Amazing take on "Mario 64 with a gun" by the Fatum Betula developer.

Excellent, challenging movement that gives you unparalleled freedom in how you want to tackle completing your objectives for the stage. Much of my hour (ish) of playtime was spent messing around and seeing what was possible with the controls, and I feel like I've only scratched the surface of advanced play. There's a collectable that requires you to activate a Green Demon (a popular SM64 challenge) and not only is it difficult but it shows that there's some true love of the game here. I didn't do it, but I very well may come back to 100% this demo later.

Also, the 2000s internet aesthetic is beautiful. The Windows Movie Maker videos both in and out of the game, the edgy ass UI, funny period piece style writing? I can't do it justice with words-- just go play it.

TIME PLAYED: 52 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: off the fuckin' charts

F-Zero with a larger emphasis on flight. It ain't called "Aero" for no reason.

This game might be the single upcoming indie game I've seen the most over the years on Twitter, so I'm excited to finally get to actually play it. And yeah, it sure is F-Zero. I haven't actually played GX before, so I don't know how much is being taken from that entry in specific, but this game feels nearly exactly like X which bodes very well.

The earlier tracks are a lil' simple, but I could feel the complexity radiating off of the game. The slipstream air tunnel and dive that speeds you up are a great couple distinct mechanics, and I feel like there's more I'm missing. Very interested in the future of this one.

TIME PLAYED: 36 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 10/10

Don't be fooled by the idea that Blood Typers is a simple on-rails typing game-- this is NOT Typing of the Dead.

Instead, this game is doing something far more interesting: it is simply a survival horror game where you type to do everything. Type to move, type to fight, type to sort your inventory... you type to do literally everything in this game. It makes the game quite hard to control which fits survival horror extremely well. My friend who I was playing with called it the "evolved form of tank controls."

Speaking of, the multiplayer is also pretty fun. Get a few friends and jump into the hardest difficulty-- (you're on Backloggd, I know you have a good WPM) there's a lot to appreciate here.

TIME PLAYED: 72 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 9/10

SomnaBuster is really charming! This game was clearly made by a group of people who think that Sega should not have lost the console wars, and it shows.

Using your initial launcher to gain to and using your air attack to bounce off the ground, walls and anything else that comes in your way is super fun! It's a logical way to implement both speed and depth in an otherwise simple platformer. Lots of good sections that seem slower and methodical but can be drastically sped up with skill. Almost like these guys like Sonic.

There's also some really amazing presentation here, one of my favorites of the fest. Good FM Synth music and a very pretty pastel hand-drawn artstyle that increase the charm dramatically, even if it can be a little rough around the edges.

Also, "these guys" very well may be people you know. This game is being made by a handful of notable Backloggd users (including @Weatherby and @ConeCvltist ) and I'm happy shouting them out. You're making good shit! I'm really happy that I ended up playing this.

TIME PLAYED: 44 Minute
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 9/10

Not much to say about Glyphica. It's a solid little typing game with rougelike elements. The way the powerups you get work clear words without you typing them, so there's a fun mechanic of typing words that won't be destroyed by the time you type the whole thing out, making your efforts wasted. Otherwise, it's pretty much exactly what you expect out of this type of release.

By the way, they made me type "Zionism" and I got so distracted that I couldn't recover my flow state and it got me killed. Bonus points for that.

TIME PLAYED: 32 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 7/10

It's Team Ladybug's new Metroidvania. If you've played any of their Metroidvanias, you know exactly what to expect. This flavor of SOTN glazing has a fun sword demon (...the Blade Chimera...) that made for some fun level design ideas in this demo. Climbing walls by throwing your sword into them is pretty cool. If the player and the sword end up becoming more distinct from each other with upgrades I can see this game being great.
The demo leaves a little bit to be desired in content, though.

TIME PLAYED: 24 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 7/10

Another game that is exactly what it says on the tin. It's Touhou, it's Fantasy, and it sure is Mahjong. Despite liking all three of these things, there is not that much to say about this. It's Riichi Mahjong but every character has special abilities, some more crazy than others.

