When this game was revealed I thought it was simply going to be a joke attempt and didn't pay too much attention to it, but as I've seen others playing this demo now I gave it a shot, and while yes it is big on comedy it's actually good to play too!
The devs were very creative in using the umami techniques and the various shells you can equip to fit them thematically but also provide surprising and new gameplay experiences, which is something any soulslike needs at this point to get me interested.

Very cool tower defense game, where instead of having different towers each with their own projectile types, you only have one tower that shoots a projectile in a straight line, and you have to use other constructions to redirect it so it goes through the lanes the enemies walk on, enhance it and change it in other ways.

The projectile takes time to move across the screen while the enemies get closer to the center, you can't build constructions in certain tiles, and they require gold or mana to operate, so you have to manage time/space/resources to clear a level successfully.

Another Pixel Pulp game! (see Mothmen 1966 and Varney Lake if you haven't)
This one seems to be less supernatural than the others at least a first, as you're a CIA agent infiltrating a cult to learn what happened to a missing partner, but no doubt the cult leader will be positively devilish at the end.
It's been over a year since the first pixel pulp was released and there still isn't anything like them around, so I always appreciate them.

Brilliant, incredible, unique puzzle game. I get so excited when I see a type of puzzle I had never seen before, and this is one of those for me.
Also features a very funny way to measure mouse sensitivity, that proved to be immensely necessary for its levels.

This was unexpectedly fun! Not due to anything in the game itself, i just have played poker in games a million times and it never interested me. But putting it in a setting where you intentionally have to cheat to win, and cheats come in a deckbuilding-like way, was very enjoyable.

My only thing is I feel the title should reflect more what kind of game it actually is. Like, you are a truck driver, but this is a poker game and when i hear "delivery and logistics" I'm thinking physics/construction simulators and not a card game.

A Vampire Survivors-like, Deep Rock Galactic's spin on the formula is more methodical and slower, with you being able to mine the level's walls away to farm resources and potentially creating paths so that enemies are only coming at you from one direction, making them easier to hit.
On top of gaining perks with each level up, you can use such resources to buy others or restore your health at the end of each stage.

It lacks the flourish VS has to make the early minutes when you don't have much of anything more interesting, and I don't think it added enough new mechanics to the formula to make me want to play it over the original.

I still remember playing all of these games in 2010 or so, when I'd visit Kongregate, Newgrounds or Armor Games almost daily, log into my account and see what new games got new achievements to earn them and unlock badges. Games like Sonny, Bubble Tanks, Upgrade Complete, Toss the Turtle, Bloons, and a bunch of others, including the ones made by jmtb02 in this collection.

It warms my heart to see them preserved by their original creator, and to realize in playing them that I haven't forgotten all their little tricks.

A joyous game about exploring a 3D world in first-person, bringing colorless objects around you to life with your painting, and collecting them in your album to use as references for your artworks later.

They warn it requires a recent gaming PC and they were not kidding too!

This demo pales in comparison to The Elephant Collection's; while that one has so much information about the games and the context in which they were created, like a documentary, this one simply throws you straight into one of the games with no attempt to celebrate its own history. Apparently something like that will be in the full release, but unfortunately it wasn't here.

And back when they were Flash games not having more meaningful options beyond discrete levels of "Quality" and volume was understandable, but by now it ought to have more, at least a screen detailing the controls since you're never told which key does what.

A roguelite where you're a ball mech, and speed around the levels shooting enemies while rolling around, hitting ramps and speed boosts to move faster or bumping onto enemies to gain ammo to go back to shooting them.

It's a really fun demo, and really visually stimulating, my eyes are a little tired from playing it lol.

So this collection is currently in a Humble Bundle... bundle, and while I knew of .hack I had never played any of it, and I got curious. Luckily there was a demo on Steam so I tried it out.

As far as PS2 RPGs go, this is decent enough (despite the fact that this was made when japanese companies were making basic-ass PC ports). I respect the earnestness with which it sells that this is all in an MMO, using familiar sound effects, UI metaphors, and lingo. This will now be a series I'll get into in the near future.

This was neat, it's pretty much Fall Guys but with rhythm minigames, from the UI, the lobby, the season passes, customization; everything.

But it's 30 players per match and even with cross-play on I could only find 2 others to play with me after 3 minutes waiting, so maybe not a lot of people know this demo is up.

A simple point'n'click adventure with an obtuse story that says too little and, as far as the demo went, clunky portrayals of mental health.
The latter made me not want to entertain the game long enough to unravel the mysteries of the former.

This is a great proof of concept for a racing game, it just needs now more events and things to do in that world as right now it's pretty sparse.

An impressive programming game that runs your actual Python code on an actual Python interpreter to solve puzzles. It just lacks a looot of polish, particularly on the UI and the performance, to make the rest of the game as appealing as the coding part.

A metroidvania with some very clear Souls influences in its art and level design, combat, and interface. I picked it up because the pixel art looked impressive, but the barebones kb+m support paired with how it barely has an identity of its own made me drop it shortly.

A fun and different kind of clicker game with some 4X influences, that needs some balance adjustments as very quickly I started passively generating more citizens than I wanted to, could build houses for, or could train to fight in wars, causing negative effects that slowed my civilization's progress.

A very short demo (maybe 10 minutes long), in it you run a café and work your clients' orders through quick rhythm mini-games, decorating and taking pics of the meal at the end. By earning money you can buy new furniture for your shop to customize it the way you want.

