This will be the last The Daily Demo post as I am creating a podcast, the engine of the newsletter, and will tailor The Daily Demo to fit that. It might not be daily anymore, and will likely focus on games I find worth looking at or exceptionally bad. We’ll see where I land. Thank you for reading!

The thought behind the success of many Roblox games, or other games in that vein, is that they’re stripped down versions of something more popular, or on the precipice of popularity, that’s completely focused on how it feels to play—and it’s free. It’s why a game like Shell Shockers can be popular even though Call of Duty exists. Why play Call of Duty as a customizable egg when you can play the real thing? Because it’s free, your friends are playing it, and it feels just as fast-paced and twitchy, even though it’s graphically, audibly, and functionally inferior. This is the idea behind Cold Sweat, a fully PvE extraction shooter. If Marathon won’t do the thing people are asking for, and if Arc Raiders won’t fully commit, someone else will, and will do it for cheap or for free.

I’m not an extraction shooter aficionado, and most times I don’t play them precisely for the same reason most people want a PvE extraction shooter, though if I played them long enough, I’d be fine with PvP. But that’s the trouble. I don’t have time to sink into it. Even with resets, something Cold Sweat proudly advertises that it doesn’t include, the principles behind successfully extracting are embedded in players who play regularly. With PvE, I don’t have to worry about that. I can play at my own pace, and should the time come when I can play much longer, then I could enjoy PvP.

I don’t think Cold Sweat intends to solve that problem, but it’s solving it whether it wants to or not. Functionally, it feels good. Guns have a reasonable spray, there’s loot everywhere with various knick-knacks to debate if you should weigh yourself down with, there are simple challenges to increase the risk-reward nature of the extraction shooter, and the bots seem to be reasonably tuned and respond to gunfire.

What’s interesting is that the bots are zombies and fake players. I like the approach with zombies. They can emerge from the ground at any moment. A fear in extraction shooters is what happens once I set off an extraction. Enemies could find you, or they’ll leave you alone. Imagine a horde of zombies emerging from the ground nearby just as you extract. It could be delightfully terrifying. The fake players add a twist I didn’t expect. I died to one, but I was a cone to shoot at, wanting to see how accurate the bot was. They were very accurate, but they didn’t shoot in long bursts. But imagine fighting one of these bots, who will likely shoot on sight every time, and then attracting hordes of zombies. It’s like Left 4 Dead, but an extraction shooter edition.

Unfortunately, the game doesn’t have those stakes yet. Extracting takes a measly four seconds, and there are no sounds to signal you’re extracting. The potential to die while scavenging is much greater, which is backward. All of it should be scary, but extracting should feel the most terrifying. I hope the developers can make that feel better and determine what a reasonable ratio is for players to find you.

The developers have included difficulty levels, specifically even a Casual difficulty that allows you to keep anything you’ve scavenged even when you die. Exploitable? Sure. But it’s PvE. No one should care about that. There’s no co-op, though that would be nice, so there’s no danger of making the game worse for anyone else.

Try Cold Sweat.

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Code Rapid reminds me that everything you put in a game must serve the vision. It’s clear the developers want a game that moves fast, and it does, but other elements are clunky. It’s no good if you have brilliant, fast movement, but your lock-on keeps changing targets, or the default controls don’t feel natural to what other games would normally do.

Shooting feels slow and unimpactful. Sword attacks don’t have any interesting combos. The speed is reserved only for movement. If you’re doing anything else, it’s plodding.

The first boss of the demo has an arena-wide attack that rotates around the room, but that also moves slowly, which makes the general combat feel like the enemies aren’t in a hurry to kill you. Enemies are always in front of you, particularly when using the lock-on, but even when there are multiple enemies around you, I didn’t feel the urgency to move around.

The Steam description includes a GIF showing the movement. The hero mech dashes about, going up and down, side to side, and over. It looks exciting. But then you see what the enemy mech is doing, they’ve maybe taken two shots and a sword lunge. Is all the movement for show?

Some people like watching college basketball more than the NBA because it’s more exciting, they say. People move, they set screens, they run to the basket. There’s more movement. But the NBA is much more precise. Players know what they’re supposed to be doing. They don’t move unless they have to. Code Rapid feels like college basketball. The movement is fast, sure, but you don’t need it with the level of freedom given because the game doesn’t demand that. It feels good, but it’s empty.

Couple that problem with the other issues, and it’s hard to recommend the game. But with a few concentrated polishes, this could be the fast-moving and thrilling game it wants to be.

Try Code Rapid.

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A Fighter’s Nova: Mindara is built off of one of the most underappreciated concepts from Street Fighter 6. The elder fighting game created an entire JRPG out of its campaign mode with a simple but innovative concept: choosing which people you fight, creating a great risk-reward system. I felt it’s how Street Fighter campaigns should go moving forward. Mindara takes that concept and makes a JRPG tag fighter while sticking to more traditional JRPG elements. Like Ithaca, Mindara is very early in production. But unlike Ithaca, this game focuses squarely on its concept and presents with a level of polish that’s appropriate for a first impression.

You play as Maya. We don’t know much about her backstory, but she’s traveling in this unnamed world with the intent to help people and, what seems like, change her tribe’s xenophobic perspectives. Based on the number of JRPG’s that explore this concept, I’d already assume those perspectives come from the tribes’ leaders, or they’re influenced by a much bigger threat targeting the world. I could be way off, but even if I’m not, it’s a story I’m willing to play through if the gameplay continues to improve what’s working in this demo.

Like any other JRPG, you’ll run around an overworld encountering enemies along the way. But fights are transformed into full 2D fighting matches with specials, supers, tag mechanics, combos, and everything else you’d expect from a 2D fighter. The fights feel good even in this early state—a little clunky, but good. The sound effects enhance the punches, the combos feel natural, and it feels like there’s a lot of variety. I spammed the combo I found worked very well, but if I wanted to mix it up, it seems I could.

