Video Gamers Podcast - Indie Next Fest Showcase: Speed Demons, Squirrels & One Very Sleepy Man - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

It’s the Steam Next Fest Indie extravaganza! Gaming hosts Ryan and Ace break down some of the best indie video games and demo’s they played in the latest Next Fest. It’s another can’t miss indie gaming episode from your favorite video game podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast! I am your host Josh, today we're- oh dude, you know what? That's just too much work. Welcome everybody, we're here for another Indie twig. I am your host Ryan. Josh was kind enough to give us the reins and us by the way. Who do you mean us? Well, he may have lost the battle last week in our draft, but maybe he's going to win the war today.

It's ace. Hey, the results for that battle have still not been determined. All right. The poll never went up. They're there. They'll, they'll come in battle have still not been determined. All right, the poll never went up There they'll they'll they'll come in into the trickling and maybe you get a late push, you know Hollow Knight will carry me to victory. I swear that's That's very very likely very very good chance that that'll happen. So dude, I'm excited. We get to talk some video games Yeah, dude, this is gonna be dope as you know, Steve next vest just

Kicked off which means we get all sorts of new indie demos to check out, man. We did. We did. Uh, ACE being the, the indie expert that he is. I just said, you know what, dude, find us some games, get us some demos and let's check them out and, uh, we can, uh, recommend them or not recommend them. You all are great listeners out there.

Uh, so, uh, I'll get started here with the first one. We got haste broken world. So I'll give you guys a little steam description here. Run fast, soar through the air and master your landings as you speed through procedural worlds to outrun the end of the universe. So you got to try this demo out too, right? Yeah, I played this one as well. Heck yeah, man.

What did you think? I, uh, I had a lot of fun. This to me was one of those kind of fast moving, Sonic-ish style speed run type games that the movement was really cool. It seemed to be pretty clean. What did you think? I thought this was a super unique game.

And I'd definitely say Sonic is the first thing that comes to mind, but it's in that genre of like runner style games where it's just run to the end of the level as fast as possible. But it has so many unique mixes in there, like diving to go, you know, land at the perfect spot so you don't lose any momentum. And then you have the boost board to keep going. And then the grapple hook to keep pulling on things to keep moving forward. And I was just like, this is so sick. I love this. It is too. There's as, as you go, it'll give you almost like a readout. Uh, if you know, your landing gives you enough boost cause with a good or a perfect, you know, kind of completion there. So that's another satisfying feature that when you hit that, you're like, yes, I got that one right. But it, it's awesome to have

those, how you can kind of compound that and stack them up to just to gain that speed. And I love that that feature in games like that. And you know, this awesome, super unique thing, too, where you were going when you entered the level, you were able to go down the tree. Like it was a roguelike, basically. Oh, you got upgrades and things like that. And at the end, there was a freaking boss like

I was not expecting boss fights in my runner game, but here we are. Exactly. No, it's, it's definitely, I had some cool, uh, cool stuff in there. And then yeah, if you can, you know, sometimes it's when it's just that same running motion, it gets a little kind of tedious or boring, but the throwing bosses as a, like a little sprinkle flare in there is, uh, it's pretty cool. cool so yeah I liked it um it was a fun game my son was watching and he was pretty stoked on it too so definitely uh definitely check it out if if you know people like definitely keep an eye out for haste haste is a special game and I think that's the most played demo of next fest really I believe so that's pretty good and

uh date on that was that tBA? Yeah, that one's yeah I'm still to be determined most of these are to be announced. We'll we'll see what happens But if they're if there's an XFest demo, it probably is coming out this year or some point. Yeah Definitely. All right. Well, you got you got another one for us. Yeah, man. We're looking at a platformer this time called Demon Tides. And you played this one as well, but I'll go ahead and read the Steam description for Demon Tides here. Of course they would do this to me.

Explore the open seas and uncover the kingdom's dark secrets as you expressively platform your way across dozens of locales, upgrading your gear every step of the way. Love it. And to me, this one. Oh, go ahead. To me, this one felt like a mix of Super Mario Odyssey and Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker. Oh, I can see that. Yeah, I could see that.

This one had you get, you know, you start out, you're kind of platforming around, but it threw out that progression in the beginning part of the demo, you start to learn your techniques and your abilities, and you have like this shift change where it can help you, you have a bat mode, and then like this other spinning mode, and there's all these cool different abilities

that you get to help you traverse through the worlds as you kind of progress in that demo. And I thought they were really neat. Like the, the abilities you had were pretty unique. I did not expect them, but they helped. They helped, you know, work you through the level. Oh yeah. They helped so much because it's like even going from island to island to get

to the different like platforming segments, you could turn into a snake and basically water ski across the area at super speed. So you never felt like you were like struggling to get anywhere. Yeah, for sure. I thought I was running through and I'm like, all right, cool. I go, I'm a bat and now I'm this little spinny guy. And I was like, that's neat. You know, those are a couple of cool features.

