The Seance of Blake Manor

This was a random find for me that I was immediately drawn to. I loved Blue Prince and The Case of the Golden Idol and I really enjoyed The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow. Although this is not quite a mix of these games it certainly has very similar DNA so if you enjoyed any of these games then this may just be a game for you. The Seance of Blake Manor was released in October 2025 and is a game by Spooky Doorway (The Darkside Detective, another great game) and published by Raw Fury who have a reputation for finding and publishing great indie games. It is £16.75 on Steam and as of today 21st April it has a 30% discount and is included in a couple of ‘Detective Bundles’. Although I haven’t completed it yet I have almost 30hrs in the game, but it is worth noting I am the kind of person that looks in every corner to see what is there so many people may complete it quicker. According to How Long to Beat it can be completed in 15hrs.

The game  is set in 1897 and starts with the protagonist, Private Investigator Decland Ward, receiving a letter while in his home town of Dublin in Ireland. The letter details how a young lady named Evelyn Dean disappeared from a hotel and asked for him to come to the hotel and investigate her disappearance. When Mr. Ward arrives at the hotel he discovers that there is to be a grand seance in two days' time and all the guests are there in order to take part. While discussing the disappearance of Evelyn with the hotel manager you become convinced that she has not left the hotel as the manager suggests, but rather that she had disappeared as the letter states. 

The following morning you are introduced to the various other guests, each with a fully fleshed out character with their own, often hidden, reasons for being at the manor house. There are 24 other people at the manor hotel including 16 other guests, the medium running the seance, 5 staff members, the Lord of the manor and his son who is kept away from view in the private area of the hotel. 

The game runs similar to Blue prince where there is a set time before the seance and every action you take has a time cost associated with it. Moving around the manor does not cost any of your time allotment (a good decision) but actions such as speaking to people, searching furniture or reading a document or books does. Many of the actions take a minute of your time to complete but in the vein of death by a thousand cuts, you can quickly find your hour disappearing while speaking to one individual or searching a room. There is plenty of time and there isn’t a serious time pressure but I am not sure you can complete absolutely everything in the entire games allotted time, but I may be wrong. The various other characters have a set schedule they stick to and every hour they move to their next allotted place within the manor. One of the first things to do for each character is find out their schedule for the weekend if you can as it makes finding them so much easier, especially later as it will save you a lot of time (personal time not game time) and you will not need to run around the manor looking for that one individual you need to complete the task you are currently working on. 

This brings me onto the menus. There are four tabs in your journal, Mysteries, Records, Timetable and Map. The last two are self explanatory with the timetable detailing what is currently on within the manor (talks, dinner,the bar being open and so on) as well as where everyone is if you have found out those details. The map is of the manor and surrounding area and includes pins for the other people if you have their schedule or you have been to that area and have seen them there. The records tab includes all relevant information you have uncovered while investigating the guests and the manor. These detail everything you can speak to the other people about as well as who you can speak to about said information. 

The main section is the Mysteries tab. Here they use a mind map style UI to break down the various mysteries you are focusing on. There is the main reason you are at the manor, The Culprit, which is focussed on if Miss Dean did not leave, who is responsible for her disappearance. There are also various side investigations that link to her disappearance. When you click on these you enter another mindmap that links all the information and deductions you have discovered that you use to solve that mystery. For instance the very first side investigation is to figure out if Miss Dean actually was kidnapped or if she did indeed leave as the manager suggested. During your investigation you create nodes within the mindmap that detail the information you have discovered and action you have taken. So there is a node for checking in, speaking to the manager, gaining access to the managers office and searching the office. Once you have gathered enough information, a ‘Think’ node appears. This is similar to the Case of the Golden Idol where you need to select from a collection of words on the mindmap to create a sentence that details your hypothesis of what happened. So in this case you discover that she has indeed disappeared and did not leave on her own in the middle of the night. Shocking, I know. 

The main investigation, The culprit, works slightly differently. In this are the 24 suspects within the manor. Each of these has their own mind map detailing all information you have on them and what you discover from conversations with them. When you first meet each person, you get to profile them and assess various factors about them. This is not overly difficult as you click on various sections of them and it details a little bit about the area you are assessing. You are also told how many assessments there are. For instance when meeting the manager for the first time you notice he has a cracked lens in his glasses, an unhappy expression and is holding his pocket watch. These details you notice then lead to questions you are able to ask, which may or may not lead to further information and this balloons out as you discover more information. What I like about this is when you ask about the information you have, Decland Ward is tactful and asks in a roundabout way, without giving away that this piece of information he is asking about was found in a locked chest in the person's private room that you snuck into. Some discoveries only make sense later when you have more information. Based on the various things you find out you have the option to eliminate each person as a suspect based on facts you discover about the culprit, such as whether they are able to write or not or the size of the culprit's shoes. There are various characteristics you discover about the culprit as you go along and you cross reference this against the other people and eliminate them accordingly. 

