What are we all playing this Steam Next Fest?

Well? Do tell!

We're over the hump of this week's Steam Next Fest now. The vent wraps up on Monday, so really we only have the weekend to muscle through and then we're free from the demo life. We can go back to consuming games only in their entirety, leaving these pintxos of play behind.

As ever, thank you for your recommendations in the comments. While we won't get through all 5 billion demos before the 22nd, I feel like we've already unearthed some winners.

While there isn't a straight up 'top played demos' list I can see, the suggestions Steam's throwing my way look to be becoming more stuck in their ways which suggests there is now a level of curation going on. So if you want to break out of your algorithm, we'll need to rely on each other's algorithms.

Right, onto the run down from us.

Cloudbreaker

Very much in the vein of Vampire Survivors, Cloudbreaker puts you on the deck of an airship as it battles against growing waves of monsters. So far, so familiar. Though, its spin on the formula is that as you harvest the XP from enemies and unlock new weapons, you have to slot these into your airship's chassis in a game of inventory Tetris.

There are only so many hard points on your ship and the weapons can come in awkward shapes and sizes. Plus, depending on the weapon, its placement in the ship can affect how it functions. If you want your melee weapon to swing at enemies below you, then you will need to make space for it on the undercarriage of your vessel. Other items offer buffs to connecting parts or any weapons it's aligned with, so careful placement maximises the power of your arsenal.

It's good fun, but it's also nothing new. It's a bit Vampire Survivors, a bit Drop Duchy.

Wall World Strategy

As I've said before, I'm a big fan of Wall World. The horizontal take on Dome Keeper, which sees you splitting your time between Manic Miner-style drilling for resources and a Missile Command-style battle against approaching aliens, is a wonderful fusion of genres. I am less of a fan of its sequel. And I am even less of a fan of its reincarnation as a real-time strategy game.

Wall World Strategy is one of the growing strand of vertical city builders, like DarkSwitch, which sees your metropolis not spawl but scale. It's actually a perfect fit for Wall World, what with its world set on an impossibly tall wall, but unfortunately it doesn't yet have any of the style or charm of the original game's pixel art. Instead it's been moved to a fairly functional 3D art style. And, while the mainline games see you playing a single builder, here you can send teams of builders into blocky mines to dig out resources to bring back your base.

While it's all recognisably the Wall World game, it doesn't currently grip me so immediately as the original.

Blood Dungeon

From Messhof, creators of Nidhogg, Blood Dungeon is the best thing I've played in Next Fest so Far. As I write about in my fuller post, yes, Blood Dungeon is another 'It's Vampire Survivors + …' (in this case platforming) but it's a genre blend that makes for something truly additive.

Traditionally, these games are top down and your movement falls into a familiar slow circle, kiting hordes of enemies behind you as your weapons pick off the nearest monsters. By making the game a platfomer, actually keeping away from enemies as they crowd in from the sides of the screen is much more difficult and demands quickthinking. You need to sprint, wall jump, climb ladders, and monkeybar along the underside of platforms to keep out of the reach of enemies.

And, for all of its slapdash appearance, the games 6-year-old let loose on MS Paint art style is characterful and charming.

Rivage

A Groundhog Day-style puzzle game set on a space station caught in a timeloop, Rivage puts you in the stranded space shoes of Miranda, one of the Ares' occupants. When you wake up on the first day, the station is in a state of lockdown and you're going to need to puzzle your way through its various security measures to find out what happened to the crew and activate an escape pod to get back to Earth.

The station is running on emergency power, and each time you open a door or use one of its major systems you drain a chunk of the battery. Empty the battery and you'll need to restart the day. Though, restarts don't wipe all of your progress. While unlocked doors slam down, the access cards and passwords you uncovered remain in your handheld computer, making progress a little faster.

Rivage's demo is only a small chunk of the overall station, but its puzzles are diverting and its world intriguing. Though, I did brute force a couple of the problems and stumbled into the solution of another. That weak signposting may be because the developers have assembled a demo from different chunks of the game. One to flag with this one is that the developers say they used AI to prototype artwork that's since been replaced by huma works.

Drill Deep

I'll admit, I was hoping for more from Drill Deep. It's an incremental game where you are drilling to the core of the Earth's surface, and the trailer suggests your excavations are uncovering an Eldritch creature. From what I've played of the demo, that is all present and accounted for, it just doesn't amount to a great deal.

After completing the story mode tutorial and getting into the game proper, you start each run with only a few seconds on the clock to dig for resources before your canary succumbs to the fumes of the mine and you must return to the surface. You spend resources on upgrades that let you dig for longer, for your mining pick to work faster, and for your extractions to be more valuable. So far, very much par for the incremental game course.

