Ultros (PC) (Demo)

20240223:
This game has a great style, excellent animation, and fun gameplay. All around I liked it. I suppose at times the artistic style of the game was too much and it was sometimes hard to see the enemies. However, the demo featured unlockables which made for diverse combat options.

Comparing this demo to the demo of Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse, I would lean towards playing Never Grave off of a general feeling, but subjectively I find Ultros has better made animations (even though I really liked the Never Grave animations) and a better selection of combat (though the protagonist in Never Grave does have a ranged attack). Ending with a point for Ultros, Ultros seems to actually have a more compelling story coming out of the demo whereas the demo of Never Grave did not let on to any significant story.

Steam Game Time: 54 minutes (cumulative game time)

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Mark of the Deep (PC) (Demo)

20240223:
While the artwork was beautiful, I wasn't a fan of the gameplay. In part, I've not played many Souls-like games and therefore I found the combat unrewarding. After an hour of playing and losing some earned gold (more on that later), I decided to stop playing.

Elements I did not like:
- Death system: if the player dies before being able to retrieve the soul of the previous death, then the gold dropped is lost.
- The first time I encountered the shop felt late. I think it would have helped to indicate the importance of gold earlier in the game
- I found it strange that there was a gap between earning the hookshot ability and actually using it
- enemy attack cycles, when asynchronous and in groups, is annoying and encourages running past them which is unsatisfying gameplay
- I felt unlocking the gun could have come a little sooner
- why does climbing a ladder require pressing an action button? I feel like it takes away from immersion to press a button to climb a ladder as opposed to just climbing the ladder

Leaving on some good notes. Again I love the look of the game. The two bosses I fought were challenging but also felt rewarding to defeat. Furthermore, fighting them did not feel frustrating (especially compared to some of the "normal" enemies).

Steam Game Time: 64 minutes (cumulative game time)

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Bubblegum Zombie Hunter (PC) (Demo)

20240218:
This game has a simple opening which sets the stage and tone for the game. With the two girls, I was reminded of River City Girls. But in River City Girls, the player can choose between playing either girl. In this game, hwoever, it seems that the player can only play as the titular Kaylee Bu33le.

While I liked the voice acting and basic gameplay, I felt like I simply wasn't getting the hang of the game and decided to stop playing. However, I could tell it would be a solid game.

Optionally play arcade games inside the game. I got a "high" score of 11500 in this one

Setup: I played this game with my Logitech Gamepad, but using an arcade stick could be interesting.

Steam Game Time: 18 minutes (cumulative game time)

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I... didn't do too well.

Lumnis (PC) (Demo)

20240218:
This demo is hands down the worst demo of all the demos I've played for the recent Next Fest. The intro was a series of pictures which passed by slowly. I made the effort of watching it hoping that it had some interesting story, but there was none (well it seems the player character dreamed of some symbol and then scaled a mountain to find the symbol, but somehow found himself stuck in a cave.

A screenshot of nothing - a reflection of my experience with the demo.

The first part of the game features gameplay that reminded me of the original Tomb Raider, but not nearly as satisfying. So not only did the graphics in this demo feel dated, but the gameplay felt like a joke. I couldn't help but think that the gam's developer was just making the game as a joke.

Due to how bad the game felt, I gave up. I then went to the Steam store page and was surprised to see a video trailer that looked nothing like what I was playing. The trailer showed an armored character fighting enemies, ice climbing up large walls, and other very cool looking experiences. As such, I find the demo was a huge disappointment.

Steam Game Time: 10 minutes (cumulative game time)

Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse (PC) (Demo)

20240217:
Holy moly! This demo excelled at elements of gameplay which appeal to me. In particular, the game had amazing art design, great sounding music, and the most fantastic animations. The gameplay with possession was neat but underutilized (especially in comparison to BIOMORPH; though overall I like the artwork and animation in Never Grave more than that of BIOMORPH). Making buildings in the village was neat and gave the game a roguelike element to it ("action roguelike" is one of the popular user-defined tags for the game).

The game has such beautiful animation and unfortunately screenshots fail to capture this.

One annoying platforming element were the spring platforms with spikes overhead.

Random note: the player character can use "dodge" to roll under small openings (it is not necessary to relinquish control). On that note, the player character can jump up to grab most ledges (again it is rarely necessary to relinquish control for the extra gain in height).

The player character respawns in the church after dying ("Never" going to the "Grave"?) 