Each person within the manor has their own agenda and while speaking to each you realise that the seance is a backdrop for their personal goals. As you work through the game you start to discover each person’s goal and you assist them to reach closure of that goal. This does not necessarily mean you help them achieve the goal as you can also thwart them while helping them come to terms with their failure. This works the same as the side investigations, where you collect information until you have enough to create a hypothesis and then solve a sentence to complete their ‘Think’ node. You then confront them with what you know and bring closure to their issue or goal. This is my favourite part of the game as there are 24 individual Mysteries to complete which lead to discoveries that will aid you in the main investigation. Many of these investigations are heartwarming or touching and it helps to flesh out the individuals you are spending so much time getting to know. 

As there is a seance going on, it is unsurprising that there are otherworldly things going on. There are many strange occurrences that happen and the manor has a deep, long and sordid history, as it was the first manor built in when the area was initially conquered. The history of all the previous lords is detailed throughout the playthrough and it is incredibly personal to the manor and the people who lived there. The manor is in a very rural part of Ireland in the 19th Century, and as such there are still a large number of alternative religions outside of christianity. As part of your investigation, you discover facts about these different religions and how they play into daily lives of the people living there. Religion plays a huge part in the game as many of the guests practice alternate religions and the solution to much of the mystery is centred around magic and religion. 

There are also various mini games such as deciphering codes to open chests or a set of signs that you need to trace in one long movement without going over the same piece twice. This can be a little fiddly, with a mouse at least, but this is a minor gripe.

I have immensely enjoyed this game. It is smart without being too smart, none of the puzzles are overly difficult but are fun to complete, the game usually has a way of telling you you are not quite there yet and need to find more (sometimes blatantly saying so) and the characters, story and discoveries are engaging. I looked forward to discovering each person's goal and then working to complete it. There is a small amount of handholding in the game as it often is forthright in what you need to do, often telling you outright but this is only in certain circumstances and it does save you hitting your head against the wall.

This brings me to a criticism. Often you will be completing a person's mindmap and you will feel you have done everything you can and asked every question you can and yet you cannot figure out how to trigger the ‘Think’ node in order to progress to the hypothesis section. I have spent a significant amount of time (personal not in game time necessarily) only for something I feel is insignificant to trigger it. Oftentimes this is something innocuous that has nothing to do with the train of thought that leads to the hypothesis but rather a small detail or insignificant question you haven't asked them. Although this is frustrating it isn’t a deal breaker or significant enough to detract from the game as a whole. 

Another small annoyance is the fact that the whole game isn’t voice acted. There are certain bits that are fully voice acted, such as the cutscenes and significant conversations, but there are sections that are not voice acted seemingly for no reason, other than I imagine it was costing a decent amount of the budget. The frustration is that the voice acting is really good and the cast play their roles extremely well and this makes it a little more jarring when you move from voice acted section to none for no apparent reason. I really hope they have an opportunity to record the rest of the voice lines as it adds such a lot to the game’s immersion and its ability to draw you in. 

The game is Steam Deck verified and controller friendly although I never played it on the Steam Deck or Xbox Ally and never used a controller so cannot speak to how good the implementation of this is. 

This is genuinely a great game from a developer that made Darkside Detective. It is in a similar vein with complex puzzles and strong narrative that draws you in and makes you want to discover more about all the people, the manor and the weird occurrences that are happening around you. The mechanics are intuitive and aside from what feels like insignificant annoyances, the game is easy to navigate. I strongly suggest this to anyone who is interested in games of this ilk and would suggest anyone else at least give the demo a shot.