As you buy upgrades for your mining equipment, you see muscular organic growths appear in the background of the mine's surface. These spread the more you buy, but that's about it when it comes to Eldritch impact. Perhaps there is more the deeper you go, but as the game offers nothing that other incremental don't, there's not much compelling me to dig deeper.

Star Trek: Outposts Unknown

I enjoyed reading about the commitment to Starfleet's noninterventionist policies in James' write up of Star Trek: Outposts Unknown. You aren't creating a colony in this colony builder, you're instead working with a recently first-contacted civilisation to help them build a research station to study a radiation storm. Rather than throwing up housing and grabbing land from the locals, all of your work crew run to the Enterprise-like ship in orbit at night. Though, as James says:

As a determined 5pm finisher in real life, I should be supportive of my expedition’s creature comforts and work/life balance. Unfortunately, this is not real life. It is a sci-fi settlement builder, and if I know anything from other sci-fi settlement builders, it’s that nothing gets done if I can’t enforce backbreaking labour on sleepless underlings. At least thrice during my time with the demo did I quietly mouth "Where are you going?!" as my security offices and metal processors were left unfinished, workshy redshirts downing tools and heading back ship-side for their nightly banquets and cold plunges.

Diggin

I really need to tack a wide course around any game tagged as 'Incremental' because I am an absolute sucker for a game that eekes out marginal gains. I meant to play Diggin, a game that sees you lay a mole with a drill carving its way through the earth to find its friends, for ten minutes. Instead I sat there for an hour after work just drilling away.

You earn resources from breaking blocks and invest those in upgrades that make your drill more powerful, your fuel tank larger, and your lifespan longer. There's nothing new here, but I can't say it's not absorbing. And I have added it to my wishlist dammit.

The Guild: Europa 1410

Edwin's been playing The Guild: Europa 1410, which he says looks like a top-down mod for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, though with more than a little Crusader Kings 3 about it.

You start life as a citizen walking the streets of Czech city Kuttenberg, and from there plot your path up the social hierarchy. Building a bustling trade, making friends with all the powerful people and enemies of the easily stabbed in the back people. Though, while it sounds like an RPG, in truth it's closer to a boardgame. And one that feels a little thin in places.

Snap Jaw

If Steam Next Fest were judged on vibes alone, this creepy fishing game in a world overseen by horribly screechy machines would have my vote.

Snap Jaw sees you sailing the dark waterways of a dystopian cove, hopping from fishing spot to fishing spot while trying to stay out of the eyeline of patrolling drones. Played in first-person, you must run from station to station on your boat, turning the wheel, reeling in the fishing line, and firing the harpoon to trigger the sea mines that too often block your path.

The best bit, though, is when you've met your fishing quota. Then you sail into the waiting mouth of the metallic sea serpent the game's named after. You dump the fish into the water and race to a safe distance before the monstrous Snap Jaw bursts out of the water like Jack's beanstalk, if that fabulous shrub were made of metal and teeth.

Tom Lander: The Exiled King

Giving off big Lunar Lander energy, Tom Lander: The Exiled King sees you controlling a quad-jet delivery drone in technicoloured space bases. You power each thruster independently, so keeping your drone aloft, let alone gently grabbing cargo and carrying it back to a landing pad, is difficult enough.

Perhaps with time I'll wrap my head around Tom Lander's controls, but I was like a leaf blown on the wind – one that frequently tumbles over and over itself before crashing into the ground. And exploding.

Thinking about it, this is pretty much how I remember Lunar Lander going when playing on our old Acorn.

Over The Hill

Mark's been playing SnowRunner-adjacent Over The Hill, which he describes thusly:

Unlike in Saber Interactive’s ruthless off-roading sims - the likes of SnowRunner and scoutier spin-off Expeditions - getting stuck like this in Over the Hill doesn’t feel akin to being murdered by a mischievous haulage demon who’s been plotting your demise ever since you set out in the wrong lorry. Instead, it’s like being murdered by a hippie who’s suddenly grown very angry that you aren’t living in the moment and taking in the surrounding nature. Less driving game Dark Souls, more driving you towards owning a pair of hiking shorts.

Iron Nest: Heavy Turret Simulator

I surprised myself by not diving straight into this at the start of the festival considering I listed it as one of my most anticipated games of 2026. But, Iron Nest: Heavy Turret Simulator absolutely delivers on its promises of simulating the innards of a fascist megacannon.

