If you love indie games, then Xbox has a special treat for you. Their indie game programme ID@Xbox regularly showcases small developers by giving them a platform to publish their games. And because fans are very much relevant to the experience, they like to give us a chance to play the games ahead of time. They did this earlier in the year during Summer Game Fest, and they’re doing it again now. Until the 21st December, you can play any of the 36 demos that they’ve made temporarily available. That’s quite a lot of games, and so luckily for you, I’ve chosen the best Winter Game Fest demos!
I did this by watching the trailers for all of them, and then narrowing it down to eleven based on the ones I thought looked the most fun. I ruled out any with lacklustre trailers, or that were in genres I don’t like, such as horror. Also, I didn’t include any games I previewed during Summer Game Fest. I already did a preview for The Tale of Bistun and Tunic (I’d heartily recommend this one). I played the demos for each of the games I picked, and then gave the demo a score out of 100. Bear in mind that I’m purely rating the demo experience, not making an assumption about the full game. From those eleven, I’ve chosen the top five games, and here they are!
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The Darkest Tales
This game demonstrates everything that’s wonderful about indie gaming. Often people mistakenly think that low budget = low quality, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Some indie developers persevere with their skill and determination, and produce beautiful looking games with excellent mechanics, and The Darkest Tales is a perfect example. Everything is chosen exquisitely, even down to the font choice. There’s such a high production value here, and it has a detailed art style and animations, and captivating voice actors for the dialogue and narration.
This is a 2D action platformer with really smooth movement physics. It reminds me somewhat of Hollow Knight purely in terms of mechanics, although the map is much easier to follow in The Darkest Tales. You can jump, fight, and learn new skills via a skill tree. You kill enemies to level up and progress, and you can steal their life energy to heal yourself. There’s a challenge to it as well, with the boss battle being particularly tricky. You can teleport around the map via carefully spaced mirrors, and there are also checkpoints. Literally my only qualm with the game is that I wish you could slide down sloped surfaces. Overall, a really solid demo. 84/100.
Blacktail
If you enjoy adventure and survival games, Blacktail needs to be on your radar. It has stunning graphics, and the developers have clearly put a lot of effort into each part of the game, even down to choosing the fonts. The music is ominous, and uses choral vocals over an eerie backing track. They use a wonderful voice actress for the protagonist, and her voice is compelling and perfect for the character. The volume is spot on too, which can sometimes be an issue in indie games. The story surrounds the tale of Baba Yaga, but puts a unique new spin on it. It’s fascinating to see this take on the origin story of one of the most feared witches in folklore.
In terms of gameplay, it’s a first person adventure game, but with survival aspects to it as well. I feel like the movement could be a bit faster, even with sprint, but it’s not too bad. I must admit I’m not a fan of the jumping animation, it feels so short and slow, plus you can’t really use it to traverse anything. But I do like that the button layout is very intuitive, plus you can see the button map when you pause the game. You can collect resources from your surroundings, and use them to craft items. In the demo, your weapon is a bow, and you can fire arrows to hit targets or kill animals for meat. Overall, it feels like a very well-made game, and there’s quite a lot of content for a demo. 83/100.
Kraken Academy
I’d heard of this one, but for some reason I’d never watched the trailer until Winter Game Fest. It intrigued me enough to give it a download, and I’m so glad that I did. It hypes you up from the get-go, with a cool soundtrack that feels like it belongs in an anime. The main game uses a very simple pixel art style, but there’s more detailed art during the cutscenes, and for character depictions during dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, it’s well-written and is pretty funny. It’s got an enjoyable tongue-in-cheek nature to it, and you really get a sense for the personality of the characters. There are also sound effects which are comical in a good way.
I’m a sucker for games which are set in a college/ school/ university setting, I’ll admit. I love the idea of having a base for the setting of the game where you develop relationships with the characters around you, have quests, and basically make a life for yourself there. One of my favourite games on the PS2 was Canis, Canem, Edit (or Bully if you’re American), and Kraken Academy reminds me of that feeling. There are quests to accomplish, coins to earn, and people to befriend. You can even decorate your room, and the game has a great UI. I really enjoyed this demo, and I’d give it 82/100.
