Demos—post game demos here

[ZedClampet]

Songs of Silence Demo
Planned Release Date: May 23, 2024

Phenomenal artwork in this hybrid, which has elements of 4X, RTS and RPG.
"strategy game set in a fantasy world threatened by the all-devouring Silence. The game features a mix of turn-based kingdom management, auto battler, and hero development, contrasted with intense real-time battles"
Peter has a 9-min video about it.

Conclusion

I gave it 30 minutes and the initial feel is great, despite the RPG and fantasy malarkey which usually dissuade me. Wishlisted for some future sale, I won't be surprised if the presentation alone gives me a few hours of enjoyment before the rot sets in. Text is a bit small, but otherwise UI looks great. Recommended.

Here's the initial map:

Specs
Ran fine on my 2017 PC with i7-7 and GTX 1060.

"RECOMMENDED:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: 64-bit Windows 10
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-7700T CPU @ 2.90GHz or better
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1070
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 5 GB available space"

Contents

Demo has Campaign and Skirmish for SP, with Multi greyed out—so I assume available at release, Co-op not mentioned that I saw.

I tried the Campaign start for a bit of lore and action. I'm Queen after my parents are killed in the sacking of our capital, so I must lead survivors to a nearby ally. Voiceovers are good, small battle on the way, made it to ally's capital—their king is under siege in one of their other cities, so next job is to go and lift that.

Movement is standard 4X-style—click unit(s), r-click destination. I had 6 movement 'points', ie I could move 6 'spaces' in one turn.

Resources

3 resources—gold, material, divine favor.
In capital, can rest and heal troops, recruit new units, and something with buildings—not sure what, I didn't find any agency in that The Cap had some attributes already in place, each giving some benefit to eg defense, healing, storage.

Military

The military setup is interesting. Check this out:

3 sections, with 7 slots in each column. The central Army section has 28 slots—I assume you can recruit 28 units when you have enough gold, I bought Infantry and Archer squads which went in 2 of the 28 slots, joining my 4 surviving units. You choose from the cards at the bottom of the screen.

Interesting bit are the other sections, especially the Reserves. Any troops there are not available for battle, so good place to heal or keep specialist units—I currently have only 3 groups of surviving civvies there, with 1 Health and 2 Cowardice if I recall correctly Also place for wagons, eg supply and loot. The Garrison section is for troops and wagons you want to stay behind when the rest of your forces leave—apparently some troops can get a Garrison perk.

You can drag and drop units between the 3 sections, and between slots, so both force composition and formation is up to you.

Combat

You don't control units, you issue orders and perform royal actions via the battle cards you have—eg 'All cavalry charge' or 'All wounded healed 20%'. The battle goes on in real time, but you can pause to issue your card-based commands and actions. The cards have a short cooldown period—~10 seconds—before you can use them again.

So it looks like combat will be mainly about setting up your force for different kinds of challenges, and having appropriate battle cards in hand. Seems interesting in theory.

I'm not sure about the battle cards short cooldown, doesn't that encourage immediate usage spam so as not to 'waste' their power—eg to ensure you get to use them 3 times in a battle rather than 2?

I played this last year at some point and put it on my wishlist, but I had completely forgotten about it. I'm in my not buying games from Steam phase, so it will be awhile...

 

[ZedClampet]

Of Life and Land on Steam​

Of Life and Land is a charming settlement-building strategy game paired with a rich simulation experience. Every animal and plant tries to find their place in nature while you lead your villagers to their future. Expand to different regions and trade with local factions to gain needed resources.
store.steampowered.com
April 2, Trailer uses free music, if that’s a pet peeve of yours

 

[Brian Boru]

Battlefall State of Conflict Demo
Demo Release s.g - build 16-83-2824 18:38
I didn't notice this is Early Access, which I usually don't bother with. No ETA on release yet, but alpha testing

Very much a C&C-like RTS, which looks clean and polished.

