Wow! You played THAT?! Vol. 10 - The Crystal Phoenix

They tried to keep it down. They tried everything in their power to bury the past, to keep WYPT underground. But they could never succeed, a Steam Next Fest? A perfect storm. So once more, from the ashes, WYPT rises.

Flock Off is what i call a 'L4Dlike', a coop shooter against hordes of enemies where players have to get from A to B. A significant aspect that differs it from the crowd is its setting, that being Scotland in the 90s against hordes of mutant sheep. Another important aspect, and probably the game's best feature, is that it doesn't use conventional weapons - instead anything that isn't nailed down is a weapon. You'll have typical apocalypse weapons like axes and golf clubs, but are equally (probably more actually) to be fighting off the woolly menace with chairs, canned food and lawnmowers. Weapons are divided into swingers, throwers and bashers. Swingers can either be used in melee or thrown, taking durability damage whenever they hit. Throwers are the ammo-based weaponry, and can only be thrown until their supply has been used up. Bashers can't be held in the inventory and can only be thrown, but do above average damage and can hit lots of sheep at once. i have long been an acolyte of the throwing dojo (throwjo), and being able to throw almost everything in the game is beautiful chaos. You can even throw your teammates, including into instakill areas which probably makes online play with randos impossible.

There are several different kinds of sheep, there are bog standard ones that can spawn with extra armour to make them tankier. There are also alpacas with toxic spit, rotund exploding sheep, beefy highland cows, some sort of sheep wendigo creature, and a horrible little facehugging sheep spider. These are obviously intended to have a similar effect on the gameplay loop as L4D's special infected, but the only one that really has any effect is the sheep spider (that latches onto your face), the others are quite easily missed in the chaotic hordes of the game. My other criticisms are that, currently, the game runs terribly. The framerate plummets when the hordes RAMp up, and given that the chaos is the main appeal this isn't ideal. The current lack of voice acting and useful elements in the UI also mean that while levels are very linear, it can be confusing about what you're really supposed to be doing at times. There needs to be quite a bit of work done, but this has the bones of a really fun and chaotic way to spend an evening with some friends, it's got good vibes. Oh, um, blatant anti sheep sheep propaganda.

Poly Fighter is a 2D fighter...roguelike. What a twist, bet you didn't see that coming. You begin each run by choosing a character, who will have a set of traits and basic moves that determine their general playstyle. Each character has 4 move slots, along with an extra slot for a dash and 2 super move slots. Defeating an enemy in battle will provide a selection of moves to choose from, which can be slotted into your character's repertoire. These moves also have randomly generated extra properties, like providing lifesteal, inflicting a burn DOT, or granting armour on use. In traditional roguelike fashion, this can lead to combinations that slightly break the game, like a dodge roll that regenerates health on use and can basically be spammed until full health. Piecing together moves that would fit into your character's skillset is really fun, and can make for some cool combos. Unfortunately, due to the slightly too harsh health recovery after fights the game accidentally incentivises getting your opponent in the corner and spamming attacks, especially since all moves have chip damage on block. When combined with the potential for damage over time effects, taking damage during a fight is all but guaranteed, even if you play it super safe and block every enemy attack. This system works for older Street Fighter games where turtling could be an abusable strategy, but since almost all of Poly Fighter's available moves have very little recovery time it's surprisingly easy to KO your opponent even if they block everything. If the numbers were tweaked just a tiny bit, this could free up some space for the experimentation the game clearly wants you to do, but as it stands it's either spam attacks or play at a significant disadvantage.