Basic enemy encounters might be too long in the current state, though. I felt like some of the fights felt too much like an actual arcade match. This is still an RPG. Early fights shouldn’t take very long, even at similar levels. It would have been very tiring if all of the campaign fights in Street Fighter 6 felt like a regular arcade match.

After rounds, you’re scored on your offense, defense, technique, and co-op. I consistently scored low on technique, which I imagine is shorthand for variety. My concern about all games that score in this way is that you’re punished for playing the fight in front of you or for using an optimal combo. A hypothetical: sometimes an enemy might be tuned to punish tags, so it’s advantageous to stick with one player, but your score is reduced because you didn’t tag enough. That’s not right. It’s never been. I hope this game figures out how to do it well.

Some expected issues occurred in the pre-alpha. In training mode, the camera leaps off-center when performing a power hit; I feel like the hitboxes are way too big; and while most of my combos felt viable, there were some strings I felt shouldn’t work, particularly after the enemy hits the ground off of a basic combo, not a knockdown or a bounce.

What stood out was the music. No wonder. Hiroki Kikuta, composer of Secret of Mana, is creating the soundtrack for this world. I hope the game lives up to the expectations the soundtrack will bring.

Try A Fighter’s Nova: Mindara.

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I don’t know what Slayblade is trying to do. Your dad disappeared five years ago after creating a Slayblade with infinite spin that would have solved the energy crisis. If you win the Slayblade World Championships, you’ll find out what happened to your father.

We’ve seen games or shows with competitions that reveal world-shattering truths. That’s not the problem here. The problem is that the rest of the game has nothing to do with the story. The description says “No big story mode, just a brief intro+Outro cutscene.” Then why add the premise? Just let it rip.

You start the game and are immediately thrown into a city that’s filled with different things to interact with. No one talks, nothing suggests there’s a conspiracy, I don’t know who I am. It feels like an NES game made in the era of strategy guides—where do I go, what do I do?

Navigating the world requires using the shoulder buttons or the triggers to spin it and see what else it offers. For some reason, the character can’t keep up with the cursor, so I lose track of my overworld character constantly. People loiter on the streets waiting for you to challenge them, but what they offer doesn’t make sense. The lower level fights offer lower experience—makes sense—but more money. The higher level fights offer more experience—correct—but less money. What? I’m punished financially because I fought a higher level character? What sense does that make? There’s no risk in fighting a lower-level character. Why should I be rewarded with more money?

Money is how you make your Slayblade build. There are three parts that influence stats like spin and weight, and do other things like giving power-ups. You get stronger by leveling up, but you win with your Slayblade. So I can just farm lower level characters and earn a ton of money and perfect my Slayblade build before I’ve reached the higher levels. But apparently that might be necessary because the tournament continues to increase levels, either as you grow stronger or as the days go by. I couldn’t match the level. It’s senseless design.

Slayblade fights are just as senseless. Think of Beyblades, but more confusing. You win by making your opponent stop spinning—or take out their health. I’ve won by taking out an opponent’s health, but I couldn’t tell. No one has a health bar. I can’t tell how aggressive or passive I should be. Who hits whom seems arbitrary. We both run into each other, but who takes damage is anyone’s guess. My theory is that the faster spinner gives the damage. But there have been times when I think I’m the faster spinner, but I take damage. I can see how fast I’m spinning at the bottom of the screen, but I can’t see the opponent’s RPM. It eliminates any strategy.

Slayblade is a game that should be more appealing and interesting, but based on this first impression, the developers aren’t up to the task. Their focus is clearly the arena fights and custom creation. Stick with that. It’ll be a better game.

Try Slayblade.

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Ithaca is in a very early conceptual stage, one that might lend itself too early for any real criticism. If you’ve watched Double Fine Adventure, you might have a clue as to how early Ithaca’s in development—there are still scratch voices and most of the game isn’t functioning. Still, it’s out for public viewing with the intention of gaining support and funding.

Ithaca follows an environmental lawyer fighting destructive corporations hell-bent on keeping their profits. We learn and shape the character with our decisions, and learn why she’s kidnapped someone who’s trapped in the back of her trunk. Your goal is to keep your friends and family from knowing what you’re up to.

So you drive to Ithaca. We will find out its importance when we get there, but we must get there, and we, as the players, will find out the result of this body in the trunk. While driving, you can put the car in autopilot—we’ve made it that far into the future. Check text messages, call people, listen to the radio, search your car for knick-knacks, or stare into the horizon. After certain plot points, you can use your experience to enhance your characteristics like Empathy, Logic, or Creativity. It seems the point is self-realization as you transport this body.

One of the main selling points is that the story is meant to bring awareness to climate change. I’d find that more believable if the body weren’t in the trunk. But I know climate change isn’t going to be a selling point for most people, so the body in the trunk must be the draw. The way the two subjects will intertwine isn’t demonstrated well. Climate issues like wildfires are shoehorned into the dialogue; our main character is a lawyer fighting against those who abuse the Earth; and news alerts that occasionally pop up seem to exclusively discuss environmental issues. But there are several other interpersonal relationships that will undoubtedly complicate the nature of the story. The challenge will be to weave all of that into a cohesive and interesting story. I’m not seeing the potential there—yet.

Stories take time to develop. I wonder if it would’ve been more advantageous to demonstrate their storytelling chops rather than try to show us the current build. Keep the endless driving, sure, but show us what an Ithaca story looks like at its most interesting moments. There’s hardly any detail anyway; it’d all come off as a teaser.

Try Ithaca.

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Decks of Dexterity commits one of the worst sins of gameplay design: intentionally removing your agency.

In this game, which is a mishmash of genres, your goal is to defeat deadly geometric objects that fling other geometric objects at you, which you are also a geometric object. During the active phase, you’re in a bullet hell where you can’t do anything but dodge the bullets. If you collect a large green block, you’re allowed to enter the card phase. You use your deck to heal, damage, or perform some other utility that can help you avoid bullets. Bullet hell/card game wasn’t on my bingo card, but now it exists, and it’s functionally interesting.

Small green squares exist that allow you to teleport around the space to dodge bullets, put yourself in an advantageous position, or drop right on a large green block to enter the card phase. I chained quite a few large green blocks to do massive damage. That’s fun.

