Steam Game Festival: Autumn Edition now LIVE (featuring dev interviews, streams, demos etc)

[Arthands]

Steam Game Festival, February 3 Coming Soon

Join us February 3rd at 10am Pacific Join us for the Steam Game Festival, February 2021 edition, starting February 3rd at 10am Pacific. Explore over 500 free game demos, watch developer livestreams, and chat with developers about the games they are making. Sign up here to get a reminder when the...

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Steam Game Festival : Autumn will last until October 13rd

The Steam Game Festival is a celebration where fans can try out demos, chat with developers, watch live streams, and learn about upcoming games on Steam. For developers, the Steam Game Festival is an opportunity to get early feedback from players and build an audience for future releases.

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just noticed Raji: An Ancient Epic will be coming to Steam later this month among others.

 

[Comrade Grogu]

Any good deals? Guess I'll open up Steam to check, but I'm guessing that comes during the upcoming Winter Sale.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

These game festivals are deserving of so much more fanfare and hype.

 

[Letters]

Too many demos. Subscribing to this thread for recommendations

love these steam festivals

 

[ZiZ]

No recommendations?

 

[Arthands]

I will play them later today. I am still in bed lol

 

[nbnt]

Tried out 25 demos, mostly just for a few minutes. Added a couple of titles to my wishlist but also removed 7 thanks to this event. My favorites:

 

[thenexus6]

So far:



Super cute

 

[Letters]

reposting from the pc thread

"Played some demos

Manifold Garden demo was a super fast click of the wishlist button. Adored it.

Raji An Ancient Epic was really beautiful and the character had a lot of nice animations, reminded me of the cozy feeling of playing Sands of Time around its release. Miss those games with that type of fixed cinematic camera from the ps2 era (though the character looks a bit too tiny on screen), also really enjoyed playing something that deals with that ancient India culture. Those cutscenes are beautiful but I wish they had normal ingame ones too. Wishlisted.

Party Animals impressed me with its visuals animations and physics, it looks perfect. It's goofy online fun. Might be a sale game for me since these type of games start great but get old fast.

Contraband Police demo, I went in expecting ultra low budget jank and it delivered that. But I enjoyed my time with it since I've never gone through people's vehicles and documents at a dystopian border before. Has papers please elements with document checking but you get to flash a light in people's faces and go through their shit in real time 3D. Worth a play for the novelty.

Drone Swarm is a cool looking strategy game, never got old drawing on screen to send that shitload of drones to swarm stuff like the squid things in Matrix Revolution, at high framerate the effect looks super nice. Wishlisted.

Gloomwood, it's the old demo but GO PLAY IT if you haven't done so and are into Thief with Bloodborne vibes. The game has only gotten better since there from what I've seen in their social media posts.

Partisans 1941 didn't click with me, I'm a big commandos and mimimi games fan but this felt awkward to play and I couldn't even control the camera with the mouse. That the game decided to crouch the character for you automatically a few seconds in was a bad sign. I need to play this again, I might've been too tired and impatient for it since it was getting late.

Xuan Yuan Sword VII was more decent than I expected, it looked nice, the story seemed cute/interesting and the music was beautiful but the demo was chugging on my PC and the cutscenes and kid walking simulator parts were taking forever and it was getting really late so I bounced off. Need to come back to this to check to see if there's proper combat/exploration at the end of the demo."

 

[Mentalist]

Batch 1 from last night:


Endless Memories is a fun Metroidvania. Not too clear on how the RPG elements work, besides slotting higher damage weapons in as I find them. The boss was giving me some trouble until I used arrows, then his HP melted. I wasn't sure about this one, but the demo feels solid.


"Clan O'Connall" is Trine, but Celtic, by way of Guacamelee in terms of art style. Cool puzzles, I liked what I played. In Stage 2 one arena fight spawned immortal bats, so I quit. Needs work, but very promising.


