[1P] First Play: Next Fest Demos

Fabledom

Probably my favorite game that I’ve tried during NF thusfar, it’s a neat little city-builder that’s pretty relaxing and wholesome — at least insofar as I was able to ascertain during the demo. There’s some political jockeying and world trade you can do beyond the scope of the demo, but it only briefly touched on that a little during my playthrough.

Wishlist Potential: ☆☆☆☆☆

All-in-all, if you’re looking for a relaxing little game to wind down with and just watch your little Fablings do their thing, then this is a fine game to consider wishlisting.

Ranch of Rivershine

I wanted to like this game, I really did. There’s such a shortage of good horse ranching, casual games that I feel it’s a niche worth filling. The controls in Rivershine, however, feel extremely clunky especially for someone like me that has issues with my hands on occasion (thanks, chronic illness!)

The cartoony environment of Rivershine is charming enough, though. It seems clear to me that this game seems geared toward the younger gamers. The dialogue and characters aren’t all that in-depth and the controls are very basic to the point that they feel stiff and awkward for the most part.

Wishlist Potential: ☆☆

Unless there are some major changes to functionality and controls, I’d say this one is a pass. There will hopefully be good games for this genre eventually!

Outlanders

Another little city-builder and villager management game — I think I have a genre type, don’t I? — though this one isn’t as graphically pretty as Fabledom. It’s got some interesting mechanics where placement of your buildings matter. Your lumberjacks won’t gather wood unless their lumber camp is amid some harvestable trees; your foragers won’t get edibles from the woods unless their camp is placed where there are actual edible things to collect. And once they run out of resources, you have to move their camps to better spots. So, it keeps you engaged in small ways instead of having a “set it and forget it” kind of feel.

While I had some difficulty garnering enough villagers to keep things running, there were several quality of life things within the game that made management a bit less painful, like being able to shuffle villagers between jobs so you could prioritize different things. Don’t let your villagers starve, though, that will end your run pretty quickly.

Wishlist Potential: ☆☆☆

While the game is fun at the onset, I worry about the longevity of the game. While I only played through two of the initial scenarios, it was frighteningly easy to “lose” the game in the second scenario simply because I couldn’t forage enough food to keep everyone fed. I’d say keep an eye on things and see how it develops before investing whole hog.

Inkbound

An interesting entry into the roguelike arena, this game is really pretty to look at. Character customization (which is always a Huge Bonus with me) is actually pretty good for as simple as it seems. You get to choose your character’s colors and tattoos, along with their name, enough to make yourself distinctive.

The gameplay is both easy and challenging, I have yet to beat a Hard Battle, but the regular Battles go pretty well. It’s also playable with friends — also another Huge Bonus for me. There seems to be a battle pass “season” mechanic — wherein the more stuff you do in the game the higher your Rank is — to the game though what that gets you doesn’t really seem to be part of the demo at the moment.

Wishlist Potential: ☆☆☆☆

I could see it being a worthwhile purchase, especially if you plan to play with friends!

Those are all the games that really caught my interest thusfar, but who knows maybe I’ll find something else! Or you’re welcome to submit your own recommendations and thoughts below. I’m always down to give something a try!