#demo review

[blerdyotome]

Fall in Love Like it's 1994! 'Snowkissed Romance' is a Love Letter to 90's Shoujo

Lovely Inc. the team behind the hilarious office romance, My Love For You is Evermore, has been hard at work on their latest title—a revamped version of their very first otome, Snowkissed Romance. The team launched a Kickstarter for he game back in January, but folks just did not show out and the campaign ended unsuccessfully. But the Lovely Inc. girlies are back with a new campaign and I need…

Fall in Love Like it's 1994! 'Snowkissed Romance' is a Love Letter to 90's Shoujo

[stylized-corpse]

Demo Review: Anéantix – D​é​mo

Anéantix – D​é​moJune 13th, 2024Stenchcore / Death Metal / Crust PunkIndependently ReleasedQuebec City, Quebec, Canada Anéantix is a brand n

This demo from Anéantix is sick!

[randomtangle]

NextFest Demos General Review

I'm gonna write what I think of the demos I played this NextFest. Each title is a link to the Steam Page, be sure to grab yourself a demo if NextFest isn't over (June 10-17, 2024). If not, some of them might still have public demos, and some of them might be out by the time you read this!

NextFest has ended but demos still remain! Check them out or wishlist them if they’re in pre-release.

500 Caliber Contractz

Mario 64 but you have a high-caliber sniper rifle. It's honestly more often a movement tool than a weapon, and the movement tech in this game is quite interesting. I haven't gotten it quite down yet. I’ll write more about it later.

Aero GPX

Reminds me of Kirby Air Ride.

Airborne Empire

This game is seriously addictive. I meant to give it 30 minutes (around the minimum time I’ve been giving there games), and it took 3 hours. The whole conceit of the game is that you are building an airborne city. All sorts of things matter, such as the tilt (you can’t just pile it all onto one side), the lift (you need to add fans, which need to be manned by citizens, to allow for enough lift to build more stuff), and propulsion (buildings will slow you down, so you can build propellers and stuff to help you move faster), as well as food and water and coal) to keep everything running) and various building resources which you gather by deploying workers to deposits on the land using a hangar. Light is also important to stop accidents at night… there’s all the little systems you need to manage. I really love it. Usually in city builders I get really stressed about strategic placement and how me not leaving space next to that big useless rock turns out to be a mistake when I advance in the tech tree and learn the rock is actually the most useful and I trapped it under an underpass. Airborne Empires can have the “I didn’t know how big this building is so I didn’t leave enough space here” problem (I really wish I could preview buildings before I had the resources to build them), but it’s mostly fine. The tilt and lighting systems lead to making a spread-out base. You recruit more citizens by hiring them from settlements below, but you’ll have to feed them all, and at least where I am in the game, you can only gather food and water, not generate it.it’s visually very cute, all the people are birds, and the talking sounds are birdcalls. It’s pretty chill most of the time, even the occasional pirate attack isn’t that bad, especially if you get defense towers, since you can repair pretty quickly. I could play the game for days on end, honestly. I love it.

Akimbot

A very fun 3D platformer, reminds me of Ratchet & Clank, Crash Bandicoot, Skylanders, etc. The whole game looks really nice and stylized. I played with the Acid Sprayer and found it to be very fun. The voice acting and dialogue were a smidge lacking at times (Exe feels compelled to go "Tch" every time Shipset talks, and Shipset cannot shut up, but it didn't annoy me.) Overall I'm excited to see how the full game turns out!

Aloft

I didn’t find Aloft interesting. It’s not that I don’t like survival games, per se, it’s that my patience with survival games is really low. (300 hours of DST has changed me.) They need to be really interesting for me to stick, because if not, I sink untold hours into them getting progressively more and more annoyed. Aloft is probably someone’s cup of tea, but it ain’t mine. Sorry.

Beyond These Stars

Coming Soon!

Dice & Fold

A very fun roguelike deckbuilder game that's more about rolling dice than drawing cards. Enemies have slots you must fill to defeat them. Some enemies require exact rolls (say, a 3), and some just have numbers that have to be reduced (say, a 5, and you could put a 2 and a 3 in it to complete the slot). And there's more like doubles slots, slots that only accept odd or even numbers, etc. Your hero has an ability that you can earn by filling in the required slot on your hero card, there's all sorts of items and companions that alter the game in little ways... it's really fun and I'd love to play more of it in the future!

