Next Fest 26|1 Day 2
Micro-reviews for Day 2 of February Next Fest 2026, exploring Solateria, Ultimate Control Machine, Trust, Deadline Delivery, Armatus, and GRIDbeat!
All but one of the demos today took longer than expected. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does leave less time to fish for gems. Still some fun stuff
Highlights: GRIDbeat!, Ultimate Control Machine
Solateria
While Solateria feels somewhat inspired by Hollow Knight in terms of its vibes, it stands well on its own. The level design is a bit on the simpler side but the environments are pleasant to look at, and the parry combat system is solid. There is a lot of little things that may be a sign of inexperience of the devs, but it's generally quite polished
Playtime: 1-1.5h
Ultimate Control Machine
A game where you go forward with a lil dude through a seemingly simple 2D obstacle course. The catch is that every few hundred meters your controls change, from standard WASD, through randomized keys, up to controlling your rotation with keys, and speed with a thrust lever added to the screen. It's very creative, but also very punishing as the moment you hit an obstacle or a wall you get catapulted down the track, often hundreds of meters. Worth giving a whirl if you don't get frustrated easily
Playtime: 30-60min
Trust
A very short demo that has you explore a handful of rooms in a pyramid with puzzles so trivial it's hard to call them puzzles. The central focus seems to be a portal door that transports you between parallel versions of the pyramid that have slightly different things in them, but with a single room using it it's hard to pass judgement on the game as a whole
Playtime: 5-10min
Deadline Delivery
I have mixed feelings about this game. The core is that you're a delivery driver with a bomb in your trunk, so you gotta deliver these packages fast. Drift to gain boost, boost to go faster, all the good stuff. But I've had a really hard time with the controls which, while responsive, felt like they took a second to actually affect my truck due to all the momentum. It's not necessarily a bad thing, provides a lot of room for skilled truck control, but it reminded me more of rage games than arcade racing ones
Playtime: 15-30min+
Armatus
A roguelite shooter that despite being generic in a lot of ways (both gameplay and setting) is also visually unique, providing a good cast of enemies that aren't just another hoard of demons. Still, they're a bit spongey and easy to dodge, so I ended up spending most of my time kiting enemies while killing them one by one, without taking any health damage until the boss. Might be fixed with more damage upgrades from roguelite elements, but that's hard to judge from the demo. A fine shooter, but lacks a hook (other than the aesthetic to some extent)
Playtime: 30min+
GRIDbeat!
A cybernetic dungeon crawler, with multi-level maze-like dungeons you have to puzzle your way through, all to the beat of the background track. There is a lot of visuals in this one, adding to both the ambience and the difficulty. And between various secret nooks and finding the optimal path through the mainframe, there is plenty to enjoy here, with my main complaint being lack of checkpoints in the levels
