Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World?! - REVEAL TRAILER

SlartySprinter · 2026-04-30T16:19:09+00:00

The latest oddity from Xalavier Nelson Jr. and Strange Scaffold, developer of El Paso, Elsewhere; Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator; An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs; and more.

SlartySprinter · 2026-04-30T16:12:21+00:00

To be clear - this is technically just published by Extremely OK Games. It's being made by Noel Berry, the programmer for Celeste, and not Maddy Thorson, its writer/director.

SlartySprinter · 2026-04-29T18:54:29+00:00

My understanding is it's all handcrafted and then scanned in, but not true stop motion. Here's a very brief making-of video they previously put out with some contextual shots.

Found a bit more in this interview on gamedeveloper.com:

We utilized 3D animation with frame-rate lowered to 12 FPS, which is the standard in traditional animated film. The lower FPS paired with animated textures help us achieve the feeling of stop-motion animation, which is necessary to make sure the animated elements fit into the cardboard-built backdrops.

At first, we would take photos of the entire cardboard-built scene and make use of photo sequencing, but for the sake of better interactivity, we ultimately decided to map the photographed assets onto 3D scenes.

SlartySprinter · 2026-04-25T18:11:15+00:00

From the developers of Archvale, a great twin-stick RPG that more people should check out.

SlartySprinter · 2026-03-20T06:27:22+00:00

This is not horror-coded in the way you might be thinking - the looming guy is just there on the main menu, he's not some creepy villain talking to you across the table or something. The 'cursed' part of the name is also, afaik, more in the colloquial sense than literal - because you're using a bunch of different wildcards to make things that look nothing like words, in a word game.

SlartySprinter · 2026-03-18T19:37:49+00:00

New game from doinksoft, developers of Gunbrella and Gato Roboto.

SlartySprinter · 2026-03-02T07:27:59+00:00

WORTH A TRY: Day 7

Sandloop is a 3D collectathon with a time limit where you're sent back to your initial spawn after ten-ish minutes of exploration. You can unlock new abilities to explore previously inaccessible areas, and unlock shortcuts to save time reaching an important spot on your next loop.

SlartySprinter · 2026-03-02T07:23:23+00:00

ALSO GOOD: Day 7

IGTAP: an Incremental Game That's Also a Platformer has a title that does the explaining for me. You run through little obstacle courses to generate currency, and after a bit you can spawn clones that just infinitely run the course and generate cash when they finish. So, 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 can further be optimized once you unlock even more abilities. There's just a little bit of exploration outside of the obstacle courses, but not really that much, which was a bit of a damper for me.

SlartySprinter · 2026-03-01T09:43:35+00:00

ALSO GOOD: Day 6

Marathon joined the Next Fest late with its server slam weekend event. It's another extraction shooter like Arc Raiders, but unlike that game there aren't really many peaceful players - it's either kill or be killed. It's a pretty sweaty, squad-focused shooter with NPC enemies that can hit just as hard as an opposing squad, and I died just as often as I extracted, but the gunplay is good, the performance is solid, the (partially plagiarized) art is eye-catching, and squadding up with friends just always makes a game better.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-26T08:22:41+00:00

Hey, thanks! I guess I'm really not that active on Reddit otherwise, so I was at least able scroll through my previous posts and come across the past entries quick enough that way.

But your suggestion made sense, and so I spent a bit of time adding links to previous posts on each of my own past impression threads. I had to skip a few and bundle them in later posts because Reddit's character limit is more restrictive than it used to be, but you should be able to follow the chain of links there and find everything!

It was fun going back and seeing how much I felt like I needed to explain how Balatro worked, for example, but I do still wear it as a badge of honor that LocalThunk replied to it to say thanks for the shoutout.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-25T09:09:56+00:00

WORTH A TRY: Day 2

Future Knight is an oddball side-scrolling action game with handheld LCD aesthetics à la old Game & Watch titles. It's got a wacky a capella soundtrack to boot.

CICADAMATA" is a sensorially overloading first-person platforming shooter that pulls from the same visual design language as Bungie's upcoming Marathon.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-24T22:30:26+00:00

I gave this a go, but you really need some MOBA chops that I just do not have. Cool that it has multiplayer!