Dimhaven Enigmas

I love the graphics, just to get that out of the way. Pixilated textures are to die for, I’m a huge sucker for PSX or DS/3DS-style textures. It’s an interesting puzzle game, it’s pretty intriguing, but dangit if I’m not bad at puzzles, lmao. It’s tough! It really makes you work for the answer, I like that, but I can’t really write review of a completed demo because of it. Try it out!

Dustborn

It seemed… interesting. The graphics look good, the fight mechanics seem to have a bit of meat, but are sorta unseasoned. (They don’t feel like they flow that easily into each other but that might just be a personal skill issue.) The humor and writing isn’t really my cup of tea, it feels sorta like they’re always talking, and the lines in combat seem to overlap sometimes but I’m sure that’s unintended. Idk if I personally will be buying the full game, I’d rather wait for a review of the full game to see if I wanna buy it, but I don’t hate it.

Gladio Mori

Gladio Mori explores an interesting concept of a physics-based medieval weapon fighting game that oftentimes feels a bit like TABS if you were in complete control of a unit. It's definitely interesting. Right now there's only 3 weapons and no move editor, but I feel like the simple existence of a move editor means that in the future, there's untold levels of complexity to be found in this game. Has multiplayer!

Goblin Cleanup

It’s fun. There’s not much to say about it, as it’s just a simpler Viscera Cleanup Detail, but it’s cute, honestly. There’s some interesting quirks and level progression things, such as being able to light slimes on fire to be semi-infinite, faster mops, and you can do a lot with traps and stuff. Sorta simple as-is, unless I just missed the really cool stuff. (I haven’t played all of the demo yet, only the first two levels.)

I Am Your Beast

This game is amazing. The presentation of cutscenes is phenomenal; I really love the big bold letters and colored background. It's simple but it does its job. The voice acting is great, too. And the gameplay is just amazing. The amount of speed and precision you can move and attack with is on point. I'd suggest everyone

Kaiserpunk

Coming Soon!

KILL KNIGHT

Kill Knight has some wicked graphics. They look like they’re crackling with an unchained energy, power so great it corrodes the world. The gameplay is tough, I can barely survive a few waves, but the combat is promisingly meaty. Sword kills fuel the heavy weapon, and enemy drops can fuel the bfg thing (forgot its name). I’m not used to twin-stick shooters so I don’t know how much is innovative and interesting and how much is in every twin-stick shooter, but I certainly found the game really interesting. Really tough, but really interesting.

MACHI KORO With Everyone

Only the offline tutorial as of now, which is kinda annoying since i can't even try to run an offline hotseat game. But, it teaches Machi Koro pretty well. I like Machi Koro I like this game. It is nothing more or less than being just Machi Koro.

Metal Slug Tactics

Coming Soon!

Once Human

Open-World Survival Horror MMO. I’m only into survival horror, really, and was playing alone (I’m not that into MMOs except with friends). The systems seem okay, the combat is about what you would expect with heavy and light attacks and simple chains… the character creator is pretty good. (And I love myself a good character creator.) Not my cup of tea.

One Btn Bosses

It’s a bullet hell but you only need one button. Your “ship” moves on a ring outside the boss, and you use the button to change directions. The faster you’re moving (you gain more speed the longer you travel in a given direction), the faster you shoot. That’s about it for the systems (that I could see, at least. I haven’t beat it.) it’s fun, I’d recommend it to anyone. After all, you only need to press one button!

SCHiM

A very cute puzzle game where you play as the shadow of this one guy. You jump from shadow to shadow to navigate the levels. The art is beautiful accented neutrals, the music and sound design is really cute and musical, reminiscent of Untitled Goose Game. It’s really cute!

Screw Drivers

It’s Lego Technic as a racing game. To be completely honest, it just didn’t click well with me. The building aspect of it felt like every Lego Technic I’ve ever built, plus actual engineering. You need to connect the engine to the axel to the drive wheels, and set those to steerable… I know that’s simple, but it’s a bit too complicated for me to play that much. I’m a simple woman. Seemed fun to drive the cars, tho.

