Video Gamers Podcast - Indie [TWIG] Next Fest Demos – Gaming Podcast
Episode Date: March 5, 2026Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace dive into the latest demos from Steam Next Fest, spotlighting indie gems like Witchspire, Paperhead and more. From creative mechanics to surprise standouts, this episod...e is all about discovering the future of gaming in the indie world. The crew breaks down what makes these video games worth watching and which demos impressed them most. If you love finding hidden indie treasures and keeping up with the freshest ideas in gaming, this episode is for you. Join the guys as they celebrate the creativity that keeps video games exciting. Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, and Dettmarp Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S. Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu 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/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1 Visit us on the web:https://videogamerspod.com/ Esoteric Ebb https://youtu.be/xayOde6o8J0?si=PFiHyQzk24Dv9PzQ Withering Realms https://youtu.be/985f76uxiLA?si=tNNfhaW7ewAf43xD Paperhead https://youtu.be/XbQBUMcaktk?si=xCp1PCErDX8gdnEG Witchspire https://youtu.be/I60g50ndLdI?si=DU_VIaVNJc7lX8WH Raccoin https://youtu.be/W7nHkZQuGMA?si=_g5ZIY1rWEgcLwOH How Many Dudes https://youtu.be/GvCrbow9Yy4?si=dFNkuVNsOInJ-bei Protagonist Complex ONE https://youtu.be/WaHIHwoWAbg? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Oh, fellow gamers.
And welcome to the video game.
gamers podcast. It's that
magical time again. Steam
Next Fest, the week where our hard
drives suffer, our wish lists explode,
and indie developers put their
best foot forward with brand new, playable
indie game demos. I
am your host Ace. And joining
me, it's a man who treats every
demo like a game's final exam
so he can be a grouchy professor
and fail them when they use pixelated
graphics. It's
Josh. Okay, all right, listen, I've
come a long way on the pixel graphics,
thing.
Like, replaced is one of my most anticipated games, and that's pixel graphics.
Here's the other thing.
If Replace can do pixel graphics as good as they did, why do other people make their pixel
graphics look so trashy?
Because other people have different styles.
Not everything wants to replace.
So when you go to an artist, do you say your style is trash?
Like, oh, I didn't realize, like, you're working like your style is like terrible graphics.
Like, I don't, like, it's just, dude, like pixel graphic.
Like, Dave the diver, pixel graphics, wonderful, wonderful, like, great.
Games that I won't mention because we have respect for the people in the studio now,
not so great.
Oh, now.
Not so great.
And I'm just saying, you can't tell me that, like, you know, the one guy is a savant at pixel graphics and the other guy is not, you know?
I guess that's fair.
That's subjective, Josh.
Anyway, the whole point is.
objectiveness. I have come a long
way when it comes to pixel graphics people.
So there's no games
in this list you're going to make fun of for having pixelated
graphics? Actually, there is
not. Not for the graphics.
There is one game. I'm shocked. I'm just
going to prep you right now. There is one game that I am
going to mercilessly troll.
I have a feeling.
And joining
us is a guy who can be sold on a game
in five seconds if the vibes
are right and the trailer looks
pretty sick. It's Ryan.
Just give me those vibes, man. Give me some good music
and some like nice scenes. That's all it takes
for you, bud. It's a good trailer.
That's all it takes. Yeah.
I'm easily excitable.
Like, people know that.
Yeah, that's true. Hence Redfall.
Yeah, I was saying hence Redfall.
That's amazing trailer.
That's classic, the trailer got me.
The trailer got me.
And it only, it was like my third week or something.
That trailer did look pretty sweet, dude.
The vampires, co-op shooter,
all that stuff, boss fights.
It's like Redfall looked like it was going to be a good game.
Is Redfall even around anymore?
No.
No.
No, definitely not, right?
Either will Highguard be either?
No, yeah.
We just got the news.
Highguard's going to be going like, what, March 13th?
Yep.
Yeah, March 12th.
That lasted like a summer fling, man.
Just done and one and done and one month.
We had our fun.
Yeah.
It made it about a week more than Concord.
We'll always have our memories.
But yeah, guys, it's time.
My favorite time in the day.
years here.
Steam Next Fest.
Oh, I almost hit.
