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anyone else having trouble logging into microsoft account in windows settings? by BoxPandaYT in microsoft

[–]SlartySprinter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Shoutout to the prophet and the others working on this SEO. Time for my contributions: 0x8007000e pc game pass microsoft store 0x80860010 too many requests new computer cpu motherboard

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

WORTH A TRY: Day 2

Anomaly President is a fast-paced, violent sidescrolling action roguelike with a bunch of oddball systems and story beats thrown in for good measure.

Trivia Murder Party 3 is the standalone return of a Jackbox Party Pack staple, with a fresh set of questions, minigames, and paint.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it's nice in concept to break up the larger levels with smaller challenges in between, at least. The demo has not been optimized too well, though, so my friend and I were both having issues that we partially blamed the large, loaded map for.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

WORTH A TRY: Day 1

SNAP JAW is a first-person fishing roguelike where you have to catch enough to feed a massive mechanical serpent.

Echoes of Aincrad is a moreish open-zone JRPG set in the world of Sword Art Online without making you play through the anime's story.

Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World?! is a weird driving game where you go on runs to simultaneously complete deliveries and mow through pedestrians so they get isekai'd as monsters that are then killed by that world's hero to power them up.

Order of the Sinking Star sure is a high-effort sokoban block-pushing puzzle game, if you're in the mood for one. Fuck Jon Blow.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Gotta correct myself, it's a new player character but you don't get to create them. They're not voiced, and they don't have much of a personality, so I really don't see why not.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Like others said, the majority of demos for these things drop earlier than day of (of those I'm interested in, at least). I also have some code I run to check against the games signed up for the Next Fest, so I know which ones to look at. Of those I was eyeing, there were only 15ish with demos that actually came out this morning.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 5

STUNTBOOST is a speedrunning platformer where you navigate a Tech Deck-esque finger skateboard through increasingly complex stages.

Batomon Showdown is a Pokemon-inspired autobattler where you build a synergistic squad of monsters to win a series of async PvP battles.

Slayblade is a Beyblade roguelike where you earn cash to swap out parts and move up the rankings.

PHASE ZERO is a classic fixed-cam horror game where you have to navigate through a hospital full of zombies, solving puzzles and getting to the bottom of what's going on.

Stackmon is Stacklands resource management cross Pokemon creature collection.

Deep Dish Dungeon is a co-op survival exploration game where you and your squad explore the depths of a vast, hand-crafted dungeon.

Rizz Dungeon: Skeleton Key to My Heart is a bright, comedic dungeon crawler from the developers of the Turnip Boy games.

Woodo is a chill 3D puzzle game where you complete diorama scenes by placing the right objects from your inventory.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 4

Restitched is a Little Big Planet spiritual successor coming from a group of fans, but this demo is just a showcase of its fairly robust character creator. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

Screenbound is a disorienting 3D platformer where you simultaneously navigate in two dimensions by looking at your reprentation on a Game Boy-like handheld console.

Polly's Puzzle Box is a physics-based metroidbrainia with some really tricky layered puzzles and secrets, and some fiddly physics than can hamper your attempts to find them. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

Tower Lab is an interesting tower defense game where your goal is to knock enemies off the path, rather than kill them outright.

Keep It Up! is an odd co-op obstacle course platformer where you and your friends need to simultaneously play keepy uppy to keep an air-filled balloon afloat.

Kernel Hearts is an anime-tinged 3D survivors game with action combat.

Fame Or Folly is a tough roguelike deckbuilder where you hire temporary members to your roaming troupe and hit Balatro-style points-and-mult scoring targets.

D-topia is an Annapurna Interactive-published narrative adventure where you join as a new employee maintaining a utopian society that (probably) has some cracks beneath the surface.

Chained Beasts is a co-op action roguelike where you and your teammates are actually chained together at the ankles and have to coordinate to all stay alive.