SWORN

It’s Hades but with Arthurian Legend. I don’t really know what more to say. It controls like Hades (well, I played Hades on the Switch, so maybe keybinds are different than I expect) it’s got similar systems of boons, in-level currency and cumulative secondary currencies, et cetera, et cetera. This isn’t a slight against it, I really like it! I can’t really speak for its writing since I can’t find much and I’m sure not all of it is in as of yet, but what I could find in-game was interesting. I don’t quite understand the world and how the Holy Grail and pagan deities and King Arthur all feed into why these monsters are about, but I’m assuming that’s elaborated on as you go through. I’d be willing to get the full game.

Tactical Breach Wizards

I adore this game. The graphics are really cute, the combat puzzles are really interesting and fun (I like this genre of games, I’m totally blanking on the name tho) and the writing… oh the writing. The writing is so good. The jokes are right up my alley, the story is really interesting, the world is the right amount of absurd that the characters can be deadpan about always having newt bones on their person that you can tell that it’s just as much of a half-joke in-universe as you’d expect. It’s really fun and I’m hoping to play the full game upon release.

Tavern Talk

I loved this game. The sound design is so peaceful and soothing, the writing I really like, there’s a lot of good jokes and just tender moments. I love Fable, the main other character in the game. They’re an anxious ranger who wants to get out into the world and go on adventures, they’re so cute. The other character, Caerlin, is nice too. The art is beautiful, I’m really invested in it now! I need to get the full game!

Tiny Glade

Cute game where you can do a bit of finely-controlled procedural generation of a little landscape, and take photos of it. I played game last NextFest called Dystopika that was like this but with a cyberpunk city. Tiny Glade is cute, simple, and allows you to make little houses and landscapes. It’s cute, I’m sure people will like it, but it just ain’t my genre.

[whatapuntho]

GamesCom: This Bed We Made - Lowbirth Games

This Bed We Made is a third-person mystery game in which you play as a maid in a 1950s hotel and snoop around strangers' rooms to uncover their deadly secrets. Discover what links the clients together in this tale of love, heartbreak and murder! (Description taken off of the steam page)

This year I got the chance to attend GamesCom again, and while I was there I had the absolute pleasure of getting a first look at the upcoming game by Lowbirth Games, as well as meet some of the people behind the game, and I've gotta say I am impressed.

At the convention, I got a chance to play the demo, a small segment of the game mainly show casing the games mechanics.

In the demo, you enter the room of one of the hotel guests, and to your horror discover that he has been secretly spying on you, having photographic evidence of your tendency to snoop around other people's belongings, going so far as even using some of the times. You are now left with the choice of prentending you never saw what happened, reporting it or getting rid of the evidence. And this is where the fun began.

What myself, and the friends I was playing with, initially thought was a choice mechanics surrounding the pictures you discovered, turned out to be a core feature of the game, and that is the ability to throw away pretty much EVERYTHING in the hotel room, including personal belongings.

We spent the rest of the demo snooping around the guest room, trying to make sure he had no other evidence linked to our shitty habit, and making sure that he had no personal or otherwise belonging...including the mans razor blade and personal letters. But any important information we found, be it letters or scarps of paper with writing

In the end we were able to open the guest safe and make sure that our character - Sophie - wouldn't be held liable for her snooping...which in hindsight might not be the best thing to cover up.

This segmented also showcased the developers clever ways of relaying information, as well as how well done the puzzles are going to be.

While in this part there wasn't much info surrounding the main story, we did get a look at the guest story - don't worry I am not going to spoil anything. As mentioned the main objective of this part seemed to be to open the guest safe and make sure there was no other evidence relating to the main characters snooping. To do so we had to figure out the code of the safe. We quickly found a little piece of paper with hints to what every number of the code is.

For obvious reasons we did not know the answers to the hints, so we did what our character does best and went snooping. We did this by looking around the room, reading letters and deducing various things from the text. This included learning personal things about the guest, the fact that the guest checked in with a fake name, and that he has been seemingly stalking our main character. None of this was obviously stated and besides the few comments Sophie made about visiting the same locations as the guest did, there was no dialogue to help progress the story.