Crimson Desert

By now, everyone and their uncle have had something to say about Crimson Desert. The consensus that I have seen is that people will either love it or hate it. I don’t hold to this opinion as I feel that the gaming population are way more nuanced than that. Sure there will be a vast amount of people who will either love the game, but I feel for most people it will be a good game with amazing elements hampered by numerous annoying issues that lead to frustration rather than a dislike for the game as a whole. Each person will have something about this game that they will love and something they will hate. One person’s irritation will be another person’s thing that makes this game special. The game has so many systems, little interactions with the world and small things that add to the experience that you can swing from wanting to uninstall the expletive game to smiling like you are 6yr old again. I heard someone state that this game is the type of game that you would have made when you were a little kid. I have never agreed harder with anyone. There are so many bits to this game that a younger me would have added just because it was cool. That is the overarching takeaway I have for this game. They did it because it would be cool and no other reason. Everything that people have to say about this game stems directly from this design philosophy. When asked if the guy whose job it was to rein the developers in, cut content that was surplus to what was needed and generally be the adult in the room to ensure the game was achievable was ignored, Will Powers the marketing director for Pearl Abyss stated that that person never existed. It shows.

I love this game. There are so many rough edges it reminds me of games of old. We look back with rose tinted glasses at games of old, but most shipped with bugs and idiosyncrasies that we overlooked because we didn’t know any better or, more importantly, we just didn’t care and worked around it. Pearl Abyss creating a game that's main design focus is ‘just pure fun’ has paid off, it doesn’t always but in this instance it has. The developers have many years experience of creating MMOs and have had to iterate and create content, often on a short timeline for content devouring fans, for over a decade now. I am sure they have multiple ideas that have either been added to Black Desert Online, a game I never tried as MMOs are really not my thing, or were left on the cutting room floor that I feel that, when they were making this game, they just went for it. Crimson Desert started as an MMO and then moved to single player and in many ways it shows. There are so many systems, add to this the side quests that, especially in the beginning, are glorified tutorials that seem to go on forever just because of the sheer number of these systems. I was still getting tutorial messages recently and I have played 52hrs, some of these are for extremely basic things like stamina. 

My favourite thing about the game is the little things that happen. Things that show the developers have thought about little interactions within the world. I was in a fort and after I had cleared it I jumped over the wall and inadvertently landed on my horse, who I didn’t realise was on the other side of the wall, and immediately started to ride off. It was seamless as with many things in this game. On the reverse side of the coin, it is always a small thing that makes it more infuriating or more clunky than it needs to be. In a sea of well thought out, game defining interactions and systems that could define a new game direction for future games, there are a wealth of frustrating, game destroying and rage inducing churning waves that destroy any wholehearted love of this game. This is where I believe that all the comments on the game, good, bad or frustrated, are all correct. There are not many times in gaming where everyone’s opinions are absolutely valid. I have yet to come across a criticism or compliment for this game that isn’t true. We may disagree on the importance of the opinion, but we will agree that it is true. 

The easiest thing is to start with the agreed positives of the game. The graphics are amazing. The draw distance is a sight to behold. This leads to a feeling of childlike wonder and an excitement to explore, which is the game's primary design. I remember leaving the lift for the first time in Elden Ring and looking out and seeing all the glints in the distance, buildings tops poking over the hill, movement in the trees and structures inviting exploration and this led me to the belief that was later upheld, that Elden Ring was different to all other Dark Souls games. That same feeling was repeated here in Crimson Desert. This is where the Elden Ring comparison ends as it is a very different game but the reason so many non soulslike players loved Elden Ring and were drawn into that world was the exploration. The performance of the game engine has been widely praised and there have been very few reports of performance issues from stuttering, graphical bugs or crashes that have plagued new releases in recent years. The infamous shader compilation that is a staple of the modern game engine is a minor inconvenience that only takes a minimal amount of time when you initially load in. 

The ability to move seamlessly through the world with no loading screens or hitching. You can move between the open world and indoors as we have wanted for many years. No secret loading happening or little tricks such as shimming through gaps in the rock face or slow door opening animations just constant movement in and out all spaces. This also is apparent through the world as you just constantly move no matter how quickly you traverse the world. I personally like the climbing and, although it is stamina based, is generally very good. The speed with which the developers update and iterate the game is amazing. Included in this is the fact that they are actively listening to the players and adding new things or altering things that majority of players don’t like. 

Moving onto the complaints:

Many people complained that Kliff is not your own character. People would prefer to create their own character, even if this is their own Kliff. Personally this is not a bother for me but I can’t see a reason this couldn’t have been a thing. There are many games where you play a set character and this has not been a problem, but having your own character does add personal connections can helps to pull you into the world. It wouldn’t surprise me if their next game includes a character creator for you to create your own protagonist to explore their world with. 

