Long Sunday of playing demos behind me, this session was without a theme, just 6.5 hours of me playing random picks from the stuff I downloaded
Garbage / Needs more work:
Alpha Terminus - What if that bit in Halo 2 where you shoot stuff while stuck on a large moving platform was the whole game and you were trapped in a turret
Defi Gravity - What if somebody tried to reinvent WipeOut with a free game engine and the asset store, with a probably copyright-infringing soundtrack
My Dream Setup - What if somebody made a room planner software in Unity, added a feature to play chillout music playlists directly in the software and tried to market it as a game
RingRaceR - Somewhat original concept, but not much of a game here yet
Assault on Proxima - Art style somewhere between Borderlands and Void Bastards, but clearly very early in development still, everything about the actual shooting feels awkward. There's also no single player campaign to speak of yet, you just get dumped in a corridor and shoot things
Pekoe - Comfy visual novel / immersive sim around making tea. The actual game part isn't quite there yet, I managed to soft-lock the tutorial. But hey, the custom pronoun editor is already fully-featured and working, so the rest will surely follow at some point
Super Space Club - "A lo-fi arcade space shooter to chill to" - it has the graphics, the music, the style, and the controls, but if the first five minutes of your demo are harder than the first five minutes of Super Stardust (mostly because the enemies are so damn tiny), something went terribly wrong with the chill part
Tray Racers! - Another online cartoon downhill racer, but unlike Slopecrashers, this just has no mojo at all. Could still be turned around, but I won't hold my breath
Verlet Ascend - Bunny needs to platform and shoot his way out of procedurally generated levels while being chased by the rising tide. Needs more polish and maybe a bit of a story carrot to keep things interesting
Okay, but not my thing:
Iosis - Inspired by 2D twin-stick shooters, but heavily emphasizes mouse-control, a deep upgrade system and the fact that you don't shoot anything - you ram into enemies until they die. Meanwhile the enemies aren't really after you, they are after a companion object of yours that you need to protect from getting hit. Solid, but I just don't like playing games like this with the mouse
Roxy Raccoon 2: Topys-Turvy - A collection of Roxy-Raccoon-themed mini-games (tilt-mazes, labyrinths, one-button endless-runner style arcade challenges). Solid, but not for me.
Weird and wonderful:
Amanda the Adventurer - I think this is the playable trailer for a first person horror game, but it doesn't really have any classic first person horror bits in it - instead, it's a very weird and short first person puzzle game. No idea if the actual game will be any good, but the demo is worth playing on its own merit.
Good:
Baldy Bounce - This is a chill, casual open world novelty platformer, like a less obnoxious and gag-obsessed goat simulator.
DE-EXIT - Eternal Matters - This one was strange for me - the art style and skeleton protagonist reminded me of a whole bunch of garbage-tier 3D platformers I've seen over the years, but this is a proper game made by a proper studio that plays properly and will almost certainly be good when it eventually comes out, but purely because of the visuals I was heavily biased against it. I'm hoping it'll end up being REALLY good, so that art style can be redeemed at least for me personally.
Cavern of Dreams - A 3D platformer purposely designed in the style and fidelity of N64/PS1 games. Slow starting due to a slight lack of tutorialization, but once you get going it's hard to put down.
Great:
Planet of Lana - Had this on my wishlist from the moment I saw the first trailer, but finally played the demo now. This puzzle platformer has got it all - the looks, the character designs and animations, the interaction with the sidekick character, the level design, the music - this one will be right up there with the very best of the genre, can't wait.
