Over the past couple of days I've checked out quite a few demos available during this current Steam Next Fest.
On Day One there was House Flipper 2, Soul Stalker, and SteamWorld Build and on Day Two there was Choo Choo Survivor, Sea of Stars, Thronefall, and Moonstone Island.
Out of those seven games I absolutely loved Moonstone Island and SteamWorld Build. Moonstone Island is a mix of Pokemon, Stardew Valley and Slay the Spire and I was immediately enamored with it. SteamWorld Build is a City Builder, Colony Sim, and Mining Operation all in one and I thought it was fantastic.
Time to see if the last four games on my download list show promise.
Starting with..........
One Lonely Outpost
The blurb for One Lonely Outpost is as follows:
An alien world sometimes needs a farmer’s touch to bring it to life. In this sci-fi, colonization-life sim, terraform a barren world: turn wastelands into verdant landscapes while exploring, farming, building, and unlocking all the mysteries of this strange new planet.
I obviously love a good life-sim and this one sounds pretty interesting.
First things first, I played for about five minutes before throwing up my hands in annoyance and going into the game Controls. Every time I scrolled the middle mouse button to select things, it wasn't going the way I expected it to. I then discovered that for some unfathomable reason they have an Hotbar Scroll Inversion option. Why is that even necessary?
I flipped the setting and my scrolling was as it should be. Down for next, Up for previous.
Another irritating thing with the settings is that the Escape key doesn't close menus. The Escape key doesn't lead you to a normal Escape menu either. The Escape key does nothing. I have to press M for Map, scroll down to the Settings icon at the bottom, then close the game that way.
Okay. Obligatory whinge about controls aside, this game seems quite promising. We land on an alien planet, need to explore it and make discoveries, plant crops to feed us and our future colonists, craft all the things, etc. Your basic farming life-sim, but sci-fi and on a strange planet. As we progress, we build up a colony and people will come and live with us, and we can form friendships and relationships with them.
Pretty standard but pretty enjoyable, so far. There's not much to really experience in the demo and, unfortunately, we can't customise our character (yet), but it seems alright. I've added it to my wish list to keep an eye on it.
Jumplight Odyssey
I thought that Jumplight Odyssey had a very intriguing blurb! It definitely caught my eye and enticed me to download the demo immediately.
Keep hope alive on your adventure to the mythical Forever Star! Gather survivors, repair and build out your starship, brave black holes, and fend off attacks, all while managing the daily soap opera of your colorful crew.
Another life-sim but this time more of a colony life-sim and onboard a starship as we're racing away from a great enemy! What really caught my eye was the "managing the daily soap opera of your colourful crew." I'm hoping for my people to form great friendships! And horrible, murderous rivalries. Muahaha.
What I didn't realise was that it was going to be a massive micro-management nightmare.
I was immediately overwhelmed by the complexity of the game. Being smacked in the face with so much resource management that feels like mid-game when I was expecting a begin-game level of difficulty was not welcome.
Checking out the Steam Discussions for the game shows that I am not alone.
Here's what other people have to say:
"I also thought the tutorial could use a way smaller ship. It felt very overwhelming at first. And all the tutorial does is tell you to 'click here, click there'. A smaller ship that slowly introduces more things, while giving player time to do own things between the steps would help prevent that feeling."
"I agree with this, The tutorial has you build a room fix a small issue and then hands you the entire ship with no help. Mega confusing and I couldn't say I had fun playing the demo."
The premise of the game seems really good, but at the moment it's a hard miss for me. The devs have stated that this is early alpha and they are taking player feedback into consideration as they work on their game... so hopefully it ends up being something wonderful.
Laysara: Summit Kingdom
Laysara: Summit Kingdom is a city builder situated upon a mountain, and every settlement you create forms a network around the mountain and works together to become a new Kingdom.
I thought it sounded like a cool concept for a city builder.
The demo consists of the tutorial only and doesn't give you the chance to play around with it for yourself, which was disappointing.
There doesn't seem to be any resource gathering system. You just have all the materials you require to build all the things. Want another house? Cool. Just build it. Don't need to chop trees or mine stone for it.
You start off with a marketplace and build around it. You need people to work and yaks as well, to provide milk and wool and heavy labour. After you build some houses you'll see that the people who live in those houses have needs and wants like honey or cheese or a bath or religious centre, so you need to build buildings to alleviate those needs and make the people happy. When they're happy you can upgrade their house.
Oh. And you can't rotate the buildings. That was annoying.
It's pretty basic. At the end of the demo we build an Avalanche Inducer which destroys half of my creation. I'm really not sure what the point of that was. If we were going to induce an avalanche to protect our people, wouldn't we aim the resulting flurry away from village?
Eh, I don't know. I don't really care for this. Perhaps the actual gameplay loop will be better but they didn't give us a chance to go past the tutorial in the demo to find out.
Little Kitty, Big City
Little Kitty, Big City lures you in with the following blurb:
You're a curious little kitty with a big personality, on an adventure to find your way back home. Explore the city, make new friends with stray animals, wear delightful hats, and leave more than a little chaos in your wake. After all, isn't that what cats do best?
I grabbed it mostly for some casual amusement, hoping that it would be akin to a Kitty Cat version of Goat Simulator or something.
In Little Kitty, Big City, you're a sweet indoor cat who has found your way into the realm beyond the window. You can nuzzle up against humans, some are allergic and sneeze all over you while others like your attention. You can trip the humans over and steal their food and phones. You can swipe at objects and smash 'em. Jump into boxes. Lay down in the sun. Pounce on birds and take their feathers. And basically just be a cat.
If you trip a human over who happens to be eating a sandwich, you can take that sandwich and lure birds over to pounce on them. Feathers are a currency. As are random shiny objects you can find to trade with the Crow who gives you fish for your efforts.
You can find cute hats for your cat to wear. Pretty sure they're just cosmetic and don't really do anything but they're cute.
Overall the goal is to find your way back home into your top-level apartment after falling from the window-sill, and engaging in cat-things as you work out how to get back.
It's a cute game. Not something I'd go out of my way to play, really. I was really hoping that it was more chaotic like Goat Simulator but alas, it's just a cute little pile of nothing.
One Lonely Outpost: A sci-fi life-sim where you strive to create a colony on a new planet. I've wishlisted this one just to keep an eye on future progress.
Jumplight Odyssey: An overly cumbersome, complex, micro-management sim of life aboard a starship fleeing a great enemy. Was hoping it was like "RimWorld but in space!" but just feels like... annoyance wrapped up in pixels.
Laysara, Summit Kingdom: A citybuilder upon a mountain where you don't gather resources and just manage the needs of your people. Seems basic and boring.
Little Kitty, Big City: A cute little pile of nothing. Wanted it to be like Goat Simulator, was disappointed.
Unfortunately the four games I chose for this post just weren't that remarkable and this is the end of this particular Steam Next Fest adventure. Overall, over the past couple of days I did find a couple of games that I plan to snap up as soon as I can and a couple that I'm gonna keep my eye on, so I consider that a success! 😁
(At the same time I feel jipped that I wasted my day with these last four options, LOL. Oh well. Win some, lose some.)
Until next time! ✨🙃
and are from their respective games.