My favorite demos from the Steam Summer Games Festival

I downloaded way too many demos during the Steam Summer Games Festival. Here's some of my favorites!

I recently pulled the trigger on a new show I’m putting out on Twitch called Demo Daze. The concept isn’t entirely too dissimilar to Try it Tuesday, except the format is more loose, and the content is more rapid fire. The title more or less speaks for itself in some ways; a flurry of game demos I’ve compiled, presented on a day. Wordplay!

The first two episodes of Demo Daze were in response to the total onslaught of demos presented during this year’s Steam Summer Sale, or what I suppose were the weeks preceding it. Because of COVID-19, E3 this year was cancelled, which I feel probably puts a big nail in the coffin on that entire conference, but …maybe not. The response by developers in the face of COVID-19 has been nothing short of incredible, especially when it comes to presentations like E3, PAX, and other important conferences where we’re so used to seeing games being announced. I loved the format of the digital presentations, and I love the format Steam and GOG decided to roll with in bringing back demos to games, even if only for a limited time. It brings the show floor to the user, and gives everyone a much better understanding of what the game is about through simply letting them experience a small portion of it themselves. I’ve always missed the days when shareware and demos were rampant, and our initial beginning point of sale when it came to a game. I’m happy it’s making a comeback, and it makes all the sense in the world to do it in this way.

SO ANYWAYS, DEMO DAZE.

I downloaded way too many demos, and couldn’t cover them all in two days of 8 hour streams. I tried. Here’s a list of what I covered, followed by a list of what some of my favorites from the bunch were.

Games streamed:

My top 10 of the bunch:

Starstruck: Hands of Time
This game was one of the cutest and quirkiest things I somehow managed to stumble upon during my feverish browse through the demos available. The game had a stylized papercraft meets Pixar kind of look to it, and while the core gameplay was meant to be a rhythm game taken up a notch (think Guitar Hero across an octave range), there were equal parts puzzle solving and action to be had. It also had a bit of Scott Pilgrim flavor mixed in, which was appreciated personally. It may have been made for a younger audience in mind, but I found Starstruck: Hands of Time to be an amazing little find that I’m excited to follow the release of.

Just Die Already
Many of us watched the trailer for this one in awe; a satirical take on the weirdness of Death Strading, featuring an old man naked on a beach, hugging a giant sausage while surrounded by dead crabs and empty bottles. As much of a potshot to the weirdness of Kojima as this was, it’s not too far off the mark from what the actual game represents. The premise is pretty simple; control an old man in a physics-based romp across town, where you can wreak havoc on par with Untitled Goose Game, but as a crotchety old man. My personal weapon of choice was the air horn, and I loved this game. I can’t wait to play it with mods on a special night where we haze each other like it’s the Festivus Feats of Strength.

FAITH: The Unholy Trinity
I feel, once again, like a bad horror fan. I missed out on gems made by Airdorf, and I apologize deeply for this misstep. Faith is coming to Steam soon, and of course I checked it out – the low poly look, the music, the premise, all of these things spoke to me. What I didn’t know is that it’s the third chapter combined with the first two that already exists on itch.io, along with some other games I absolutely have to try out soon (The Wind, Summer Night, Earl’s Day Off). These throwback style games have really grabbed my attention as of late, starting off with the work of Puppet Combo and then looping in the exquisite work of panstasz on World of Horror, Faith fits right into this group as something that not only capitalizes on the retro style through and through, but building a world and an atmosphere that is actually creepy and worth your time. If you’re a bad horror fan like me and missed Faith, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Röki
We had this counter going on in my Twitch chat while watching through summer game coverage for games that were either “cyberpunk” or “vikings” in terms of content presented. Cyberpunk won by and large, but games featuring vikings or Nordic/Scandanavian folklore were up there in count as well. Enter Röki, a cute little puzzle adventure based in that very folklore, where you control a little girl who is wandering across the snowy Scandanavian landscape in search of the answers needed to save her family. The game demo gave me just enough of a taste to know that this cute little game was one I was going to pick up and play on stream, and …it comes out tomorrow!? Sick. Anywho, if you’re into the flavor of puzzle games LucasArts was known for churning out in the 90’s, Röki may interest you.