At the start of each mission, your objective arrives via a satisfyingly chunky teleprinter. Target coordinates in hand you must then head to the big map table to plot a line between yourself and the target, jotting down the range and bearing for later. Take that data over to a different machine to calculate the firing angle and how many powder charges you'll need to launch your shell that far, before heading over to the loading chamber to ram a six-foot-long explosive into the firing tube. And finally you go to another machine where you spin a wheel to angle the turret to match the calculation from earlier. If you've done everything right, when you pull the firing lever you'll watch the sheel travel across the map and hit your target.

Except, if you follow my instructions above, you'll repeat my mistake and forget to rotate the turret to the correct bearing, meaning a high explosive shell the size of a Mini Cooper raining down on the completely wrong part of the continent. Hopefully it didn't hit an allied nation…

Update: I've now written up my fuller thoughts on Iron Nest and how it made me feel sad.

Leafy Corner

The rapidly approaching joy of this summer is that all my houseplants are hitting their growing season. If I turn my back for a minute it's as though they've grown an inch, and, sure, I say 'My how you've grown' like a parody of an elderly uncle to the youngest member of the family. Leafy Corner bottles that sensation, giving you a small plant shop to stock, decorate, and maintain.

After laying out pots and planting shrubs, the plants rapidly mature before your eyes. It's a proper delight. As a shopkeeping sim, it's a little too thin for my tastes. I want to be able to increase footfall, squeeze as much out of customers' wallets, and expand to a shop with more floorspace. Admittedly, that might take away from the cosy vibes, but, I am nothing if not a Frank Winfield Woolworth at heart.

Thank you, Spacemonkeys for the recommendation!

Normal Golf Game

While you have likely been fooled by the name, Normal Golf Game is, in fact, not an entirely normal golf game.

After waking up at a golf course and being told by a CCTV camera that you signed up for the tournament – before promptly hoovering up the $100,000 entrance fee from your wallet – you really have no choice but to compete. Especially when your car is towed the moment your back is turned.

Normal Golf Game does for golfing what QWOP and Baby Steps did for perambulating. And, like those two games, as soon as you blast all the intrinsic parts of a physical action across a keyboard it becomes horribly engaging. I spent a good half hour trying to hook a ball through a magic purple canyon to hit the bowling pin on the other side. Unsuccessfully, but entertainingly.

Moldrise

Edwin's been having a fun(gal) time with Moldrise, a game where you're racing to the top of a building before you succumb to your horrendous toe infection. Most disturbingly, as the sickness spreads the sound it makes with each step changes. Edwin says it is "by far, the nastiest piece of audio design I've encountered in a horror game in recent years."

Of course, it's not as easy as just climbing the stairs

To make it to the roof, you must haggle with the other occupants of the block for passage and resources. This includes food and water, because your thirst and hunger increase almost as fast as the ravening presence in your foot. Your neighbours are… an alarming bunch. Better company than the fungus, for sure, but I probably wouldn't have them round for tea.

Killer Chase

In a desperately awkward occurrence, you've interrupted a murderer at the end of the act. The blighter is now dead set on making sure there are no witnesses, so you have to hot foot from the scene before he can catch you. Thus, Killer Chase.

Except, this endless runner isn't in the cool stylings of Canabalt. Instead, your screen is filled with rows of Dance Dance Revolution-style directions that you must type out in rapid succession. Bash them all out within the time limit and you will keep one steep ahead of the killer. Fail and you'll get a nasty little stab to the back.

I'm rubbish at quicktime events, but I did get swept up in Killer Chase. In part because at the end of each round, you and the killer stand three feet apart, bent over double catching your breath before both taking off again. I've not managed to complete a level, mind, because the chains of commands simply become too long for my clumsy fingers to tpye wihtuot maikng msikates.

Empulse

James has been playing Titanfall-evoking Empulse and sent me these words wot he thought up.

Empulse doesn’t initially sound too appetising. It’s coming from 1047 Games directly off the back of a doomed Splitgate 2, and could be cynically described as Titanfall But Less: a parkourable, jetpacking arena shooter where the mechs are intentionally chucked in as disposable powerups, not potential gamechangers integral to a match’s ebb and flow. I’m glad a gave it a chance, mind, as its sticky wallrunning and pacey, often midair firefights come as close as any game I’ve played to capturing the boingy spirit of Respawn’s FPS masterpieces. The on-foot part of it, anyway. Empulse launches in early access on June 24th; I’ll be watching to see how it fleshes itself out, and if it can solidify an identity of its own.

But, enough about what we've been playing. What would you recommend?