There has been a lot said about the difficulty. I feel the game isn’t overly difficult, some boss fights are difficult, but you do need to fight the controls, a lot. There was a boss I was fighting and it often felt like the doge/roll button just wasn’t working. I also found that if I locked onto an enemy, something I only do with bosses, the lock on would randomly disengage. You do need to make sure you are scaled with the difficulty. I tried the Crimson Mist boss and died in 2 hits. Did other things for a few hours and then had no issue after upgrading my weapons and armour and added skills. The reviewers have received a lot of criticism for complaining about the difficulty spikes in the game and there are difficulty spikes. I feel you can see the issue here if you were asked to complete a 100hr plus game in time for a review and add to this the fact that the developers were adding, changing and tweaking the game as you were playing it. Boss fights and controls were tweaked at release so the game we played at release was not the same game. There are, of course, reviewers who are quite rightly being called out but many were playing under different circumstances to us. 

Dual wielding looks cool but the attacks don’t lock onto enemies and I often found myself flailing off into the distance as as opposed to attacking the person I was aiming for. I wish this was better as dual wielding in games is really good.

There were a few reviewers that described an empty World. I feel that this is just not true. You may not  like the things you find but there is something around every corner. There are so many puzzles and little things all around including caves and secrets that often you are not ready for but you will come back to later. There is life all around. 

I have seen complaints of boring same three hit combat is a common complaint. There was a comment that said you can complete the whole game using a power kick. This is down to the player as there are multiple button combos to access if you want. I have heard the game described as having almost fighting game combos. There are grabs and throws to add to your arsenal, using your abyss hook to reel in enemies, using kicks and other enemies to manipulate the battlefield and of course the environment as a weapon to either damage enemies or to create space for yourself if you are getting overwhelmed such as bringing down a tower mid fight on top of enemies. Add to this weapons and armours with special abilities and you have a combat system that you can tailor to your own personal playstyle. You can engage with this as little or as much as you want to. 

There is really bad onboarding in the game and this is the most valid complaint. I felt as a person who has played many different games for many years, some of the systems are self explanatory and you can figure out how to do things. But there are systems that they have created or altered so they don’t work as expected and they are either sloppily explained at best and more often than not, not explained at all. This doesn’t excuse it and it should have been better, but it isn’t as if the game is that different from what is and has been available. I figured out most stuff with only a little difficulty. 

The lack of a story has been a major complaint. There isn’t much explanation of the story or just the basics of what is going on. The story is there but often you are left with the thought of ‘Oh OK’. I am not that bothered personally and in the marketing of the game it was made clear that this is not an RPG with a deep engaging story, but rather an open world sandbox with a story that helps move your experience along. It was never the focus. Now would I have preferred a deep story to add to everything else the game has to offer, absolutely. It would just have added to it and pushed the game into a completely different level of quality. 

The quests, especially at the beginning of the game, are just fetch quests or as the old saying goes, ocean wide puddle deep. When we have played games like Cyberpunk, Kingdom come Deliverance, Skyrim or the Witcher you slowly become accustomed to interesting, well written side content where a writer has been let loose to write a short story that is engaging and will often surprise you. This is not what Pearl Abyss have focussed on and they chose to deliver gameplay over narrative, which is a perfectly valid choice. But as with the main story I can see why people would have wanted both.

Overall the draw of the game for many is that it lets you play the way you want. There are multiple systems but you don’t need to use all or majority of them. You engage with the game in the way you want and engage with the systems in the way you want to. Don’t want to fish or hunt or anything like that? Don’t want to spend time collecting resources or mining or being a lumberjack? Don’t, you can buy the food items you need. It is a mechanic in the game that is there for those that want it. There are so many systems for you to connect or engage with that there is bound to be something for you. 

I was amazed how you can do things in different way. For one boss I have seen people use their green punch ability to stun the boss and then attack them. Others used their Abyss hook to reel the boss in and then attack it. I just dodged the boss’s diving attack and wailed on it until it’s stun meter was high enough and then attacked while it sat on the ground. The Sparta kick, grabs and shield bash attacks add to the complexity of the combat and add variety you can dip in and out of. Switching between one handed to dual wielding and then changing to using a bow or a two-handed weapon is a nice change, especially when fighting trash mobs. You can switch weapons on the fly so if you are not feeling sword and board, bring up the contextual weapon wheel as swap the shield out for a second weapon or change to a two handed sword or a pickaxe if you feel the need. 