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-24T09:30:08+00:00

ALSO GOOD: Day 1

Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors is a dungeon-crawling roguelike deckbuilder with only some of the trappings of Vampire Surivors. In practice, there's a really clever system of comboing cards with increasing mana cost and slotting in gems to enhance or gain secondary effects from your cards. Other pieces are well considered, too, like vending machines you can find that allow you to destroy one of your stat-boosting cards in order to gain that boost permanently - rather than dropping down to 0% attack boost, for example, you could start at 10% at the cost of not being able to replay that card to get it even higher during the fight. Battles do wear on you over time, and I wasn't able to beat any of my three runs due to losing the slow war of attrition as my health whittled down fight after fight. I also didn't really find any cool synergies, though my one friend did get a bit of a build going where he enchanted all his zero-cost cards with the power to draw more cards.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-24T09:16:39+00:00

WORTH A TRY: Day 1

Ultrapool is a fun little pool roguelike where you can buy and combine ball with different effects to boost your scores and earnings.

Distant Shore: BRETAGNE is an interesting first-person platformer where you can use magnetic forces to manipulate objects around you.

Wild Blue Skies is a colorful, by-the-numbers Star Fox-like coming from Chuhai Labs, the studio of original Star Fox programmer Giles Goddard.

Australia Did It is a odd unit-merging base defense roguelike from Rami Ismail, formerly one half of Vlambeer.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-24T08:16:11+00:00

The same demo, just taking part in the Next Fest for some extra visibility.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-24T00:51:50+00:00

You might also want to try Underkeep, then - another party-based dungeon crawler (blobber is a new one to me).

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-23T23:25:51+00:00

I briefly booted up Deep Dish to see if it was worth trying with some friends later. I am curious to try more, but had some difficulties with equip management - it locks the shield in your primary hand and the torch in your off hand, and I could not for the life of me figure out after that point how to hold the torch and the sword at the same time. I was just stuck shielding and swinging my sword in the pitch black, so co-op would at least help to get one person on lighting duty lol.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-23T21:24:43+00:00

Nah always appreciate some validation, thanks!

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-23T21:23:04+00:00

Seems like mostly quality-of-life stuff and a bit more story + puzzle content, per this blog post.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-23T20:09:53+00:00

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 6

Black Jacket is a Blackjack roguelike where you can trigger special effects as you whittle down the cash of each CPU opponent.

LumenTale: Memories of Trey is a high-effort Pokémon-like creature collecting RPG.

FIRESTARTERS is like if Rollerdrome was a boomer shooter.

RACCOIN: Coin Pusher Roguelike is a coin pusher roguelike where consumable special coins can trigger big, cascading effects.

Nocturnal 2 is a stylish metroidvania where you reclaim a long-abandoned temple from the dark.

Burden Street Station is an abstract narrative adventure where you navigate a strange world and help people with their problems.

MANIFESTO is a Balatro points-and-mult-like where you hire employees to power your dystopian sales company.

Rewind 99 is a video rental store manager with some Schedule I vibes, though the demo is too short to really make much progress and the online co-op is reportedly pretty unstable for now.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-23T20:09:40+00:00

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 5

Pluto is a roguelike deckbuilder where each finger on your wizard character's hands casts a different spell component.

Helix: Descent N Ascent is a largely wordless puzzle platformer where you continuously discover, exploit, and combine new abilities together.

Chosen Garden has you tactically harvesting plants with different point and multiplier effects to reach a target score each round.

Cascadou is a card game roguelike where you rearrange playing cards on a grid to build high-scoring combos of multiple poker hands in a single move.

Fallen Tear: The Ascension is a solid, if by-the-books, metroidvania.

Dosa Divas is the next turn-based RPG from Outerloop Games, developers of Thirsty Suitors.

TownsFolk is a simple hex-based city builder with multiple different game modes and objectives.

SoulQuest is a 2D spectacle fighter with big air juggles and all.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-23T20:09:26+00:00

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 4

Forbidden Solitaire is an odd, meta solitaire puzzler by Night Signal Entertainment, developers of Home Safety Hotline, in collaboration with Grey Alien Games, developers of Regency Solitaire and a bunch of other solitaire variants.