Bosses demonstrate how broken the idea is. In a typical bullet hell, there’s always a way out. It’s difficult to find in the shower of bullets, but positioning is important. Even in something like Ikaruga, one of the best and toughest bullet hells on the planet, you can get through some of the gnarliest sprays of weapon fire. In Decks of Dexterity, you’re sometimes stuck no matter what you do.

The biggest reason is that bullets are too close together, and there’s not enough room in the arena to allow time for the bullets to separate to squeeze through. And in most bullet hells, you usually have enough view of the entire field to see where the bullets are coming from. This game fails with that, too. It feels like the developer found that people were too good at dodging bullets, so they made it occasionally impossible to do so. Once you’re hit, you immediately take your card turn, and you’re supposed to use your cards to get out of situations. I’m able to do that, but if there are no large green squares, you can’t take your turn again. So you’ll ping-pong between small green squares, teleporting around the map, eventually landing in an empty area, but there’s nothing else to latch onto, so you return to the bullet hell phase, and all the bullets are too close to dodge, so you take a hit. It’s nice you get your turn, but it’s unfair.

In theory, if I don’t have the card to escape, now the challenge is dodging all the bullets until I can find a large green square to take my turn. That’s fun. That’s tense. Instead, I’m punished for not drawing a card, and I have zero chance to dodge the bullets despite good positioning. Yes, there are cards that allow you to draw more cards, but it’s clear if that’s the case, decks become hyper-dependent on card draw, which works in Balatro, but doesn’t translate the need for damage, utility, and the dependency on finding large green squares on the field.

It’s terrible design.

On one hand, if a game has to go to those lengths to make it interesting and remove any skill, which is what a bullet hell is supposed to encourage, then maybe the concept doesn’t actually work. On the other hand, roguelites are meant to be punishing, but your skill should allow you to perform better than expected. That’s not an option here.

Decks of Dexterity functions as a concept, but its gameplay is completely broken.

Try Decks of Dexterity.

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Furyball: Rogue Revenge features a woman trying to bash her way through Neo Arcadia, a city overrun by violent gangs who are really into sports. Their sport of choice is the titular Furyball. Why do they play it? Who cares? Some games don’t need a premise.

I grew up playing Commodore 64 games. You loaded a game and jumped in. Most arcade games didn’t bother with adding reasons to fight, shoot, or race. It was a game, it has rules, now play. Furyball feels like that.

You step into an arena with your spiked ball and a bat. Enemies fill the space, and your goal is to eliminate them. They’ll try to kill you with your own ball, but with a little auto-activating bullet time and hitting the ball at supersonic speeds, you’re able to create serious issues for your enemies.

Hitting people with the ball gives forceful, satisfying feedback. You hear the squishy flesh and blood sounds augmenting how punchy it feels to slam a ball into an enemy, and the action pauses briefly, making it feel much more powerful. The developers have clearly taken considerable time to make sure it feels good to perform the most common actions.

I’ve mentioned in previous newsletters that games should release their demos in a state that gives a good first impression. Furyball isn’t a perfectly crafted demo. You can aim the ball, but it’s hard to do. When moving to the next stage, items aren’t labeled and don’t tell you what they do. The tutorial explaining the mechanics began, but nothing seemed to happen, or it wasn’t clear how to continue. But at least following the on-screen prompts helps you get started. The game’s main purpose is excellent. That’s a good first impression. The rest will be improved. But if a developer launches a demo and the main gameplay loop is missing core components or doesn’t work, then there’s nothing else to hang on to.

If I didn’t have another demo to write about, I’d go back and play some more right now. It has a strong foundation. I’m hoping the full game doesn’t falter.

Try Furyball: Rogue Revenge.

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The boss in the Wind Runners demo captures how I feel about the entire demo: sometimes a genre has its gameplay figured out, and it’s best to improve the wheel, but not try to reinvent it.

Wind Runners is a 2D action shoot ‘em up with bullet hell and roguelike elements. During the boss fight I mentioned, I’m struggling to manage locking on to specific parts to fire my missiles, and I’m struggling to find an opening when I can fire my main laser guns at it. The biggest problem Wind Runners has is that you can fly in any direction, which creates a slew of problems with flow that would be solved if it were a twin-stick shoot ‘em up, or limited to facing one direction, similarly to Defender.

While I’m flying and dodging enemy fire, I can’t shoot back at the boss because I can only shoot in the direction I’m facing. If the boss is below me, I must fly towards it to shoot it. That’s logical, and there’s nothing wrong with that conceptually, but the boss’s anti-air cannons are constantly targeting me, and the rain of fire is coming from multiple directions, which means I must change my direction in order to survive. That means I’m not shooting at the boss, which means I’m just flying around hoping for an opening.

Games like Metal Slug, Defender, Aegis Wings, and Ikaruga create the sense that you’re doing something to behemoth bullet sponges by allowing you to relentlessly attack them while they relentlessly attack you. You’re not afforded that excitement in Wind Runners. I wouldn’t consider it necessitating patience because there are no logical open windows to attack. You’re just searching—hoping—for an opening to unleash an attack.

The movement compounds problems. You have two special attacks that do significant damage, but you can only use them once you’ve recharged them by shooting things with your primary fire. This works fine during basic levels, but during a boss that’s tough to get any legitimate shots in, it’s annoying.

Maybe there are items you can choose that help make a fight like that easier, but chosen items in roguelikes typically enhance your ability to succeed; they’re not a prerequisite for success. I don’t mean acquiring enough enhancements to be even with the boss; I mean you need specific items for success.

These problems are present throughout the demo, so unless the flight issue is resolved, I don’t imagine this will be a fun game at release.

Try Wind Runners.

I wonder what an indie developer thinks about when they decide to publish a demo for a game with no release date and no plans for early access. If it’s not ready, why show it? To validate a concept? To get playtesting feedback? Eagerness to show the game? As it is, Go North’s demo requires a lot of polish, and additional playtesting isn’t needed to figure it out.