There have been multiple games where the control scheme is crap and people have railed against those controls only for those control schemes to become the norm after a time and iteration. These are controls that we now see as the norm and complain if others don’t include and iterate on said controls. To be clear this does not mean that Crimson’s Deserts controls are going to be the new norm but I do think with iteration, heavy curation and slimming down of the control scheme, this could be an amazing newer different and alternative scheme for other developers can use as a basis to iterate and add their own spin to. Or not as the case may be. I usually play on keyboard and mouse but the control scheme on there was just too all over the place. It may just be too much for people for this to become normal. It may just be that it is just too convoluted and confusing for it to be of any use to anyone to play with or to develop from. All I know that when the controls did what I want them to do, this was some of the best combat with the lightest touch that enabled me to do badass stuff that just looked cool. This is said with a heavy use of the word ’when’ because it was more often not the case. It was more often the case that I almost did the cool thing and then the controls messed me over at the last. 

As gamers we are constantly complaining and asking for games that take risks that meet us where we want to be. We ask for games that innovate and move away from the stale old systems that we are bored of. Yellow paint everywhere. Ubisoft style open world icon alphabet soup on their maps that lead to predictable repeated events. Collectathons that are there just for content. Sidekicks that tell you what to do before you even encounter the puzzle. Cookiecutter characters. And so on. This game has resonated with many players and for good reason. It is one of the first games for a while that does it purely for the fun of it. This will not be game of the year material at all for anyone (unless the rest of the year is appalling bad) but it will be a game people will still be speaking about at the end of the year. GTA6 is a-coming after all. Maybe this year will be it’s year? My advice to anyone who is on the fence about this game is simple and the same advice I would give about any game. Don’t fall for FOMO, nothing good ever comes from that. Read reviews from people you trust, watch a few YouTube videos (there is unlikely to be any major spoilers based purely on the plethora of content) or streams, speak to people who have played it. Educate yourself as much as possible. I would recommend this game to most people on the big proviso that you go in expecting for the game to be what it is and not what it is not. Be aware of the flaws and hopefully that way if you give it a try you will be prepared to see it as it is and be open for those moments that everyone is speaking about.

Voidtrain

It took me a while to finish this game mainly due to other things coming up. I spent around 37hr in the game (way above the How Long to Beat numbers) but that was due to my insatiable need to loot every single item in sight. The game is on Game Pass and was one of those nice surprises as I almost bought it the week before it came out.

The story is kind of vague. You are an engineer that goes to a deep dark forest and while there gets lost. You find a cabin and break in only to find a strange structure and a train cart. After fixing the lights and electricity you throw the switch on the table and a portal opens up in the structure and you, the train and half the items in the cabin are sucked into the portal. You wake up in an endless void on the train cart and so starts your journey through the Void. All the way through this you are being narrated to and spoken to directly by an ethereal narrator. He is predominantly there for comic relief and to explain the story. Think high on life or similar style. He seems to know more about this world and ensures you have an understanding of how things work and what is expected of you. You have a journal that updates with what you are doing next.

The basic loop is you head down the track on the train while collecting items (wood, metal scraps, chemicals and so on). You can float away from the train but are attached to the train by a cord. You can control the speed of the train and can stop it if need be. As you go along you build things on the train. Some make your life easier (like the little creatures that help you collect the floating resources) and others are used to make items you need (worktable and weapon bench for example. There is also a research bench that in order to research things you need to add items you collect along the way to generate science points. Each item adds a certain amount of science points to the reader. You can research better train parts (an engine or storage) or get additional or upgrades of workbenches. 

As you move along the track you come into contact with various different creatures such as floating fish that move through the Void and a large shark like creature that gnaws at your train. There are also instances for you to investigate and the variety of these changes as you progress through the game. There are outposts where you can find snippets of information on what exactly is going on although this continues to remain vague throughout. 

A good gun will help along the way. You start with a revolver that has endless ammo but only has 4 shots before you need to reload. This is also not particularly high in damage. There is also a rifle and shotgun and these have composite parts that can be upgraded and changed out to facilitate different bonuses and effects (ice, fire, secondary fire effects, headshot damage and so on). 

