Next Fest 26|3 Day 7
Micro-reviews for Day 7 of October Next Fest 2026, exploring Temple of Glyths, The UNDA Legacy, Poppy, Light of Atlantis, and Solar Voltage
And the final day is here! A bit later than perhaps intended but here nonetheless! A handful more demos, and in some ways very much hidden gems for this last day, acting as a good finale to an overall solid demo fest. I'll have one more summary post up as per usual, but for now enjoy the final five micro-reviews
Highlights: Temple of Glyphs, Solar Voltage
Temple of Glyphs
A phenomenal "deduce the rules" puzzle game. It has a very high barrier of entry as you need to spend the first while understanding what the game is even telling you to do with its various glyphs. However, once you do it provides a brilliant mix of actually tricky puzzle using what you know, and simpler ones with new rules to understand
Playtime: 1-3h
The UNDA Legacy
An adventure game all about exploring a mysterious island which has been some sort of testing facility. What it means for you is that there are wave-based puzzles dotted about for you to solve to progress. But saying that paints the wrong picture as the puzzles are mostly trivial, and you're going to be doing a lot more exploring around the island on which there are tons of little campsites and decorations for you to learn more about the inhabitants. The story is... less interesting than the exploration effort might warrant, and the island gets a bit creepy at night, but it's otherwise a fine title
Playtime: 0.5-2h
Poppy
A Rhythm Undertale. Best way I can describe it, really, though it definitely requires a bit more work. Your actions have real consequences on how and who you fight which is great to see, but the fights themselves don't feel as rhythm-synced as they perhaps should, and the controls aren't that intuitive despite their simplicity. Overall a promising concept, but needs some polish and bug-squashing
Playtime: 20-50min
Light of Atlantis
A metroidvania that's also a puzzle platformer. At first the game seemed good, even if I maybe would've liked some more combat rather than the scarce enemies present here and there. But then I decided to quickly check something I found suspiciously unresolved, and turns out this game has a lot of secrets and things the demo never tells you are hidden, mechanics included. Kind of like a metroidbrania. The game might be simple and short, but it has my attention
Playtime: 30-50min
Solar Voltage
This game provided me with a rare burst of nostalgia being essentially my 'idealized memory' version of Sonic 3D Blast that I played as a kid, while undoubtedly having multitude of modern improvement over the retro aesthetic. The movement is fluid and has a lot of tricks you can pull off and chain, the levels have a lot of hidden side challenges for you to do, and the general aesthetic is lovely
