Next Fest Impressions
Life has been crazy lately, but I still wanted to get through a few demos this week. Maybe I’ll play a couple more tomorrow, but getting through five was my goal. These demos were all chosen from what Steam recommended to me, so it makes sense that four out of five games ended up on my wishlist. In order from least to most anticipated;
5. Blueberry: This was the only demo I really didn’t enjoy. The visual style is lovely and the gameplay was inoffensive, but I think it really fumbled in its handling of mental health themes. I applaud the ambition in wanting to tackle such a topic, but the “depression meter” is such a reductive way to look at such a complicated topic.
4. Ezrebeth: Of the ones I liked, this demo was the shortest, and I’ll be honest, the story itself didn’t really hook me. What I’m going to come back for is Ezrebeth herself. She is at once hateable and so relatable, and she fascinates me. I have another game from these devs in my itch.io backlog, so I might play Pitstop in Purgatory before Ezrebeth comes out to orient myself to the style.
3. Elroy and the Aliens: A super polished and nostalgic point-and-click adventure. It hooked me with its visual presentation immediately - I love the way Elroy scoops new inventory items into his coat. The puzzles were all pretty trivial, but I’m crossing my fingers that that’s just a product of them being the tutorial.
2. Best Served Cold: VA-11 Hall-A/Red Strings Club meets Ace Attorney. It’s not doing anything super original but the writing is good, the characters are interesting, and I love a detective game forever so I’m eager for more.
1. Am I Nima: This one was so sick, man, it was awesome. So unnerving in every single way, but I had so much fun combining words at the same time. I sunk an hour into this demo and I feel like it wasn’t meant to last that long, that’s how into it I was. There are definitely hints of where the story’s going, but I’m down to be surprised by it when the time comes.
