So I never did weigh in on the Next Fest demos I played, one of which released yesterday:
Hell Is Others
This is a stylish Darkwood/Hotline Miami-like top-down PvPvE ‘extraction horror’. What I thought was cool about it is that there’s this Lynchian Eraserhead-like weirdness back at your apartment and you have to go out into the city to gather everyday items like… uh, blood, to feed a mysterious plant that was left at your door. The owner of the plant is coming back for it next week and they’ve asked you to take care of it until then. Okay.
That’s basically the hook, and along the way you’re trying to stay alive in the city running errands for a new scavenging business while encountering other weird characters to help out. You extract from the city via lifts to get back to your apartment. If you die, you lose your shit, literally and possibly figuratively depending on your haul. Lifts make a loud dinging noise which attracts ‘Others’. And hell is Others. There’s shooting, melee, traps, line of sight, different surfaces make difference sounds which appeals to the Thief lover in me. I was surprised by how tense it was thanks to the great sound design.
There’s an overarching plot that you can choose to progress when you’ve hit certain criteria. Each story beat is a day. Your apartment can also be customised. It’s a weird mix and I really liked it. The biggest problem for me was that the controls didn’t feel smooth or intuitive, on mouse and keyboard or controller. I think I preferred the latter but aiming was proper wonky at the edges of the map.
At one point I ran out of ammo and was being chased by some seriously tenacious aggressor with a shotgun. I found some landmines and couldn’t work out how to equip them under pressure so got shot to bits. I think the explode-y enemies are no fun, really. I stopped playing the demo when a drunk character wanted a vodka shot and a wafer bar but I could not find a wafer bar.
Reviews are positive and I can imagine enjoying this if I got used to the controls/UX. I know a lot of folk will be put off by the PvP element but this feels like a solo game with smart enemies (that are actually real players). ‘Others’ even look like the AI enemies so it feels like a very deliberate design choice, which is cool. I’m quite interested to know how proper firefights shake out.
Friends vs Friends
Oh ho ho. This was instantly my jam. Cool intro and music and then a straight shooting 1v1 duel, only, each player has a fistful of mutator cards they can play to buff themselves or hobble their opponents. You’ve got everything from summoning an AK and nuking the map (so you’re both fighting in a giant crater) to bullet time and making your opponent’s head big. You can customise your deck as well. My favourite card? ‘They can’t jump’. Bunny hoppers get down. In one game I had a sniper rifle card and a card that reveals your opponent’s brain and my enemy made themselves into a giant (so huge HP sponge but slow moving). I popped both my cards while my opponent was looming just out of sight behind a building and his brain popped straight up into the air and I took them out in one shot. Amazing.
Oh oh! Or the time when a guy summoned a sword then switched it with my gun. He then nuked the map so he was able to shoot me more easily in the open but I used a speed card to give me an edge. It was enough and I was able to dodge his gunfire and cut him to bits! So good.
The full game will feature 2v2 as well but this reminds me of the pure, simple thrill of old multiplayer shooters. The shooting felt great with perhaps a little too much resistance on adjusting your aim while shooting with automatic weapons. But demos gonna demo, and the devs are working on this. This is super promising and a day one purchase for me. I had difficulty tearing myself away from it which is astonishing for a demo with one map. Queue times were less than Splatoon 3 which meant playing again was super snappy. I was amazed how consistently well I did. I think I went up against a demi-god 360 no-scoper once, or they got lucky. It felt like even if you couldn’t out-shoot someone, you might be able to outplay them with cards, which is very cool.
Inkulinati
Gorgeous and funny and quite a bit trickier to wrap my turn-based head around than usual. It’s got some idiosyncratic rules but I quite enjoyed this once I started to get a feel for it. One particular detail that I love is that the action is written on the page as it happens so by the end you’ve got this amusing passage with gold lines like ‘Moymir struck some chap and he felt daft, really really daft’ and ‘no lovers of wholesome biscuits remained breathing’.
Dredge
This was really intriguing. The gameplay loop seems basic from the demo but it’s still satisfying and there were enough wrinkles and surprises to keep me interested. The presentation is top notch. I think I’ll be checking this out when it’s done.
From Space
Another co-op game consideration, this time in the vein of Basingstoke and Alien Swarm. Only had a quick dabble but it’s very slick and I’m eager to play some with friends.
The Knight Witch
What I’ve played of this seems really promising. It’s got lovely visuals and the twin-stick action coupled with a card-based spell system could be cool. I was a little surprised to see abilities mapped to the face buttons which require you to take your right thumb off the stick to press them.
Bravery and Greed
Checked this one out as a possible co-op roguelite beat 'em up with friends and it seemed promising, though I’m wary of the levelling up system being a progress valve, holding you back until you open more abilities up.
Funtasia
Tried this just for the visuals alone and while the driving is fun when you’re doing jumps and bombing down hills, the levelling system is absolutely a progress valve. You basically have to keep playing and failing a level until you’ve collected enough oil to upgrade your vehicle to make it past certain pinch points. It’s a grind and very trial-and-error. The art is incredible though. The translation/English is rough. I wish The Legend of Bear-Truck Trucker had this presentation. That’s a very different but much better game.