I thought my $250 gamepad suddenly had stick drift, with my character persistently moving forward without any input, and switching to keyboard didn’t help. The music noticeably stops before it restarts its loop. Commands disappear while you’re walking. Animations are floaty. The camera is uncomfortably close to the character’s back. There’s a hoverboard that emits a low-end hum that’s louder than most everything else. There are easy-to-spot grammatical errors. These are little details, but a demo is a first impression, no matter the intent behind showing it to the public. All of this can be improved, but no one had to see the game in this state.

In Go North, you are an explorer who wants to travel through increasingly difficult mazes to reach The Maze God (bleh). If you reach them, you’re granted one wish. The motivations are clear when Dara, the main character you control, tells her caretaker that she can’t let her die. It’s a sensible motivation, but it’s so bluntly stated that it almost takes all the stakes out of it. Its simplicity is no better than there’s a damsel in distress, so you must save her.

According to the description, something more sinister might be going on. I’d never know. Everyone is cheerful, everything is peaceful. Perhaps the terror strikes later in the game, and that’s when we see the stakes. It might even happen in the demo, but I couldn’t bear to find out.

Your goal is to navigate mazes to reach The Maze God. Why they’re there, we don’t know. Why is there a guy who jumps out of bushes and trees to give you new things? I don’t know. People simply exist, which is not abnormal for a game, but Go North wants me to build relationships, but all it does is give me shallow details about the citizens’ state of being, without contextualizing the world we exist in.

And it’s frustrating because it’s an interesting idea and world. I want to know more about it. Why does The Maze God give a wish? Why does it make you work for it? What happens if you don’t make it? All of these questions may matter, or none may matter, but there’s more plot needed at the beginning so that something matters.

While navigating the mazes, different obstacles block your path. You need to find the item that will help clear the way. It’s like a Metroidvania distilled down to its literal form. But it’s a game with a lot of unnecessary elements and is scared of its audience. As a cozy game, you can walk and run, but neither are too fast. But there’s an insanely fast hoverboard that turns the game into something more twitchy. There are plenty of clues on how to get through a maze, the most obvious being that the exit is always North. There are checkpoint statues that let you point them in a direction to remember where you are or where you want to go. You can also find maps that reveal the maze’s path. These tools help solve mazes faster, but they remove the adventure of getting lost while exploring.

Try Go North.

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No, this isn’t spam. I always start my titles with the game’s name, and “Thank You For Your Application” can absolutely come off as a trick for us newsletter writers. But it is I. This game, though, is actually called Thank You For Your Application. It truly reflects the worst of corporate life.

You are a robot living amongst other robots. Some robots are foreigners trying to earn legal status by getting a job, and to keep their citizenship by keeping the job. Many factors are created to make it hard to do. If you don’t pay your rent, you could be ‘exiled’—that’s how the game puts it. There’s a Minister of Mood who determines how mental health is handled; if your mental stability falls behind a certain threshold (monitored every day as you leave and enter your house), you might have to miss work, which would mean losing your job, which would mean getting deported. The premise accurately speaks to what’s happening in real life, while not saying anything about it during the game. It’s certainly doing more showing than telling.

Your job is to sort through resumes. You are stage one 1 of 15 for prospective applicants. Each day, you’re given parameters that determine whether you move the candidate on to the next round or file them in the rejection pile.

What’s remarkable about Thank You For Your Application is how much it mirrors what I feel during and after work at some of my previous jobs. You clock in, do the work, get home, pay bills, read social media, check email, go to sleep, and do it all over again. It’s impressively monotonous. Even the color palette reminds me of boring, brown 90s offices. It’s so good at replicating the feel that it almost hurts the game. There are tensions when wondering if you’ll make enough money to pay rent, and sometimes you’ll read emails that include scams or family asking for money, but the inescapable doldrums are almost too on the nose. Considering this game is made by recent graduates, perhaps the reality they’ve recreated hasn’t quite hit them the same way it has me, an almost 40-year-old. Life is still exciting, so they can make something that feels like what they expect work to feel like. Well, they’re right, and I might not want to play more of it because it’s too good. So yes, well done, but make it a little more fun, but don’t change a thing. Fine criticism, indeed.

It’s still a challenging game of paying attention to an ever-growing number of details while moving fast. The more candidates you can accurately get through, the more money you earn. Make too many errors and you could lose your job. I don’t know if the game ends if that happens, but I suppose it works more like a roguelike if that’s the case. It’s hard to say with this demo.

I don’t know if it was a glitch, but there were times I couldn’t do what the game wanted me to do. For example, you have to provide a thank you letter with a reason for the rejection. You choose pre-made reasons that match why they’re being rejected. One reason is a graduation certificate. Some applicants didn’t have one, and I couldn’t figure out how to write a thank you letter for that reason.

Maybe it’s supposed to do that so you can’t have a perfect day. Maybe it’s because the instructions are as annoyingly written—business speak—so it’s intentionally hard to read. I don’t know. It doesn’t break the game, but the ambiguity of whether it’s my fault or the game certainly annoys me.

Try Thank You For Your Application.

Politics is a game, and it takes a certain temperament to endure all its trials. Campaigning is one part of it, and it’s a brutal test of winning hearts and minds and navigating an opponent’s subversions, possibly slinging your own. Anomaly President encapsulates all the trials and tribulations in a short demo in an absolutely bonkers way.

Your dad has been captured after being framed by the incumbent for committing atrocious crimes that would otherwise get other people arrested. You set out to clear your dad’s name on his behalf, gather votes, and eliminate your political opponent—literally.

Clearing your dad’s name is a matter of physically removing those who support the incumbent. What’s bonkers is that you’re slicing away at zombies, riot soldiers, lizard creatures, and other deformed abominations. The lack of details about the premise leaves me wanting more. Why are there lizard creatures? Why am I fighting zombies? What is going on here? Thankfully, even in the demo, some of the questions are answered, which indicates that the game’s Dead Cells-like drip-feed of plot points could be spaced out well enough that I keep playing. And I do. Even after I finished the demo, I have the urge to play more and figure out what the heck is going on.

