A whole bunch of stuff.
Steam NextFest is upon us, and that means more demos than you can shake a stick made of something you’d shake at demos at.
1. The Mortuary Assistant
The Mortuary Assistant is a demo that’s been around for a while and although it does give me hope for the main game, on its own it isn’t very fun. The full game apparently will have more mortuary things to do, but you don’t really get to do anything in the demo which is more of a prototype proof of concept. The whole demo lasts less than ten minutes and takes longer to download than it does to play from start to finish.
2. Bakery Simulator
You can bet your sweet bippy there’s going to be a lot of Playway S.A. games on this list. I’ll admit I’m a sucker for Playway’s simulator games. I’ve got probably a good baker’s dozen (get it?) upcoming titles on my list. If you don’t know how Playway pumps out these games at the speed they do, it’s because the company has about thirty five subsidiaries all working on games mostly made with pre-made asset packs.
Bakery Simulator is exactly what it sounds like; you run a bakery and you bake things. The demo takes you through a few days of baking various breads and the game itself is sort of a low-stress activity while listening to a podcast or grinding on RuneScape mobile.
3. Chernobyl Liquidators
One of the more unique concepts, I found the demo to be incredibly frustrating. You play as a Chernobyl responder putting out fires and rescuing people, but the controls are absolutely horrible, some of the mechanics are broken, and the game chugs. Putting out fires isn’t fun when your character seems to be roasted getting close enough to put them out, and healing items don’t seem to work half the time.
A frustrating experience.
4. Animal Shelter
The demo for this one is short, letting you deal with one cat and one dog. Animal Shelter is another simulator game that has you starting up an animal shelter and nurturing animals until you can find them a home. Wash them, feed them, play with them, take photos, and advertise them to potential owners.
Adorable.
5. Ship Graveyard Simulator
You know this is the last Playway game I’ll mention for the rest of this column (and subsequent parts). Ship Graveyard Simulator is a game that has you picking apart ships for scrap, selling that scrap, and upgrading your tools. Again it’s one of those games that idles time until the inevitability of death creeps in.
Functionally it’s no different than most other Playway games. It’s a purty set to look at and there’s a few knick knacks thrown in like a lockpicking mini-game. Something to pick up when it’s sub $10 and you’ve got some time to spare and nothing else to play.
MMO Fallout 