Settle down.
That's when we get all.
We're a serious.
I know.
I'm excited.
I'm excited.
I can't help it.
I have to attack my microphone like a wild animal.
But, you know,
Steam Next Fest is when all the indie developers come out and they put their best foot
forward by putting out demos for all the games we're looking forward to.
I had some help with this list from our community.
I asked for, you know, suggestions and what to play.
So not all of these come from them, but a lot of them do.
and of course I had to throw my own picks in there as well
but what better place to start than with the game
we've probably mentioned the most on this list
which is esoteric up
in essentiality this is uh
disco elysium meets balder's gate three
and uh the demo was was quite fun
I'll say it captures that perfect spirit of discom
I need more info on this game ace because I remember being very interested in this game
the first time that we ever talked about it
and then I watched the trailer
again because, you know, I remember it's like, I think you're right.
Like, Baldur's Gate 3 is a little weird because I, maybe I don't see enough in the trailer on that,
but it definitely has the vibe of like Disco Elysium with the dialogue options and then rolling the dice and stuff like that.
I remember the humor in this game because the game comes out and's like, yeah, you're the world's worst cleric.
You're really, really bad at your job, but your party needs you and stuff like that, which I'm a big fan of D&D.
So, like, the D&D references like really resonate with me as well.
but like give me the deets on this
because you played this demo
and I played the demo
very curious about this game because it
looks like it checks a lot of boxes
for me but like how does it actually
play? It plays
exactly like Disco
Elysium, all right? So instead of your
that's such a good... Instead of like your
inner thoughts, your stats
are what are talking to you so you have your strength
that talks to you, your charisma, your intelligence,
your wisdom, your constitution
and depending on like how you set your
self up before you went in.
It's like you chose like a preset build for Mad Mage or whatever.
So you've got high charisma, high wisdom and low intelligence or something.
You're dumb as a board.
Yeah.
Oh, see, this is my kind of game, man.
I freaking loved on you.
It was a lot of fun.
And I love Disco Elysium and I like this like this gameplay style, man.
I mean, the game starts the exact same way Disco Elysium does too with you in a void just
listening to your voices.
We got to see Kujo again.
No, you're not going to see Kuno
I can't call him Kuno now
How long is the demo on this?
Oh, this demo I think was like four or five hours
It is a long demo
I didn't play the whole thing
I had to make sure
How long is the game?
I'd say like 45 minutes or something
I could probably say that I can probably
No, it's so open-ended dudes
You can get hours and hours and hours of content
Just out of the demo alone
Yeah, it was quite good
You wake up in a morgue filled with Apple
and one of the first things you do is you feel your face is like,
oh, I feel a helmet there.
Should I remove it?
And all of your senses go, no, do not.
That's a terrible idea.
We could die.
And then if you try to go into the menu and pull his helmet off, he's like, uh-uh.
Oh, he just won't do it.
That's amazing.
He won't do it.
I love this kind of stuff.
40-50 hours.
My biggest issue with it.
Yeah, 40-50 hours.
Play-thirt for a full game.
That's what it says.
Yeah.
Continuous play.
time it's over 40 hours. What's the release date on this? Do you, do you know? Oh, it came out today
when we're recording this. Dude, I'm not in March. Come on, man. There's too many.
The whole game is out now. I am actually going to do that. I'm doing it right now. I need to add
this to my wish list, dude. I'm actually really curious about this game, dude. Like, like really
curious about this one. Also on sale for 2249. 2249. Usually at full price, 25.
Sitting at 96%
rating out of, I mean,
it's low, it's only 108 reviews,
but 96% is freaking good,
dude. That's really good.
Everyone who's played this game loves it.
If you love Disco Elysium, you'll love this.
If you love Dungeons and Dragons,
you'll love the elements that are thrown into this
where you can prepare spells and cantrips,
and you can use those to give yourself better roles
and things like that.
Guys, this one actually kind of looks cool to me.
I know, dude.
It's very cool.
Is there, like, equipment and stuff too?
Yep, there's gear.
and equipment. There's all sorts of stuff.
You can loot people. You can literally
like pickpocket people just like it's Dungeons and Dragons.
Is there voiceover work for the characters?
This is where the issue is.
