Steam Next Fest Spring 2024 – What I Played

It’s Next Fest time! That means there are demos to play and new discoveries to be made!

This time around, I was able to do some on my wishlist and broadened my horizons as well so let’s get to it.

Cat Quest III

Arrr matey! I love me a good Cat Quest game and this time the third installment of the franchise is pirate-themed where we square off against other pirates, or should I say pi-rats? Haha! It’s a great RPG that is easy to get into with fun hack & slash combat, a catchy soundtrack, and lots of humor, just like its predecessors.

It’s so much fun coming back to this series and now they’ve added ship battles, and new features in dungeons and let us not forget our trusty companion! All in all the demo was a good length with a couple of boss fights as well so I can’t wait to play the full version.

Enotria: The Last Song

Okay, this is definitely a Souls-like game but once I got the hang of the button layout, I started to get really good at it. I found myself a huge greatsword and I would just whack enemies with it, stunning them, and then I would finish them off!

I have always felt like I’ve avoided games like these but once I know how to fight, I can prevail. So far, I like the usage of weapons and masks in this game and I look forward to finding out more about the story. However, when I tried out this demo, my only complaint was I felt like I got to this open space with lots of enemies and couldn’t figure out where to go next so I decided to stop there for now. I had one boss fight and other enemies where I died a few times from and had to learn to telegraph their attacks.

Who knows, maybe this will truly inspire me to give Dark Souls a chance one day.

Moon Mystery

This demo I found this while casually scrolling and I feel this year there wasn’t much that caught my eye and one other game which I will go into detail about next.

I like the concept of this one. We play as an astronaut named Sam who is at a base on the moon and he has lost contact with Earth. He also has a robot companion named Toby who I think is really adorable. The demo jumps from different parts of the story and shows that it goes beyond the moon to other parts of our galaxy. It’s also possible the Andromeda galaxy has a part in the story as well. But all I know is Sam is trying to get back home to his family and there’s a deeper plot unfolding here.

It’s mainly a first-person shooter but there are vehicles to control as well where you can go in first or third-person. I found it to be a little wonky with the latter using my mouse and keyboard so hopefully controller support is added later. Well, this game has my attention now so I wishlisted.

Chocolate Factory

This game is an open-world crafting game where we basically, we’ll, build our own factory! I don’t go too far into these games before release because they are likely still tweaking things and plus there are no guides if I get stuck.

I have a sweet tooth so I gave this one a try, and I was able to construct a few things out of chocolate and sugar crystals. There were also these hostile gingerbread people wandering around and suddenly I’m reminded of one of the minions Krampus had. Oh and not the gumdrop buttons!

I don’t know if there is any story to this but I am willing to give a chance.

Stars In The Trash

I found out about this game when I saw that the same devs that made The Purring Quest had this game in progress so I decided to give it a go. I have yet to play the other game, but any game with cats I will try. This one is about a cat named Moka who seeks excitement outside of his home and his only friend seems to be the dog that lives with him. Then one day he can get outside and explore the world, then soon a deeper story unfolds.

Well, I get to be a cat again and do what cats do! One part of the demo that felt strange was a part that was like a boss fight where the vacuum in the basement turned into a monster and I had to defeat it which made it back into a regular vacuum again. I think it’s meant to demonstrate that cats will play with anything, even things they’re not supposed to!

Anyway, this game looks like it’ll be fun so I wishlisted and will have to play The Purring Quest soon.

So what did you play during Next Fest? Probably more than me! There were two other demos I tried for called No Return and Where Is My Cat? But I couldn’t get into them. Some games just turn out to be duds to me I guess.

👽Emily