The 13 best Steam Next Fest demos you should play this October

Indie extravaganza Steam Side by side Fest is back for some other edition today, showering united states with hundreds of upcoming game demos to try over the side by side week. Running from today, Oct 1st, until Thursday October 7th, the latest Steam Next Fest is positively packed to the rafters with things to play, and we've picked out some personal highlights to aid y'all go started.

From activity-packed runnin' and gunnin' and soaring discs catapulting through the cosmos to more than relaxed hidden object games and airport gear up 'em ups, there's bound to be something hither that tickles your fancy. And fear non, we're going to carry on highlighting even more personal favourites over the coming week, likewise, every bit there are but likewise many good games to shout about in a single list. For now, though, these demos should definitely exist some of the first stops on your Oct Steam Next Fest playlist.

Undungeon

Imogen: Undungeon is a gorgeous isometric game where you play as a big scary graphic symbol named Void. Despite being made by God and looking like Death Incarnate, Void is surprisingly susceptible to existence murderised by scorpions, but he looks cool, so I'll forgive him. The scorpions are some of the first beasts you encounter in a deserty area in the demo, which you're exploring because you're on a mission to help the earth after a cataclysmic consequence made a lot of dimensions go a chip weird. Y'all'll travel through a bunch of strange lands and meet odd conflicting folk - including an bodily game dev at one betoken whose character pops in to see if y'all're having a dainty time. I was indeed! And I'm lamentable for killing yous to take your items.

Download the demo on Steam right here.

Airport Renovator

Alice B: Though I am still waiting for someone to answer my extremely specific need for a renovator sim game where you practise up erstwhile white-done farm houses in the center of nowhere, the charms of renovating an airdrome are specific and hilarious. Aerodrome Renovator's demo gives yous an abandoned, single strip airport in South America to accept a crack at, and I know what I'm investing my coin in if I e'er get 50k, because apparently you can double your money by doing some weed whacking and dusting the tarmac.

Other extremely pleasing things about this demo: you remove trash past hitting information technology very hard with an axe, at which point the item in question, exist information technology a stack of cardboard boxes or a load of metallic oil drums, will crumble into what looks like sawdust; your supply driblet lady/business partner is a lady pilot, but for some reason her in-game portrait is like a sexy cartoon girl, possibly related to Jessica Rabbit.

Download the demo on Steam right here.

Anno: Mutationem

Alice0: Things I like in games include: 1) 2nd characters in a 3D world; three) not really being certain what a game is; 3) dodge-rolling with a sword. Anno: Mutationem fills a colourful 3D futurecity with 2nd characters. I think you tin can explore fairly freely when not the plot isn't pushing y'all effectually? There are people to come across and talk to, citylife to picket. And some cats who pushed bottles off a high edge, seemingly with malicious intent. And it has shops. And I've been collecting scrap materials to sell, or to craft. I definitely could buy weapon upgrades, if I had plenty money, to utilise in the side-scrolling gainsay. Some sort of... activity-run a risk-explore-o-action-RPG? Dunno. I'm curious! And I do really like the first-person cutscenes where my cyberlady still has Bernband-esque spritehands.

Download the demo on Steam right here.

Hidden Part

A cartoon office scene from Hidden Office

Ed: Subconscious Office tasks yous with finding hidden objects scattered around a little role diorama. You tin can flip and rotate each office in search of things like scissors and staplers and plants and it is squeamish. The music is tinkly winkly and occasionally a cat will grace your presence. Click on a cat and y'all'll add together it to a menu collection. 1 of them has a bulldog's face, which is disconcerting. For a short demo, Hidden Office has some neat levels and provides a pleasant diversion from your busy twenty-four hour period (even if information technology's based in an function). The commute is curt, the work is sweet, job's a skillful'un.

Download the demo on Steam right here.

Soda Crisis

Katharine: At that place are enough of run 'n' gun games on Steam these days, but few manage to combine slick, fast-paced action with the acrobatic leaps and bounds of a animal like Ori from Ori And The Bullheaded Wood. Soda Crunch, however, is one such game. Your baldheaded human prisoner character may not look like they're particularly graceful, but by the end of the demo I was running up walls, jumping and diving around the identify with my grappling hook, blasting enemies left, right and heart and feeling god damn powerful in the process.

Strangely, the first function of the demo feels similar information technology's been taken from after on in the game, giving you a glimpse of what's to come in this strange, soda-insufficient world before zapping you back to the beginning where yous're trying to pause out of an cloak-and-dagger lab. The structure of the lab's challenge rooms feels oddly reminiscent of Portal and Stealth Bastards, simply hither you're working out the all-time order to shoot your heavily-armed targets instead of sneaking and chucking around companion cubes. It also has a neat energy-based upgrade system that lets adjust your playstyle, giving the option to your attack ability, movement speed or sacrifice shooting upwards or down for more powerful horizontal bullet harm to name just a few of the abilities I saw. Then don't be fooled by the name. Soda Crisis feels similar it could be something very special indeed.

Download the demo on Steam right here.