Fighting these strange hordes doesn’t feel as smooth as I’d like, but it’s serviceable. You have a sword (another thing I want to know about), your fists, and some items in the environment. You can parry attacks, kick objects in the environments—both of which give you a quick finisher—and use your special, called an Anomaly. The mechanics themselves function well. In the middle of hordes, you have to balance which attacks you use, creating space, and utilizing your abilities. It’s just pressing the buttons feels clunky. I don’t feel the timing of the animations, so I just button-mash. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there are moments when I want to be precise. I’m a drummer. I play by feel. I’ve been that way since Double Dragon on the NES. But the animations don’t telegraph my timings. So I mash, and it works, and it’ll work for most people. I just wish it felt better.

This is a roguelite, so of course we’ll get upgrades at different phases. How it feels comes up again. I don’t feel the upgrades in combat. Sometimes I’ll get the choice to upgrade my punch damage by 1. Not only does that sound pitiful, but when I use it, I don’t feel the difference. Of course, I’ll feel the difference over time, but I think that’s the biggest challenge roguelites have is making each upgrade feel like an improvement without it being too powerful. I don’t think Anomaly President has that based on the demo.

As the president’s son, some people support your dad’s cause, and one of his biggest causes is defending a group called Fluffies, who look like Pokémon. They’re oppressed. We don’t know how, but you have their support. The more Fluffies you gather to your cause, the more they help fight and support the campaign. They’ll act as Marvel vs. Capcom-style assists during fights and serve different functions in campaigning, like cooking or forging new weapons. For them to be helpful, though, you must keep them happy. So you build out your flying campaign bus with different rooms, and then Anomaly President turns into a sort of Tamagotchi simulator. If you don’t keep the Fluffies happy, they’ll leave your cause. It doesn’t go that deep in the demo, but I like how the developers used the premise to introduce a novel roguelite idea. That’s the beauty of an interesting premise—creativity flows.

Try Anomaly President.

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Comedy is a matter of taste, and it changes from generation to generation and comedian to comedian. Some people like raunchy comedians who make frat boy-level jokes about taboo topics. The worst comedians just use words to get a laugh. It’s like the comedian who inserts fuck into everything because lots of things sound funnier with it, but it’s cheap. It must be used tactfully. Mexican Ninja is like the comedian who overuses fuck. The mere insertion of sex, drugs, and mention of the illicit underground life seems like it’s enough to make this developer as they write out the empty sentences. It could actually be funny, but humor is commentary, and Mexican Ninja isn’t saying anything. It comes off as amateurish, provocative slapstick humor that only hits a fraction of the time.

The Mexican Ninja we control seems like a hardened vet, one who used to be on the streets. His sombrero and long mustache give our hero a wise look, and the way he carries his sword is one who looks like he’s been forged in a dojo. The developers nailed his look. It’s simple, but strong. It’s unfortunate that his in-game look makes him appear older, and his fighting stance looks a little crazed.

He fights off enemies in the streets referred to as Narkuzas, a clever (and one of the funny elements) combination of Narcos and Yakuza. Because somehow the Mexican gang and the Japanese gang formed an alliance and became the rulers of the Mexican streets. So we are exposed to a ridiculous exaggeration of the streets. Lots of drug references, sex workers, and fights in strip clubs. Dare I say, it hits hard and fast for a 30-minute demo. It’s so in your face that it feels forced, as if embracing some restraint would make it feel serious. Nothing is dealt in doses. It drenches the game and becomes distasteful by the end of the demo. I can only imagine what the rest of the game feels like.

It’s possible the developers went overboard in the beginning, and it finds a better balance in later levels, but the action will be an adequate distraction if it’s too much. Fighting feels like a classic arcade beat ‘em up, complete with a “Go” icon when you’ve finished all the enemies. Enemies shoot pellets from the big bellies, throw bombs, and try to kamikaze, flaming bikes roll by, bombs drop from the sky; everything is what you’d expect, just with a Narkuza flavor.

Combat is fast, but it’s not fluid. I’ll hit enemies in the air, but it’s hard to continue my combo after jumping. I can somehow hit them while on the ground, and my sword isn’t touching them. While dodging belly pellets, I got stuck on geometry I couldn’t see. I’ve been hit in ways I can’t tell because the effects cover crucial details and action. The animations feel like they could be smoother and given more care. The slightest strike erupts blood out the body like a giant water balloon exploded with blood in it that doesn’t seem to quite match with what’s happening with the body.

A nice homage to Mexican and Japanese culture is that your special moves are fashioned after Japanese and Mexican spirits. The idea adds a peaceful element amidst the chaos, even if it is used to unleash pain. I found it to be a good reminder of what’s beneath the blooshed and sex: two cultures that share core values, and it’s a blend I think would actually work in the real world if given the chance.

Try Mexican Ninja.

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I didn’t play Moss on VR, but had I not known it was ever on VR platforms, I would’ve been able to tell. You are the reader, controlling the cute rodent hero, and sometimes she breaks the fourth wall and looks at you. Because that’s what happens in virtual reality experiences. For some reason, putting on a headset suddenly meant you existed in the world, and the entities within it needed to interact with you. You couldn’t just be a fly on the wall who enjoyed the immersion; you had to participate. That was useful for non-interactive experiences. That carries over into the non-VR version of Moss, and it’s outdated.

Sections of a level are broken into very small chunks. You enter a room, solve a quick puzzle, and you’re off to the next one. I imagine these were broken into small chunks so the VR hardware performed well. Maybe not, but it’s strange to go into a room, fight an enemy, and move on to another room. It’s even stranger when there are no puzzles or enemies—nothing. That happened two times. I’m not sure why the developers did that.

Moss is a story told through a storyteller who sounds like they’re reading to a child. They change their voice for each character. It’s a charming and affordable way of allowing us into the tale. I only wish the storyteller didn’t speak while I concentrate on platforming.