Raccoo Venture
This game was giving me New Super Lucky’s Tale vibes, and I’m here for it. When done correctly, 3D platformers are pretty much my favourite genre. I don’t think that will ever change, because there’s something so fun and wholesome about jumping around through a level, completing challenges. Raccoo Venture was definitely reminiscent of a few old school platformers from back in the day, and it stuck closely to the genre. And honestly, I have no issue with that. It’s a tried and tested formula, no need to go in a different direction. The graphics were clean and crisp, they didn’t get too adventurous there. I liked the simplistic art style, and it worked for the game. The music was great too, really upbeat and cheerful.
I also liked that they had a dedicated camera mode so you could capture the perfect screenshots, which was a nice touch. You could collect outfits throughout the map to dress up your character how you like, and I always enjoy finding cosmetics. However, there were some flaws too. The texturing on some of the assets wasn’t always perfect, but I expect that will be fixed in the full game. The main issue for me was the inability to pan the camera. For me, the camera is almost as important as the movement controls, so it was definitely disappointing. In terms of movement, the controls were pretty responsive. They could have been better, but not terrible by any stretch of the imagination. Raccoo Venture was nothing overly special, but the more I played, the more I felt compelled to finish. 77/100.
Nobody Saves the World
There’s not really too much to say about this one. The demo was a lot of the same, but that same was pretty good, if that makes sense. It’s an RPG fighting game where you can unlock new forms to turn into. Each one offers different fighting and passive abilities, and you have to think tactically. You’ll have to clear multiple dungeons, and so choosing the correct form for each one takes strategy. You’ll also have to complete quests surrounding the different forms in order to progress.
It has a minimalist cartoon style that looks simplistic, and reminds me of games I used to play on the PC at school. Those Flash games that the teachers hadn’t quite got around to banning, you know the ones I mean. Still, it does the job, and I think it works for the gameplay. There’s not too much challenge involved, and the mechanics are simple, which makes it great for younger gamers. I think adults could still get some enjoyment out of it too, though. Perhaps if you just want to relax a while and take out some baddies. Nobody Saves the World seems to follow standard genre practices, but with the addition of the ability to change forms. I’d give the demo 77/100.
Honourable Mentions
In no particular order, I’d like to mention some of the titles that came close to being in the best Winter Game Fest demos. These offered a pretty fun gaming experience, but either didn’t do enough to make it into the top 5, or lost points for flaws.
The Last Oricru
I had really high hopes for this one after seeing the trailer, but unfortunately it just fell a bit flat. It certainly has its good qualities, particularly in terms of world-building. You can tell that the developers dreamed big, and they seem to have created a rich world full of lore. The cutscene was well-made, but there were some issues with a few of the textures, particularly on character models. This issue persevered into the gameplay, with the characters looking a bit off. I expect this will be fixed in the main game, but it’s definitely a problem in the demo.
The movement controls are decent and pretty smooth, although the buttons aren’t where you’d expect them to be. I also found the camera movements rather clunky unfortunately. The game gave me a definite Elder Scrolls vibe, with graphics reminiscent of Skyrim. I would say the overall quality of this game was like high end PS3. Certainly not bad, but did look a little dated in this age of hyper-realistic graphics. However, I can’t comment too much on this game as it crashed after about 20 minutes. Perhaps you’ll have better luck, but I refrained from giving it a rating for this reason.
Aspire: Ina’s Tale
This is an incredibly peaceful 2D puzzle platformer, with the relaxation enhanced by the choice of music. There’s a delightful piano style tune playing in the background, slow and gentle. It sets up an intriguing story concept, of a young girl trapped in a tower. It gives you just enough information to keep you interested, whilst withholding enough to mystify you. The graphics are the most impressive part of this game, though. They’re utterly stunning, and remind me in a way of Cris Tales. The art style is beautiful and precise, and it’s gorgeous to look at.