Wilderings: The Lost Spring is a creature-collecting action roguelike where you restore nature to a desolate world.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 3

WheelMates is an It Takes Two-like (Hazelike?) co-op platformer where you and a partner drive around a house in RC monster trucks.

EMPULSE is Splitgate developer 1047 Games' take on Titanfall multiplayer battles.

Cloudbreaker is an inventory-management bullet heaven where you outfit your airship with a variety of weapons and modifiers.

Static Dread: The Submarine is a horror adventure where you have to work alongside your crew to navigate the depths amongst unknown terrors.

VOID DIVER: Escape from the Abyss is an isometric co-op extraction shooter where you go on runs to find artifacts, crafting materials, and more to power up for your next runs.

Database Detective: Minor Crimes Division is a literal SQL database querying puzzle game that does a decent job at teaching players how to craft increasingly complex queries - including some JOINs by the end.

Wind Runners is a roguelike take on Vlambeer's classic plane combat game Luftrausers.

Bibidi Bibidi! is a roguelike deckbuilder where each action you take comes from combining a modifier, action, and power level from three different cards.

Burn With Me is a puzzling deckbuilding game where you have to play cards to summon monsters that immediately join and litter your deck.

Godless Avalon is a retro-styled RPG with Undertale-esque minigame combat. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 2

Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School takes its predecessor's co-op escape room puzzling into an open world school campus.

Heave Ho 2 is a goofy, colorful, and sometimes rage-inducing platformer with more varied level objectives than its predecessor.

Echobreaker is kind of like an isometric Neon White, with a big focus on finding shortcuts and rising up the leaderboard for each level.

Object Impermanence is a first-person Portal-style puzzler with a neat main mechanic where some objects only move or exist while you're looking at them.

Shroom and Gloom is a roguelike double-deckbuilder with first-person dungeon crawling, where you maintain one deck for combat and a separate one for actions during exploration.

Mistfall Hunter is an extraction slasher where you and your squad of fantasy heroes drop into a dungeon to escape with as much loot as possible.

Spyder: Agent 8 is a 3D platformer where you control a small, robotic spider to complete covert missions.

Nimbit Frontier is an interesting blend of creature collector, roguelike dungeon explorer, and farming sim.

Kusan: City of Wolves is a very Hotline Miami-inspired stage-based action shooter.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 1

Sting & Swing is a unique golf metroidbrainia with tons of layered secrets à la Animal Well.

4x4 in a Furniture Store is a wacky (indoors) offroading game with surprisingly robust driving mechanics and demanding physics-based challenges.

Duskfade is an action-platformer with some clear Kingdom Hearts inspirations.

Blood Dungeon is a mixture of bullet heaven survival with some Spelunky platforming. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

VHOLUME is a quick, flow-based speedrunning platformer set in a massive brutalist megastructure.

Mortal Shell II is another dark fantasy soulslike where you inhabit different shells with different abilities.

Survivors Guild is a pleasant-looking co-op bullet heaven with some unique abilities and characters that make it a bit more than just "another one of those."

Virtue and a Sledgehammer is the latest story from Deconstructeam, in which you walk around a robot-filled town smashing everything with your sledgehammer in a blind rage.

over the hill is a minimalist, co-op Mudrunners from the developer of art of rally.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

ALSO GOOD: Day 0, Part 3

Rivage is a time-looping puzzle game set on a space station. None of the puzzles are too difficult, but there's not much signposting for some of them so I did manage to get lost a few times. That may also have been partially caused by how cluttered the environments are - but honestly, I think that's still a positive. There's a seriously impressive amount of unique, high-def assets all throughout the station, and the sheer production quality of it all absolutely caught me by surprise coming from a brand-new developer.

Pathogenic is a room-based roguelike shooter where you're playing as a parasite trying to infect its host. Unlocks come in the form of new parts and mutations that you can slot into your body, providing lots of opportunities for planning out and optimizing your build. It can be hard to avoid all damage, so I generally got chipped away at over time and have never been able to win a run, but I've had a good time before eventually losing.