Main menu:

Options Menu
Fairly limited, eg no choices under Video other than a quality level:

Main Battle Screen

I quite like the battle screen, which has 3 zoom levels—below is at farthest 'up' or 'out', from which you could zoom in twice. Right side has compact selection panels under mini map—main one with 4 columns for Buildings, Infantry, Vehicles, and whatever the 4th does—maybe defense structures or super weapons.

Note the little tabs on the left side of the map & panel—dunno what the map ones are for, maybe fast camera locations. Panel ones are for various 'upgrades', seem like superpowers—the one I unlocked increased something [max health?] and healed units within its large circle of effect.

Mouse is not bound to screen, so I popped onto second monitor when trying to scroll left—but I found a gentler push against the left side stayed in the Battle Map. This and Alt-Tab worked fine, I was able to type these notes into my text editor and pop straight back into the game which had stayed full screen on the other monitor.

Control groups like C&C by 'rubber banding' Ctrl-X'—X being a digit 0-9]—and then pressing X to select group.

Definitely worth a Follow on Steam, this feels good to a C&C fan.

 

[Brian Boru]

Masterplan Tycoon
demo_v1.2.111

Not my cuppa, but worth a look for Satisfactory or Factorio fans—it's a Supply Chain builder—who want a less stressful version, no timers or enemies, just chill. Very minimalist presentation which I like—you can easily find stuff in the UI.

Here's the main map:

Blue = water, Green = trees, Grey = stone.

---

And here are a few resources linked up:

I stopped at this stage as I was supposed to build a Farm but couldn't find a way to do so—I had already built a few other structures, so it may not be down to my intrinsic blindness.

---

If idea of this appeals, there are plenty more—eg Shapez and AutoForge.

 

[ZedClampet]

Masterplan Tycoon
demo_v1.2.111

Not my cuppa, but worth a look for Satisfactory or Factorio fans—it's a Supply Chain builder—who want a less stressful version, no timers or enemies, just chill. Very minimalist presentation which I like—you can easily find stuff in the UI.

Here's the main map:

Blue = water, Green = trees, Grey = stone.

---

And here are a few resources linked up:

I stopped at this stage as I was supposed to build a Farm but couldn't find a way to do so—I had already built a few other structures, so it may not be down to my intrinsic blindness.

---

If idea of this appeals, there are plenty more—eg Shapez and AutoForge.

I'll give it a try. Looks too minimalist for me, though. Looks like you are working an office job. I like to have more of a world and some context and purpose. Like in Shapez I'm thinking, "But why am I building squares?" "So you can cut them into rectangles" isn't enough motivation for me. I guess you could say I need more RPG

 

[ZedClampet]

Masterplan Tycoon
demo_v1.2.111

Not my cuppa, but worth a look for Satisfactory or Factorio fans—it's a Supply Chain builder—who want a less stressful version, no timers or enemies, just chill. Very minimalist presentation which I like—you can easily find stuff in the UI.

Here's the main map:

Blue = water, Green = trees, Grey = stone.

---

And here are a few resources linked up:

I stopped at this stage as I was supposed to build a Farm but couldn't find a way to do so—I had already built a few other structures, so it may not be down to my intrinsic blindness.

---

If idea of this appeals, there are plenty more—eg Shapez and AutoForge.

Actually, that was pretty fun. To build the farm, you had to click on "Tier 1". Everything to that point was "Tier 0". But I eventually got stuck on pillars. It just said to build a pillar, and I didn't find that option anywhere.

Logistics lines get a little odd after awhile, but I had a good time. If I weren't boycotting Steam, I'd probably buy the game, assuming someone on the forums answers my question about how to build a pillar.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'll give it a try. Looks too minimalist for me, though. Looks like you are working an office job. I like to have more of a world and some context and purpose. Like in Shapez I'm thinking, "But why am I building squares?" "So you can cut them into rectangles" isn't enough motivation for me. I guess you could say I need more RPG

I had the exact same problem with Shapez. I find it a lot easier to keep engaged if there's some kind of story or world building you unlock as you go. This holds for board games as well, a good theme makes the entire game much more enjoyable for me than a game that's completely abstract.