I like that. And then I'm going and I thought it was done. And next thing you know, you can be a snake just ripping through the water and then you're, you know, you can jump and tumble and yeah, it's a, I'm excited to see what else is in it and where it can go. Cause those are, those are some pretty cool abilities already. We're seeing a lot more like indie developers tackle the platforming genre now. I really, I think it's safe to say Astrobot may have opened the flood gates in showing people that we're interested in platformers again, 3d platformers like this. Yes.

Yes. That's, that's a good comparison too. I think the success of Astro Bot definitely showed that there's a need for it and people want it, you know, and, uh, it's cool to see cause I, I, you know, you know how I felt about Astro Bot and, um, I did like the art style in this one too, it was that kind of- It's super unique. Yeah. That unique kind of sketch style, not watercolor, but it's kind of that, that weird sticker-y sketch style look to it that, that I thought was cool.

But yeah, overall, I thought this was another good one. These, you know, so far you're two for two, bud. I have a bad feeling about the next one. too, bud. I have a bad feeling about the next one. Why this game called squirreled away? How could you possibly have a bad feeling about that? Uh, let's see here. We got a squirreled away. It was the third game we played. It was, uh, be the squirrel scurry through the gardens, up trees and leap limb to limb in this craft and thrive park like adventure, meet and help other residents limb in this craft and thrive park like adventure.

Meet and help other residents and collect bits here and there to build and decorate your dream tree house. You may have been a little right with this. I did play this demo. I played about three minutes of this demo and I said, I don't know if I'm going to vibe with this one. I stopped right at the meditation mode because I couldn't get it to meditate and pass it and then I'm like, yeah, you know what, I've had enough.

The guy who drafted Stardew Valley doesn't like cozy games. Oh, I don't know, man. I did think it was, uh, it was a cool little world and it, you know, it was, it was cracking me up running around as a squirrel and when you're trying to do the meditate his tail wraps up underneath him and around him and then you start levitating off the ground. Yeah, the movements were good. I just, I don't know if my squirrel senses were tingling on this one, bud. I think this one's super unique though. As for a cozy survival crafting game where you play as a squirrel and you can do things squirrels do, which is climb trees and things like that. But you can also play this with friends. Uh, it's a multiplayer game.

And you could build a house in the trees and glide around like it's breath of the wild. And there's only one enemy. And it's just a dog that does not want to let you have peace. So stinking dog. I was running around once I saw that I could like grab twigs and stuff off of the trunks. And I was like, Oh, I started collecting things and yeah. And then I kind of hit my squirrel limit for you, but I wanted some, I wanted to show that there is a variety of demos out there, not just action games, not just platformers. No, for sure. Yeah. I looked and I was like, yeah, this is a little bit of a switch up.

Um, yeah, it's, it's cool. The world is world is unique and pretty. I do like that idea of, you know, crafting as a squirrel and, uh, you can play with your friends and build, you know, this cool tree mansion, if you will. So world rust. Yeah, exactly. No, not that word. PTSD.

Trauma. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, not that word. PTSD. Trauma. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But, uh, yeah, man, it was, it was pretty cool. I do look into the pictures too, like the ability, um, to, to make these, it's, it's not just like a little shack. You can make these kinds of homes and it's, you know, you go and you get the materials and it is truly like a little survival crafter.

So it's a little survival crafting game where everyone gets to be cute little squirrels I mean, what more do you want? I mean exactly exactly. How much more can you ask? You know, it is getting very positive reviews already, too. Yeah, that one's doing pretty well as well So I recommend if you even think you like survival crafting cozy kind of games check out scrolled away Just check out the demo if nothing else and if you hate it, you know, come tell me in the discord, I'll listen. Yeah. If I hate it, complete criticism. It wasn't me if you hate it.

So it's ace, but, uh, awesome. Well, we, we got a few more to go over. Uh, and we will do that right after this break. All right. Welcome back. We got a couple more games to cover. These, these are these next couple I'm pretty excited about man. Our next game we are looking at is called Twilight Monk.

Now this one when I saw this pop up and I was looking through and watching the watching the trailer and the gameplay I'm like this, this is a stinking ace game if I've ever seen one, man. This is pretty cool. I'll read the description here. Embark on a quest to recover the three rings of Triskelion. Is that how you say that? Triskelion and the last descendant of an ancient Kung Fu warriors in Twilight Monk.