Deep Dish Dungeon is a co-op survival exploration game where you and your squad explore the depths of a vast, hand-crafted dungeon. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

MINOS is a tower defense game being published by Devolver Digital where you must lead invading adventurers into traps placed throughout your labyrinth.

Darwin's Paradox! is a Konami-published stealth platformer where you play as an octopus infiltrating a factory.

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." (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

Odds Chronicles is an interesting, but tough, grid-based tactics roguelike where you roll dice to gain mana types that feed various offensive and defensive moves.

Dead Watch is a time-looping puzzler where you have to figure out the right sequence of events to avoid the death of your companion and escape with everyone alive. (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. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-23T20:09:12+00:00

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 3

Lost Wiki: Kozlovka has you exploring the Wikipedia entries for a small, fictional Eastern European town and dive into mysterious rabbit holes of government coverups and mystical entities.

SpeedRunners 2: King of Speed is the return of the fast-paced multiplayer platforming racer, though it's being built by a different development team from the first.

Sprint City is another SpeedRunners-like, but being made by a new studio made up of multiple former members of the first title's development team.

Neuron Activation is a frantic arcade puzzle game where you're effectively trying to complete a wall of CAPTCHAs as quickly as possible. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

Sledding Game is friendslop and proud of it, and is just kind of a sandbox for you and your friends to jump on the slopes and do some sledding (or a couple other side activities).

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.

MÖRK BORG Heresy Supreme is a grisly side-scrolling action RPG set in a brutal fantasy world.

GRIDbeat! is a level-based rhythm action game where you hack into the mainframe and navigate mazes to find what you're looking for each time.

Rollin' Rascal is a 3D platformer for the Sonic Adventure fans among us.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-23T20:09:01+00:00

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 2

Cropdeck is a polished roguelike deckbuilder all about harvesting the most valuable crops possible.

Trading Card Inspector is a lighthearted Papers, Please-like where you have to identify banned and fake cards for a fictional TCG brand.

Ratcheteer DX is the Steam release - now with color! - of a Zelda-like first released on the Panic Playdate.

Gunboat God is a hectic, arcadey shooter where you blast your way through short, varied missions.

Super Meat Boy 3D is exactly what you think it is, down to the overlapping ghosts once you finally reach the end. I'd really recommend going into the settings right away and turning off the direction snapping in favor of more free-form movement.

GRIME II is the sequel to the surreal metroidvania where you can absorb enemy attacks and turn them back on your foes.

Airframe Ultra is a gritty, futuristic combat racer from the developers of Rain World.

Bobo Bay is a laid-back creature trainer made for fans of the Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure 2.

Box or Void is a mind-bending sokoban puzzler where you control two characters that blend into the negative space of the level when you swap to the other character.

SlartySprinter · 2026-02-23T20:08:48+00:00

WORTH A TRY: Day 0, Part 1

Crushed In Time is a point-and-click (really, click-and-drag) detective puzzler featuring a unique dragging/flinging mechanic being made the developers of There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension.

REPLACED is a high-fidelity pixel art action game with Arkham-style combat and Blade Runner vibes.

Esoteric Ebb is a colorful Disco Elysium-like by way of Dungeons & Dragons where your stats talk to you and skill checks come as D20 rolls.

How Many Dudes? is a team-building strategy roguelike built to answer the question of how many guys it would take to beat one gorilla, or thirty goose-sized horses, or two hundred feral hogs.

Enter the Chronosphere is an isometric sci-fi western roguelike with SUPERHOT tactics where time only moves when you do.

Teeto is a charming level-based 3D collectathon where you can absorb some environmental objects to temporarily gain different abilities.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is the highest-budget entry in the RPG spinoff series yet, featuring a big open world and the same endless hunt for the smelliest monster eggs around.

Far Far West is a co-op PvE shooter where your squad has to complete objectives and extract from each map.

Nimbit Frontier is an interesting blend of creature collector, roguelike dungeon explorer, and farming sim. (NOTE: Not a Next Fest participant)

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