Steam Next Fest Fall 2023 – What I Played

That’s a wrap on the Fall Next Fest this year. I did take a little bit of extra time off after the Thanksgiving weekend as here in Canada, we celebrate it in October, in the heart of autumn. I didn’t want to spend too much time at my computer during my time off. Most of it was spent unwinding, helping me dad with errands on all the vehicles we have in our driveway, including mine which as you know, I call it Motörizer, and trying to establish an exercise routine. I have yet to share a health update.

Anway, this time I only played things on my wishlist. There wasn’t much in the discovery this time that I felt like I really wanted to try so here we go.

An Arcade Full of Cats

Whenever Devcats releases a new demo, I have to check it out, this time, this one is going to be free. The devs have a lot of games in progress so it’s almost like this one will compensate for a longer wait time. What else can I say, I’m helping Fofiño and Leo on another adventure and I can’t wait.

Paper Trail

I was drawn to this game for the visuals and puzzle solving so I had to try out the demo.

It took me a lot of time to get the hang of gameplay. It involved turning the pages to create new paths and some parts were harder thsn others so I never really finished the demo, but I liked it enough that I will still try the full game. How else will I learn? It’s a beautiful game, and I wonder if it takes place in a previous era sometimes. I guess I won’t know for sure until the full version is out.

Agatha Christie – Murder on the Orient Express

This demo was a pretty decent length and I’ve always wanted to travel someday on a train where I can move freely with a diner, bar, and place to sleep, no matter where I’m going. It reminded me so much of playing Call of Cthulhu again with searching for clues and solving puzzles. There’s also a hint system in case I get stuck. Apparently it is faithful to the original story but with a more modern setting and the demo concludes with the introduction of another detective investigating a similar case. I can’t wait to see how it unfolds so the light is definitely green for this game. However, I will not be playing until I have at least read the book.

Unawake

I thought this game was promising. It felt Souls-like in first-person, but I felt like combat was kind of wonky. Either I was doing it wrong, or they are still working tweaking the system. There’s also no map feature, and I got lost easily. I mean, I’ve played games without those before, but this one just didn’t have the same feel to it. So it’s a no for me or now. Maybe in a few months or years that could change

Sky: Children of the Light

Remember when I spoke about having doubts about this one? Well I think this game is an MMO designed for gamers who don’t like MMOs, like me. It has a beautiful environment and soundtrack and I feel so relaxed flying through the clouds! I did encounter other players, some on other platforms and they found a way to help me navigate without communicating which I liked.

But as I was nearing two hours into the game where it didn’t seem like there was any cut-off point, I decided to stop because I didn’t want to get too far into the game while they were still tweaking things for PC players and many of those things I couldn’t figure out like how to make gestures. I know the game doesn’t technicially have an ending but I would prefer to have all features, including customization (which seemed limited) of my character, all available to me when the game is out. So I decided to remove my local PC account, start again with a new one linked to Steam (hopefully this doesn’t cause conflict) and begin anew when the game is fully out on PC.

I have no doubt it’ll be free to play but I am happy to share that I loved the demo and how relaxing the game was, despite my lack of fondness for MMOs in general. So yes, I will be getting this game, it’ll be something totally new for me but I know now that I’m going to love it, it’ll be a great stress-reliever too!

So what did you play this Next Fest? Lots of people seem to play more demos than I do but it’s the quality that counts to me.

👽Emily