This also meant that in the end everyone formed their own conclusion surrounding the hotel guest and Sophie. My friends and I agreed this guy was weird, and a stalker and he deserved to have his stuff thrown away, and while snooping is bad, Sophie wasn't harming anyone so we didn't care, she's a maid in hotel, probably earning less than minimum wage, let her have some fun. So despite this segment being maybe 10 - 15 minutes long, we already started to form a bond with Sophie and the world around, something some games have failed to do over the course of hours.

This also leans into the way the puzzle worked, as we really had to read the information given, and think about the hotel guest and who they are. There were sometimes where the items, such as a key needed to open a box with the final clue, were a bit hard to find, but I never found myself frustrated, rather I was excited to learn more and finally open the safe.

Once the we had completely the demo, we got a chance to talk to some of the developers behind this, and it only increased my excitement for the final release, aimed to early next year. The developers are kind, fun people who are truly creating a unique experience, I am pretty sure this game will quickly become one of my favorite once it's released.

If you are interested in the game, you can support the creators by wishlisting the game and keep up with the process on their socials and their website.

[memedievil]

Hey, Memedievil Crew!

The free demo(PS4) for Medievil dropped recently and I've only just gotten the chance to play it. It is absolutely amazing. The detail and depth in the game so far is just blowing me away.

In the cutscene for Sir Daniel's demise, you can see through his helmet just enough to get an idea of his face!

It's beautiful, as we knew it would be. I've already preordered the actual game.

I hope you lot get a chance to check it out! The soundtrack and various audio for voices, movement and more is just as great as the graphics.

And as always, Sir Daniel is stunning in his gawky and awkward way.

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We played it as well, and yeah, it turned out better than our expectations that’s for sure.

It still has some clipping issues but it’s not that bad, the animations are nice and fluid, the voice acting is on point and the controls seem to work pretty fine to us. We love how they managed to recreate Dan’s slight sliding walk/run, it brings us memories (or rather traumas) from the Pool of the Ancient Dead lol. The Book of Gallowmere is a gift, it reminds us of Dan’s diary from Resurrection despite the lack of snarky comments. We’re not really sure about some of the new lore *cough*we’re talking about Zarok past *cough cough* but maybe its just the grumpy old man against innovation living within us..

Anyway we also recently spoilered the game for us by accidentally looking at a MediEvil battles compilation on YT so we basically already know how all the bosses look like but worry not we’ll keep our lips sealed unless asked and even in that case we’ll put up some spoilers alert.

Also you really like to show off that shield don’t you? 😂

[naivesprites]

Less Than 60 Hours Left!

Hello, everyone!

Our Kickstarter is going to end in around 57 hours!  We’re currently at 108% with $697 away from our boys love side story stretch goal!

On Thursday night at 8PM EDT we’re doing a Kickstarter Live, which will be a Q&A with Noelle and Justin and we’re hoping to have a few team members on-call to help answer questions.  We’ll be showing off some of the physical add-on rewards that we have on hand.

Here’s some bigger images of our key chain design (I don’t know why this is pixelated)…

... and our Gwyn’s body pillow design, for an example.

Also here are some WIPS of the add-ons 5x7in Postcard Prints of Rory with Alison...

... and Sven with Alison.

We would like to thank @BeckNaja (review), @hayurika​ (review 1, review 2), and @otomesweetheart​ (review) for reviewing our demo. We also want to thank @nochi-games​, @legendofrune​, @dicesuki​, @sweetchiel​, Sentimental Trickster, and other devs that we may have missed who shared us with their fans and backers this time around.  We really appreciate it! Of course, thank you to all of our fans, followers, and backers for reblogging, sharing, and retweeting our posts and supporting us in anyway you can.

[blerdyotome]

Lost in Limbo Demo Sneak Peek Review - Seducing Seven Sexy Gods

Thanks to the awesome folks at @ravenstargames I had the chance to check out their upcoming dark fantasy romance visual novel, Lost in Limbo—and it is amazing! I streamed the entire demo over on my Twitch channel last week and I was impressed with the quality visuals, in depth storytelling, immersive fantasy world, and the endearing and fun characters.

Lost in Limbo Demo Sneak Peek Review - Seducing Seven Sexy Gods

[blerdyotome]

Political Intrigue, Mystery, and TWO Hot Princes! Fate's Masquerade is an Indie Otome that You Should be Playing!

Political Intrigue, Mystery, and TWO Hot Princes! Fate's Masquerade is an Indie Otome that You Should be Playing!