It does not have voices.
You've got to read everything.
That is where it's going to lose some people.
And on wish listing now.
I was getting
to it. Oh, come on.
Guys, look,
will we
we
maybe
semi professional
voice actors
maybe
maybe not
you know
maybe we can't say
anything
you know
but we may be
we're not allowed
to say anything
we may be
semi professional
voice actors
and we
we will voice
your game
you have to
like
it's too late
the game's out
no they're
they're gonna
they'll launch it
like
esoteric ab director's
cut in coming
yeah
we'll get one
I'll play it
when they
when they do the voice
silver work.
Look, we'll try it really hard.
It's a super impressive game.
Give us the script.
It's a super impressive game.
Give us the, right.
Ryan, you ready to do a like a, like a, ready?
Like, let's just do a line from the game.
Ace, give us a line.
Oh, you just want me to know, okay.
You play the demo.
Want to you be a cobald that delivers milk and you just have to try to convince him that
you don't like milk.
Okay, I'll be the cobald.
Because you probably don't know what a cobald is, Ryan.
So, okay.
All right, I'm going to start.
Ready?
Hey, master, here's your milk's for you.
This is what you wanted.
I'm allergic to milk.
You know this?
But master, you told me milk is what you like.
Not anymore.
I changed my mind.
Be gone with you.
Master always such a butt face.
What did you say?
Come here.
See, there you go, people.
There you go.
It's that easy.
Look, and we didn't even charge for that one, guys.
That one's for free.
On the house.
Yeah.
I want to tell you what I was.
seeing there. I was seeing the horn king
and that like goblin from the black
caldron. Yeah. See.
And Ace had, look at,
dude, it was so good that Ace
instantly had flashbacks of like actual
movies. We painted a picture, bro. We painted a picture
for the audience right there. Yeah.
I mean, it was that or it was Homer and Bart
with a cold. Okay. Very
famous as well.
Like, Ace is just complimenting
us left and right. I know, right? So this, all
I'm hearing is that we should probably
try this. The theater of the mind is a powerful
thing. But this game will, if you love
disco elisium and you can get past the no
voice acting, this will scratch your disco itch.
All right. Yeah, I like it when somebody scratches my
disco it. I regretted saying
that as soon as I did and it was
too late to take it back. I think we were going to
let you get away with that? Come on,
man.
Oh.
The disco witch. All right. The old
disco itch. I got that in the
70s. My wife's
got to be like, she can always hear her. She's
going to be like, what's itching? What? Are you
talking about.
All right.
Moving on to our next game, which is Withering Realms,
which is a sequel that takes place in the same,
I guess, universe as another game called Withering Rooms.
This was brought to my attention by our good buddy, Morgow.
I was going to give him the shout out.
Yep, absolutely loves these games.
This one's really cool.
This is a survival horror soulslike,
which is super cool.
You play as this ghost girl Clover controlling this doll manually
and use the doll to fight and take, you know,
take agro because you're a ghost.
You can't do anything.
I played the demo for this.
It was actually incredible.
Really?
The combat looks good.
It's incredibly unique.
I've never seen anything like it.
I played the demo for Withering Rooms.
Isn't that right?
Withering Rooms, right?
That was the roguelike.
Right.
The 2D Roguelike, yeah.
Yeah.
So, and it's a very interesting art style.
It's kind of a neat game.
It's different than anything else I have played.
I will say that this trailer looks a little weird.
Like I don't know that the art style,
because it's this weird, like,
it's that PSX style.
Yeah, it's just strange looking.
Yeah.
But the combat looked good.
There were puzzles.
Like, there were vibes to this.
Mm-hmm.
I know Morgio absolutely loves these games,
and, you know, Morgo has pretty good taste in games as well.
So it's like, this one actually gets me pretty curious.
I don't know that I'll actually ever play this game,
with all the other games coming out.
But, like, I also know that there are a lot of people
that are excited about this one.
So I'm actually, it's, it makes me wonder
because you're like, you seem to really have enjoyed this demo.
This was really cool.
Like, we play a lot of Soulslikes.
Okay.
Like, that's, Solzlikes are a diamond dozen.
This, like, fixed camera, Soulslike,
where you're kind of balancing, doing damage
with also using spells to protect the doll.