Experience a richly crafted Metroidvania RPG with intricately crafted dungeons linked across a vast overworld spanning multiple continents. Metroidvania, I know, surprise, Ace picked a hand-drawn Metroidvania. I had a different one lined up, it didn't work out, but I won't slam it yet. But you fight with a freakin' pillar, instead of like a sword or an axe, it's a straight up like, coliseum pillar. And you use it for platforming and for fighting, and it's it's a super unique concept. And the, uh, did you get to the overworld map? I did not. So the overworld map, it works like a legend of Zelda two,

where you're crossing it and you'll run into enemies. And now you have to walk through a level to get to the end, to get back to the map again, or beat all the enemies in the level to get back to the map again. Oh, okay. Okay. Just so you can progress. Yeah, no, it's I mean, this game is, it's definitely it definitely is unique.

I love the way the world look and then it's almost it's got that kind of standard side scrolling Metroidvania look to it and then it kind of kicks out to this weird third person overview look, which I thought was really neat to like just kind of show show the world a little bit more. But um, yeah, man, I love I thought the combat looked really crisp. I thought, you know, it, like you said, the hand drawn Metroidvania look is always it's one of those classic timeless style. Like when we talked with Sekhazan about, you know, just that, that look,

there's something classic to it that kind of never goes out of style. You know, it's just always that tried and true cool look that you don't have to have those Josh level, amazing top real world graphics look to it to have fun and enjoy this game. I think this is one that's definitely going to hit. I know you're probably really excited for it. I think it's gonna be really good, man. I really do. I played almost everything the demo had to offer

and I was still like, I hope there's more. Ace wanting more from a Metroidvania, what? But it was a super cool Metroidvania, especially just like the different art styles for the different areas and things like that. And I don't really know how you describe this art style. I will say the dialogue wasn't my thing, but other than that, it was, it was very cheesy dialogue. Yeah. It seems to be, they always are. They always like go a little too far with the dialogue. He's like, yo, homes, you want to go this way? I was

like, Oh man, why does he talk like that? I had the same issue with the guy in demons, demon types. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those sometimes they're sometimes they don't have the best audio or voiceover stuff. But, you know, a lot of times it's one guy or a couple of guys or something. So, you know, I can't can't blame them too much on that one. But how do you think the combat kind of compares to some of the other Metroidvanias, you know, that you've played?

So far it's, it's very simplistic. You only have the one move, at least in the demo. Yeah. But being able to maneuver around with the pillar, like throw it down, so you can jump over enemy attacks and then call the pillar back to you to hit the enemy and stun them or whatever was super cool. And I could see it in the full game, like having more combos with that. Like I picked up a special thing that let me throw down the pillar. But then if I have this like badge equipped, I can kick the pillar at an enemy to do extra damage.

Oh, OK. Yeah. So I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. I could definitely see this going somewhere. I love when games put in more than one, like kind of use for items. Like when, when, like you said, it's, you know, it's your attack weapon, but also you can use it to vault or plant platform up to these different areas to, to get through the level. Um, I just love when you have more options than one with something.

It's not always just this is for this. This is for that. It makes a kind of uniqueness to every play style that everybody has. They can play it the way they want, which is cool. So love it, love it. Well, speaking of voice acting and audio, I think this next one is pretty, pretty good

with all of the above why don't you tell us about it well I'm gonna preface this way this was not a next Festemo this is an exodus demo from like two years ago but the game is promised to come out this year so I wanted to talk about it this this is gonna be our we'll put in like a sounder, head and jam. Yeah, there you go. Some smooth jazz there. Yeah. Yeah.

This is a little game called Mr. Sleepy Man. And I'll go ahead and you're gonna throw that in there too. Yeah. Oh yeah. I will. But I'll go ahead and read the steam description for this one. In Mr.

Sleepy Man, you play as a sleepy guy who's up way past his bedtime and out of control. Make a mess of everything you find and turn bedtime town against you in this sandbox adventure filled with comical hijinks, outrageous characters, and platforming action. This game is ridiculous. I will say, of what we played this is by far my favorite. I am really glad that you sent this in. Not only like when you said the name, that's what I was singing to everybody. So if you go and check out the demo, the song will get stuck in your head too. And it's just Mr. Sleepy Man. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do yeah So all day at work now, I'm gonna be singing that song but um dude

What did you think of this one man? This is a super unique 3d platformer It's kind of got like n64 style graphics, and it has the same kind of humor from those n64 games like Banjo Kazooie or Conker's Bad Fur Day things like that Yeah, and he just has so much attention to detail and the little things you can do. Dude, it was, it was awesome. It definitely, 100% as someone who grew up in, you know, I was born in the 80s. I'm a 90s kid grew up with the N64. Those colors immediately.