 

[Brian Boru]

Islands of Insight Demo

[wouldn't let me capture text, maybe background confusing?]

Blame @Colif for making me possibly interested in this 10,000 puzzles game! Yeah, ten thousand—had me very skeptical too, but devs have a couple of earlier games with high ratings, so…
TLDR: Intriguing, wishlisted, give it a look if puzzles do it for you.

Apparently there's an always-online situation/requirement, altho there's no multiplayer—so comments say, I didn't look into it, but that's silly and suspicious if true.

I see influence of The Witness in the starting puzzles—I only did the first ~10 while messing around for ~30 minutes. I'll be amazed if there isn't a lot of repetition and minor variation in 9,000+ of these, but presentation quality is high, so maybe gameplay is too—what I met had repetition indeed, but also some neat ones, so so far, so good.

Slow to load on i7-7 & GTX 1060-6GB, fullscreen 1080p;
Alt-Tab works;
Minimal character creator, M/F choice;
Beautiful graphics and very colorful;
Toggles for Sprint and Crouch;
Z to Undo.

---

Here's the screen you meet after launch:

---

Options screen:

---

Character Creator:

You can have FPP or TPP.

---

Starting to play:

---

Hidden Arch discovered:

 

[Colif]

i think you can see other people in game but maybe not party with them.

i think the types of puzzles repeat but they get harder as you go along and some areas aren't reachable without doing other things.

 

[ZedClampet]

Surviving Ceres on Steam

Surviving Ceres is an open world survival game with an emphasis on crafting and base building. Export rare materials and manufactured goods to earn funding used to unlock new technologies and upgrades. Bring in colonists from earth to work advanced facilities to terraform the planet.

store.steampowered.com

Looks kind of cool in a Planet Crafter/Astroneer sort of way. Downloading the demo now.

 

[ZedClampet]

This colony sim was supposed to release this month, but was bumped to July 18. It genuinely looks great to me. Downloading this one too

Norland on Steam

Lead your noble family in this medieval colony sim, facing off against class conflict, religious struggle, and political treachery. Tend to your people’s needs, uncover the lost knowledge of a fallen empire, and engage in nefarious plots against your enemies.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Rolfil]

Surviving Ceres on Steam

Surviving Ceres is an open world survival game with an emphasis on crafting and base building. Export rare materials and manufactured goods to earn funding used to unlock new technologies and upgrades. Bring in colonists from earth to work advanced facilities to terraform the planet.

store.steampowered.com

Looks kind of cool in a Planet Crafter/Astroneer sort of way. Downloading the demo now.

I know this is Early Access but it's absolutely terrible. The Planet Crafter still has a demo on steam even though it's no longer Early Access. Please just try that instead!

 

[ZedClampet]

I know this is Early Access but it's absolutely terrible. The Planet Crafter still has a demo on steam even though it's no longer Early Access. Please just try that instead!

It is terrible, but they are actually just wanting feedback. They are a long way from even an early access release. Hopefully it will get much better.

 

[ZedClampet]

@mjs warlord

Have you seen this?

Chocolate Factory: Prologue on Steam

Build your dream Chocolate Factory among candy cane forests and gumdrop hills to produce the tastiest sweets. A delicious first-person factory automation game with a little exploration and combat. Confectionary conveyor belt heaven awaits! The free prologue for the full game!

store.steampowered.com

It's very Satisfactory-like. This is basically the free demo. I've been talking to the solo-dev, and he's very dedicated to making this a great game.

It may not be quite up to Satisfactory standards yet, but it has a lot of nice QoL features that make it pretty fun.

 

[Brian Boru]

Have you seen this?