"FIST: Forged In Shadow Torch"- love the aesthetic and enemy design (except for those ball robots, they suck); the combat seems to be a mix of light and heavy. I didn't really get how to trigger specials or parries, but it feels meaty. Jumping is fun, and I enjoyed looking for collectables, even though I'm not sure what they do.


"Fabular: once upon a spacetime": FTL with jousting ships. Combat fields unwieldy, as your spaceship got swords it's trying to hit other ships with. Interesting ideas, but I'm not sold on the concept.

Dark Water : Slime Invader on Steam

Dark Water is an Action Platformer game where you use a bow.

store.steampowered.com

" Dark Water": gotta give this one credit for using no words- all hints and explanations on-screen come in the form of thought bubbles over character's heads (except for skill menus. Those have words) It's a metroidvania-y (in that you get extra traversal abilities. But I didn't see any backtracking yet) puzzle platformer. Get yourself and your grandma to the end of the level, and try to collect all the stars. Interesting art style and weird combat (you're just facing various types of blobs supposedly made from the titular "Dark water") make this one stand out.

EDIT: added links to each game

 

[thenexus6]

This is going to be great. Wishlisted.

 

[Arthands]

Ghostrunner leaves a rather positive impression to me. This is a cyberpunk-ish action game where you play as sort of an agile ninja with wall jump and grapple hook, basically parkour for the most part. The movement action is fast, but is rather unforgiving in terms of difficulty. I am not sure if that's the point of the game, but i died repeatedly while i learn the layout, as I keep getting killed whenever I get to a new area. The control is awkward, I have to switch the control scheme to classic to play the game.


As for Just Die Already, I think it gets old fast. Its a sandbox physic-based game where you play as an old man. There are casual objectives to do, essentially achievements but there isn't much. You just walk around killing or getting killed by people.

 

[Nabs]

This game was right up my alley. I'll definitely check it out when it comes out.

 

[Mentalist]

Games I can already recommend, but would suggest not playing now, b/c their demos aren't timed, and are always available:

 

[Arthands]

Raji: An Ancient Epic is a rather straight forward action adventure game that reminds me of the God of War PSP games in terms of combat. There are bunch of simple attack moves, none too complicated, and I think I like it. I have been eyeing this since its announcement for Nintendo Switch, and I will be getting it. The cutscene is depicted in shadow puppet which is kind of cool. Based on the demo, the enemies doesn't have a lot of variety (eg no archer, no shield-wielding enemy)

 

[Mentalist]

Raji: An Ancient Epic is a rather straight forward action adventure game that reminds me of the God of War PSP games in terms of combat. There are bunch of simple attack moves, none too complicated, and I think I like it. I have been eyeing this since its announcement for Nintendo Switch, and I will be getting it. The cutscene is depicted in shadow puppet which is kind of cool. Based on the demo, the enemies doesn't have a lot of variety (eg no archer, no shield-wielding enemy)

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?

One of the basic demon enemies in the demo spits acid. Unless they really changed it from what I've been playing every time it becomes available this year, :D

I really liked the mandala puzzles, too. It's a cool mix of combat, platforming and puzzles, and it channels Sands of Time hard (it's got the same "use a column to spin around damaging all enemies in a circle" move). Grabbing this next week, for sure.

I can also recommend Morbid: the Seven Acolytes, having played the demo during the PAX event 2 weeks ago.


It's a top-down hack'n'slash that's using Souls-y combat (dodge-roll, stamina mechanic, recovery items), and has a Diablo-esque inventory (complete with inventory tetris). The setting is really Gothic and the boss location (an overgrown garden full of grotesque enemies) gave me really strong Blood Omen vibes.

 

[LewieP]

Is there anywhere I can see a list of all the game demos? The main page for the festival just seems to have a curated selection, but there are supposed to be "hundreds" of demos.

 

[charlieman999]

Demon Turf: Queens Edition on Steam

The ultimate version of the 3D Platformer with attitude! Join Beebz on three seperate adventures to ultimately claim the Demon Queen title! Jump, spin and punch your way across the turfs with this Expressive Platformer!

store.steampowered.com

I liked this one, is a 3d platformer but the main character is a 2d sprite, it looks really cool and the controls are good, and the voice acting is charming.