CONSCRIPT
I can’t believe I almost forgot CONSCRIPT, but to be fair, there are a lot of games here, and also my time with CONSCRIPT felt so meaningful that I almost didn’t register it as being a part of Demo Daze. CONSCRIPT is an incredible homage to classic survival horror, set in the First World War, where you’re playing as a French soldier who is trying to fight for his life amidst a terrifying landscape of man-made proportions. This game had so much good going for it on this description alone, and playing it only solidified how good I thought it was going to be… and then I learned it was developed by ONE GUY? And, he’s only 23!? Incredible. I had to back this on Kickstarter while I still could, and I’m anxious to see it on release. Possibly my favorite game of the whole two-day span of Demo Daze.

Haven
Most people will recall this as the anime couple game, which is 100% on the nose. Haven plays out like a stylistic, fully narrated visual novel, which I was thankful for, but the gliding around outside of your base to collect resources and look for wildlife was more than satisfying. Core gameplay appears to be like a real-time Pokemon battle, and I also believe this game was designed with co-op in mind, although it’s not necessary. I wasn’t sure I was going to like Haven going into it, I moreso picked it up to meme, but I actually ended up enjoying my time with it quite a bit. I’m curious to see what slice of the game the demo offered, because it gave just enough for me to wonder what happened before the events we are seeing, and more importantly, what happens afterwards.

SkateBIRD
Listen. I’m hungry for skate games. But also, I love birds. There really isn’t more to be said here, especially when I include that you can play as a bird with an empty coffee creamer for a hat. Just… go wishlist this game, please.

Strobophagia
Strobophagia was a very interesting game, and I’m adding it to this list because of how much it surprised me. I’ve played a lot of walking sim-style horror games on my Twitch channel, many of them forcing you to play hide and seek, or flat-out running from the looming danger in the darkness. Strobophagia wasn’t entirely different in this regard, but the puzzles, the rave atmosphere, and the narrative drew me in a lot more then I ever expected to be. Of course, the game also looks like a drug-fueled nightmare and, for some, is incredibly hard to look at. This was by design, however – the game describes itself as “Pure Psychedelic Horror” and that is not a lie. I’d love to pick this up in the fall when it releases and play it on a future 12 Hours of Scary Shit, because of how interesting I found it to be.

The Iron Oath
Big fan of Divinity: Original Sin 2 right here. I’ve started several characters, but never finished, because it’s huge. That’s not the point, though. When high fantasy narratives are involved, I’m almost always interested to know more. The Iron Oath is one of these kinds of games, and it has some interesting concepts it’s working with: Dialogue trees seem deep, and liken themselves to Divinity: Original Sin. Combat has a similar flavor, as well. The mystery of traversing a dungeon was exciting, especially when I emerged and realized that another part of the gameplay likens itself to something like the Mount & Blade series; a huge map where you can recruit different party members, anyone may die, and anything can happen across this expansive landscape. I love the idea of a world that adapts and changes to the decisions you make, and one that is large enough to create dynamic scenarios wherever you go. The Iron Oath is definitely worth a look if any of these concepts speak to you.

ULTRAKILL
I’m always interested in whatever New Blood Interactive puts out, as well as I’m interested in anything that vaguely resembles a DOOM game. I played a few games like this, as well: Hellbound and Hrot were two very enjoyable games, but of those that I played, I had to give it to ULTRAKILL for being the best of the bunch. They know what audience they’re catering to, as well: the URL for the game is devilmayquake.com – if you’re a fan of old-school Quake, you’re going to love ULTRAKILL. It has the humor, the speed, and the violence you’re looking for in a game like this. I kept revisiting my time with Strafe while playing this game, so if you were a fan of that one, they’re both quite similar. The demo is still available, if interested, otherwise you’ll have to wishlist it to wait for the news of when the official release date is.

Honorable mention:

Gloomwood
I played Gloomwood on a Try it Tuesday I’ve yet to review, but the short version is this: If you were a fan of Thief, you love stealth games, or you love the idea of a low-poly Bloodborne setting, you should probably check a look at Gloomwood. Rad as fuck.

UnMetal
I recently reviewed UnMetal for this blog and for YouTube, but wanted to bring it back up here because it was just that good. Between the on-point humor and the actually good gameplay, it’s worth taking a look at the demo for UnMetal and wishlisting it for a later release.

I look forward to doing more Demo Daze episodes in the near future, as I’m still sitting on a mountain of demos I need to try out. However, for a first run at a show, I couldn’t have picked a better time then the Steam Summer Festival to dive right in. If you had favorites from the demo-pocalypse, let me know on Twitter!

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