Exo One

James: Exo One was announced well over 4 years agone, a wait that would commonly leave me hungry for more info, but the sense of mystery that this demo evokes is so intoxicating it'southward overridden my habitual need for spoilers. Here's what we know: you control a little spacefaring orb, zipping around alien planetscapes past adjusting how closely the orb adheres to gravity. You'll get a sense of taste of this intensely satisfying mix of exploration and momentum-based, almost Tribes-like movement in the demo, complete with some achingly atmospheric sound work and the same raising of questions. Questions like what are these obelisks for? Where am I going next? And most chiefly, when can I play more of this?

Download the demo on Steam right here.

Startup Panic

Hayden: When I was younger I absolutely adored Game Dev Tycoon. I only shy away from it now because if I started playing, I'd never stop. Startup Panic sunk its claws in just as deep, as it captured the same office of my centre. After playing for an hour or two, I had a big, silly grin on my confront as my team of mini devs pumped pixelated blood, sweat, and tears into their latest website feature. The worst part was really when the demo came to an sharp terminate, and so I went and bought it on the Epic Games Store (where it's been available for the past year).

Download the demo on Steam right here.

Brocula

Rebecca: Stardew Valley, but make them vampires! Despite the (in my opinion) deeply unpromising title, that'due south the cardinal premise of Brocula, a gentle pixel-fine art farming sim. Yes, it'south more often than not another Seasons of Harvest Valley type deal tasking you with resurrecting an abased ancestral farm, but the bumbling 500-year-sometime protagonist is straight out of What We Practice In The Shadows, and who could resist that? Certainly not me.

The 1-hr demo doesn't devious very far from the formula — it starts with you talking to the town mayor and and so, if y'all're like me, you get sucked into playing a mildly frustrating line-fishing mini-game over and over despite it existence completely optional. Information technology's all comfortingly familiar for the near part, but if you've been looking for a new angle from which to view the farming sim genre, I recommend this quirky twist on the premise.

Download the demo on Steam right here.

SpiderHeck

Ollie: X seconds afterwards loading upwardly the SpiderHeck demo for the offset fourth dimension, I understood exactly what the game was well-nigh. By 15 seconds in, the biggest smile had spread beyond my confront as I catapulted my lopsided ragdoll spider through the air at tremendous speeds. SpiderHeck is a couch co-op game all about swinging around equally a goofy neon arachnid, clambering along walls and ceilings, and launching yourself (along with missiles, laser swords, and all sorts of other ridiculously oversized weapons) at other players. There's a wave survival mode for co-op play, but the true force of the game is definitely in the hilarious seconds-long PvP fights that culminate in limbs flying across the screen.

Download the demo on Steam right here.

Hirilun

Ed: Hirilun's a showtime person parkour game and the demo has y'all jumping, gliding, and dashing through a beautiful black and white urban center. Some maps take you tumbling through pipes, and then clambering back up towers. Others see yous striding across rooftops or sliding downwardly ramps. All of them are fantastic physical jungle gyms. And crucially, there's a great sense of fluidity to your movements. If you'd like to experience very athletic and very cool, y'all should requite this a try.

Download the demo on Steam correct here.

Death Becomes You

Rebecca: There are, equally you lot'd wait, many great-looking visual novels existence showcased every bit part of this upshot, but few jumped out at me quite equally forcefully as Expiry Becomes You, a sapphic murder mystery fix in a magical university. "And then kind of like… Wicked retold via Danganronpa?" was my immediate thought, and because I love both those things, of course I had to check it out.

Despite the cool premise I doubt this one is going to do much to convert people who dislike visual novels (personally I honey them, but I practise get it). Merely if you're into them, then the writing here is pretty tight, the characters take a lot of potential, and the sprite animations and background music are really nicely done.

Download the demo on Steam right here.

APICO

Ollie: APICO is a lovely petty second crafting and simulation game most finding, breeding, and caring for diverse dissimilar species of bees. After an introduction that gives off strong Stardew Valley vibes, you're allow loose in a very pretty - and startlingly large - map filled with trees to exist chopped, people to meet and trade with, and bees to keep. You're guided through the opening stages past a very comprehensive book of tutorials and starting quests that teach you how everything works, making for a remarkably frustration-costless experience. The best part though is how satisfying it is to chop down copse. Almost too satisfying. Forget the bees: I'm gonna become a walking ecological disaster mowing down whole forests with zip simply my axe and a crazed grinning on my confront.

Download the demo on Steam right hither.

Dextram

James: Dextram is a second arcade shooter in which you tin can't shoot. In fact, outside of some rare power-ups, you lot tin can't do annihilation except plough to the right. This sounds simplistic, and it is, but when your primary means of assault is baiting enemies into smashing into each other, figuring out how to articulate a wave becomes downright cerebral. Dextram doesn't force yous into finding the perfect motion pattern, though – improvisation will go y'all far besides, and even if it doesn't, the sharp music cut on death adds a comedic sweetness that makes failure easier to swallow.

Download the demo on Steam right hither.