 

[Wanderer5]

Might give Falconeer a try (edit: oh it doesn't have a demo), but not sure what else to try, other then maybe giving Ghostrunner another round.

Also play Gloomwood demo!

 

[Unicorn]

Webbed on Steam

Swing through the trees, spin sticky webs, and make friends with bugs! Be the adorable spider you've always wanted to be.

store.steampowered.com

Had a lot of fun with this last night!

Might give Falconer a try, but not sure what else to try, other then maybe giving Ghostrunner another round.

Also play Gloomwood demo!

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Where's the demo for Falconeer?! It's been on my wishlist forever and was the first I searched for a demo...

 

[Weltall Zero]

We need a hero to sift through all these demos in order to find out the hidden gems. Light up the Toma-signal!

 

[Wanderer5]

Where's the demo for Falconeer?! It's been on my wishlist forever and was the first I searched for a demo...

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Nah it doesn't. I just saw it earlier in the highlights, thinking it did have one.

 

[shaneo632]

Are the demos up for just a few days again? That killed me last time.

 

[Wanderer5]

Well, might as well give a few horror titles a round. Downloaded the Werewolf game and Faith to start off with!

 

[Mentalist]

Are the demos up for just a few days again? That killed me last time.

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Most are, some aren't

 

[Nabs]

Webbed on Steam

Swing through the trees, spin sticky webs, and make friends with bugs! Be the adorable spider you've always wanted to be.

store.steampowered.com

Had a lot of fun with this last night!

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This is wonderful. I can't get enough.

 

[Arthands]

?

One of the basic demon enemies in the demo spits acid. Unless they really changed it from what I've been playing every time it becomes available this year, :D

I really liked the mandala puzzles, too. It's a cool mix of combat, platforming and puzzles, and it channels Sands of Time hard (it's got the same "use a column to spin around damaging all enemies in a circle" move). Grabbing this next week, for sure.

I can also recommend Morbid: the Seven Acolytes, having played the demo during the PAX event 2 weeks ago.


It's a top-down hack'n'slash that's using Souls-y combat (dodge-roll, stamina mechanic, recovery items), and has a Diablo-esque inventory (complete with inventory tetris). The setting is really Gothic and the boss location (an overgrown garden full of grotesque enemies) gave me really strong Blood Omen vibes.

Click to shrink...

are those the smaller monsters? I must have forgotten. I recall fighting them but i didn't remember their attack moves

 

[Mentalist]

This is legit good. Like Witcher 2, but with good combat.

 

[Toma]

We need a hero to sift through all these demos in order to find out the hidden gems. Light up the Toma-signal!

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Highly tempting, but I have a huge event next week that demands my time unfortunately. Thanks for letting me know about it though!

 

[eonden]

Any good deals? Guess I'll open up Steam to check, but I'm guessing that comes during the upcoming Winter Sale.

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This is more of a demo festival instead of a sale. So a ton of games that will launch in the next 6-8 months (more or less) will have free demos you can play during the length of the event.

Are the demos up for just a few days again? That killed me last time.

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Most of them yeah. The devs can decide if they keep the demo up same as before.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

It is sad and baffling that this has not more traction here on Resetera.

A game I can recommend is Ikenfell,

Ikenfell on Steam

A turn-based tactical RPG about a group of troublesome magic students. Use timing mechanics to power your spells and block attacks, explore the twisted halls of a vast magic school, fight challenging monsters and bosses, and uncover dark secrets never meant to be found.

store.steampowered.com

The incels flipped their shit because it has an all-female cast and someone in the discussions warned his "fellow christians" from buying it because of teh gays or something. Also, it looks cool.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

It is sad and baffling that this has not more traction here on Resetera.