I don't really like the art, though. It feels like these characters were drawn without any cohesion (they were) and the game in general feels cheaply produced. This is a cute distracton if you want Radical Mahjong or to play as 5 TH19 characters (why not more variety...) but I think you should stick to Tenhou or Majsoul.

(Also, the public lobbies were dead as hell. Make sure you have Mahjong pilled friends.)

TIME PLAYED: 36 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 6/10

I struggle to say much about Pinball Spire. It sure is a "pinball adventure" game where you move through multiple pinball boards like a platformer. It's not bad-- there was some pretty entertaining gimmicks (like the dark room) in the demo, but there wasn't much to chew on. I was liking what I played, though!

My biggest criticism is that this game would feel a lot better in the moment to moment gameplay if you had a little more influence over the ball in the air. A "tilt" function, if you will. There were a lot of moments I ended up just watching the ball get bounced around. In these kind of pinball games which are less about score and more about progression, the game to be more interactive in general. Still, I enjoyed this. I'm curious in checking this out if it's not too expensive.

TIME PLAYED: 28 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 6/10

This one's okay. I've never played the original Night Slashers before, so I can't judge this too accurately, but I can imagine that this remake doesn't play too different from the original at a baseline level considering how simple it is. You got your basic beat 'em up fundamental moves, and hey, that's better than SOME other things at the Next Fest. At the same time, something feels wrong about the smaller mechanics here. Running is inconsistent, collision feels not quite right. It doesn't really matter if it's Data East jank or remake jank, it still makes the game relatively unappealing.

I'm also not a fan of the way this game looks. It's pretty clearly aping SOR4, but it feels much emptier. Maybe it's the (lack of) inbetweens between keyframes or poor UI design.

TIME PLAYED: 17 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 5/10

I wasn't super impressed by this one. It's a cute concept-- it sure is a game you can play by only pressing a singular button! However, the game was seriously lacking in depth for what it was. The incredibly generic starting kit and simple boss design did leaves a fairly poor first impression. I was begging for the demo to let me try any of the more interesting sounding options. One singular run of the roguelike mode and that was enough for me.

Competently made game, but desperately needs to expand on the concepts in the full release.

TIME PLAYED: 17 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 4/10

A series aping multiple modern beat 'em up revivals with a complete lack of understanding of the genre's fundamentals. I expect we'll be doing a lot of these in the future.

There are some pretty cool combo starters in this game's kits, but it is making the mistake of trying to be a combo game without being a competent game without combos first. Wrath of Cobra literally doesn't have a fucking grab! Do you know how important grabs are to the flow and enemy design of these games?!

Get this shit out of here. You can't be SOR4 if you aren't even Final Fight.

TIME PLAYED: 20 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: 1/10

My expectations sure weren't high from WayForward, and Yars Rising still surprised me. Just absolute disrespectful dogshit. They took an interesting concept and beat down every ounce of faith I had in one short demo.

1) The writing in this game is not good. Tropey, shlocking and aggressively annoying. It's a WayForward game, so I don't know what I was expecting, but this is especially bad. River City Girls was their worst written game I've ever played and this is worse than that, somehow. It doesn't help that there's so much of this shit that it gets in the way of the game. It's like Metroid Fusion if it was evil. Rancid vibes.

2) This gameplay has at least 4 individual red flags. The most prominent are the hacking sections, which are based off of Yars' Revenge. (Did you know this is an officially licensed Yars game, by the way? See the little ™ in the boxart?) Anyway, the fact this game uses a retro game as a minigame and is very clearly not interested in trying to evolve its concepts put a bad taste in my mouth. Yars deserves more than being a distraction in an otherwise unrelated game.

Of course, that unrelated game is not good either. This Metroidvania demo lets you use two upgrades, and one of them is an item that exists exclusively to open doors. Cool. The store page of this game advertises that it features various (bad) stealth sections. Awesome. The level design of this game is in just as bad hands as whoever made the aesthetics.

TIME PLAYED: 39 Minutes
EXCITEMENT LEVEL: lowkey kinda curious in how bad this might be