Its time for another Steam Next Fest lots of good demos for games that are coming soon! Steam Next Fest is a week long celebration with hundreds of free game demos as well as developer livestreams. It happens thrice-yearly and its amazing for finding upcoming indie games to Wishlist. Here are the Demos I played during this fest.
Promise Mascot Agency
Promise Mascot Agency is a mascot management / driving around town simulator where you play as a Yakuza member trying to rebuild a mascot agency. The previous owner ( a fairy thumb mascot named Pinky) botched the business so badly that it had to be taken over by an (alleged) dead man. You drive around town picking up mascots and becoming their ambassadors, sending them to jobs around town. Lucky for you the jobs are live streamed so If something is going wrong you can see the issue and send help right away. The help system is a card game. Hero cards can be collected and used to help your mascot “defeat the problem” like a mini boss. The cards can be found or purchased, you can even recruit people around town to become a hero so you can use their card.
When you are not managing mascots you are driving around looking for clients and or more mascots in your truck. While driving around you can collect CDs, (so you can listen to more music in your truck) updates for your HQ, and even different nail designs for pinky the fairy finger. Your truck can handle everything it can jump and smash into anything without being inquired.
In the demo drops us straight in and there is a mystery to be solved. The town has a Yakuza killing curse, a corrupt mayor and everyone peeled out. You’re trying to bring the town back while solving the mystery of wtf is going on here. If there is one thing I love its mascot and Promise Mascot Agency promises to be a wacky ride that I’m sure I will enjoy when it launches.
Squirreled Away
Squirreled Away is a survival crafting game where you play as a squirrel just going about your life in a park. You scurry around building axes, and pickaxes out of rocks and resin, you know squirrel stuff. You build amazing, almost luxurious treehouses and help out your fellow squirrels and neighbors with their problems
You collect items such as golden acorns and take them to the squirrel shrine to get upgrades. You can also get upgrades filling cashes found in trees. The gameplay is fun and snappy. I loved zipping around as a squirrel. The design of the squirrels are so cute they have a little bellies and you can change their colors. I’m extremely excited for the full release. I hope it comes with co-op so I pal around the park with friends.
Cyrano
Cyrano is a turn-based RPG based on the classic play Cyrano de Bergerac. Just like the play, you (as Cyano) must write letters on behalf of a man to his wife. After combat you collect cards and then use the cards to assist in your letter writing. You actually type out the letter and add the prompt cards for help. It’s such a beautiful story I’m excited to play it in video game format when it releases
Twisted Tower
Twisted Tower is a Bioshock style first person shooter taking place in a carnival themed murder tower. You play as Tiny trying to get to the top of Twisted Tower to win his girlfriend back. You run around solving puzzles and shooting mascot characters. While the shooting is fun I am bummed that there is no aiming. The right click is a second special shot you can buy from the store. The shop is also run by a spooky Pinocchio themed mascot so not a circus of values more Pinocchio puns. Other than the shopkeeper there is one other non hostile character in the towers and it’s a cleaning lady who you bump into complaining about the mess you made, which I find quite charming.
The grabble mechanic to solve puzzles was interesting, It will definitely lead to a lot of exploring. There are doors throughout the levels marked with an X that you can only access after your first playthrough giving you reason to play this game more than once, which is cool. I got jump scared quite a few times and I look forward to getting jump scared many more then this game fully releases.
Arctic Awakening
Arctic Awakening is a first person walking sim where you play as a man and his robot trapped in the Arctic after a plane crash. In the demo you try to find your way to your friend who broke his leg when he jumped out of the plane. On your way you see strange robots flying around and come across some strange solar array. It feels a lot like Fire Watch, even the main protagonist is unlikeable! You have dialogue options sometimes and at the start of the demo it states that these will have an impact. Will have to see when it fully releases sometime this year. On its steam page it states that it will be released episodically.
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