This will sound a little mean, but this feels like Wholesome Game: The Game as much as I love them, because the ideas here are also in most of those games and I couldn't find anything unique to this one, unfortunately.

This is a really, really cool THPS-like, that adds combat with enemies around trying to attack you that are defeated by doing tricks on them. This sounds strange but it worked really well!

The demo also started in the like lowest resolution possible, but I kept that in because honestly looking like that ruled.

This is a cute puzzle game about playing pinball machines, and putting bumpers and other objects on the playfield in the right places so you can steer the pinball towards the objectives.

It has extremely satisfying pinball sound effects, and that is reason alone to give it a shot!

I know I played a previous demo for this game, but I can't find any evidence of it anywhere unfortunately so I don't know when that was.

It has largely improved since last time, with a comprehensive and intuitive tutorial, and a better framing narratively and thematically to make it more of a game instead of a series of contextless poems which is how the other demo was.

A soft and simple platformer, with a slow pace that tells me it's more generally aimed at younger audiences.

A dungeon crawler à la diablo with a bunch of crafting/farming elements, it looked cute, fun, and mainly a 3DS era game (complimentary).

This is very much in style of Unpacking and others, of exploring a room and through that learning more about the person that lived in it, and doing so across different times.
Cute and cozy... but this type of game is certainly not a novelty anymore, so ymmv on if it'd work for you.

It's been about a decade since I played Journey on a PS3 and... I really wanted to like this.

But the barebones PC port and the way there are constant interruptions during the gameplay frustrated me too much to keep going with it.

I got this demo because it had the "Mystery Dungeon" tag, but stopped playing it shortly after starting it once I realized it's not a game like the Mystery Dungeon series as the tag when used properly would imply, it's simply a game set in a dungeon that is mysterious which is not what I wanted out of it.

One glance at this and you know it's a Disco Elysium-like, and after playing it I can say this is what DE would be like on a tighter budget.

The dialogue tree is not nearly as complex and some choices led to the same outcome with only different flavors, the UI isn't as polished, and there are only 5 voices inside your head talking with you compared to who knows how many there are in DE.

But considering we'll only get 1 Disco Elysium in our lifetimes, a more limited version of it is still another version of it, so maybe that's enough.

Up until now I was only vaguely aware of this series, I know there's a game where a kid says 'kay a lot but didn't know who were the developers, what was the setting or the combat system, etc.

Going full blind into this game I didn't even know this was a remake of the second entry until being clued in by some of the options. The demo turned out to be a very cozy PS1-like RPG, entirely in my comfort zone, and I soon closed the demo before being done with it because I was already charmed.

The 2D portraits and 3D background are beautiful, the VA and writing are nice, and I liked the action combat that reminded me of the early Tales games (and later I learned this series was created by the original Tales director, connecting a lot of dots in my head). I'm excited to play this when it's out, and also get to know the entire series better.

For a rhythm game, there is way, way, way too much dialogue between every playable rhythm section.

The stages themselves use Audio Network-esque pop songs which is a fun idea to make a rhythm game about. In them, you are constantly trolled by the antagonist, forcing you to stop playing a song to deal with something in the environment so you can go back to scoring points.

With all these interruptions and downtimes, not only this is a multiplayer-focused game but one you need to play with friends to chat with and be entertained by during all of its meandering, or you'll just get bored.

I had a number of stutters, ghosting and other performance issues concluding in a full crash, but it's still The Talos Principle with a fascinating way of continuing where the first game left off.

This is such an unusual idea for a rhythm game, you're a telegraphist during the battle of Warsaw sending messages to soldiers using morse code, and that is done through rhythm sections... and it's fun? There's nothing like it so I gotta play it once it's out, still weird though.

This surprised me a lot! I don't really get what Touhou is, or at least why it is such a thing compared to other series, but once I heard this was SMT in all but name I had to try it.

True enough, as someone that played Shin Megami Tensei 1 recently this plays just like it, while also having features from modern SMTs like reverse fusion, installing apps on your phone for QoL little things, passing a demon's affinities to your character, etc.

The big change from the template is that demon negotiation happens in the form of a short bullet-hell section, that you need to win to recruit them/get items from them. That part is very fun and a nice break from the dungeon-crawling.

As someone that's always looking for more SMTs, I adored this and can't wait to play it.

A game inspired by the first act in Inscryption, the lack of any tutorialization left me stuck as I suddenly had to survive for some days and could do nothing but stare at some cards, and didn't know what to do to get past that.
Looking at the Steam forums I wasn't the only one, and the dev is aware and will improve the game's first minutes to better explain what you're asked to do.

A joyous and arcade-y 3D platformer that exhudes confidence in its own style, with a control scheme so simple and yet ingenious and beautiful art and sound design, making going vroom around the worlds, dashing and jumping, a delightful time.

I knew from the beginning that I wasn't going to be the audience for this, I don't know who Yohane or what Love Live is, and my tolerance for anime girls is pretty low. But a friend asked me to report on it so here I was.

Hilariously, the game's voice volume option can never go down to 0; even at the lowest setting, you still hear the (many) anime girl grunts just at a lower volume; the devs must have thought no person that plays this game would want it muted.

But it is a weird metroidvania ignoring all that. Enemies have set placements and none of them respawn. You know how Castlevania has those rooms where zombies or medusa heads keep spawning forever?
Which means I reached a room with the medusa head equivalents, and I just... waited until they moved across the screen, because no new one would spawn, and then progressed freely to the next room.

This feels a simple one of those, where the real draw is the IP on display, so if you're a fan it's here for ya.