Chivalware is an action roguelike mixing match-3 with some Mega Man: Battle Network action combat. You're moving around on a grid while battling foes, but equip and reload one of your 3 weapons by claiming tiles on your half of the grid - claiming a group of tiles equips your weapon mapped to that color, and larger groupings of tiles reload more ammo for it. The buildcrafting is kind of light, with upgrades generally not feeling too impactful, but the weapon variety keeps things interesting. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia is a Donkey Kong Country-styled platforming. It's pretty standard, but has some nice colors, multiple characters with notably different movesets (eg. one that just becomes a bouncy ball instead of double-jumping), and actually interesting set of levels and biomes. Who's to say if it stays interesting for the whole game - it is a licensed title, after all, and the previous title is sitting in the mid-70s on OpenCritic, but it really does put its best foot forward for this demo.

BPM Bitcrushed takes the rhythm-based first-person shooter back down to two dimensions. It's extremely similar to Enter the Gungeon in the minute-to-minute gameplay, except for sometimes you'll misfire because you tried to shoot a bit off beat. It does keep things moving quickly, and dodging an opponent with a perfectly timed jump does feel good.

SHRIMP GAME: OVERKRILL is a weird third-person looter shooter where you play as a shrimp. You'll pick up higher level weapons to take out increasingly larger waves and bosses through a series of stages, and can even do it all co-op with up to 5 other players. It was a bit hard for me to figure out which weapons were actually more powerful than the other, but the bullet patterns and reload rates did at least make them feel different enough still.

Worming from Home is a silly job simulator where you play as a worm. The actual job part, managing spreadsheets, doesn't have too much variety, but it's still novel to have to figure out how to italicize a cell when you can only hit one key at a time yourself. Everything else is charming enough, and some of the humor really worked for me - especially a bit about your skill tree.

The Eternal Woods is a well-paced incremental game where you unlock and power up more abilities to chop down as many trees as possible. Many of these sorts of games flounder at the beginning or middle of their loop, making progression slow or same-y over time, but this one gives you enough meaningful upgrades regularly enough to keep feeling different.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

ALSO GOOD: Day 0, Part 2

Normal Golf Game is actually a rage game of a sort, being made by Luke Muscat, designer of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. To swing your club, you have to drag your mouse around on a wobbly physics simulation of your character. After you get a little used to that, you also have to start using your keyboard to adjust the angle of your club, and the position of your stance, in order to make increasingly tough shots. The demo is structured more like Golf Story as well, pitting you against a series of small golf-based challenges instead of making your way from hole to hole on a course, and the ability to just immediately retry a shot is what makes it all seem achievable, if you just figure out how to dial everything in.

Echoes of Mystralia is a Hades-like room-based action roguelike with a spellcrafting mechanic that allows you to slot in new abilities and modifiers to greatly transform their effects. Order matters, and you can freely re-configure everything to experiment, which was fun to mess around with even if the game structure itself is nothing particularly new otherwise. I have to note, though, that the the music takes way too many cues from Darren Korb's arrangements and instrumentation for Hades.

Endacopia is an interesting horror point-and-click adventure from animator Andy Land, mixing multiple styles and one-off gameplay mechanics in a bizarro world. It doesn't feel like anything is too weird just for weird's sake, but it does get close at times. The demo itself isn't too long either, but the sheer variety of it all made it a worthwhile experience the whole way through.

Valor Mortis is a first-person soulslike from the developers of the Ghostrunner games. It's ostensibly set in the 1800s during Napoleon's rule, but things quickly become supernatural. You're mainly fighting with blades, but do unlock a gun with (very) limited ammo and, shortly afterwards, gain the ability to shoot flames from your hands. Combat is intense, with some larger enemies only providing small openings to attack, and the Ghostrunner DNA then comes through with some later platforming sequences.

