Next Fest 25|1 Day 2
Micro-reviews for Day 2 of Winter Next Fest 2025, exploring Axyz, Mystery Boxes, Biped 2, Dragon Heartburn, Nuclear Tides, and ToDo List
A day with mostly puzzle-esque titles of a very wide variety of quality. But that's what testing like this is for, so letting you know what not to try is always a silver lining to spending time with a confusing mess of a demo.
Highlights: Axyz
Axyz
A well executed and stylish 3D platformer, all about changing which way is up and down. Simple premise with levels that can be surprisingly confusing (in a good way). Experienced best if you're a completionist that wants to collect everything on the map, as that's when you really need to think how to visit every possible wall as a "floor"
Playtime: 15-40min
Mystery Boxes
This game is... peculiar. If you like math, decryption, and trying to figure out the rules of a system - this might be surprisingly enjoyable. If you don't like any of the above, this will feel like homework and not a fun game. I'm not too fond of the coat of paint around the gameplay itself, but it does its job without being too intrusive after the tutorial. Beyond that, the game is only as hard as you make it. You can brute force stuff with relative ease in the demo, but I can see that not being the case in the full game, as more rules are introduced that make it harder to cheese the puzzles. The game may be simple, but it's really satisfying to crack a code without using any guesses
Playtime: 30-60min+
Nuclear Tides
In theory, this game should be fun. A combination of tower defense and a tile builder, where you expand across your island to build synergies between tiles to upgrade your turrets to defend the island for as long as possible. But in reality it's just... meh at best. I'm pretty sure half of the stats/mechanics don't work (or are not yet implemented), and the tiles I got at the start were the most powerful in the game, which completely ruined any point in strategizing what turrets I have and when to upgrade them. Currently, quite mindless gameplay, but perhaps it'll get better as things are fleshed out
Playtime: 30min+
Biped 2
Biped 2 expands on the previous game with more mechanics, and a four player co-op (which sadly I didn't have enough people to test the one level out). As far as co-op games go this one isn't particularly challenging nor does it feel much different from the first game (in fact the first levels might be a bit too similar) but it can be some good fun when played with a friend, as long as you can laugh over each other's frequent goof-ups
Playtime: 1-3h+
Dragon Heartburn
A silly game about being an office dragon with an uncontrollable case of fire breath from a hot pizza. Whichever way you face you spew firey death, which is the leading cause of death at your office. As such, you must use anything and everything around you, such as walls, desks, and file cabinets; to shield your co-workers from yourself. It looks like a fun, simple, and silly game; but it could use some variation in mechanics beyond the increasingly complex level design. And resolution settings, since my screen default 150% 4k setting completely broke the aiming system xd
Playtime: ~20min
ToDo List
ToDo List tries to be quirky by tasking you with doing a list of tasks with alternate solutions, but the demo never gets to the point where you have interesting alternate results, and what the demo does have is extremely volatile to doing things too fast or out of order - despite that being the allure of the game. There is a seedling of a game there, but the demo leaves a lot to be desired
