Steam’s annual firehose of upcoming releases is upon us! And I won’t lie, it feels rough out here. For every promising game featured in Steam Next Fest that made my shortlist, I skipped two or three with AI-generated content.
Neon Village’s demo popped up, so I clicked over to the full listing to check for any changes. That dodgy background image I encountered and the AI content disclosure had been removed! There’s a vector forest in the background now and it looks much better. I still have concerns about covering Neon Village in full, but there’s a bit more hope that developers consider alternatives to AI-generated assets.
Previously with Neon Village: AI Generated Art Soured Two Indie Roguelikes. Here’s Other Options for Devs.
Nevertheless, the remaining Steam Next Fest demos found new ways to linger in my mind. From crafty platformers to heavily dithered office mazes, indie games are still here and thriving. Find each demo by clicking its heading below. Have fun!
Glitch Dungeon Crystal: Babushka Quest
You’re a broom-wielding babushka in a corrupted 8-bit world, swapping between abilities and sweeping up glitches. Glitch Dungeon Crystal keeps platforming challenges small and your available powers limited, letting you goof off without feeling punishing. (For all the alt-games oldheads, it’s Strega Nona meets Strawberry Cubes. Get excited!) Even in the demo, there are some cryptically placed doorways I can’t quite figure out how to reach…
Cube Hero
Taylor, I’m begging you. You have to stop playing Cube Hero. You still have three more demos to cover. Ahem. What was I saying?
Cube Hero merges the space management of Backpack Hero with the satisfaction of perfectly placing a tetromino. Arrange your blocks to fill gaps in the grid. And once you’ve made a horizontal or vertical row between two solid surfaces, all the blocks fire off, my lizard brain chortling with glee.
Cubes can be anything from standard attacks and shields to statuses that give powerful bonuses if the blocks stay on the board. It’s some real sicko shit (complimentary). And now you know why I will be mysteriously quiet in Q1 2025.
PAGER
If work gives you a headache, PAGER knows how you feel. It has a deliberately eye-watering style with minimal colors and lots of dithering. The ten-floor demo caught me off guard, establishing workplace rules and immediately bending them until they snapped. It surfaced early career memories of shifting office expectations, calcified protocol, and general unease. The incessant pager beeps and frequent typos are all too real. 5 out of 5, would suffer again.
Toggling in-game color palettes tamps down the eyestrain a bit, but PAGER’s overall effect is still jarring. And the cheekily-titled “Playdate” palette has my hopes up for other platforms. Haha, just kidding. Unless…?
Floatineer
Floatineer’s blocky art style is instantly charming. This 3D puzzler has some of the wildest water motion I’ve seen, to the point where I made an incoherent noise at my monitor when I first saw it. Arrange building bricks into structures that can stay upright. But make sure to follow the ground floor template and any piece requests. What kind of building bricks are we using? Oh, you know. The litigious ones.
Floatineer isn’t afraid to complicate things after the initial tutorials. The first level introduced bad weather and an ominously titled disaster timer. Anyone who’s stepped on a building brick knows they can be sharp when necessary. The game’s backstory has potential for some bite, too: from mass relocation after climate disaster to sending in a recent architecture graduate to literally pick up the pieces.
Golden Warden
Your character moves in a straight line from left to right, but that doesn’t make Golden Warden straightforward. Enemies, items, and effects are scattered across tiles. Your job is to carefully combine the movement and action of your cards to pick your way down treacherous dungeon floors. The demo’s starter deck is simple: attacks and shields with a standard die’s movement. But even this framework has so much room to grow. Golden Warden’s demo is short and sweet, the perfect appetizer.
Steam Next Fest is an Annual Checkup for My Gaming Pulse
Combing through Steam Next Fest listings always uncovers some new facet of my tastes. I’ve been shifting away from hyperrealism, but this year showed me how much weight a distinctive style carries. And I’ll always carry a torch for narrative oddities, even if my 2024 selections veered toward odd mechanics more than vibes. Hopefully these picks reveal something new for you!
For more indie features like this, stay tuned to Press SPACE to Jump!
