A NEXTfest recommendations post #1

The game demos you should definitely check out this week

One of the great joys of the gaming calender, this periodic invitation by the game developer community for audiences to try out what they’ve been working on is a brilliant way to get eyes on smaller, niche projects, and potentially find your next favourite game. Almost every time I’ve involved myself in NEXTfest I’ve found something brilliant. Titles like 1000XResist, Spilled!, House of Necrosis and Consume Me. I know there’s always gold to be found within the onslaught of demos available during this period, it just takes the right people to draw your attention to it.

So, once again, I’m doing my part to curate a list of demos I think you should really check out during this latest NEXTfest:

Cairn

Proving immediately that there’s plenty of room in this play space for more than one climbing sim, on first impression this latest entry from Furi developer The Game Bakers seems an awful lot like Jusant, but the experience of playing it is anything but.

I was surprised at how intuitive Cairn’s climbing mechanics are considering the granularity of having to move four limbs, considering elevation and space, stamina and the way more punishing consequences of a failed climb.

A really nice touch, something I normally yawn at in other games, is the option to see what other players are doing in the same game space. A score of phantoms dotting the precipice as you plan, attempt and surmount your climb.

This is shaping up to be something really special indeed.

The Berlin Apartment

I’m a sucker for this sort of first person, narrative heavy exploration of a single modest space, especially when it’s reinvigorated by various iterations across time. Already in the short period allotted for this demo of The Berlin Apartment I can see the bones of something special, a game that would sit neatly alongside Fire watch, Gone Home and Edith Finch.

The same set of rooms are explorable across three time periods: 1989, 1933 and 2020. With these dates and the games’ title one can probably infer the kind of story that is going to be told about this residence, even without the weight of its environmental cues.

Unfortunately, I think a demo is a pretty horrible way to experience a game like this. It’s too brief, I immediately wanted more and like a stroppy child I’m just going to have to wait. So while I’m glad I now know what kind of experience The Berlin Apartment is going to be, it might be prudent to to stick on the wishlist and get stuck into the full release when it comes out on November 17th.

Birdcage

I’m a total mark for just about anything Barry Topping is involved in. The Paradise Killer composer and, more importantly, co-host of 2 Good Boys, the greatest podcast ever made, has a keen ear and a deft hand when it comes to producing electrifying videogame soundtracks, and his work on Birdcage is no different.

A familiar name to get me through the door, Topping and his collaborator Giannis Milonogiannis have created a true spectacle in this vertical shmup, a genre I haven’t had all that much interest in, but absolutely recognize the appeal of. This one, very clearly a bit of a banger as you carve through waves of enemies, dodging projectiles, fighting spaceships with an omnidirectional sword in your quest to destroy a galactic superweapon known as the WORLD-EGG.

There’s a grand level of synergy to be found within Birdcage’s core mechanics. Shooting, swinging your sword and moving around the battlefield all at the same time feels as good as it should, and the environments aren’t just textureless arenas, but also have environmental hazards that also have to be considered as you make your way through them.

I’m not a Shmup fan, but I’m fairly certain that this is the sort of game that would please that community greatly. It launches on November 18th, so there’s not long to go to find out.