There are also ‘human’ enemies around. They are present at these sites along the way as well as at the depots you pull into. You reach these depots along the rail and as the music swells and gets louder you enter through a door that looks like a triangular doorway into an underground tunnel with Norse runes all over it. The train then hurtles forward and stops at a station. These stations are all different but have similar feels to them. There may be a small depot where you get a snippet of information about the world you are in and there is usually a battle arena with a group of human enemies that fill your inventory with new guns (although they don’t change that much) as well as gun parts to upgrade your weapons and a selection of resources. You then leave the station and enter the loop from the beginning and continue to gain resources.

You go through this loop time and time again and although they are procedural (and there are ways to manipulate to a small degree what you will likely find on the journey), they are filled with similar instances. As you progress and upgrade your train, weapons, armour and backpack you encounter new resources that are needed to upgrade your items further and so on and so forth. This can get tedious but I think that may have been due to my usual instinct to get everything I can and store everything you can in case I may need it. This is not the case and at the end of the game I actually ran through the loop without actually picking up any resources as I had a train full of wood and metals I was never going to use. And yes I am the person at the end of a Final Fantasy game with 999 healing potions and other resources that I never use because you just never know when you are going to need it! But in this game I could have moved through a little quicker and not suffered from that feeling of tedium. 

There are tools you are given to make collecting items in the Void easier such as a grappling hook that magnetically draws items to it if you hold the button and creatures that, as long as you keep their water topped up a their pet bed, will appear in the Void and collect excess items as the train goes along. There are also creatures that can be added to workbenches and other tables on your train that can work there. For instance there is a table that is for farming and if you add one of the creatures to that they will work the farms and grow food for you and themselves. If you add a creature with a farming skill they will increase the yield or speed up the process. But again by the end I had so much food and water and other resources that I was kind of swamped and ran out of storage. There are some very good QoL in the game including craft from chests and store all similar items in the storage that is on that train cart with one button. 

The research is a little strange. There are a few items in the research tree that I found useful but most of it I could have done without. There is a huge amount of customisation of your train, including new carts, items to decorate your cart with, sides on the cart, items for your creatures on the train and so on. Most of it is not useful things but rather research of items that make your train pretty as it is mostly cosmetic. I never even completed the research tree. As I said you use items you find in the Void as well as items you craft to add research points at the research table (each item has different values). You then use those to select research. There are one or two major research items and up to three minor ones per research page. The major items need to be researched in order to move to the next research level. The major items tend to be important new discoveries (new engine type, fuel source, smelter and so on) that you need to move the story on. The minor ones are mainly cosmetic and upgrades to your tools. 

The gameplay loop is fun for a decent while. The upgraded tools and new resources as well as the variety of different encounters and events you come across along the way are entertaining enough to keep you coming back. My personal loot hoarding and need to collect everything did ruin the zen-like nature of the loop between stations or depots as they are called. I could have dialed back on my enthusiasm to have everything and the game would have gone quicker. The story was there but up until the end it was ropey at best. It is not the driving factor but is the reason you are doing what you are doing. The narrator is constantly ensuring that you know where you are going and what to do and this was helpful to ensure you stay on track. If, while driving on the tracks, you come to an important spot in the Void, the train will stop and the narration will let you know what you need to do. 

I really enjoyed the game and it is definitely worth a try. The game isn’t difficult and if you die you just return to the train and carry on. There are a multitude of difficulty options at the beginning to tailor the experience to how you would want to play. The game ran smoothly and I don’t remember any crashes. I never tried a controller so I can speak to how good that is. The ending was OK and as a game it is a solid game but not an amazing game. If you have a spare time slot in between games and are looking for something to play that isn’t too difficult, has some puzzles but nothing that will stretch you and has light combat, then maybe this is for you. I feel if they make a second one they will have learned a lot from this game. My biggest suggestion is don’t get too bogged down in resource collection because there are resources everywhere in the Void and you can take 20min to move between depots and it is unnecessary, especially after the midpoint.

Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts on the game yourself or if you know who the narrator was. I cannot find who it was anywhere.

Steam Next Fest February 2026: Part 3

When checking through the list of games there were a lot of horror games, visual novels, shop simulators, anime games, side scrollers, card battlers, Co op ‘friend slop’ type games, and chill games. It was also the first time I have heard the phrase ‘multiplayer social deduction game’ and there were a lot of social deduction games. There were also a large amount of games with unique art styles that really didn’t appeal to me. In general, there were just a huge amount of games to choose from, the list just didn’t end.

I collated a selection of games that I thought were worth a try. This is Part Three of the games I tried.

SpaceCraft: The Universe is yours. SpaceCraft is an online space exploration and building game. Explore a vast galaxy of solar systems and planets, mine and craft resources, design and build ships, automate planetary bases and interplanetary logistics, trade and cooperate.