At the moment, there are some pretty cool individual character quirks that make for distinct playstyles between them, and if the character select screen is to be believed then lots more are to come with a full release. i spent a lot of time with Zharov, who is currently the game's grappler. A staple of fighting game archetypes, focusing on a slower and more methodical play style, waiting until the right moment to hit an enemy with a powerful command grab. Zharov doesn't start with a dash, making him much slower than the other characters currently available. His starting moves are a lariat and side-switching throw, and he also starts with the morph meter. Whenever he takes damage he'll add to the morph meter, when it's full he'll temporarily turn into BEAST FORM, in this case a mighty tiger. In this form he's got extra armour on special moves, allowing him to soak up a few attacks. The cool thing is that (as far as i'm aware) all other characters can gain the morph meter if they're offered it as a combat reward, and they all have their own beast forms, which is nice. In its current form Poly Fighter is really cool and an awesome way of combining 2 of my favourite game genres, and i can only see it getting better. i think the core is basically perfect, just some numbers need to be tweaked to make everything fall into place. Very excited to see where this one goes!

Shroom and Gloom is a double deck building roguelike, which for brevity can be shortened to double d roguelike whi- again? How does this keep happening?! But, i hear you cry, what does a double d roguelike mean? Exactly what it sounds like, players craft 2 decks during the course of a run. One deck is used for fighting, and the other is used for the more passive camp encounters. The fighting will be familiar to anyone who has played Slay the Spire, this isn't a criticism StS basically wrote the rulebook for roguelike deckbuilders. There are some really cool cards and strategies available to mess around with, i enjoyed my 'King's Hammer' run, an attack which triggers all 'on kill' effects currently in your hand - necessitating a puzzling sequence of drawing cards until unleashing a devastating series of attacks. Another really cool aspect is that the combat sections bleed into the other sections of the game too, by way of toasties (stay with me). These are healing spells that are created by various other cards - but they also act as the game's currency. Along your travels you'll meet a trader who can sell you powerful cards in exchange for these toasties, given that these also consumed when the player uses them in combat to heal this creates some interesting choices both in and out of combat. But, toasties can also be used to feed certain characters in camp or random events for powerful rewards. This turns a simple healing spell into a complex multi-layered decision, adding extra strategy to quite a simple mechanic.

The camp events use a different deck to combat, instead focusing on constructing equipment, opening chests and other useful actions. The player also has the opportunity to rest as many times as they want to regain energy and keep drawing more cards to play, but the damage they receive increases with every rest. This can be mitigated somewhat by lighting fires with ignite cards, which reduce the damage taken by hostile entities. Some of these entities can also just be bashed or otherwise dispersed by various card effects, it's up to the player to decide whether they want to try a squeeze every last bit of use out of the camp or get out of there before they've got a chance to take damage. Awgh, it's awesome. The whole thing is rendered in these beautiful 2.5D graphics, once you've started a run there's also not a single loading screen making the game feel incredibly fluid. To top it all off, this is lovingly illustrated in a 'creepy-cute' aesthetic. Shroom and Gloom is very promising for a full release, and i would encourage you to give the demo a go if it sparks any sense of curiosity.

Scirocco Thugs is an old-school FPS beat em up, where the player brawls their way through grimy streets to make their way to the DON (when the full game is released). Currently, 2 levels and an endless mode are available to test your thuggery. Everything is drenched in a grimy aesthetic down to the enemy goons' football shirts, your brass knuckles are little more than a grip with some screws attached. The other usable weapons are similarly grody, like bits of rebar or broken planks of wood. The gameplay loop will be familiar if you've played a beat em up before, groups of enemies attack the player until they're rendered unconscious by the player's meaty fists. Part of what makes Scirocco Thugs fun is the ragdoll effects, dealing enough damage (4-5 hits) to an enemy puts them in a downed state, where they're then vulnerable to being executed with a kick. This will send them flying, even knocking down other enemies if they collide. There's really not a lot to talk about here, beat em ups are a pretty straightforward genre. It will always be fun to send goons flying with a well placed boot to the bonce, that's a simple fact of life.

