Steam Demo Spree, Feb 2026

1 March 2026

This post is adapted from my thread on Mastodon where I played a ton of demos during Steam Next Fest.

It's Steam Next Fest so you know what that means: Time to play a shitload of demos since I have no control over my life!

A+. I'm Still Thinking About This One

• Shroom and Gloom: OOOOH wow, wowie zowie, here we go, a deckbuilding roguelike with a cool twist, BONUSES KEEP ROLLING. combat enhancements carry over between combats! keep escalating, keep growing, keep doing mushrooms!!
• Luna Abyss: FINALLY an Unreal Engine game that is OPTIMIZED. Was able to play this on high quality. Anybody who has watched me play a lot of Doom knows that my favorite kind of FPS is when it starts becoming a bullet hell, and that's exactly what we've got here. It's got a bit of a Metroid Prime gameplay vibe, and AWESOME megastructures. Loving this, really wanna play the full game.
• 500 CALIBER CONTRACTZ: If I say "Super Mario 64 Assassin Game" that won't do this justice, but I want to emphasize the platforming DOES play like Mario 64 except with Sonic the Hedgehog momentum. The aesthetic is like if Madness Combat came out ten years earlier. Fucking buckwild game, you really gotta check this one out.
• HYPNOS: DUDE THIS IS SO FUCKING SICK THE BIG MEGASTRUCTURES THE MYTHOS ENLIGHTENMENT GODHOOD SHIT THE BLAME! GUN DUDE THIS GAME WAS MADE FOR ME HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT. This absolutely is in big part adapting elements of The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, even beyond the game name checking "Kadath" and "Nyarlathotep"
• ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies: Cancel me now because I really enjoyed this demo and am craving more.
• Esoteric Ebb: Fuck YES somebody FINALLY made a D&D game that plays EXACTLY LIKE HOW I RAN D&D GAMES. which is to say, 98% weird bullshit conversations and getting into Situations and barely any combat. Turns out "Disco Elysium but D&D" is all I wanted from the heroic fantasy genre all along.

B. That's A Grade To Be Proud Of

• SCP: Equestrian: Here we go, here's the kind of movement shooter I love. Huge environments, unique weapons with special tactical abilities, minimalist graphics. I could definitely sink a lot of time into this. I love whenever an SCP game does something weird and unique. It's such a big universe, there's so much to pull from! Let's go!
• Queen's Domain: Oh shit it's King's Field 👍
• Hellslinger: Hey wow a furry ZDoom hellgirl game, how could I NOT love it? Also I've played a lot of boomer shooters which try to create a type of glorykill mechanic and its SO hard to nail. Instead I love the way that Hellslinger goes for quick melee kills as a way to boost health, the game feels really fast and decisive in a way that I love.
• BOOST VECTOR EX: I love boost racing games and I love women. This is so sick, it has so much cool energy and it feels really good to go super fast. It has a bit of reddit energy to its writing and its girl designs are a little, ya'know, waifu-style, but also,,,, women
• Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors: Oh hey this is actually really fun. I thought it might be kinda mid just because I'm getting really sick of pick-3 games and I wasn't sure how the gameplay elements would transition over, but the combo combat system is very fun and I can see this getting really interesting
• CICADAMATA": I know so many drone trannies who are gonna LOVE this one. it's quite fun and I like the vibe a lot, not sure if I'd have the endurance to stick with it though. I get pretty miffed at hard punishment games lol. but its sick, I'd definitely love to play more of it
• Interdimensional Vending Machine: I think... this might just be poverty porn? Poverty horror? But also cosmic horror. Maybe being poor is cosmically horrifying! Geeze. Look out for your unhoused, people.
• Mops and Mobs: This game is really cute and very clever! I really like how it subverts its dungeon crawl mechanics to instead be a life sim / adventure game. if I could give them one piece of advice it would be to drop the card battling as it is, honestly, feeling fully superfluous at this moment
• Adorable Adventures: Almost cried from how cute this is. Maybe good graphics are worth it some times... piggy game...
• Mama's Weeping Angels: Dude when I say I want worse games with less graphics this is exactly what the fuck I'm talking about holy SHIT fuck yes.
• Discolored 2: Yayyyy I love first person puzzle adventure games
• Terralora: I can't quite name if this is more like Nuclear Throne or Enter the Gungeon because I've never played the latter but I equally can't say if the mashup takes more of a Yume Nikki or Madoka Magica vibe so if any of those four keywords sound good in combination check it out! I am sold.

F. See Me After Class

• Rune Dice: I feel like we're in a weird era of slopcore roguelite pick-3 games where the number of mechanics at play genuinely doesn't make any cohesive sense, where the objects being used don't actually reflect their usage, and the amount of metaprogression that exists is there to keep you stuck in a skinner loop rather than reward emerging gameplay. which is to say, this game is more jacks than bones, and feels completely soulless.
• SCP-9779-JP: We've had SO many good survival horror games and it's always a bad sign to me when you walk speed is sludge and you have an on-screen stamina indicator. Pass. Also, unfortunately, I looked into it and this does not in fact correspond to SCP-9779 in the Japanese branch of the SCP wiki.
• Journey To The Center Of The Lost Waterpark: AI generated personal studio logos and bad Unreal Engine graphics. I think the idea of "Backrooms but weird portal puzzles" is interesting, but I don't want to play a game from slop users.
• Subliminal: Superb atmosphere which is ruined by chasey monster bullshit. Come on man.
• Pegture: Donald Trump peg. Fuck off.
• Fill Up The Hole: Unfortunately this does not in fact have the Gnorp sauce.
• Powerfuel: Literally no graphics settings so ran at 20 fps with the smeary-est gross motion blur. Also immediately bugged out an enemy when I encountered it and it just stood there. Not good!
• Dungeons of DUSK: If you want a turn-based dungeon crawler adaptation of DUSK here you go! Unfortunately, I do not find DUSK nearly interesting or compelling enough to stick the landing for me personally.
• CALX: Man this looks pretty neat art-wise but the combat is just, not fun at all, and the first boss you encounter in the demo just cheapshots you repeatedly with no explanation. Sorry guys, I really wish I knew what you were aiming for because this ain't doing it for me.
• The Last Salvage Squad: It's alright! It's a fun little shooter game. Doesn't have a lot for me though, cause I play so much Doom. But if you want to be a big robot girl it'll fulfill that need!
• Rogue: Genesia: Dipping into my wishlist mines for a demo of a released game and discovering: what if Vampire Survivors was based on 2D-3D Squaresoft remakes instead of Castlevania? The answer: It's okay! I'm good though.
• Dread Fields: Dude you have all this fucking land let your cows out, fuck.
• SPELLHACK!!: I'm sorry man I played DOS games growing up and I have no nostalgia for them I just want more out of a game these days.

Technical Disqualification

• Moves of the Diamond Hand: I really wanted to play this but I literally couldn't! It crashed every time I wanted to start a new game. I hope it's really good though I love Cosmo D games
• Burden Street Station: I REALLY like what little of this I could play. unfortunately, half the textures would not load on my computer! Don't know why. But I think it looks really cool

With that, I am officially tapping out for this demo fest!! I played a lot of cool upcoming stuff and a lot of cool stuff that is already out. I also discovered I really don't like a bunch of trends in modern indie games, lol