Bejapers, that sure is colorful—must give it a whirl, thanks

 

[Hveðrungr]

Steam Next Fest June 2024: first batch of demos:

• Once Upon a Rogue's Tale
  This was decent in its card-battling and the art is fine. But I hate random negative events in these games and it dropped a crippling one on me within the first few turns.
• X-Angels (NSFW) — wishlisted
  I feel a bit stupid about this because it's a porn game that I mostly downloaded for amusement but it's actually a really good card-battler and the non-porn bits of the plot are fun. If it were merely saucy rather than outright hardcore porn I think it'd be great.
• Cardian
  Not really ready for prime-time. Some devs add their games to Next Fest to raise awareness, others for pre-beta feedback. I think the former is a better use for Next Fest, but this is the latter.
• Claymores of the Lost Kingdom
  Good art and good lore but aimless gameplay and the dev is very proud of the fact that the game is almost impossible to win. Life's too short.
• The Operator — wishlisted
  Interesting puzzle game in the Papers Please genre, but modern-day sci-fi instead of Cold War.
• SCHiM
  Cute little puzzle platformer and the art is beautiful. But it clearly needs a controller and I only use KB+M.
• LOK Digital — wishlisted
  Clever wordplay puzzle. The full game will probably be too hard for me but I enjoyed it a lot.
• Teeny Tiny Trains
  Fun grid-based puzzle game. The difficulty started ramping up a wee bit too fast for my poor brain so I gave it a miss but it was good.

 

[Brian Boru]

LOK Digital — wishlisted
Clever wordplay puzzle. The full game will probably be too hard for me but I enjoyed it a lot.

I'll go along with that. It's really nice, but once you've met the mechanic, there isn't much more to see—it just adds more complication.

Wishlisted, will buy on sale sometime to support nice game design, rather than any big urge to fry my brain.

7/10

 

[ZedClampet]

Clothing Store Simulator: Prologue on Steam

Are you ready to start shaping fashion? Start working with Prologue now. Make a brand agreement, order products, fill the aisles, dress the mannequins and start selling. A limited number of products for Prologue are waiting for you.

store.steampowered.com

I love retail games, so naturally I played this. It doesn't have near the depth of something like Big Ambitions or King of Retail. Instead, it seems to be a direct rip of Supermarket Simulator, even though that game only came out a few months ago. But the devs must just be fast because the similarities are too obvious to ignore.

Happily, the game does it all very well and is actually better in some ways than the game it mimics. I wish that it had more depth, but it's good at what it does, so I'll probably be picking this up next week when it comes out.

 

[Hveðrungr]

Steam Next Fest June 2024: second batch of demos:

• Metal Slug Tactics
  This has a nice look but there's a graphical bug that makes the screen wobble any time you move the camera, and it gave me a headache and made me nauseous so I had to put it down before actually playing any of it.
• Zephon
  This turns out to be just a generic reskin of Warhammer 40K: Gladius - Relics of War, which I didn't like.
• Pro Philosopher 2
  As a philosophy grad, this was offensively bad. You are compelled to make banal arguments that the author clearly thought were brilliant against strawman versions of great philosophers. If you think you can refute Machiavelli in ten minutes with a few sophomoric quips, you haven't understood Machiavelli. Appalling.
• Story of the Lost Dot
  This is weird, some kind of platformer around the text of Alice in Wonderland. If you like platformers it's probably very interesting.
• Simple Trains — wishlisted
  This turns out to be just a rip-off of Mini Metro, but Mini Metro is one of the greatest puzzle games ever made so this is still good.
• Tactical Breach Wizards — wishlisted
  This is by so far the best game I've demoed so far this Next Fest that it makes me embarrassed for the other games. It's XCOM: Chimera Squad with worse graphics but better mechanics and plot and dialogue. Absolutely god-tier stuff, if you like XCOM at all then get this demo then wishlist it immediately.
• The Alters
  I hadn't realised this was going to be a survival action game. It's very beautiful and if you like that genre you'll probably enjoy it.
• Demonschool
  This goth turn-based tactics game made the common demo mistake of starting partway through the game rather than at the beginning. They think they're cutting to the exciting action, but actually it just misses out all the explanation of how to actually play it! Some people are saying it's basically Persona, so if you've played that maybe you'll be fine without the rules explanation.