A game I can recommend is Ikenfell,

Ikenfell on Steam

A turn-based tactical RPG about a group of troublesome magic students. Use timing mechanics to power your spells and block attacks, explore the twisted halls of a vast magic school, fight challenging monsters and bosses, and uncover dark secrets never meant to be found.

store.steampowered.com

The incels flipped their shit because it has an all-female cast and someone in the discussions warned his "fellow christians" from buying it because of teh gays or something. Also, it looks cool.

Click to shrink...

Also launched on Game Pass yesterday.

 

[Nabs]

I enjoyed the bit of Ikenfell I played. Excited to get into it this weekend.

 

[Comrade Grogu]

It is sad and baffling that this has not more traction here on Resetera.

A game I can recommend is Ikenfell,

Ikenfell on Steam

A turn-based tactical RPG about a group of troublesome magic students. Use timing mechanics to power your spells and block attacks, explore the twisted halls of a vast magic school, fight challenging monsters and bosses, and uncover dark secrets never meant to be found.

store.steampowered.com

The incels flipped their shit because it has an all-female cast and someone in the discussions warned his "fellow christians" from buying it because of teh gays or something. Also, it looks cool.

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Noice.

 

[Munroe]

I'm currently playing through Chinatown Detective Agency which I'mm enjoying quite a bit. It's a point and click adventure but with some interesting gameplay mechanics

 

[Bluforce]

Circuit Superstars is very good!

 

[Weltall Zero]

Highly tempting, but I have a huge event next week that demands my time unfortunately. Thanks for letting me know about it though!

Click to shrink...

Hahah, no problem, and thank you yet again for your amazing job on the racial justice bundle. I still check it regularly. <3

Also, get that tag of yours already. :D

 

[Arthands]

Superliminal is pretty interesting but I am still not sold on the demo, as most of the puzzles seem repetitive. Cautiously optimistic about this one. Based on the demo this is a 7-ish / 10 game


Chinatown Detective Agency has a very long demo (took me 1 hour 20 mins!) Its a narrative game with some puzzles that you literally have to google for answers. You have a pool of money which you earn after solving cases, and you spend on food to regain stamina and book travel tickets to other countries for narrative purpose. Apparently your stamina drops over time so you have to take a nap in office or eat food. Also, the time passes in real time and you will get penalize if you failed to head for a scheduled appointment. There are 2 and half cases (the demo ends right in the midst of the 3rd case) so I guess each case last about 25 minutes or so?

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Ikenfell is a simple little RPG. Charming!

 

[dock]

Is this still ongoing?

I just tried the Mail Mole demo but it was instead a weird 'streaming demo' that popped up a windows warning that I couldn't confirm or deny. I had to quit via task manager.

Are all the Steam Autumn Festival demos like th

 

[Nabs]

Is this still ongoing?

I just tried the Mail Mole demo but it was instead a weird 'streaming demo' that popped up a windows warning that I couldn't confirm or deny. I had to quit via task manager.

Are all the Steam Autumn Festival demos like th

Click to shrink...

Yes, still on going. No Streaming demo here, and none of the other demos I have tried work like that.

 

[eonden]

Is this still ongoing?

I just tried the Mail Mole demo but it was instead a weird 'streaming demo' that popped up a windows warning that I couldn't confirm or deny. I had to quit via task manager.

Are all the Steam Autumn Festival demos like th

Click to shrink...

Just tried the demo and it didnt happen to me. Did you get to download it? (It was 800 MBs for me) Otherwise it could have been a bug.

 

[dock]

Just tried the demo and it didnt happen to me. Did you get to download it? (It was 800 MBs for me) Otherwise it could have been a bug.

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Aha it was getting confused because my work laptop had installed it and I didn't realise, and the fact that it could stream over my local network blocked me from installing it on my games pc.

Big picture doesn't really explain these things.

 

[Rodrigues solitaire]

Per Aspera - Factorio on Mars. Very stylish attempt at terraforming Mars.