Because if the doll's health falls to zero, you lose.
That doll is creepy.
too, man.
Oh, the doll's creepy.
Oh, get out, dude, man.
This one's real creepy.
He's got a sword hand and he's got one eye.
He's real creepy.
But you'll pick up, like, gear that gives you different resistances,
just like it's any kind of RPG.
It was a really cool experience,
and I hope to see them kind of expand upon it.
It's actually got slated for May of this year, too,
so we should see this game.
Okay.
Relatively soon.
So far, May looks like a fairly open month,
other than double-off coming at the end of May.
so maybe we'll get a chance to play some other games
not named to Crimson Desert and Marathon
and Slay the Spire 2 and Replaced
and Seros
They're still playing marathon
I think we're going to be in Crimson Desert for the remainder of the year
I'll be real yeah maybe that's a big game
Yeah I was going to say kind of there's that like hopefully thing in there too
Yeah hopefully hopefully
Moving on to this one,
which I can't tell you
how many people linked me
this game and how many people
wanted me to look at this game
but a game called paperhead.
Yeah!
Cardboard Doom!
Hell of it linked to me this one.
Tetmart linked me this one.
Like, so many people.
It is exactly what you're saying, Ryan.
It is cardboard doom
with the fast-paced retro shooter
aspects into this paper craft world.
I was watching this trail.
I'm just going to straight up tell you guys,
I started watching this trailer and it doesn't get to the gameplay part for like the first probably like 30 seconds or whatever.
And my actual.
That's funny because it's a demo trailer I sent you.
Really?
Yeah.
So it's like, dude, like my initial response was what the bleep is this game?
Dude.
Like what on earth is this?
And then it gets to the gameplay and I had the exact same reaction as Ryan.
It's cardboard doom.
Like fast pace, brutal like your car.
You're kicking.
people like, is that actually what this is?
Yeah, pretty much.
I mean, it's Doom, but if you're familiar with a different game called Ultra Kill, it's got the speed of that game.
Okay.
Yeah, it's a lot more jumpy and movement based than Doom.
I don't feel like Doom is all that movement based, at least in the originals.
It depends if it's eternal.
It is.
If it's Dark Ages.
Yeah, if it's like Eternal.
Yeah.
You know, it was super cool, super unique.
It kind of has that same weird, like, aesthetic you get when you play one of Edmund McMillan's games.
Yeah.
Like you get that weird like, oh, this is different.
This is weird.
Which is what we're looking for.
We want something unique, you know, unique games, unique styles.
So it definitely has it.
It's just if that aesthetic can carry a boomer shooter for a full-length game is kind of the real question.
Yeah.
But I have hope for it.
And it's slated for quarter two of 2026.
So that's pretty cool.
We'll do one more here and then we'll take our break.
Looking at Rekoin.
I have a really you guys walk about for this one.
We've seen roguikes that are for poker.
We've seen roguelikes that are for, what is it?
slot machines.
Blackjack now?
You guys ready for,
you guys are ready for the roguelike for a coin pushing?
This is the David Buster special?
Yeah.
We're just making games about anything now.
Just anything.
You know what, Ryan, Ace, let's make a go fish, roglyke.
Oh, yeah, go fish, roglyke.
All we got to do is have some kind of creepy music and a little bit of an edgy.
graphics and somebody's going to die, you know, if they don't get old made next.
You know, like that's old made.
Perfect.
Perfect.
Like, what are we doing, people?
What are, like, what are we doing?
This game looks so dumb to me.
This is, like, I want my brain back.
It's a deck builder coin pusher game.
What are you mean?
This is the dumbest thing ever, dude.
Like, number one.
It took them 12 years, dude.
I'm not a fan of the coin push.
You thought that about slots and daggers.
Dude, no, I played slots and daggers.
I think it was jiggle puff.
I know. You've thought that about it until you play it.
Okay. And that's fair.
I don't like when you make valid points.
A, so stop. Okay. But number two, it's a freaking coin pusher game, dude.
These are the dumbest games ever. Like, they're so satisfying.
And then somebody is like, you know what I need to do?
Bellotra was so popular. And then, and then slots and daggers. So we've got this.
