-slash gameplay, to the point where it feels like the secret lovechild of Hades and Vampire Survivors.
Set in a fantasy world, you cut through bullet-hell swarms as Fenix Haven, a famous demon-hunter who’s been hired by the Angels of this world to do away with the Archdemon Asmodeus’ seal that is slowly corrupting this world and causing the downfall of many. Aided by the various golems of the sanctuary, you power up in between runs by customizing your loadout, attaining permanent upgrades, and crafting new weapons. During your runs, you borrow power from Haniel, Gabriel, Michael, and other very head-strong and unique angels. Summon fireballs, throw out electric pulses, attain damage increases through the power of music, and more, as you slaughter demons, cleanse corruption, and fight off souls-y bosses. What I personally loved the most was that you get the chance to use lots of combos depending on what weapon you wield and you have to manage your stamina a fair bit, adding depth to the game… and after fighting off specific elites, you get to enhance your light and attacks as well as your dash with the blessings you’ve already received, meaning that rather than occasionally summoning wisps, swords or waves, you do it when you attack.
It’s a very difficult experience at times, but I’m more than just itching for a challenge. I’m also really hyped to experience what the full release has to offer in terms of its story, and frankly, I can’t wait for January 8th, 2027 to come sooner, to be absolutely honest.
Beastfolk Barber
Developed by GameWorks and Safe Flight Games, Beastfolk Barber is a dialogue-heavy game about styling a plethora of different customers’ hair, engaging in conversations and discussions, and doing what you think works best for the customers in question. You run a barber shop in a city full of beastfolk, dragonkin, and other types of creatures, and each has – understandably – very different hair-cutting needs.
I love SIGONO, who are actually publishing this game, and as such, I just leapt into this title, spending three hours in the demo cutting hair, trying out different choices, and discussing with my Twitch community what was going on in the game’s world. The game features a lot of very cute moments that pair well with its cozy atmosphere, the cute art style, and the relaxing gameplay. You talk to customers a ton, make some choices, show them different possible hairstyles based on what they explained to you, and from time to time, you engage in little minigames to cut people’s hair. It’s a lovely entry and very much encapsulates what makes titles like HIGH TIMES and Coffee Shop great without borrowing too much from them. And yet, underneath the very “cozy” facade, dangers are afoot, and darkness is encroaching, leaving me very excited for what’s yet to come in the future!
There is no release date for the full release just yet, but the demo is still up and presents you with a lot of content to go through. I can’t recommend this one enough!
WAROTA: I Live Next To The Demon King’s Castle LOL
From the Lost Epic Developers comes WAROTA, a VN-inspired title that has you reincarnate into a ravaged world ruled over by the Demon-King-Slash-Idol living right next to your very own village. Harvest resources, explore the world, and fight off enemies as you power up using the hats you find along the way! Manage your village, grow its population, and defend it against the hordes of monsters heading your way whenever the Demon King launches her concerts… Honestly, it’s a silly concept, and I’m just here for it.
I wrote about this title a while back, covering the initial release announcement, so if you wanna hear more thoughts, that’s probably a great read. As a Village-Building Action RPG, WAROTA borrows a lot from games like Dragon Quest Builders without feeling inspired. It’s got a big focus on exploration and combat, rewarding you with shrines you find and the blessing of hats. Each hat gives you (or your villagers) a different class, and you get to kind of mix-and-match as you please. It’s just fun to manage a village, make do with what you have, expand slowly over time, fight off enemies, and do a bit of farming and cooking. My biggest gripe with the game, to be honest, was that you only get to see the incredibly awesome concerts every five days in-game. Like, I’d love to rewatch these scenes, perhaps in a gallery menu because of how catchy and cool they were.
WAROTA: I Live Next To The Demon King’s Castle LOL heads into Early Access on November 13th, so make sure to check out the demo or wishlist the title if you haven’t yet.
Midnight Horde
Midnight Horde is a gothic bullet heaven parkour game made by the Source of Madness developers where you head to a castle structure that you climb as you slay and survive hordes of enemies while gathering resources to expand said structure. It’s a very weird concept if you think about it but it has that movie-esque feel of escape sequences that span rooftops and building facades with actors jumping onto fence posts while they run from a gang of pursuers, tossing things at them as they flee the scene.
At its core, it is yet another bullet heaven game. I get it. We get a lot of those… but it’s just so much fun to climb a vertical map, slide on rooftops, jump around from tower to tower, navigate tight spots, or just free-fall at times to escape those pesky demons hunting you. The idea of expanding the castle with resources is cool, though very limited. There was no indication in the demo that there’d be more freedom in the full release for this feature, nor that there were more buildings to build, which I hope isn’t the case. That being said, the demo also only features one level in three difficulties, which is fair. You basically get to rebuild towers, arches, and buildings that provide bonuses as well as more areas to climb. The weapons are very vampire-hunter-coded, with stakes, guns, silver weapons, and holy relics doing their best to strike down those evil demons.
