Next Fest 26|2 Day 1
Micro-reviews for Day 1 of June Next Fest 2026, exploring Antimatcher, Tiny Train Adventure, Wink Out, Unconventional Fantasy, Mind Inc, and Dragon Dragon Fire Fire Deluxe
And the demos have arrived! I'll be doing my best to sift through the demo landfills to try and find curious things. Apologies if the first day is a bit lukewarm, but still some fun arcadey games to play
Highlights: Dragon Dragon Fire Fire Deluxe, Wink Out
Antimatcher
A stylized puzzle game about connecting differently colored bubbles of matter and antimatter until there is none of the latter. For nerds out there it's basically playing with sets. Demo is a bit short and I worry the concept might get a bit stale if they don't add some extra mechanics, but what's there is pleasant already
Playtime: ~10min
Tiny Train Adventure
Tiny Train Adventure is a tiny sandbox game about building a train track for your tiny train. That's about it, really, there isn't even a tutorial. With some direction the game could be a cozy sandbox, but as it stands it's lackluster in execution
Playtime: 5-15min
Wink Out
Wink Out is a 1v1 rapidfire arcade shooter, highly similar to Rounds. It's well executed so if you've got a friend who likes these sort of games, the demo is worth picking up for a few rounds.
Playtime: 10-15min++
Unconventional Fantasy
A real-time-ish deckbuilder roguelike where instead of getting a new hand every turn, you get two cards every few seconds where you don't use cards. Similarly the enemies will move at their own rate, so you better think fast about what you want to do. Overall the concept is well executed, but there is just a lot happening all at once, and some of the translations aren't great. So while the core combat was easy to grasp, all the stuff around was a bit more of a trial and error kinda thing, and there are many features/cards to battle test
Playtime: <1h+
Mind Inc
The core loop of Mind Inc is to solve simple puzzles to extract small blocks to your starting area. They then turn into a jigsaw you which you can then shuffle about to recreate an image. It's a very casual experience, so while there is a lot of potential in interesting ways to use these systems, I'd expect it to stay a casual relaxing game.
Playtime: 10-40min
Dragon Dragon Fire Fire Deluxe
A simple score-chasing arcade game about spitting fireballs at enemies and collecting various foods and powerups. It's made to look and feel like an 80s arcade game, and it's very good for some quick fun as you chase higher and higher scores
