Next Fest 26|3 Day 0

Next Fest starts tomorrow, so I'm back with another week of demo posting! With AI-powered slop being more and more common I will be doing my best to fish out things that have some unique ideas to them, so hopefully the harvest is good this fall.

Highlights: Dino Cleanup, Beat Weaver

Dino Cleanup

Dino Cleanup on Steam

Clean every corner of the world to save cute dinosaurs from the flood of goop in this nostalgic 3D platformer.

STEAM

To start off, Dino Cleanup, a pixely 3D platformer that oozes charm. Your job is to go around and vacuum up purple goop freeing the affected denizens and cleaning the level, while also using it to progress the platforming. Think a bit like Mario Sunshine. It's on the simpler side, but that doesn't stop it being absolutely adorable.

Password Not Valid

Password Not Valid on Steam

Password Not Valid is a party game for up to 6 players. You start with a normal password and end up with twelve vowels, text in quotes and even another player’s name, because your friends are the ones picking the rules. Can you outlast them?

STEAM

Password Not Valid is a simple party game about making a password with more and more rules. Some might just require you end on a symbol, others may require a valid time or for every lowercase letter to be followed by a capital one. The game is a tad slow, but definitely fun chaos, and when you're out you get to try and 'hack' the messy passwords your friends have made.

Satelital

Satelital on Steam

A rule-discovery puzzle game where you place alien symbols on a grid. Uncover their logic as you journey through an atmospheric solar system.

STEAM

A rule discovery puzzle game, set on grids, set on islands, set on planets. I really enjoy the atmosphere and the almost fractal nature of the level layout, but the puzzles themselves have been both scarce and simple.

Inkblood

Inkblood on Steam

You’re an Inquisitor following a trail of death. A cult is at work, your predecessor has vanished, and the region teeters on the edge of chaos. Find the truth. Uphold the Inquisition. Do not fail.

STEAM

A detective point'n'click adventure that has you sit inside the carriage, because your heart powers the carriage, and so you are it. This is but a small taste for very strange lore this game has, letting you discover the rules of this world alongside the actual culprits behind the various murders. The actual murder solving is done with the help of a lens that can see backwards in time and is overall very intriguing, if a tad simple.

Crop and Claw 2

Crop and Claw 2 on Steam

Crop and Claw 2 is an Adventure-RPG about dragons, plants, memories, and more. Delve into a whole new continent of secrets and unearth the roots of the strange events going on.

STEAM

A dragon-filled top-down retro jRPG. It doesn't require knowledge of the first game, though I'd recommend some knowledge of the genre as there is very little video gamey exposition/tutorials. Not typically playing these games does make it hard for me to judge if the balancing is slightly off or if I'm just bad/underleveled, but I never got stuck which is what matters. I do really enjoy the vibes of this game, but it might just be the dragon bias speaking.

Quilt

Quilt on Steam

Create a beautiful quilt one patch at a time. Solve handcrafted puzzles inspired by picross, minesweeper, and jigsaw puzzles, and uncover the hidden rules of the world through logic and experimentation.

STEAM

A picross-esque game on an ever-growing grid. Occasionally the result is an image, but most of the time it's random shades of colors which feels less satisfying than it could be. Still great though.

Void Step

Void Step on Steam

Every song you own is a level you haven’t played yet. Drop any audio file and the game builds a first-person neon obstacle course from its beats, energy, and rhythm. Jump, slide, and strafe through your music. No music files? Fetch from Newgrounds directly! or build and share levels in the editor.

STEAM

A rhythm runner that will generate the track based on any music you feed into it. The free movement is a bit too imprecise to be able to judge how well it fits the music, but the general flow does mirror the songs, and being able to get songs directly from Newgrounds is real nice.

Inversion Day

Inversion Day on Steam

Invert the world around you in this atmospheric pixel-art puzzle platformer. Escape an alien spaceship with your dog using mysterious artifacts that reshape reality, uncover hidden secrets, and solve increasingly difficult handcrafted puzzles.

STEAM

A pixely 2D puzzle game about inverting the world. What was wall is now not and vice versa. A bit short, but the concept is cool, style is great, and there are some secrets for the inquisitive to find.

Beat Weaver

Beat Weaver on Steam

3D multi-track rhythm action with space-time bending mechanics that reward your style as much as your precision. Hit notes and switch tracks to add instruments to the mix. Become a remix machine, enter the flow state and uniquely approach each song of a highly replayable, genre-defying soundtrack.

STEAM

A multi-track rhythm game where you constantly swap between different instruments/vocals of the songs to keep your style meter high while also not messing up the rhythm. Very unique and well made