A different random note: the candles are a form of currency. 1) at the end of an area, the flames can be used to purchase health potions. 2) there is sometimes a shop where the player can buy items (which will include tomato seeds)
Yet another random note: placed items can be moved or deleted by going into edit mode, hover over the object (in the matching layer) and there will be the option to replace or delete

Possessing an enemy (in the demo this is the only enemy that can be possessed)

I probably could make various remarks but the main statement is that out of all the demos I've played up until now, I not once had half as much desire to play the real game as I did when playing Never Grave. Worded more simply, I loved this demo and I'm going to play it after it releases!
Setup: Changed resolution to 2560 x 1440. Use gamepad (Logitech Gamepad F310). Though I should have gotten my gamepad with the rumble since this game had a rumble option.

Combat skill tree

Steam Game Time: 2.5 hours (cumulative game time)

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20240218 Comment:
Today I was reviewing the recording and the tutorial actually informs the player to press "RT" (dodge) to go under the small opening, but I must not have noticed and logically decided to relinguish possession and go through the opening as just the hat.

My favorite item during a non-boss run

AWAKEN - Astral Blade (PC) (Demo)

20240216:
After a few less than great demos, I wasn't sure which demo I should try next. But a quick look at the video for AWAKEN - Astral Blade and I figured it'd be worth trying. Storywise, the protagonist seems to be similar to Megaman, but gameplay wise the game is a Metroidvania. The player gets to start with a dash that feels good, but the double jump is earned partway into the demo. Initially I had a complaint about not seeing a particular enemy that's on the ground - it blended into the ground so I would run into it. But as that was an enemy that appears closers to the beginning of the game, it soon wouldn't matter. In any case, I like the simple combo system, but I found the single weapon on the boring side (in comparison, Castlevania games in the GBA series often had a secondary or some sort of magic attack that could be used in addition to the standard whip). Perhaps the game could have made use of more combos.

In any case, the game was easy going until the first boss (that would complete the demo). Twice I grinded for Aether, the currency that allows the player character to upgrade her talents. Speaking of which, I found parry to be too hard to use, so I could have better spent that Aether elsewhere. Returning to the matter of the boss, I found the boss to be difficult in a good way. It was difficult but not frustratingly so. There was a significant amount of pattern to the movements that I felt excitement with every try that made progress on lowering his health bar. Of course, I was taken by surprise the first time he revealed his second form. I did not expect the first boss in the game to have a second form. But this made the fight all the more exciting. Note that the second time I grinded for Aether was after being defeated by his second form many times, including one great run which I defeated the first form with full health and all three heals remaining, and then I almost got the second form down to somewhere around 10%! I figured a couple more tries and then I'd gather Aether because maybe one more skill would tip the odds in my favor. After getting 1200 Aether for recovering from a fall, I returned to the boss and I'm not sure I ever really used that skill anyways. What I felt really helped instead was learning to use the dodge more aggressively (which procs a dodge skill + upgrade: enemy is slowed down for two seconds). If I aggressively use X + X + Y and then dodge, then it guarantee's a wide window of invulnerability plus the chance taht the dodge actually dodges an attack which will slow down the first form to hit with another X + X + Y. The second form is a little different. The second form should also be dodged aggressively but staying close to him except when he does his howl is was the first core strategy. The second layer of strategy on top of that was to not do X + X + Y, but instead just X + dodge or X + X + dodge. Then only if he is slowed, then an X + X + Y can be thrown in. In addition to the aforementioned, for the first form, holding right to rush in and X + X + Y right away is free damage because he does a harmless roar. But remember to run away from his second form at the start and again after he faints because those are guaranteed howls. I think I got a feel for when he does his howl as well, but sometimes I was conservative and would walk away. It's either be far from him, or be right near his back. To summarize, I thought the boss was well-designed.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. This is weird, but I kind of wish there were more enemy types and that there is a higher density of enemies throughout - especially sinc enemies only respawn after saving the game. I also wish the parry felt faster so that it could be used more last second, because at the moment the timing feels difficult to adjust to. Both of these, however, are relatively minor. Leaving first impressions on a high note, I loved the look of the game, the menu system, button layout, and the map system. In particular, I liked the aesthetics of this game more than those in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

Steam Game Time: 2.5 hours (cumulative game time) + 0.3 hours (idle time)

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20240217 (AM) Comment:
I went to the forums to submit a bug report. While there, I looked through some of the threads and one player asked about "ranged weaponry/magic" and the developer responded saying "Yes, you will get one in the final version."