Puzzles are thoughtful and resemble a mix of specific room puzzles and larger Zelda/Metroid-type puzzles where you must have an item to move forward. You control a blue sphere that can pull things around or turn into objects you need. Again, it’s another VR holdover. It’s easy to wand the orb around with motion controls, but since I’m using a gamepad, the right trigger does that work now. The puzzles become more clever over time in the demo, so I imagine they will get pretty involved in the later parts of the game, but you do have to contend with deciphering the environment.

Try Moss: The Forgotten Relic

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Cygames released a demo for Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok, which is, unfortunately, just the original demo for the base game featuring the upgrades for the new expansion. Endless Ragnarok gives more for players to do who have exhausted all the content, and it’s a bonus for those who have never played it. I won’t go into the details of what this is because it’s an expansion, but if you like anime and action RPGs, Relink has been a great staple in my gaming library.

For returning players, like myself, crossplay is great. We wished it were available when they first announced it. But the summoning system isn’t as appealing

Summons are available in certain content, presumably because they’re too powerful for early game content, for logistical development reasons, or the developers don’t want the appearance of pay-to-win content. No matter the reason, it feels underwhelming. There are dozens of missions, and this cool feature is limited to specific fights. That’s not grand.

It’s also very costly. Based on the demo, we summoned the most expensive summon one time. We could have summoned lower-cost enemies more often, but most of the ones in the demo aren’t as cool. The appeal of summons isn’t just applying damage, buffs, or debuffs; it’s how it looks, too. Seeing Proto Bahamut shoot his beam down on your opponent looks awesome. Watching Furycane whip her tornadoes around the battlefield in your favor is motivating. Seeing that, maybe one time per match, isn’t enough.

It’s possible in the full game we can use more powerful summons more often because our power levels aren’t restricted like in the demo, but if not, that’s going to be underwhelming.

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Black and white photos are like a photographer’s purity test. If it looks good in black and white, it’s going to look good in color. Toem 2 lacks the shades of gray that make black and white photography beautiful, but it keeps the art design simple and inviting. I’m glad they didn’t change it. In today’s era, where graphics are usually the first thing people notice in sequels, Toem 2’s familiar return allows us to jump into the game and enjoy everything else that’s new.

We embark on another adventure of solving problems and creating an organic life collection through photography. A robot comedian, who cracks jokes that are worse than dad jokes, forgets his punchline and needs you to take a picture to jog his memory. A citizen is obsessed with raunchy smells, so he wants you to take pictures of things that smell bad so he can smell them. Toem 2 leans into the absurdity of what it is—a photography game. I love taking pictures of landscapes, animals, and people. But that’s hardly entertaining. Getting commissioned to go around the city and take pictures of bags of trash? Now that’s an adventure. Anything people need you to do isn’t something they can’t do; it’s just goofy to have you do it.

Your camera also acts as a magical screwdriver. There’s a plumber who gives you a screwdriver that only works with the camera. The camera becomes the gateway to life. In a way, I find that’s what photography truly is. After taking boatloads of pictures in Alaska, I could appreciate the beautiful blue water and the lush green forests, but capturing them with the camera helped stamp the details in my brain. Toem 2 isn’t that deep, but the basic idea is there. As a way to support that idea, you help the plumber unclog pipes around the city. They’re not puzzles—I don’t know what to call them. They’re not difficult. They’re more like process-of-elimination tasks. The actions themselves don’t carry enough substance to justify their existence, but they do give an excuse to interact with the silly plumber—I love hearing the phone voice.

That’s another thing photographers notice: people are funny. And Toem 2’s people are just as interesting. One lady wants you to help her put up a sign for her business, but she has nowhere to put it, so she just wants you to figure out where to slap it on the building, but the building has a lot of windows; views be damned. While moving the scissor lift, she wobbles erratically. She wants you to take a picture and show her where it should go, and I should have done something way sillier.

You can jump now, which makes this game more vertical. Now you have to watch how far you fall because you might drop coffee. One odd use of the jump is needing to jump up ladders. Pressing Up is not an option. And it’s not obvious how to get down without employing some platforming acrobatics. I like that Toem 2 goes higher now, but I’m not sold on the jumping implementation.

In an era where sequels rule the day, Toem 2 is one I’m glad exists. I was happy with the first, but I’ll be happy to snap more photos.

And I almost forgot to mention the Dance Bug. I hope you find the Dance Bug.

Try Toem 2.

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Steam Next Fest is live! If there’s a demo you’d like me to check out to exchange thoughts or because you don’t have time to play it, let me know!

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Just Shoot asks two questions: What separates one Survivor-type from another? And why should I buy this one over the best Survivor-types out there now? Just Shoot isn’t as difficult, it’s not as balanced, and it doesn’t sound as good. And yet, I had fun because numbers go up. But it was empty calories. I wasn’t fulfilled or satisfied.

You play as characters that look like animated versions of Happy Days characters. They carry guns. So original. The only characterization they get is through their stats. Even Vampire Survivors recorded voice lines to add some character. The cover image artwork looks great. I wish that translated to the game. During gameplay, all the artistic charm is lost because the guns cover their face. They’re mostly distinguished by their hair or skin color. It’s a thoughtful way to make each character identifiable beyond clothes. But the guns are that big because you could pick up a piggy bank. Gotta see that, right? What the developers have forgotten is that we’re not focused on what we’re using to shoot, we’re focused on what we’re shooting. The fun is seeing the weapon on the ground in its full silhouette and artwork, then picking it and realizing what it’s firing. Let the character shine during combat. Let the ammunition do the talking for the gun.

Of course, you’re walking around a map, shooting enemies, and trying to survive for the allotted 15 minutes. The selling point, if we want to call it that, is that you manually shoot. You hold the trigger, you aim the shots. When Vampire Survivors first launched, I wondered what the appeal was for a game where you just walk around and let the game shoot. I quickly understood that focusing on positioning is very liberating. And the real challenge is that you don’t get to choose what you’re aiming at. It’s important to choose upgrades wisely. Just Shoot answers the question: What if you did everything yourself? The answer is that it’s pointless to hold the right trigger.