Suzerain - A narrative political game that has you roleplay the president of a country that just came out of a 20 year dictatorship and civil war. Looks fantastic and the writing is decent.

 

[Ted]

I really like that Steam is doing these. It seems like a good way to get eyes on these games and build some awareness. I've played a few of the available demos now and have another few downloaded that I hope to get to tonight/tomorrow.

Circuit Superstars
Dev: Original Fire Games
Pub: Square Enix

Small demo with just one track, two cars and local multiplayer. What is here though shows great promise. It has a great look and the handling model is simple but with enough depth to make chasing time on the demo surprisingly fun. Definitely one I have added to my wish list and will almost certainly pick it up when it releases in early access.

Raji
Dev: Nodding Head Games
Pub: Super.com

The demo seems to be essentially the tutorial area for the main game. I love the ancient India theme and Raji is beautifully animated. I'm not sure I love the feel of the movement and the combat but it's certainly not bad, I just need to play more I think. I'm going to wishlist it and keep an eye on it in the future.

Unto The End
Dev: 2 Ton Studios
Pub: Big Sugar

Skill based adventure sword fighting game. Feels too weighty for my liking but this will absolutely be someone's jam as I can see some real potential depth here in the combat, getting it right would be very satisfying, I'm just unlikely to ever get it right enough!

Drone Swarm
Dev: stillalive studios
Pub: astragon Entertainment

Great concept with an amusingly ridiculous but nicely presented story that isn't quite as intuitive as I'd hoped to control. I'll be interested to see how it develops in terms of upgrades to your swarm so it's another one I'll keep an eye on.

Mr Prepper
Dev: Rejected Games Sp. z o.o.
Pub: PlayWay S.A.

A very PlayWay game. Could be fun on sale or if this kind of game is just your thing. Muricaville made me chuckle. Added to wishlist but definitely a wait for a sale game for me.

Undying
Dev: Vanimals
Pub: Skystone Games Inc., Vanimals

A survival game with some possibly interesting takes on the genre. I like the art style and the movement and combat whilst simple feel OK. One to keep an eye on for me so wishlisted.

 

[Arthands]

Just downloaded the following demos and will try them later in the day

• Say No! More
• Blade Assault
• Aeon Drive
• Whateverland
• Becastled
• Filmmaker Tycoon

 

[Arthands]

Its a one button/key game where the only thing you do is say no. You can laugh and clap before you say no, and there are a couple types of no you can give too. There's nothing much but its amusing to see the story upfold as you reject the various requests. the demo ends after you got promoted from an intern to the supervisor lol


Its a rogue-like run n gun/slash action platformer game with a pixel art style. A rather decent title where you have to keep moving and killing enemies to fill up the pod that teleports you to the next stage.

 

[Arthands]

Whateverland is a point and click game. YOu play as a thief named Vincent, who is punished into the Whateverland by Beatrice, after she caught you stealing her necklance. The Whateverland is a weird dimension world where Beatrice discards the things she doesn't want or punish, so there are weird characters and junk items around. You are accompanied by an inhabitant to get out of this weird world. The demo is pomising


FIlm Maker Tycoon is a film making simulation game. Unfortunately the demo turns me off and I don't think I will recommend anyone wasting their time on it. Feels like shovelware

 

[Arthands]

Will be checking out demo for the following tomorrow:

• Chicken Police
• Land of Screens
• Fire Tonight
• Becastled

 

[Woodbeam]

I just got finished playing the demo for Lucifer Within Us, and it impressed the hell out of me. You play as a "digital exorcist" in a hyperreligious cyberpunk society, collecting evidence and prying into people's minds to solve a series of murders. The art direction is fantastic with a deco-inspired look and very diverse characters. I don't know whether something like it has been done before, but the UI strikes me as brilliant, presenting the testimony of multimple witnesses/suspects as parallel timelines you can access at any point during an interrogation, pausing, playing and scanning through a playback of their actions in the world as you wish while comparing them to others. It rules. Wishlisted this immediately.