11 Steam Next Fest demos I gently recommend

Steam Next Fest runs until October 26th, and the many demos therein often remain available long after the fest has ended. That means you've got time, but not enough time, to try everything that looks interesting therein. To help you, I've spent the past week playing demos myself, and I've picked 11 that I think could be worth your time.

Should you take this to mean that this is everything the Next Fest has to offer, and all else is trash? No, of course not. I think it's worthwhile for me to highlight some demos I liked - and to acknowledge their warts where I see them - but really the joy of an event like this is the opportunity to go crate digging for yourself in search of the demos that appeal to you. Yes, if you step beyond Steam's personalised recommendation algorithm, you will encounter games that you do not care for, and even despise. Do not be afraid. This is how you strengthen your muscles of personal taste and discover the gems that speak to you but which cannot be predicted by an algorithm. And if you've already done that, share what you found in the comments below, so we can all cheat off your homework.

Feather's Edge

This is an action platformer built around a single, fun mechanic: your jump can be aimed and charged to fling you across great distances, and to slice through any enemy that's in your path. I am never not happy if a game lets me cling to ceilings, or encourages me to corral a swarm of pursuing monsters so I can line up a single devastating attack. Everything around that one good-feeling move is a lot more rough at this stage. There's lots of handsome art and pleasant music, but menus, upgrades, and level progression feel unfinished. Because they are. Still, there's plenty here to enjoy, and enough that I'll be keeping an eye on Feather's Edge whenever it gets a full release.

Shifu: Traffic Masters

There are a bunch of physicsy delivery sims around now, in which you pack objects into the back of a flatbed truck and then watch them slide and spill as you speed (or carefully trundle) around corners. Whether a new one is worth playing is, I think, based on the vehicle handling and the setting, and Shifu: Traffic Masters succeeds in both. You're making your deliveries (sometimes cargo, sometimes post, sometimes people) around the fictional streets of 1990s China with a VHS aesthetic, police chases, and functional, reasonably priced cars that wobble on their suspension in a way that begs you to whip them down an alleyway like you're playing the original Driver. Do I wish some of the cars were less shit? Yes, especially the police car, which takes an eon to accelerate and rather strips the game of fun when you're trying to box-in a fleeing target.

Mr. Records

By day, you run a record shop, choosing the correct vinyl album to hand to customers based upon clues about their taste. At night, you listen to the new records you've purchased for the store, each one of which becomes its own rhythm-based side-scrolling level for you to jump, slide and kick across. As rhythm games go, it's pretty forgiving, at least in this demo, and doesn't require the precise timing of a Rhythm Heaven or the deft platforming of a Geometry Dash. That's a good thing, because I'm terrible at those games. Here I got to enjoy the animation and the colour palette and the old man in his pants. There's a track editor, too, if you fancy importing your own music and building your own courses.