On a different note, it just occurred to me that it only took me 24 minutes to reach the boss, tried to fight him for about 8 minutes, went back to exploring areas I had not yet revealed for half an hour, and then tried to focus on fighting the boss again. Then as I mentioned I twice farmed some Aether, which took about 30 minutes total. All in all, I spent about 0.4 hours to reach the first boss, 0.5 hours to explore every nook and cranny up to the first boss, 0.5 hours farming, and 1.1 hours fighting the first boss, which is not a great distribution of time. I think if it takes me 24 minutes to reach the first boss, it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to defeat. If it had taken me 1 hour to reach the boss, then 1 hour to fight it, that would be within reason.

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20240217 (PM) Comment:
After playing the demo for Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse, my experience with AWAKEN - Astral Blade went from good to poor. Besides having a number of top-notch elements for a video game, Never Grave had exactly the right distribution of first boss difficulty relative to the rest of the game. To be fair, losing to the boss means having to play through the level all over, but that exactly builds in the grinding for upgrades aspect in a way that makes the effort not feel like a grind. Furthermore, the first boss in Never Grave feels epic but with much simpler patterns that makes whittling the boss down much more practical.

Axon Hero (PC) (Demo)

20240216:
I was stuck on a level, and so I decided to stop playing. After I stopped, I went to the forum looking for an answer. Someone had the same problem as me ("When the second "cube" enter in the splitter just become stuck, seems the compare just can't process the value.") and a different person had the same problem but figured out the solution:

"I got stuck on this one for a bit too before realising you needed to link the constant to the input so it works as a clock of sorts, kinda expected linking a constant to the comparator node to set the input to whatever value it was at all times."

Comparator level and my broken machine

Overall, I think the game is overly complicated with lack of transparency that puzzles game by Zachtronics, such as SHENZHEN I/O or SpaceChem, have. I think the game can take some actions to remedy the problem:
1. Introduce one block at a time, and ensure the player has a good understanding of each block (probably at least three levels per block) before introducing the next. For example, understanding the data block can realistically take six levels by itself.
2. Instead of the display block, each block should automatically display the inputs and outputs. Or there should be an option to toggle display on and off. Otherwise the player just ridiculously has to manually add display blocks to everything.
3. Even controls such as rotation should have their own level (I just had to randomly discover it), but also machines should have better default orientation. Why on Earth should the first machine with input and output be oriented vertically when clearly most of the early levels are oriented horizontally?
4. Better documentation and examples. The current documentation has videos but the videos only partially indicate what happens for each block. I, the player, had to figure out way too much on my own. Even SHENZHEN I/O with it's printable manual wasn't this brutal with having players figure out basic gameplay.

Developer's solution to the above level.
Note that the 50 here is connected to the input.

As an example of the above with respect to the comparator level I was stuck on, the player is expected to understand not just the comparator block, but also the custom boolean block as a way to output the value 50 to compare against the incoming blocks. Instead, the player should not even have access to the boolean block, and the game at this point should supply a signal of 50 for the player to hook-up into the comparator block. In addition, this is the first time in the game that the player needs to separate the block's information using the data block. This should have been isolated as its own level prior to this level. Finally, there's some sort of boolean signal at the top left of the machines, but with no explanation of what it does. It would be better if the developer either explained it or omit it until it's needed.

I tried very hard to enjoy this game, but it was such a frustrating experience that I would not want to play the game ever again.

Steam Game Time: 57 minutes (cumulative game time)

Kingsgrave (PC) (Demo)

20240216:
This game didn't have any instructions, but figuring out what to do wasn't too bad. For the most part, the demo was rather simple, and I have mixed feelings about the enemies. They were somehow both hard to fight and not hard to fight. Certain enemies deal a lot of damage, and require either bieng more conservative or having better weapons to more appropriately deal with them without taking so much damage as to have health taken to zero. The demo only allowed healing by advancing the day, which would also reset enemies spawning in "dangerous" areas. By the end of the demo, I had the spear and the bow-and-arrow which were rather good weapons to fight the waves of enemies in the final area at the end of the demo. Learning to kite with the spear and dashing against the strongest enemy in that area was my key to victory.

Overall, the game seemed to simple for my taste with too much focus on exploration, but without significant story progression to match. A game doesn't have to focus on action, but in doing so I think it needs to compensate with a strong story, which this demo did not convey. As such, I would not have any interest in playing the full game in the future.

Steam Game Time: 45 minutes (cumulative game time)

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Children of the Sun (PC) (Demo)

20240214:
Right off the bat, this game is thematically dark, violent, and "psychotic," i.e., the premise for what motivates the player character to shoot down cultist. With that being said, the gameplay was addicting, because the game featured a leaderboard and I couldn't help but try and figure out how to move my way up in the board. As such I spent some time on the first level before moving on.

Setup: I tried for a moment playing with the controller, but the mouse seemed better. I felt I had finer control with the mouse.