A coin pusher machine. Like, come on.
Your game are boring in real life. Like the real game is tough.
Yes, exactly.
Ryan, exactly.
All right,
here we out.
It's actually incredibly
satisfying to do a coin pusher
for free.
Like, you're just doing it
not having to put any money into it.
The whole point of a coin pusher
is that you hope that the pile of coins falls
and that you're the one person
that like that didn't just lose money
for no reason.
They still fall.
You just get to invest them back into the machine again
to make more things fall.
Oh my goodness.
This is a perfect example of
just because you can,
doesn't always mean you should.
Thank you, Ryan.
Plus it's got a silly little raccoon motif.
Who suggested this game to you, Ace?
Yeah.
Oh, I think this is Jiggle Puff.
Straight to Jell.
Jiggle.
Straight to Jail.
You're grounded.
Jiggle Puffs is just a long time ago.
What did Ace do to you, man?
We're going to set them up this way.
Uh, well, it is going to go.
Okay, while we're on it, the other, the name is stupid.
It's the dumbest.
name ever. It's a raccoon motif of a coin pushing game. The name is stupid. The game is stupid. Stop it, people. Stop it.
All I'm hearing is Josh hates raccoons. No, I actually love raccoons, dude. I think raccoons are awesome.
But this game is stupid. Fair enough. All right. Well, it's coming out at the end of March, March 31st.
Oh, darn. So many games to play in March 10. So many games. No raccoons.
What?
Dang it.
Shame, we're missing out on Recoyne, boys.
Gosh, darn it.
It's the terrible luck sometimes.
Oh, shucks.
But yeah, we'll get right back to these Steam Devos after this little break.
All right.
We are back.
I'm terrified to say this one's name, but here we go.
We're looking at a game called How Many Dudes, which I've been relentlessly bullied over the name.
The answer should be zero.
Okay.
Whatever the question is, the answer should be zero.
It is a high-energy combat rogue-leg style game
where you basically you pick through a bunch of decks to pick dudes
and you put them into fights.
Like you can choose a fight that will get you a certain amount of money
if you fight 172 toddlers versus another one that gives you more money
if you fight 20 toddlers, two ducks, and a horse-sized duck or something.
It is just a silly auto-battelor rogue-like.
Don't we have this already in totally accurate battle simulator?
Tabs?
Yeah.
Tabs?
Is Tabs a roguelike?
I don't know.
But it's just make things fight.
You know,
one Jedi versus,
you know,
10 Mandalorian or whatever or like,
I mean,
I've seen tabs a hundred different ways.
And it's like,
is that not what this is,
really?
My son loves tabs a lot.
That's what it is very,
I would say it's very similar to that.
Just the difference being,
obviously,
it's a roguelike.
And also it's 100% based off of that.
How many guys does it take to?
beat a gorilla.
It's dudes.
That's the difference, bro.
You don't got dudes in the other game.
We got soldiers and warriors and stuff.
This has dudes.
We got dudes.
If this is like a $4 game,
I actually think this game's kind of stupid enough to like look a little bit fun.
Oh, it was fun.
It was fun to just play the demo and see how far you could get because you get like
items that change, you know, how your dudes interact.
Like you get vampire dudes.
You get 30% lifestyle in every attack.
you've got gladiator dudes who can block attacks or rally and it was it was interesting it was a very
interesting little rogue like if it's cheap i could see people like right i like tabs so i kind of
i kind of like this a little bit like the name's ridiculous it is ridiculous but how many dudes
there is something stupid enough about it that it actually kind of makes me a little bit curious and
i could see being kind of fun and i hate to that but i i'd throw like six seven bucks on it yeah
kids in their car right now are going oh yeah
you cause so many car crashes just now right
I hope you know that
you're responsible for by the way real quick
you ended we just went to charity bingo for my son's school
and whenever they call a number like like
n six seven the whole place would explode
because it's an elementary school dude it would
it was crazy it was cracking it up terrible
that's awful why how does that meme not dead yet
I don't know.
It's 10 years.
It'll never die, Ace.
It's immortalized in human history.
It won't.
We literally had a soldier 76 in our game do the e-boat yesterday.
Oh, no.
It never dies.
It just never goes away.