About fishing is equal parts fishing and mystery, with the two blending together more seamlessly than you might imagine. The fishing is the most game-y aspect, it's where the majority of the player engagement takes place. This is a satisfyingly challenging motion-based system, where you have to manually cast your line and pull the fish back towards you. This requires first picking a good spot to cast your line, ie where the fish you want to catch is. You do have an almost supernatural control of your line as it's casting, you can even do tricks with the hook which is quite fun. Now that the line is cast, it's a game of waiting for the feesh. Once the fish has been successfully lured you then have to wait for it to bite, there is a fair bit of waiting involved, realism ig. Now that the fish is hooked, you have to reel it in, by continually moving your rod (?) to keep the fish coming towards you rather than allowing it to swim away. Succeeding in this before the fish manages to break the line catches said fish, where you can then plop it into your inventory. Now you have a few options of what to do with the fish. You can sell it at the convenience store, or you can fillet it first to get some extra money. This requires cutting the fish along the marked lines (differing for each fish), which fade shortly after the inital incision. Sticking closer to the lines results in higher quality fillets, fetching a higher price. The only problem with this is that the price isn't that much higher than the whole fish, and filleting it requires a filleting knife. These can be bought for $65 each, but only last for 5 uses before they break. This ends up barely making back the cost of buying the knife, especially since the money can instead be used to upgrade your rod to catch bigger and more valuable fish. The third use is casting the fish back into the water, and then using it to swim around and either scout the area or pull underwater objects back to you for loot. This is where the mystery aspect of the game comes into play, as...

...the game's prologuetorial ends with the protagonist fishing up a girl's body with the aforementioned fish detective method. We then learn this is one of two missing girls, and the one we have found looks strikingly similar to the mermaid we saw at the start of the game... We then cut to the present day, where our older protagonist is seemingly consumed by the mystery of that fateful day. Her grandfather is also imprisoned in the church-basement-jail, seemingly for reasons related to the missing girls - as he was present when we fished up the first girl earlier. We then begin to unravel the mystery the only way we know how - fishing. About Fishing has pretty good and engaging fishing mechanics, and while it's in its early days the mystery has some interesting plot hooks (heh) to signal promising development. This is all rendered in (say it with me) beautifully fuzzy low-poly graphics and a sufficiently gloomy atmosphere.

Signy and Mino - Against All Gods is a turn-based RPG that is cooler than i made it sound in the opening sentence. The game's unique spin is that it's sort of a fighting game turn-based tactics mashup, in that it relies heavy on combos and timing but still is, uh, turn-based. This works as the player has control of 2 characters, Signy and Mino. Using one character's ability will then prompt the other to follow their lead, with the ultimate aim to keep the combo going as long as possible. For examplerinos, Signy can start a combo with a 2-hit attack from her staff. You can then switch to Mino to launch the enemy into the air with a nosebutt(?). As the enemy falls back to the ground, you can then switch back to Signy at the right moment to hit the enemy with a big swing, that bounces them off the wall. Finally, you can switch back to Mino one more time to catch the enemy in midair and throw them at another enemy. Each character skill can only be used once per combo, and there is a limit to how far a combo can go - which can be extended by allocating points in the skill tree. Currently, this is basically how far the combat goes - it's quite a short demo. Nonetheless, this is a fresh system that shows a lot of promise - with features like additional characters and status effects being teased for the future.

The game features hand drawn'n'animated 2D sprites for characters, combined with simple low-poly 3D backgrounds that make up the game's opening world. This is cool and a nice balance of detailed characters and familiar 3D environments, but it does make exploring a little bit confusing - especially when jumping puzzles to reach hidden chests are common. This could be easily remedied by introducing a shadow effect or something to indicate the player's position while they're jumping, to give them more of a sense of where they actually are in the world. This would make the different artstyles gel together seamlessly, keeping the appeal of each while not being obtrusive. As it stands the demo is quite limited (even compared to the other demos played), but the core gameplay it introduces is very solid and promising. i can only see it getting better from what's already been shown, which is the right way round.

And that's all the demos played during Steam Next Fest, and they are all worthy of your attention. Go forth, demo away, dredge up every weird game that catches your eye in the great digital pond.