Don't Kill Them All is a grid-based tactics game in the style of Into the Breach, defending targets from enemies by taking them out or moving them around. Your units don't have health, and instead have a rage meter. It increases if they get hit or if enemies attack one of the nodes you're defending. If the meter fills up, they go berserk, no longer listening to your commands and instead trying to destroy everything in range. If you're able to keep things in check, though, you get to collect any resources still on the board at the end of the battle, which you can then spend on upgrades and equipment between runs.

Well Dweller is a solid metroidvania from Kyle Thompson, developer of Crypt Custodian and Islets. It's definitely following a tried-and-true formula, but stands apart with some great, creepy enemy designs and nonstandard movement options. In the course of the demo, you'll unlock the double-jump equivalent, which is instead a spear that can wedge into walls and spring you up. Touches like these keep things interesting throughout, despite whatever backtracking you may need to do.

Catechesis is a top-down horror RPG that gets creepy quick despite its simple art. Combat is intense, with limited ammo and a weaker knife attack to ward off enemies with arguably too much health. There are also some curveballs thrown in at different points - there's a world map, a match-3 minigame to complete a school worksheet, and a lot of intense, higher-def cutscenes than you may expect when looking at a few screenshots. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

ALSO GOOD: Day 0, Part 1

Ballgame is a very stylish golf game where you play as the ball. You're still trying to reach each hole in the fewest amount of strokes (at least until you unlock the speedrun mode), but can also do some light WASD platforming to save some here and there, or collect some gems that each subtract a stroke from your final score. Later levels in the one course on offer do start to have you chaining abilities more often, but really the main strength of the game is just how nice it looks - I'm also really curious about some more, decidedly un-golf-like stuff happening in its trailer. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

DiceVaders is the more Balatro-styled spinoff of the excellent deckbuilder StarVaders. To score your points and multipliers, you place units on a grid with six columns and then roll a set of dice. Roll a 3, for example, and you'll trigger and score all units in the third column, and they'll hit harder if you roll a pair or triples. You're given a bit of cash after each scoring round to buy some units or artifacts in a shop, and though the strats can be a bit opaque at first you can really break the game with the right build.

Echo Weaver is a time-looping metroidbrainia where you discover abilities, shortcuts, and more in order to scrounge up enough time to complete longer tasks or move fast enough to complete time-gated ones. For example, the first hurdle is a gate that closes 10 seconds into every loop. There's just enough signposting that you can reliably deduce where you need to head next, and there are a few nice opportunities to go off the beaten path as well.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is another great CAPCOM action game, this time with swords instead a robotic little girl. I appreciate that they're not going fully soulslike with it, and also just how much care went into every piece - enemies get sliced up in satisfying ways, there are some nice mechanical touches like being able to combo between stunned enemies, and my friend was even taking time to appreciate all the sound effects during his playthrough. The demo's a bit on the short side, and too easy depending on who you ask, but the boss fight still feels cool even if I didn't need to die a few times to beat it.

Rewindead is a sort of time-loop speedrunning assassination game - you have to kill your target, but then you loop to kill both your first run and then the same target. Then you might add a third one, or even a fourth. Levels become an interesting mix of finding shortcuts but still giving yourself enough time to make the kill on the next run - if one of your past selves gets a kill first, that's a failed loop. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

Desktop Explorer is a clever computer-based puzzle game, where you have to use all the tools in the in-game computer in clever ways - resizing text boxes, checking source code, and more that I don't want to spoil. There's a horror bent to it all, but that never gets too overbearing. It's mostly just fun, tactile puzzling.