 

[Frindis]

• Pro Philosopher 2
  As a philosophy grad, this was offensively bad. You are compelled to make banal arguments that the author clearly thought were brilliant against strawman versions of great philosophers. If you think you can refute Machiavelli in ten minutes with a few sophomoric quips, you haven't understood Machiavelli. Appalling.

Made me rewatch this clip:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIdsjNGCGz4

As for demos, I enjoyed Peppered:

PEPPERED: an existential platformer on Steam

You have only one shot at stopping God of Death. One shot at everything. Pass platforming challenges, explore, solve really dumb puzzles, fight bosses, make choices affecting the story, try to save the world, and fail. Dark humor. Multiple endings. Regret.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Hveðrungr]

Steam Next Fest June 2024: third batch of demos:

• Warlords of the Deck
  This wasn't what I expected, actually some kind of PvP CCG or something—not my thing.
• Songs of Steel: Hispania — wishlisted
  This was really good, the battles are very like the excellent Commands & Colors: Ancients boardgame. It still needs some tidying up but the fundamentals are sound.
• Silence of the Siren— wishlisted
  This is just a faithful remake of Heroes of Might & Magic 3 but sci-fi. But that's a good thing! HoMM3 was great and this is good too.
• Keylocker
  Very odd mixture of turn-based tactics (hooray!) and rhythms (oh no…).
• Handmancers
  Literally Rock-Paper-Scissors: The Card Game. I'm not even exaggerating, you have three types of cards: Stone, Blades, Parchment.
• Lost In The Open
  Really interesting narrative game with turn-based tactics battles. There's something there I think but it's not yet clear if the devs will find it.
• Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers
  This is just Balatro but for blackjack. It adds a cute narrative frame and events, but the main problem is that blackjack is much less interesting than poker.
• Unread Messages
  Funky grid puzzle game in which they made the baffling decision to show you the grid at a really low angle rather than basically top-down.

Only eight games (plus Adventure Forge) to go!

 

[Brian Boru]

(plus Adventure Forge)

Oh nice, thanks!

 

[ZedClampet]

KAISERPUNK on Steam

Build and conquer in Kaiserpunk, the ultimate city builder and grand strategy combo set in an alternative 20th century world. Engage in epic battles on land, sea, and air, or use your economic power to emerge as the ultimate victor.

store.steampowered.com

Performance problems for me, but the colony building seemed solid. I didn't make it to the combat. I have a problem playing demos lately. I just want to sample the game quickly and move on to the next one.

 

[ZedClampet]

Sunset Motel on Steam

Ready for the transformation of neglected rooms? Ensure customer satisfaction, renovate interiors, design entertainment spaces! Manage your motel in your own style and provide travelers with unforgettable experiences!

store.steampowered.com

By one of the many Playway subsidiaries. This is an alright demo. You fix up and run a hotel. Rooms are too big, which makes decorating them with the limited options at the beginning of the game awkward.

 

[ZedClampet]

Just posting as I play...

Deconstruction Simulator on Steam

Deconstruction Simulator is a game that allows you to experience the thrilling world of demolition and recycling! Take on the role of a skilled demolition manager and transform unwanted items into valuable resources.

store.steampowered.com

Another Playway demo. If you enjoy deconstruction games like that space game or Ship Graveyard, you'll probably like this.

You accept contracts to prepare buildings for demolition. Usually, you have a contract to recover a list of items. The rest of the the things you can recover you get to keep to sell in your warehouse. Other things need to be set for recycling. Clear out the building, put things in your warehouse to sell, accept a new contract...