The latest Steam Next Fest event has commenced, and indie.io is featuring several of its titles during the festival through a special campaign titled the “Next Fest Party,” running from October 13 through October 20.
This promotional event includes free playable demos for 12 different games, representing various developers and genres. One of the featured titles is Monsters and Me, a 2D top-down shooter with roguelite mechanics, described as chaotic and silly with a slightly gross 2D art style. The game’s premise involves a city overrun by slime mutants, and the player’s goal is survival by upgrading weapons and special abilities. The free demo places players in the first level, where they must survive against enemies for as long as possible.
Another title is Kriophobia, a psychological horror game focused on survival. Players assume the role of Anna, a geophysicist trapped in a frozen Soviet bunker. The demo consists of a standalone section from the game’s second chapter, where players must contend with the cold, mysterious abominations, and narrative elements related to Anna’s past trauma.
Plagun is a pixel-art shooter that combines bullet-hell and roguelike genres, set in a post-apocalyptic kingdom. The player, a former doctor, uses cursed masks and plague-infused weapons against escalating enemy waves. The demo is a vertical slice designed to convey the game’s fast pace, letting players experiment with different masks and power-ups.
Dwarf Delve is a first-person extraction roguelite where players delve into procedurally generated mines to collect riches and then attempt a safe extraction. The gameplay involves crafting items for navigation and illumination, and avoiding traps and hazards during the return journey.
Heistfest is an action game centered on theft and urban destruction, involving robbing a location and escaping during an escalating police chase. The demo is a vertical slice of the main loop: rob a bank, trigger the chase, and survive as long as possible.
Locked in My Darkness 2: The Room is a psychological horror walking simulator that emphasizes atmosphere, exploration, and puzzle-solving. The story follows Yuki Tachibana, a high-school student who moves into a new apartment where a sinister presence awakens, warping reality.
Nullstar: Solus is a drone-based platformer where players control Solus, a scavenger drone sent to salvage a “nullstar” from a dying world. The primary gameplay objective is speed, requiring players to master flying mechanics to complete levels as quickly as possible.
Air Hares offers a unique take on the bullet-hell genre, where the main objective is agriculture; the player pilots a plane to seed and water crops to save a starving population. The player’s efforts are opposed by the “Gale Gang,” a group of feathered foes.
Binary Golf delivers a chaotic overhaul of miniature golf, where the player’s golf ball is used to eliminate targets on the course. The demo includes the game’s first two episodes, teaching core mechanics before a boss battle tests a player’s learned skills.
The Cascadier merges roguelike deckbuilding with a magical coin-pusher machine. Players use a deck of cards to charge coins with elemental powers, which are dropped into pinball-like cabinets to trigger chain reactions. The demo features the first cabinet, a nature-themed machine.
Elemental Brawl is a multiplayer party game about defeating friends with elemental powers. Players start with basic punches and kicks, and as time passes, random elemental orbs drop onto the map, granting powers that can be combined.
Chowdown Kitty is a puzzle game with simple, addictive gameplay involving connecting three or more matching cat treats in a string. The goal is to remove treats and add them to a cat’s food bowl, increasing the virtual cat’s happiness level as points are scored.
