Next Fest 26|3 Day 3

NextFest now has a "Personalized" mode, and whether intentionally or not it actually is quite decent at filtering out a lot of the low quality cash grabs. Won't rely solely on it in case it sticks too hard to one genre of games, but it's a good feature nonetheless!

Highlight: Loftia

Muri: Wildwoods

Muri: Wildwoods on Steam

Play as Pelle, a curious cleaner muri tasked with restoring an island back to life! Explore mysterious ruins, clean away corruption, befriend cute critters, collect sketches, and save the Wildwood’s forest spirit in this cozy cleaning-sim adventure!

STEAM

If I had a nickel for every time I played a goop-cleaning game this Next Fest I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird it happened twice. This time it's a smooth and colorful 3D Platormer that's a lot more as if power washing mixed with ecological conservation. Aside of some minor hiccups a very chill and relaxed adventure

LINER/TRACER

LINER/TRACER on Steam

LINER/TRACER is a stylish 2D action game where you fight using both your mouse and keyboard. Master fast, fluid mouse-controlled movement, evasive maneuvers, and attacks to defeat your enemies.

STEAM

A stylish 2D where you can click on screen to slash to your mouse or create a platform underneath yourself. Combined, they form a powerful offensive/evasive kit used across a small variety of platforming/bosses. There are some improvements that could be made, especially with onboarding of a new player, but this could be a real fun boss rush-esque game down the line

PITH

PITH on Steam

Traverse a wonderful and strange world, find playful tools, and uncover secrets in PITH, a metroidbrainia/puzzle-platforming adventure full of twists and surprises.

STEAM

Pith is hard to describe, but I'd compare it to Fez to some degree. You have small 3D dioramas you can rotate around, and your goal is to reach the monolith via some light platforming. But to actually progress you also need to find chests to unlock new levels and secrets. Some are in plain sight, others require going back to previous levels with new abilities, others still require solving obscure riddles. It should resonate with a very particular audience, but having thought I'm part of that audience, it sadly didn't

Space Revolver

Space Revolver on Steam

SPACE REVOLVER is a puzzle adventure game that follows the journey of a protagonist caught in a catastrophic black hole accident. With your spaceship critically damaged, you must explore uncharted planets, solve puzzles, repair your ship, and find your way back home.

STEAM

A sokoban metroidvania? Sure, why not. The gist is that you have a grid-based overworld you walk around with, enter mini puzzle dungeons to get energy/keys/abilities, and use that to unlock new areas. Though the demo only presents the basics so you never really get to the sort of level design metroidvanias are known for. Overall could be a neat mix of genres, assuming the gravity-rotating puzzle elements get a bit more challenging with time

Tricolo

Tricolo on Steam

A minimalist logic puzzle played on a 3×3 grid. Take on 200+ puzzles built around simple rules and intuitive controls.

STEAM

A minimalistic yet tricky puzzle game about moving colors around a grid, under the limitation of what you can move when. This does mean the puzzles can be "solved backwards" quite easily but the learning curve and little tricks the game does are quite nice to see

Loftia

Loftia on Steam

Welcome to Loftia, a cozy, multiplayer world where you can build towards a brighter, more sustainable future! Connect with friends both old and new, to farm, craft, explore, decorate, and create a meaningful impact - together.

STEAM

A cozy farm-sim MMO. Loftia provides you with your small floating island and tasks you wish growing crops, cooking dishes, and adventuring out into the floating isles. The game is extremely cozy and relaxing which you can enjoy in your own solitude or in the hubbub of other players. Has some time-gated things, but they mostly felt like a nudge to go do something somewhere else for a bit rather than something meant to force you to wait to progress

Home Paige

Home Paige on Steam

A momentum-driven 3D platformer set inside a strange Operating System. Run, jump, swing and dash through a vast digital world as Paige, an optimistic girl from the Recycling Bin, a place where useless people get deleted.

STEAM

A 3D momentum-based platformer set inside of a presumably old computer. I really enjoyed the visuals here not just for their aesthetic, but also how they move you between (sub-)levels without a need for a loading screen of any sort. Shame it's so short as the movement takes a bit to get a hold of, but once I did I was zooming around at the speed of dial-up