Steam Game Time: 80 minutes (cumulative game time)

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20240215:
I was able to play the level I left on last time. I had not understood the instructions about re-aiming, but today I got it: after hitting two glowing areas, the player can right-click once to completely re-aim in any direction (as opposed to the more recent mechanic of slightly altering the bullet's path).

Steam Game Time: 95 minutes (cumulative game time) / 15 minutes (session game time)

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20240216:
Today I replayed the last level where the reaim ability is introduced. Then I watched video of the current WR for the first level. The player (Ice Cream Toast, who is also top of most of the leaderboards) executes two multikills, which are kills that happen *very* quickly. In detail, there is a short time after a kill is made that the game is in control. As soon as the player regains control, he/she moves to the next target and fires with no time to waste. In the comment section, he/she explains there is a short time after the player regains control where the crosshair has not yet reappeared. Waiting for the cursor to appear to confirm the shot is simply too long, so essentially the player must make a blind shot. With that being said, I imagine players who frequently play shooters, and play them well, have internalized the center of the screen and can probalby survive just fine without having crosshairs. After watching the video, I gave it a try on the first level and after many attempts I was able to get a multikill. While surely possible, I figured me getting two multikills on that level would just take up too much of my time (due to my perceived lack of ability in shooters).

At the end of the day, I enjoyed playing the demo, but I wouldn't enjoy playing the game because I simply would be unable to enjoyably compete with players at the top of the leaderboards.

Steam Game Time: 2.4 hours (cumulative game time) / 0.8 hours (session game time)

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Tales of Kenzera: ZAU (PC) (Demo)

20240214:
Today I played this demo and honestly the game didn't wow me the way the BIOMORPH demo did. The gameplay in the demo revolved around Zau's two powers which the player can switch between. Switching between them felt fun, but initially they are disconnected from progressing through the game. Closer to the end of the demo, the player unlocks Bamba's stone which can be used to freeze water - a skill that is more critical to progressing through the game.

Overall, I like the feel of the fighting, especially with dash and double jump available from the start of the game. The platforming, however, sometimes doesn't feel good. In particular, while traveling up the waterfall near the end of the demo, clearing the obstacles felt more like a bit of luck than being able to skillfully time a series of button presses - I believe in part because the wall-jump doesn't feel responsive. As an alternative, I think the height could have been shortened to increase the margin of error (or slightly increase the height of the jump).

Setup: I turned various visual settings up but the game stuttered and I began turning the settings back to how they were. The game still stuttered until I turned the camera shake and sway off. I suppose I could have tried cranking the settings back up after this, but didn't think to do so. Gamepad (Logitech Gamepad F310).

Steam Game Time: 52 minutes (cumulative game time)

BIOMORPH (PC) (Demo)

20240213:
The first thing I noticed from the menu is how clean the menu looks. Getting into the game, the look of the character and level is beautiful. Following, the amount of animation that goes into the game is just amazing. Speaking of which, this developer knows how to tell a story. And then to top it all off, the ability to transform into the various creatures mixed with the need to use certain creature abilities to make one's way through the game is just a satisfying game mechanic.

In terms of difficulty, the game generally felt easier than Hollow Knight. Of course, this was only a demo and the difficulty of the game as a whole may differ. But from the demo, the difficulty of BIOMORPH is an adequate amount for what I currently enjoy in an action video game. In particular, it took me about six or so tries to defeat the boss at the end of the demo.

Setup: Gamepad.

Steam Game Time: 71 minutes (cumulative game time)

Gambit Shifter (PC) (Demo)

20240213:
This is a game that uses chess pieces, but with slight modifications to movement (e.g., the pawn can move forward 1 or 2 spaces, but still can only capture forward diagonally). The demo featured a tutorial followed by 18 levels which varied in difficulty from easy to medium (the game's Steam store page indicates there are 80+ levels in the full game). The music was lovely and peacefui. It is notably one of the most lovely soundtracks I've heard in a video game.

Note that familiarity with basic movement in chess would help, otherwise the game puzzles would be harder. With that being said, the game does provide indicators on where the player can move and where the enemy pieces can move.

After completing the demo, I went into the options and noticed the game had what looked to be a comprehensive choice of color settings for color blindness - this was the first time I saw a video game with color blind option being more than just a choice of off and on.

Overall, I think this game would appeal to casual puzzle players. In my experience, I've played enough of these simpler puzzle games to pass on it. I would, however, consider buying the soundtrack.