In terms of gameplay, the movement is a little slow for my liking, and could be smoother. However, it doesn’t really affect the platforming, as the game is designed with its own movement boundaries in mind. You can unlock new powers as you go along, that allow you to interact with the environment in different ways. The puzzles aren’t too challenging, but you still need to think about them. Overall, this slow-paced puzzle platformer is great if you’re looking for something relaxing. 76/100.
Flewfie’s Adventure
I very nearly didn’t download this one, as I had mixed feelings about the trailer. It seemed rather basic, almost like a mobile game, but it also looked cute and that was good enough for me. It has a simple 2D cartoon art style, and doesn’t try too hard to be something that it isn’t. I do really love the soundtrack, though. It’s got that fun, poppy feel like the Bugsnax soundtrack has. There’s an adorable introductory cutscene to catch you up to speed on the backstory.
The gameplay is very simplistic, and honestly the animations aren’t the best. You move up and down, left to right, and shoot stuff. Tada. On top of that, the controls aren’t particularly intuitive. There’s really not much challenge involved, and it’s more of a time killer than anything else. I will give it that it absolutely commits to the cute theme though, even the enemies look sweet and innocent. Honestly, this game was way too easy for me, but I recognise that I’m not the target audience. I expect children and preteens would enjoy this game a lot more than I did. 74/100.
Missed the Mark
There were three more game demos that I played, but unfortunately these ones I didn’t enjoy as much. I have a policy that games should be fun, so I stop when I’m not enjoying myself. As such, I didn’t put very much time into these games, so I suppose it could be that they get better after a while, but I doubt it. Either way, I didn’t have the patience to wait and see. For these games, I’m only offering a basic summary, and I haven’t given them a rating as I don’t think it would be fair.
Apico
I like simple, calm games, and from the trailer that’s what this looked like. I still actually suspect that the full game may be pretty good, but I quit the demo for one very simple reason. I had no clue what to do. The controls aren’t explained, and nor is the gameplay. I could interact with crates, but I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I was meant to be collecting from them. There were no quests that I could see, nor a guidebook. My character was just there in the game, with no apparent purpose. For a full game I might be willing to look online and track down information on what to do. But there was no way I was wasting my time for a short demo. I did like the peaceful ambience of Apico, though, so that was a plus.
Josh Journey: Darkness Totems
I feel bad for not liking this one, as I know it was hand-drawn. That took an extra level of care and dedication, so it’s clear how much the developers love this game. Unfortunately, I do not. The world feels quite empty, and honestly I wasn’t a huge fan of this cartoon art style, even though I do appreciate the time they put into it. In terms of gameplay, I hate that you can’t run and jump. You can run, and you can jump, but not at the same time. If you’re running and you try to jump, you’ll awkwardly stop before the jump animation kicks in. The combat is very basic, and honestly it’s just not cup of tea. The medieval music was pretty cool, though!
Super Toy Cars Offroad
Racing games are one of those genres that I do actually like, but for some reason I never play them. I grew up on things like Need for Speed and Ridge Racer, and happily pumped hours into them. So when I watched the trailer for Super Toy Cars Offroad, I was looking forward to giving it a go. However, I have to say I ended up being pretty disappointed. The music was somehow simultaneously exciting and boring, I really can’t explain it. It’s upbeat, but there’s just not enough depth to it. It sounds like an intro to a song, rather than a standalone piece of music. The game did have a customisation screen, but unfortunately in the demo version you’re not able to actually customise anything. You have one car, and one paint job for that car.
However, the main reason I didn’t like Super Toy Cars Offroad was the gameplay. The levels felt empty and boring, with lacklustre graphics. And the handling was terrible. The one thing a racing game needs above all else is a good physics engine, and I just didn’t feel that was here on this occasion. The car was difficult to control, and I didn’t experience any sense of fun. So unfortunately, this game was a “nope” for me.
Conclusion
ID@Xbox have brought as some wonderful games this time around. I feel I’ve picked the best Winter Game Fest demos, but of course I’m limited by my preferences. If you loved one of the titles that I didn’t play, I’d really like to hear your thoughts. Which games are you most excited for? Join the discussion over in our Facebook community! And if you love indie games, then enter our December giveaway for Faraday Protocol!