I was like, Oh my gosh, I was waiting for the, from Banjo Kazooie. You know, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I was waiting for the from Banjo Kazoo. You know, I'm like, that's pretty good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, and that actually was pretty good. I'm pretty proud of myself for that one. That was the first time I've tried that in a long time. But uh, see that was, man, we're, we're ready. We can start our own game. We're ready for the remake. Yeah, there you go. Cast us. Uh, yeah. So this one was, this one was great. The

art style, the, the look of it definitely has that old school 90s and 64 kind of just goofy, colorful game that has that platforming. But there's so many unique little things that, that are awesome. And I'm so happy they're thrown in. When you skip a cut scene, the guy looks over at you that's talking to you and he goes, what, I'm not important enough? Or, hey, well, you don't wanna listen to me? What the heck?

Which I love stuff like that in video games where there is that interactive element to it where you're not just skipping past them. It's like, if you do that, he recognizes that you don't wanna hear what he has to say and he gets mad about it. Oh, you're one of those speed runner kinds. Yeah.

Yeah. You got to go to back to bed. This one, this one was definitely cool, man. It, um, like I said, to put in those different elements and then all the attention to detail, there's a part a little bit later on in the demo where, you know, you steal the cops donut and then, and then all the attention to detail. There's a part a little bit later on in the demo where you steal the cop's donut, and then he goes whoop, and it alerts, middle gear solid alerts for him,

and then he just comes running after you to gather you back up. And then wouldn't you know, lo and behold, it's not only in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 that I end up in prison, ladies and gentlemen. I also somehow, in 10 minutes of playing Mr. Sleepy Man, ended up in prison again. What about you?

Did you get thrown in jail? Yeah, I got thrown in jail a lot because I was trying to go upstairs behind the cop like several times and you have like a wanted meter. So like the first time he catches you, he'll just kick you down the stairs. You're like, okay, don't do it again. And then your wanted meter goes up a little bit and you do it again. He's like,

all right, you're going to jail. That must've been what happened yet. Cause I stole the donut first. And then he got it back and put it back on the table. And I'm like, fine, I'll just go over here, bro. And I went to go up the steps and he came, I thought I could outrun them and nope, he caught right back up to me and grabbed me. And then I, I went to prison. One of my favorite things you can do in that game is if you can make it all the way at the top, there's an hourglass you can push over that makes like a, uh, an

updraft. You can use that updraft to float up to the moon and the moon will suck you in. That's awesome. And then he squeezes you back out. I love it. That's so cool, man. These, those little things that the wrinkles within a game that, that make them so much more enjoyable and just make you chuckle. This definitely has that in spades. It was it was good. The movement was pretty clean. You know, it it was there's really not much that I can say that that's too bad about it.

I'm excited to see it come out and I'm hyped for it. Yeah. And play some more. It was definitely definitely one that this is the most I would recommend from what we've, uh, talked about today. It was, it was top of the list. It's the one I know the most about too. Like this is a, you know, a solo dev that the whole game started with that song you were singing in the beginning and it became a game afterwards. There was no, so cool. There was no intention for a game initially. He was like, I'm gonna write a song. And then he was like, who's Mr. Sleepy Man?

Let's find out. Let's yeah, let's make his world. What makes Mr. Sleepy Man tick? And then he creates a whole game about it. I love Mr. Sleepy Man's design too. What a good story. Yeah, what a good story for like an origin of a game. Like, oh yeah, I had this weird song stuck in my head

and I made a game about it. We we don't want to do it I love it um well that was awesome man did do you have a is there any other games that you you want to throw out there that you may have played that we didn't cover I can't really think any honestly yeah no worries man good yeah demos, but only so many of them really stood out as something special. Yeah, definitely. No, you, uh, you, you definitely won the war. So you know, I didn't win with Skrulled Away, but you know, I got you on.

You can't hit them all, man. You can't hit them all, but that was, it wasn't, and it's to be fair, sometimes games just aren't people's style. That one, it wasn't really, you know, vibe with me, but definitely I would say check all these out. Um, and remember people wishlisting the game. If, even if you're just a little curious, definitely helps the devs. It gets them going on their projects.

Absolutely wish. Just like with mr. Sleepy man, it's a one-man, uh, uh, ship over there. So he's doing all, you could tell with his, the voiceover too, cause they were different, but I could tell it was the same guy but he did a good job with him it was uh it was pretty cool to see but um awesome man well well other than that listen everybody we appreciate you listen to all our stuff and sticking with us um if you like what we do and you may want to help out you can sign up multiplayer squad.com for as little as

five bucks a month for our Patreon. You get a bunch of cool perks in our Discord, early access to episodes and speaking of the Discord, come on down. I know Ace personally will attest to this. We have probably the best Discord on the planet. I know we shout it from the rooftops all the time. Definitely when you need to come check out. Other than that, that's it for me. Thank you for listening. See ya. Peace out.