Next Fest 26|2 Day 6
Micro-reviews for Day 6 of June Next Fest 2026, exploring Nothing Strange Here, Locktale, Wind Runners, Obsolete - Salvation Protocol, Rivage, Dreadline Express, Tape Man
Another day another power outage, but this time a lot shorter so I still have plenty of stuff! A lot more on the "good but [...]" side of things, but that does seem to be a general theme of the fest for me this time around
Highlights: Tape Man, Nothing Strange Here
Nothing Strange Here
Nothing Strange Here drops you into a town full of little oddities, and it is your job to photograph them for the local newspaper. Even though some things might be cryptid-adjacent the whole thing has a cozy vibe. Almost like Gravity Falls, though the anomalies are not quite dense enough for that to stick. But they are all over the place to where it's common to stumble into a talking tree on your way to photograph a shady figure for your story. Sometimes a bit plain, but overall enjoyable
Playtime: 0.5-1.5h
Locktale
Locktale is a cipher solving game that I would borderline call educational because the solutions are pretty easy to intuit, and at the end of most levels you get a link to the cipher the level uses. On one hand that's very cool, on the other I'm not sure who the game is really meant for since if you already know the ciphers the 'puzzles' aren't all that interesting and if you don't know them then you probably wouldn't be interested in the puzzles in the first place and thus not get the cipher lessons
Playtime: ~30min
Wind Runners
A very pretty dogfighting roguelite... just that the demo has metaprogression disabled, and a lot (if not most) targets are static (massive ships/ground structures) so there is a lot less dogfighting and a lot more running away from the ground to then fly back towards it. All while you shoot in front of yourself, and the guns shoot straight at you. It... doesn't work that well all the time? I dunno, I think it can be enjoyed and I'm confident it'll be more fun with metaprogression in it, but as it stands the main thing the game has going for it are the visuals (which are gorgeous, but still)
Playtime: 15-30min+
Obsolete - Salvation Protocol
An RTS Roguelike with a digital coat of paint. You're an AI capturing nodes to destroy the enemy on your way to the gatekeepers and out of the system. I don't have a lot of RTS experience to compare, but it seems pretty standard with well executed customizability and upgrades, but also because it's comprised of multiple short rounds you repeatedly have to go through the stagnant starting and end phases and the fast forward can only do so much
Playtime: 45min+
Rivage
A narrative puzzle game. Well, mostly narrative with a handful of very simple puzzles whose main difficulty is locating the clues without which you can't solve the puzzles. And with how detailed and interactive the environments are, they can be quite easy to miss
Playtime: ~1h
Dreadline Express
A very intriguing low-res game about being in a lovecraftian post-apocalypse, on the last train in the world. You go around inspecting and interacting with things to recover your lost memories, and then you can use those memories to interact with the world and get more memories out of it. The concept is great and has just the right mix of potential and simplicity, but the demo is also quite short so it is hard to judge whether the usages of those memories will be complex or very guided by your current need
Playtime: 15-30min
Tape Man
Tape Man is a puzzle platformer that uses tape measure(s) for all sorts of creative problems. The core mechanic is that blocks will disappear when measured accurately, but figuring out the quirks of how to do those measurements is all the fun
