Next Fest 24|3 Day 4
Micro-reviews for Day 4 of Autumn Next Fest 2024, exploring Windblown, Ô, Monoquous 2, Candy Rangers, Shuffled Sky, Skykipelago, Nientum - Op.ZERO, Symphonia, and Enemy on the tail!
This post was originally on Discord, and as such does not contain additional information 2025+ posts have
Half of the Next Fest is gone, and I've already went through most of the things I had on my "to-try" list. From now on the games won't be following much of a pattern and will be a jumble of genres like my last few Next Fests
Highlights: Monoquous 2 and Ô
and Windblown, but that one's in a class of its own
Candy Rangers
Candy Rangers is a cheerful on-rails shooter where you aim and dispatch enemies with buttons corresponding to different colors/guns. At first it seems quite simple, but there is some (minor) strategy with actions you take throughout the level, and the different colored guns are not actually arbitrary, but rather correspond to different modes of fire (each 3D axis and a diagonal gun) which makes me think there might be a "hard"/"new game+" mode that hides the button prompts, and has you optimize which gun you shoot on your own. Either way, this is a charming little title
Playtime: ??h
Symphonia
Even though it has strong metroidvania vibe, this is a linear precision platformer split across a lot of smaller screens, similarly to Celeste. The demo is just the first 15-ish minutes of the game, so most of it is tutorial and thus hard to judge. I can definitely see there being good focus on momentum and flow through the rooms, but it just as well might end up being a frustrating fight with slightly floaty jumps. If you're into precision platformers then keep a lazy eye on this, and it might end up being good when it comes out
Playtime: 15min
Windblown
I try and stick to lesser-known games with these micro reviews, but there can always be exceptions, and one of them is this - a new co-op roguelite from the makers of Dead Cells. It shares some DNA with their previous title, while having a new perspective, gorgeous visuals, and what feels like a more nuanced combat. The demo is only solo play, but it definitely feels like it's going to be a lot of fun with friends, and I'm surely going to drag some of mine to play it
Playtime: ??h
Enemy on the tail!
This is a curious dueling game that feels a lot like something you would play as combat in a larger board game. Each duel is ~2-3 minutes, and there really isn't much more than the duels. Not sure if the lack of further gameplay elements is an intentional limitation of scope, or caused by something like copying an actual board game, so I guess the value of the game will highly depend on the price. It's good, but the time you'll spend with it will likely not excuse anything above 3-5$
Playtime: <10min
Monoquous 2
A fairly straightforward puzzle platformers, that feels a bit like old school flash games. Your options are regular movement, jumping, and shifting into the negative space of the level, allowing you to walk inside of walls (alongside with changing gravity in the process). Simple concept that is squeezed dry with each level having multiple "best" ways to solve it, depending on if you're going for speed or, say, fewest jumps. Overall very polished and both casual and speedrunner friendly
Playtime: ??h
Nientum - Op.ZERO
This game features a very unusual mix of rhythm and storytelling, both by providing a lot of animation within the environments of each level, and by switching between two completely different modes of play. Between the machine-translated English, some minor visual bits, and the difficulty in judging the position of the judgement circle; the game felt a bit rough around the edges. Though at least for the last issue the judgement windows are large and charts are well-synced with music, so it is not a problem. Overall if you're not into rhythm games this one's an easy skip, but personally I'll probably play through the whole thing once at some point after release, just for the exotic flavor of it
Playtime: ??h
Skykipelago
Skykipelago is a relaxing score-based city builder, but instead of the typical ground/sea you are building stuff on walls and floors of floating islands. There are some minor things to improve, such as the precise placement system being a bit finicky but overall it was a pleasant experience, even if it doesn't stand out in any way other than the setting
Playtime: ??h
Shuffled Sky
Shuffled Sky
This game calls itself a "Roguelike Deckbuilding RPG" which is a good summary of mechanics, and nothing else. The game has a world map as a level selection, and each level has a mix of puzzles, enemies, and obstacles based on the theme of the level. And all of the above - from enemies all the way up to the worldmap, is randomly generated. There is a lot of mechanical breadth, and potentially it'll have more than ankle-level depth as well. Overall it's a bit too slow-paced for my taste, but it definitely feels like something that someone out there would like
Playtime: ??h
Ô
This game is hard. Very simple and straightforward, but hard. You move a little square throughout small rooms in a roguelike fashion, but all the movement has to be to either the beat, or a beatmap of one of the instruments. Moreover at core moments of the songs, the rooms will shift into a short miniboss arena, which I found as a really nice touch once I understood why it's happening. Overall I think this game might be a bit better to play with a controller than a mouse, but as frequent as they were, my deaths felt like a skill issue and not a game issue, which is all I ask for from a difficult title