But yeah, how many dudes is not, it's to be announced.
We don't actually have a release date for it just yet.
The amount of development that has to go into this is just astronomical.
Hey, you don't want things to get like, you know, too easy or too hard.
You got to balance things.
You got to find the balance.
I wonder how many dudes it took to make it.
one probably one
I was gonna sound pretty sure
it's just one guy
one dude
you failed
all right
we're looking at this one
I actually saw this one
an X
last night before I went to bed
and I added it to the list
just because I found it
so interesting
it's a game called
protagonist complex one
terrible name by the way
awful name
he basically
the way he
versed it is
what if Batman
Arkham Asylum had swords
and that's basically
what this is
what it looks like
You are a soldier whose entire platoon has been either kidnapped or killed.
You are in an army where it explains like both sides are very low on ammunition.
It's going to be close combat no matter what you do.
And they have billy clubs and you got a sword and you just go to work on them.
That's what I'm talking about.
It was quite cool and it was quite fun.
You posted a screenshot of this even and you were like, this game's neat.
And then I was like, what game is this?
And then you just didn't answer me.
And I'm like, is he's trying to be mysterious?
or like what's going on here, you know, but then...
You said what game is this like at 7 a.m. in the morning for me.
I mean, don't post random screenshots, A's.
You're fake posting, you know?
Like, I would never post a screenshot of a game and go,
this looks interesting and then not mention the game to you.
So you're sitting there wondering for hours while the other person is sleeping,
who knows what game is.
If only there was a Google Doc with the name in it or something.
Ace, would I tell you about making valid points?
Okay?
I thought we talked about this.
He's two for two today.
He's two for two.
Now,
this looks pretty sweet.
Last night, I didn't know you added this to the dog.
Oh, that's true.
Yeah.
Take your valid this one.
Shove it, Ace.
Also, this game actually kind of looks kind of neat.
Like, how is the combat in this?
Is it, is it fun?
It's a little floaty.
I'm not going to say it's perfect by any means.
And I think the enemies need some kind of like notification when they're getting ready to attack you
because it's very counter-based.
Like, you have a pari.
and you have a heavy attack, you have a light attack.
But the enemies don't really have a windup or anything.
It's just, we're hitting you now.
And it's like, oh, God.
Perry, Perry.
Get good.
And the level does not need some work as well.
But I see the bones of something very good and very interesting here.
If this person can get, you know, the support and the desire to see it improve.
Like the screenshot I sent you last night was me standing in this basically military graveyard.
And off in the distance and the fog, you just see a sign that says, hell is real.
It's like, whoa, this is cool as heck.
Yeah, this game has a good atmosphere to it.
The combat looked like fairly decent.
But the weird thing that like my brain is like this dude's a soldier.
He's wearing like body armor, like modern body armor and stuff.
Oh, yeah, no, he's like an American soldier.
He's like a tactical ninja.
And it's like, what happened to your gun, dude?
I just, yeah, now the gun thing comes into play later.
you find notes and radio things like saying that both sides of this war are out of ammunition
essentially but then as soon as I found that note there was a guy with a shotgun around the corner
I was like oh god straight lied to you liars you lied you said that it never any weapons it's war baby
and finally this is our I'll say also obviously protagonist complex one it says it'll release this year
I'm not sure if it will or not because very little on this game it needs some time a little more time in the
But it's one I think people should keep their eye on if they're interested in what I've just mentioned.
And the final game here is a game called Witch Spire, which is also supposed to release this year.
It is basically, if you took Powell World and Genshin Impact and made it all about the world of Harry Potter and magic, essentially.
I kind of like this.
It's kind of sick.
It's a survival game where you're using the wand for everything.
I hate that I liked it, too.
Ah, yeah!
It's kind of sick.
You'll be fighting these magical creatures,
and if you beat enough of them,
you can claim them as your own familiar.
Like, it's cool.
It's a super cool thing.
I was going to say, it looks good.
It's got decent combat.
It's got like base building.
It's like everything.
I'm watching this trailer,
and I kind of kept waiting for like the,
okay, well, what's the issue?
You know, like what's the problem?
And then none of it.
And it was like,
this actually looks pretty neat, man.
Like you see the lady casting a variety of spells.
