Steam Next Fest 2026

Demos I played during this years’s Steam Nest Fest (list still needs to be updated)

Alabaster Dawn

Hey this kinda feels, looks and plays like Cross Code! My thoughts when I played the first minutes of the demo. Turns out, yes, it’s the devs of Cross Code. Cross Code was good despite its flaws and I had a lot of fun with this demo. The gameply was very enjoyable.

Amphibarium

I don’t know. It’s animal collection idler game. Guess it can be good, but most of it is… well, waiting. Not ideal for a demo, honestly.

The Artisan of Glimmith

A relaxing puzzle game where you need to create stained windows following a given set of rules on what shapes can be created and how to arrange them. It is very soothing. The demo was pretty easy, but they did show of different kind of rules, and I’m curious to see them all intertwined together. The idea to find hidden levels buy just moving the camera and zooming in and out was also interesting, I was struggling for that one hidden level and trying out a way to rotate the camera. Oh well.

The Button Effect

This demo has been out for a while but I never tried it out, so now was a good time. Pressing the buttons is extremely satisfying. The puzzle are also neat, interesting and different enough that I now hooked and want my full game.

Dungeon Sweeper

This is full of AI art. I do dislike this, I didn’t realize it when I installed the demo but it became very quickly obvious. There is no soul in those visuals. The game itself has something addicting. It is basically minesweeper with ennemies to fight and levels to gain in order to have enough health to beat the dragon. I’m pretty sure games like this do already exist without AI art.

Dyping Game

It’s a typing game, I installed it without looking much into it and lunched it on my steamdeck and… well, let’s say that typing games are not very steamdeck friendly when you don’t have a keyboard connected to it.

Emuurom

I should give this another shot. Very retro-coded from the simple pixel graphics to the 8-bit music. Also a Metroidvania, the overused genre. But hey I like metroidvanias, I’m part of the problem. But the first minutes were focused on jumping mechanics, nice on one hand (you can jump on flower and the higher you jump, the higher the flowers will propell you in the air), annoying in the other hand. I quit when I missed a jump after severa screens of jumping and I had to do it all again. There are so many other demos to do and I think I got the idea.

Forbidden Solitaire

I am looking forward to this game so much. The mix between horror, graphics from the 90s and freaking solitaire is great. I had so much fun with the demo as I had watching people play the closed demo some months ago. I was genuinly upset when I’ve reached the end of it.

Greenhearth Necromancer

I don’t know about this one. The idea is great, gardening with a necromancer-theme, but the demo just left me confused and I stopped playing. I think what really put me off was seeing a timer on almost everything. Potions need time to brew, I get it, the charms have en effect of 3 hours. 3 ingame hours? 3 real time hours? I don’t know, but I’ve been scared enough by time-gates several years ago when it become the easy way to make you come back or have you spend money to bypass the very long wait times. I really do not want to be thinking “ok this charm is working for 3 hours, I now need to sit here for 3 hours to make it worth it”. Maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe none of this is true. But I really didn’t want to find out in the demo. Still, it is very charming, although confusing. I think the game needs better explanations. One of the rare cases I’m like “yes please overexplain things to me”.

Haste

This is a game for people who love to go fast. I do not. Love the art style though.

Hidden Cats Games

I was hoping that those had something special going on. I mean, why would you do a demo of just looking for cats, those games are all over steam since some years, we know the gist, what do you bring to the table that is different from other hidden cats games. Well, nothing. It was just looking for cats. My disappointment is immense.

Hozy

Hozy was cozy. Unpacked mixed with House Flipper. The best of both worlds. Difficult to play on the steamdeck since it’s been layed out for mousecontrols, so precision can be a bit finnicky. I hope the finale release will improve on it.

The Mermaid Mask (Detective Grimoire)

Look, it’s a Detective Grimoir game. I will play all Detective Grimoire games. I didn’t need to play the demo because I will play this on D1, but the wait has been so long. It’s more Detective Grimoire with some improvements. I’m looking forward to this.

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies

Very Disco Elysium-like. Compelling atmosphere, story and choices to make. The demo convinced me. But it also freezed on me on the steamdeck which made me very sad indeed.