Midnight Horde feels addictive with its fun parkour mechanics, the interesting weapons, and the very nice-looking PSX-exterior, 3D structure to climb, and the grim and very gothic look. There is no release date for this yet, but you can give the demo a try already and wishlist it in the meantime!
DreadHaven: The Last Colony
There are no bad Goblinz games. I said it before and I’ll say it again. There’s just none. DreadHaven is a roguelike tower defense game where you explore tiles, gather resources, and build up towers by day… so that you can defend your colony by night. It’s a very simple idea that people may have seen in all sorts of games before… but this one’s putting its very own spin on it, and I really dig it.
Your day features a very limited number of time units. Exploring, building and at times interacting with things will use these up, meaning you really have to think about whether or not you’ll expand your resource economy, explore the world in hopes of finding resource nodes and story events, or fortify your defences. As such, choices are to be made, strategies are to be created, and you’ll also get to reposition towers based on where enemies come from, place traps, find synergies, and so on. There are a lot of cool mechanics in the game as well as many different artefacts that permit you to make the game your own. On top of that, the tile-based tower ranges are very interesting and add a fun spin to the TD formula.
Look, if you like tower defense games, you’ll love DreadHaven. It’s sorta rogue-y with its procedural generation, randomised relics, and many cool events and choices to make, so I highly recommend giving the demo a whirl and perhaps even wishlisting it to be ready for the Q1 2027 release!
Others
Sadly, as per usual, I downloaded more demos than I had time for. With work, university, and other duties to attend, I am frankly surprised I got to talk as much as I did about these nine games, so this following section is more of a “this game seemed interesting, here are some thoughts” section that will quickly rip through a bunch of different indies that are probably cool and that I may cover in the future.
From the Jotun, Sundered, 33 Immortals, and Spiritfarer developers comes At Fate’s End, an action-adventure where you fight your family and where your skill tree is your family tree. There must have been some kind of huge falling out, so you’ll have to explore a lush fantasy world, face off against estranged siblings, get stronger, and ultimately decide your family’s fate through the power of duels. Look, I love Thunder Lotus’ other games and I’m hyped for this one!
Yarn Owl Studios is debuting their upcoming action-adventure: Demi and the Fractured Dream. You play as a young faun venturing through the wondrous world of Somnus, tasked to destroy the legendary accursed beasts to save the world. It reminded me a lot of older Zelda titles, which is why I had my eye on this one. It’s also published by Annapurna Interactive, who typically have a good eye for good games.
Glass Head Dolls and WINGS are bringing to you their upcoming soulslike, Prison of Husks! Featuring nostalgic graphics, a grim world, and a dense, interconnected world to explore, I’ve been incredibly hyped for this releas but sadly didn’t get to make too much time to explore the feature-rich demo. I’ve previously chatted with the developers at Gamescom as well and they seem like super rad folks who really get it. Like, they understand what makes souls-y games fun and so great, and they put so much into this world they’re building. I’m very hyped for the January 27 release!
Published by ByteRockers’ Games and debuted by Positive Impact Games, The Regreening is a cozy “soilpunk” simulation where you grow plants, rebuild wildlife habitats and revive ecosystems. You get to befriend spirits, recycle junk, and just turn this abandoned world into a paradise for all the plants and critters. It seems very cute and cozy, and I absolutely dig the aesthetic. Very excited for this December 7th release!
Final Thoughts
I hope AI doesn’t completely take over Steam Next Fest. Despite comprising a whole third of the demos participating in the event, only a total of three games that were made using AI managed to get into the top 50 most played demos, all of them scoring in the back. Similarly, only two of those were fully made using AI. This speaks volumes about the issue with AI. People don’t seem too interested in games that have no thought put into them. On top of that, people don’t seem to see the value in titles that are cranked out as “products” rather than games or art.
I’m really glad about that, to be honest. There’s hope that Valve sees this and either gives us the option to filter through titles even more by AI content (similar to Matt and Ichiro’s tool up there) or that they frankly just limit how much AI can be used for a game to be allowed at Steam Next Fest.
That being the case, I still found my fair share of demos to play, even if it took me a lot longer to find these gems. One might notice that I like roguelikes a lot. Oops. Sue me.
Besides that, you can find my own little bit of ranting about the AI Problem and the 30.2% AI Slop Content right over here. I tried myself at editing and am glad to see how good of a reception this has gotten.
That said, Steam Next Fest is over already and all of these demos are currently still up, so you can definitely check them out still and wishlist the full releases either way if you haven’t yet! I hope I’ll get to play the other demos at another point in time and perhaps publish another listicle with games to check out. What were some of your finds this Next Fest that I didn’t include in my write-up?
This post was originally published on Indiecator.
If you wanna get in touch with me, feel free to stop by for one of my Twitch streams. For business inquiries, please reach out via email.
Leave a Reply