The game has promise, but it was clear this is still quite early in the development as there are still rough edges that need smoothing out. There were hitches when entering a new zone or a planet’s atmosphere. The NPC models are all basically the same and there is still a stiffness to much of the game that polish will eradicate. 

The basics of the game are a little No Mans Sky mixed with the galactic corporation indentured servant games like Hardspace Shipbreaker. You ‘win’ the opportunity to pay off your life debt by captaining a starship to mine resources while at the same time adding to said debt. You mine different resources and then process them at the space station (for a small fee of course). Here you can create upgrades for your ship and install them (more storage, better mining lasers and a hyperdrive). The gameplay loop was fun but there are things they can do to smooth out the mechanics and remove many of the grindy elements of the game. An example of this is when you smelt resources. The time it takes to smelt them is too long and would benefit from immediately completing. The amount of smelting and creating of items you will do in the game will add a huge amount of time but none of it will be additive but rather to add time to a game that I don’t feel will need it. I think it will be a good game if they give it a little polish and smooth the rough edges down. 

Cargo Hunters: Cargo Hunters is the singleplayer extraction shooter where you control a humanoid robot scavenging the remains of humanity on an abandoned, dystopian Earth.

I have always wanted a PVE extraction game. The demo has a selection of weapons and other equipment that I don’t imagine you will have access to at the beginning of the game but rather gives you the experience you will have along the way. The shooting feels good and the effects you get when you shoot other robots and you are shot yourself are really good. The aesthetics of the game are reminiscent of other post apocalyptic games. The enemies are interesting and although I never fought one there are bigger stronger enemies in the demo. There are melee and gun enemies and I saw one with a huge amount of armour and a gatling gun. There is only one map I think, but I never completed it as I was a little rushed.This could be a lot of fun. 

Aethus: Explore a vast underground world to mine, refine and craft hundreds of items, then build up your modular surface Outpost to farm hydroponic crops, prospect for gems and automate your resource-gathering in this sci-fi survival-crafter where the story always provides a reason to dig deeper.

You play as Maive who has been working for a corporation on a mining colony but uses her savings to buy her grandfather’s mining prospect site. You and your trusty drone embark on an adventure to see what it was your grandfather wanted you to find. 

This crafting, space exploration game is quite interesting. Being third person adds something to it and the movement is smooth but does suffer from stiffness from time to time. The character gets stuck on rocks or stairs sometimes and it is one of those cases where you have to do a wide arc to get to where you are going. The inventory system and UI is serviceable but really needs an overhaul. I like the clinical clean look to it but an actual inventory screen would be better. The craft from chest is a great QoL that every game should have as standard. A button to add all similar items to the chests would be beneficial. There are a few things that could be tightened up and a group of solid testers who play these kinds of games, or seeing what other games of this type do would be beneficial. I might see what this is like in time when it releases as to whether I play it or not. 

Wanderburg: Drive your Castle on Wheels into battle in this minimalist medieval roguelike of roaming fortresses! Devour entire villages, build your modular arsenal of siege weapons and arcane machinery as you grow with every stronghold you crush.

It is a fresh take on the survivors genre where you are a mobile castle with various defenses and weapons. You select your weapons at the beginning of the run and as you swallow up people, fields, forests and so on, you get to upgrade and add new items to the castle (such as a ram, or more canons or a mine layer). This is a well made game. The castle drives along well and the turning is responsive. There were a few items I could not get used to but I think that is just me. I never clicked with a survivors game. I tried Vampire Survivors and Deep Rock Survivors but the repetitive runs that are the central aspect of the game just got boring and, surprise surprise, repetitive. If you got on with those games and you are looking for another, one that is very well made and tight, then this is one to try out. 

Deified: Forge your strategy around powerful relics in this turn-based tactical roguelite. Choose your slots, manage their constraints, and face formidable bosses.

This is a roguelike tactics game. You move through the world selecting areas to explore. Some areas give you new relics and others are battles or healing. The combat is grid based with a certain number of blocks you can move. Weapons fit into slots that increase with level ups. 

The art style is once again really nice and reminds me of the new rogue Prince of Persia or Sable. The colour pallet is on the red spectrum from yellow through to bright red of his clothing with oranges in between. It is effective and gives it a unique theme. As with all roguelikes this games success will depend on variety, how interesting the relics and powers become and synergy. 