She's growing trees with magic.
and then she has some like magic spell where she walks through them and it chops all the trees down.
That's what got me the most excited.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she's building her house.
I like chopping trees, guys.
We like chopping trees, man.
I know how to win with you, huh?
Yeah, I don't know.
Man, this game actually looked pretty cool.
The demo was really cool.
Obviously, I didn't spend a ton of time in it because I wanted to get through all these demos as fast as possible.
I play like an hour or something.
It was a very cool demo.
It gave me very heavy power world vibes, very heavy and shrouded vibes.
what it looked like.
Which is all really good.
You're talking my language, Ace.
So is this actually more like survival crafting than anything else?
Yeah, it's more like survival crafting.
Because they showcase the combat a lot and the combat looked pretty decent with the spells and all.
Like, you know, she's dodging attacks.
There's so many spells, too.
I think they showed a boss fight at one point or at least fighting some larger kind of creature or something like that.
But like, yeah, I mean, I was rather impressed by what I saw and then it got me curious.
And now you're telling me it's kind of like a survival.
crafting game and I'm kind of warring. It is a crafting game 100% yeah. It's got a skill tree where
you can go down the skill tree. I already just added it to my crafting recipes. I'm going to go add
this to my wish list too. I just did it right now. It's too many games guys. Too many good games then
too many good games and I believe it will also be multiplayer on release so it will be multiplayer?
Yeah I believe so. Yeah better be guys we might we're gonna have some fun on full release yeah it looks
incredible, it played incredible. I had
no issues with this game whatsoever. I'm going to plant me
an orchard. This says, this is similar
to games you've played, Valheim and Powell
World. There you go.
That's a good sign. That's a good sign.
But yeah, those are the demos we are looking
at. I'll go through them one more time
for anyone who missed them. Obviously,
I didn't say what other platforms these are on, because
I only know these are going to be on PC.
When they're this early in development, you have no idea
where a game's going, like genuinely.
But that was esoteric
Ebb, Withering Realms, paperhead, rec coin, how many dudes, protagonist complex one, and witch spire.
Which I think, which of these stood out the most of you guys?
Which of these are the most interesting?
Well, the two I wish listed, Esoteric Ebb and Witch Spire for me.
The only one that I, honestly, the only one that I am completely just out on is Reckoine,
because I think that game looks really stupid to me.
That's fair.
But like, Withering Realms, I could see being a really cool game, and we love
morgo and he you know he like I said you know sometimes you trust people's taste you know he and I
don't necessarily have the same taste in games all the time but like I like I value his opinion and so
Withering Realms I think is actually going to wind up being a really good game how many dudes
stupid fun if it's priced right I could actually see picking that up and just playing that to laugh a few
times um protagonist complex one for me is the like could be a huge whiff or might actually wind up
being developed into something pretty decent.
Yeah, the demo is very early on.
What about you, Ryan?
I was going to say, too, on that protagonist's game.
For me, it falls into one of those categories where, like, we just said, there's so
many games now to where, like, it's got to really knock my socks off or really coming
at a really good price point or something to make me like, okay, I'll consider trying this,
because it's just a wealth of riches we have right now with all these games.
Oh, yeah.
Other than that, I actually really like the look at Paperhead.
Obviously which Spire looks great, but the paperhead game looks like, again, kind of dumb fun.
If it holds up through like a full gameplay, like it would be pretty cool.
Yeah, I'd definitely recommend checking out the demo if you haven't.
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to enjoy it quite a bit.
But that is all we have for this one.
Steam Next Fest is where our future favorites are born and sometimes the demo can really make or break a game for someone.
So if any of these sounded interesting you, be sure to check out the demo.
It'll either reaffirm your hopes in the game or it might crush you.
little bit. But I brought these forward because I think the demos are pretty solid. All right.
And I'll get all the links to all these trailers and everything in the episode description.
So be sure to look out for them. Yeah. Good on you, Ryan. And also, esoteric ad developers,
we are, we are available for voice acting. We will voice acting. Apparently, we can do
Colbold and Man Who Hates Milk. Yeah. So we're very affordable. Yeah. So if you enjoy this
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You fool?
You know a foamy latte gives me gas.
All right, see you as everybody.