But aiming provides a different feel. In auto-aiming Survivor-types, your positioning is based on what the game is shooting at. Just Shoot lets you create your own paths based on where you’re aiming. It changes how you play, but it doesn’t change the overall strategy. Enemies still swarm, and the best way to avoid that is to run to where there is the most open space—whether you create it or the game creates it, the pressure you feel is the same. So, ultimately, aiming is pointless. The auto-aim formula proves you can’t beat maximum efficiency.

It’s strange how fast you level up. I felt like I was choosing upgrades more than shooting at times. The constant pauses breaks the flow. I didn’t realize how important it was to space out leveling because every other Survivors-type I’ve played does it properly. Again, numbers go up, so it’s exciting to pick something and become stronger, but it makes the game too easy.

This is also another indie developer that doesn’t understand the benefit of sound. You can be sure they gave the guns sound effects. You also get a sound when you pick up a heart, but in my first run, while I was bobbing and weaving through enemies, I didn’t notice I was getting hit. I didn’t think I was. If I don’t catch the invisibility blinks because I’m focused on positioning, I have nothing to tell me I’m taking damage. Enemies don’t make any sounds when they die, either. It’s okay for a Survivor-type to have dying sounds. Picking the right one is difficult because you don’t want to annoy the player, but something might be better than nothing. It’s joyless to kill something, and I don’t get to hear their pain.

Try Just Shoot.

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Trine 6: Together in Time is already confounding people. Some don’t like the way it looks, suggesting Trine 2 looks better. What they remember is mostly glowing things. Lighting wasn’t as sophisticated as it is now, so to make it more magical looking, almost everything that lights up glows. It’s beautiful, but everything is also darker. Trine 6 is lit with modern lighting. Some things glow, but it’s less like a candle and more like something that properly glows in the dark. It’s still pretty, it’s just different.

The levels shown off in the demo aren’t what people remember of a classic Trine landscape. The first level is a castle, and the second is a swamp. Both are traditionally fantasy settings in many entertainment media, and they serve the design well. It’s immediately Trine with its curvy designs, teetering between realistic and cartoony. They are lit brightly, with little room for stark contrast, and that’s probably what’s confusing people, but they can have these kinds of areas because the shadows are much more sophisticated. Everything doesn’t need to be dark to hide that shadows couldn’t be replicated as well in the past.

Where Trine 6 continues to excel is its puzzle design. You’re given a shield that can bounce balls of light off it, which creates some mentally tricky puzzles. Trine has been the platformer that requires thinking before proceeding. But it doesn’t copy from the likes of modern puzzle-platformers like Celeste. It maintains its identity by manipulating environments and magical objects to reach the other side. The puzzles still feel inorganic—they always have—but they’re satisfying to solve. It’s a combination of object manipulation and platforming timing.

One puzzle I liked involved the ball-and-shield combo. Above were destructible stones, and I had to guide myself with my shield pointed skyward like it was a game of Breakout.

I haven’t played the Trine franchise in a while, so I forgot how bad jumping is. It never feels natural. You burst from the ground, float at the apex, and drop like a rock. Distance is deceptive, too. I died a few times thinking the jump lasts long enough to reach a height, but I’m tricked by how short your float at the apex. Jumps should be consistent from jump. It should be easy to understand. It’s why Super Mario jumps are so easy to understand, and many platformers still use that as a good benchmark. But even in cases like Super Meat Boy or Celeste that make theirs extra floaty or extra weighty, respectively, you can immediately feel what you can and can’t get away with. Trine seems content with this abomination of a jump.

Try Trine 6: Together in Time.

I hate that the Slow Roads demo didn’t work with gamepad, even though gamepad is available. I’ve never used a keyboard to drive, so my driving was erratic and dangerous for the beautiful roads. But I managed to recognize some of its beauty beneath my frustration and cramping hands.

Slow Roads is about getting in and driving. I like that the music was locked in the demo. I could hear all the sounds. One of my favorite car sounds is hearing the rushing wind fill the cabin while going at high speeds. As a child, the roar from the air blowing through our rolled down windows put me to sleep. I had to focus on driving in this game, but I felt that same aural pleasure as I pushed absurd speeds through the twisty hills.

Everything is procedurally generated—no AI. Choose what kind of road you want to drive on (slow or fast), how wide you want the lane, how twisty do you want it, and what kind of surface do you want to drive on. The game takes its seeds and randomly generates something for you.

The hills I drove through were vast and wide. Greens, yellows, and blues flew by. I drove through forests, next to lakes, through valleys, and around high altitude bends. It felt like driving through real locations. Having a real life reference made driving much more relaxing. When it was night time, I remembered actually driving through a tunnel of trees and coming out the other side seeing a cascade of stars fill the sky. It’s beautiful. And it’s beautiful in Slow Roads. In fact, driving through those forests at night could be scary in real life, but the developer did a good job of recognizing that and making it feel magical by adding white-petaled flowers that almost sparkled as my headlights lit them up.

You’re able to change the weather and time of day as you please. Tired of the bright sun? You can drive in overcast weather. Or dusk. Or dawn. All these subtle options are exactly what makes driving fun, when you’re not doing it because you have to. Even the sound of the car is relaxing. It’s not a gas-guzzling, loud supercar. It’s an electric vehicle. Its soft and happy hum as it reaches greater speeds feels warm and inviting.

I only wish that driving fast wasn’t so easy. I had to keep managing my speed which took me out of the joy of seeing everything. My natural inclination while playing was to stay around 45-55 MPH. It’s a good speed to be able to catch my surroundings. There is an autodrive feature, and I probably should have used it to give my hands a break, but I wanted to steer the wheel.

What’s interesting is that it doesn’t feel like the tires are touching the road. The car doesn’t feel weightless, but I don’t feel like my tires are gripping the road. But I like that in Slow Roads. It goes with the casual, relaxed feel. It’s a game that’s supposed to simulate the emotional feel of driving, not the physics. And so there are a few concessions made in the physics, which is likely why the car feels less weightier than what you’d find in a Forza or Gran Turismo.