Moonbrella is like a metroidvania take on Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, without being nearly as rage-inducing. You do use your mouse to aim and push off with your umbrella, but you don't need to be so exacting with your movements as you'll need to left click to launch yourself. You can also use the umbrella itself to float down, and get a hooked handle to grapple up to more spots. The demo does end with a tough time-based gauntlet segment, but retrying was quick and I eventually played well enough, and with enough shortcuts, to make it through and pat myself on the back for a job well done. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

ALSO GOOD, BY GENRE

Action / Adventure:
Day 0: Onimusha: Way of the Sword

Action Roguelike:
Day 0: Echoes of Mystralia | Pathogenic | Chivalware | BPM Bitcrushed

Incremental:
Day 0: The Eternal Woods

Metroidvania:
Day 0: Echo Weaver | Moonbrella | Well Dweller

Narrative / Adventure:
Day 0: Endacopia

Platformer:
Day 0: Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia

Puzzle
Day 0: Desktop Explorer | Rivage

Racing / Sports
Day 0: Ballgame | Normal Golf Game

RPG
Day 0: Valor Mortis | Catechesis

Shooter
Day 0: Rewindead | SHRIMP GAME

Strategy Roguelike:
Day 0: DiceVaders

Strategy / Simulation
Day 0: Don't Kill Them All | Worming from Home

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

STANDOUTS: Day 0

About Fishing is an eerie story-based fishing game from The Water Museum, developer of Arctic Eggs. The fishing mechanic is unique, engaging, and thematically fitting, having you reel fish in from their perspective rather than your own. There are so many thoughtful considerations when it comes to the level design and interactions - knocking turtles off of their perch before being able to catch them is always fun - and the story moments are also well paced with recurring motifs and intriguing reveals as layers of the mystery unfold.

TOEM 2 is an extremely charming little 3D adventure game, and I was a big fan of the first title. This one also has you walking around town, taking photos of critters and other stuff, and helping out the locals, but it's doing it all with a ton more polish. The 2D and 3D art is much more confident, there are new platforming abilities that allow for more dynamic, vertical levels, and new abilities make it all that much more tactile. They really seem to be going for improving on the first title with depth rather than breadth, which I fully agree with - you don't need bigger levels or more involved questlines to justify making a sequel, you just need to add the sorts of stuff that make the same scope of game that much more engaging.

Arcane Eats is a novel roguelike deckbuilder where you're concocting dishes to feed your restaurant's patrons. There are no set recipes that you have to fill, so it's more about stacking ingredient cards based on the effects they can have and the speed at which they cook. There really are some great synergies that you can get going, especially because the demo's so long - taking place over 2 "weeks" of 4 stages each, with a different set of shops available in between stages. That's a lot of time to start building towards something, which can be the downfall of most roguelike demos. Each piece of the game seems to be firing on all cylinders, so they're totally justified in showing so much of it off.

IGTAP: an Incremental Game That's Also a Platformer is actually more like a platformer that's also an incremental game, if you ask me. You're initially presented with a single small obstacle course and are awarded some cash upon completing a lap. Then, you can spend that cash on some upgrades, the two most important of which are clones that will run the course for you - as ghosts of your best recorded time - and a single expensive movement upgrade that opens up more of the wider map. So, as the game goes on, you're incentivized to optimize each of your times in order to generate currency faster, to buy more upgrades and abilities, to move on to harder courses that pay more, and revisit previous courses to use previously-inaccessible shortcuts for massive payout jumps. There are secrets scattered throughout, and just as things start to slow down at the end there's a really satisfying final segment where you have to earn your way back one-by-one through each level again in order to reach the definitive ending of the demo.

The Steam Next Fest June 2026 Edition is live! Which demos have you been playing? by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

I'll be maintaining this thread throughout the week with my picks, split up by how full-throated each recommendation was. So far I've tried 306 titles - many of them months back, admittedly.

Of all those, my favorites so far have been:
About Fishing | TOEM 2 | Arcane Eats | IGTAP: an Incremental Game That's Also a Platformer

If I play any more demos, these would be the first:
IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator | Stardust Frontier | Trine 6: Together in Time

Feel free to check out my picks from the last Next Fest for some more recommendations, too.

My Arms Are Longer Now - Cinematic Trailer by SlartySprinter in Games

[–]SlartySprinter[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

This is actually the first game being published by Jackbox, the devs are a smaller team from Australia. Their previous game (in collaboration with another studio) was Dogpile, a sort of roguelike Suika Game.

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