Steam Game Time: 25 minutes (cumulative game time)

Death of a Wish (PC) (Demo)

20240212:
Wow. So I just finished playing the demo and I had fun with it. First, the game has a distinct artistic style which alone is appealing. Second, I would say is that the game has a good balance between gameplay action and story. Third, there is an interesting customization element to the game that is simple and yet gives the game a level of depth. Going into this in detail, the player eventually unlocks a second element, and can switch between their first element (lightning) and the second element (water). Some enemies are *weak* to particular elements or will *resist* a particular element. These powers can further be customized with different familiars and modifiers.

The game was fairly difficult, but once a particular area was beaten, I was able to run through it and back to a difficult enemy in fairly short time.

Tip: parrying is OP. For example, against the final boss in the demo, parrying three attacks in a row plus an additional strike was enough to break the boss's shield. A shield break means the enemy is stunned and the player can just freely deal damage. Simply rinse and repeat.

While there was much to enjoy, I suppose there are some minor elements I would nitpick on. The story is interesting, but also confusing. While it's possible that the story is intentionally confusing, it is technically only confusing to the player, as the player character has clear motives. Fortunately, the game's gameplay is fun enough to motivate pushing through the game despite the confusing story. Personally, I think an easy-to-follow story is the difference between a great game and an excellent game. A sillier nitpick for me is that the main character's primary dialogue stance looks uncool.

After playing the game, I couldn't help but think of Hades, which is also a hack and slash, but that's just about where their similarity ends. In terms of the story point I made above, Hades has a much stronger story. In terms of the difficulty, Death of a Wish feels like a series of increasingly difficult bosses whereas Hades has a stronger focus on making it through waves of smaller enemies with the occasional boss battle. As such, at the end of the day, while I enjoyed my time with the demo, I don't see myself looking to purchase and complete Death of a Wish. I would, however, believe that it becomes a popular game.

Setup: Normal difficult (for both Sin and Punishment). Logitech Gamepad F310.

Steam Game Time: 114 minutes (cumulative game time)

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Princess Pomu and the 5 Moons (PC) (Demo)

20240211:
With some spelling mistakes and capitilazation errors, the game certainly presents itself as unpolished. Similarly, the character cycles among three or so sounds on every jump. Sometimes I don't notice it, and sometimes I do. I think what this rotation of sounds could benefit from is a variation in duration and/or volume of the sounds. Of course, that's just me nitpicking. The gameplay was decent enough for me to stick around and press on just a little bit more everytime I died and thought about giving up on the game. Of course, I eventually did die and decided to leave it at that.

The game's core mechanics incorporates a basic combo system and occasionally allows for shooting guns. From what I encountered in the game, the player is given a slide and a dash. I'm sure there are other skills that will come during the game. I liked how the dash has a moment of invicibility, which can be used skillfully to dodge enemy attaacks. There is a rhythm to dodging and attacking. As a sidenote, I liked that the game has (what I know as) a traditional Metroidvania map system.

The demo's artwork and combo mechancis reminded me of the beat 'em up They Bleed Pixels. So much so, I had convinced myself that the two games must be by the same developer. However, it seems the two games are not connected.

During the game, I had encountered one area that had what felt like a bug. The area had a jump platform, but it was very hard to punch it. Instead, I frequently triggered the you-fell-into-a-pit zone and the game would then resurrect me. What eventually worked for me was using the dash to position myself above the platform before doing the down punch. For context, this area comes before a red key, which can be seen on the way to the first boss.

Overall, the game is a decent entry to the genre of Metroidvania's. It seems rough around the edges, but promising enough for fans of the genre.

Setup: Normal difficulty and experienced the initial story. Played with a controller (Logitech Gamepad F310).

Steam Game Time: 78 minutes (cumulative game time)

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SUMMERHOUSE (PC) (Demo)

20240211:
This demo allowed the player to build a building out of various tiles. The demo lacked the ability to choose a z-order as well as a change in depth. For the most part, the depth isn't critical, as I think every object in the game is supposed to lie in more or less the same plane. Perhaps what I really just needed was a taller set of steps. Note that as I placed objects, sometimes the game unlocked a variation of that object, which was certainly a surprise the first time that it happened.

Overall, the demo appeared to solely be focused on expressing one's creativity. However, I believe it lacks some spark that would make such an experience worth playing for hours. In particular, I think objects to be placed should be chosen from a bucket that pops out when a category is selected - almost like a drawer. The game does have a see-all-objects function, however, I think what I proposed would at least make the buiding experience feel smoother. With that being said, I liked the inclusion of a random-object tool. I would likely never have thought of such a feature.

One more thing, the demo mentioned there would be more coming. I expect that would include more assets, or even allow the players to create assets that could be loaded into the game.

Steam Game Time: 25 minutes (cumulative game time)

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