I was just watching some of my footage—no sound—and it’s pleasurable to watch without steering. I’m just watching the road snake in and out (despite my erratic driving). No matter how you play this, it’s all so relaxing and pleasant. And this is just the demo. The full game must feel amazing.

Try Slow Roads.

No shade to the developer, but I downloaded Poly Fighter, a roguelike fighting game, thinking it was another roguelike fighting game I saw during Summer Game Fest. Three roguelike fighting games have suddenly sprung into my radar in less than a week: one built within 2XKO, and now Poly Fighter, and the other I need to find ASAP. But I’m glad I found this one.

I can lose myself in a well-constructed fighting game. It doesn’t matter the sub-genre. Good mechanics, awesome sounds, cool characters and moves, bring me in. I can appreciate everything else later. Poly Fighter is getting most of that correct.

It mimics an arcade environment with its simplicity. Load the game, press start, choose your character, and get going. I’m glad it doesn’t waste my time. It’s a fighting game. No more needs to be said.

You’ll fight many different characters up a branching tree. For each person you win against, you can select one of their moves to add to your selection. This is where the game is a lot of trial and error and could use a streamlined method of helping players understand what connects with what. Roguelikes benefit from discovery, but what can happen in this game is that certain attacks you choose may not work with your set of moves, so you’re constantly swapping or ignoring attacks. Roguelikes are built on increasing strength through buffs, but if you don’t get a good attack, you’re not getting any buffs. The best way to play this game is to put together a collection of moves that creates ridiculous combo opportunities. As expected, that’s not going to be possible based on what characters are in your path, but I think it would be far more fun if you could combo anything.

Poly Fighters is a game that requires some basic skill to get the most out of it, particularly if you’re using command-based inputs (you can choose simple inputs, too). If you’re not pressing buttons at the right times, you’re not going to connect your combos. If you press the wrong buttons, you’re not going to connect your combos. If this game is made for the average, or even less than average, fighting game player, why not have a giant pool where every move can combo into each other in some way? Our job is to figure out how to connect them in interesting ways. Instead of leaning into something more serious, take advantage of the fact that this is a single-player game and go a little bananas.

D-pad inputs need tweaking. I’m using a Victrix Pro BFG and the D-pad is too sensitive for Street Fighter 6. I jump when I don’t want to. In Poly Fighters, I can’t jump when I want to. Too many times I’ve tried to jump out of a corner and it only registers an Up input unless I’m right next to the Left or Right input. I can’t imagine what it must feel like for command input users, and I’ve dropped combos using simple inputs.

There’s an opportunity to teach mechanics in Poly Fighters being that it’s a single-player game. If this game is aimed at people who enjoy playing fighting games, but are below average, it would be helpful to give us the combo timings. Because I’ve played fighting games, I figured out that most combos continue on hit. There’s not much of a buffer before a strike. That’s fine, but imagine the button masher figuring that out. Nothing wrong with being the button masher, but let the button masher know why their combos aren’t consistently connecting by telling them how to connect combos. There’s no gain in hiding things like that in any fighting game at this point, let alone a completely single-player game.

The training area has a huge opportunity for playing around and pushing mechanical development. As it functions, there’s a standing dummy to punch, which is mostly useless when it comes to understanding what is a true combo or not. Yes, there is a combo counter that stops counting when a combo is dropped or if a combo isn’t possible, but it also drops after a wallbounce, which should technically continue a combo because the opponent is in hitstun. There also could be an option to access all the moves in the game to construct your perfect fighter and practice.

Fights are generally fair, but the AI sometimes predicts what you do based on what you press. Some of my attacks are perfectly blocked as soon as I press the button. Another fight was a mirror against myself and the mirror had no delay in specials, which is an utterly foolish idea to implement. Those matches are an instant avoid if you can help it. If you can’t, then winning is based on luck rather than skill. That’s not the type of unfair that’s good for a fighting game. Make AI overpowered, make them take crazy damage with a jab, create ridiculous endurance rounds, anything that makes matches feel insurmountable. Prediction AI and bots that have special input advantages are a no-no.

It’s the biggest concern I have if I were to make it to a higher round. For a single-player game, how else do you make it more difficult except by adding in the ability for the AI to know what you’re pressing and counter it? On the flip-side, some fights I was able to cheese the AI. During a boss fight, I repeatedly threw my opponent until they lost.

Some of the best fighting games included great background activity, too. Take this guy to your next party.

Try Poly Fighters.

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Rogue Eclipse is a galactic aircraft shooter that’s unreasonably frenetic. It wants you to feel like you’re in a dogfight like a Star Wars movie, but what the developer doesn’t understand is what’s shown on the silver screen is exciting because we’re not the ones in that environment. Recreating that experience in a game isn’t fun. There’s a delicate balance between recreating feel and Rogue Eclipse shatters it.

You’re immediately thrust into a dogfight. You alternate chases between your ship and the enemy while exchanging laser fire, and while dodging missiles from larger spacecraft. If I were R2-D2 co-piloting, I’d be doing its signature scream constantly. You’re totally in control but it’s so fast it’s like a young child flying an aircraft with their hand. But even a child knows that flying needs reprieve and time to reset, and Rogue Eclipse gives you none of that.

No matter what I did, I always felt like my enemies were on me. There were no moments to reset and the enemies seemed like they never needed to reset; I couldn’t tell how far away I was from the mothership or other fighters; my shields are always in danger; arrows are constantly telling me I’m in proximity even though I boosted away. I feel fast, but maybe I’m not.

I can lock on to an enemy, but I have nothing to shoot with. I see a missile icon, but there are no buttons to shoot the missiles. I’m mashing everything, nothing happens. Braking only opens me up for immediate fire, but it’s the best way to take down the other fighters because the controls are so sensitive.

It’s annoying when flying games allow the enemies to easily get the jump on you, but there’s no way counter to their maneuvers. That’s Rogue Eclipse.

They say it’s a very early build. I’d say way too early.

Try Rogue Eclipse.