Denshattack: Flip, trick and grind your train in a fast-paced, off-the-rails ride through a colourful Japanese dystopia. Outmatch rival gangs, wreck a shady megacorp, and take back the tracks with nothing but skill, speed, and style.

The basic premise is you are a train driver who finds out about this train racing and trick competition and being the eager beaver she is, wants to take part. The art style is kind of cyberpunk meets Tank Girl anime. The colours are bright and vibrant and the animations are on point. There are very aggressive comic book style pops and flares but it never felt like they were getting in the way or were distracting but rather they added to the overall excitement of the speeding train. 

This was a lot of fun. Kind of a Skate mixed with a fast paced racing game and the Kinect Sports game where you were on a raft and had to move side to side to dodge rapids and rocks. It is frenetic and there are tricks reminiscent of skateboarding games. There are achievements to achieve as you complete each track along with a scoring system. There are collectables as well. The tricks were intuitive and someone who is usually good at skating games will get a kick out of this. Although the train speeds along it wasn’t that difficult to keep up with the tricks and there was a freedom to what you would like. 

Prime Monster: A card-based political roguelike about surviving in a parliament of literal monsters. Fight for votes, break rules, weather scandals and force through absurd laws to keep the top job in this democratic dystopia of truly monstrous proportions.#

Humans have been removed and monsters are in charge. They decide after a while to turn to man’s greatest invention, democracy. They form political parties and for a government. You are the opposition party leader and you need to increase your political clout and your party’s popularity with the population, oppose laws and get yourself elected as Prime Monster. 

You use card based mechanics in parliament to increase unity within your party to ensure they vote your way and cause damage to your opposition and cause their MPs to either vote your way or at least don’t vote against your wishes. In the demo you go through three tutorialised situations from opposing two laws and then the election. Depending on how you did in the previous two situations depends on how you do in the election. I defeated both previous situations (as I am sure you were supposed to) and won a landslide victory and was made Prime Monster. What happens from there is unsure as the demo ends here but it insinuates that things get more difficult from there on. 

This really could be a fun game. It all depends on the variety and depth of the game. The cards have interesting effects but they need to be varied and have more interesting effects as you progress. There also needs to be positive and negative sides to the cards.  I am interested to see how much variety is and how being the Prime Monster is different or how distinct the other parties and representatives are. 

Tombwater: A Souls-Like Western filled with Eldritch Horror. Explore the Wild West town of Tombwater and lay bare the darkness that lies beneath. Survive blood-spilling combat in this gruesome 2D action-RPG that may just drive you to madness.

The demo is set in the wild west and starts on a train with you and two others trying to steal silver from someone in order to pay off debts. The train seems deserted and there is no silver in the safe when you open it. You and your accomplices make a run for it and you are thrown from the train. You are then tutorialised through the basic controls and attacks. The demo then skips forward to further in the game and the enemies are far more tanky and have multiple attacks and attack sequences. They hit a lot harder, are more numerous and take more to kill. This is where I came unstuck as my limited skill in these games came into play. 

I really liked the artstyle of this and although twin-stick shooters are not my thing I thought I would give it a go. The only way I can describe this is stiff. The animations are really good and the environments are beautiful pixel art, but the attacks seemed to have a stuntedness about them. Like I said these are usually not my forte so for people who usually play twin-stick shooters and enjoy them, I would like to know how their experiences of this was. It is very much a skill issue for me though and when I came up against an enemy (who had other enemies around him) had a multi-shot gun attack, I felt that I got stunlocked and he damaged me for all of my health with one sequence of attacks. The game seems to be well formed already though and I would think the story should be interesting with Eldritch horror theme. 

Nutmeg: NUTMEG! is a nostalgic football manager game with a deckbuilding twist, set in the '80s and '90s. Relive the days when the tackles were as hard as the mullets were long and football was about football.

This is a fun little card battler. You set up your team, buy player cards, set training dependant on the staff you have and then play one out of five matches a month while delegating the other four matches to your staff. You can set intensity of play and formation for the non-broadcasted matches (the ones you delegate away). The games you play are played using cards that have different abilities relating to the football positions on the pitch (Green for goalkeeper, blue for defence, yellow for the midfield and red for attack). These cards add to the percentage chance that one of the three options will happen. These are based off of your player and their player. By using different cards you increase your chances of success. The cards use up your players stamina and as your players stamina decreases you can substitute 2 players out during the game.I do feel the RNG in it is a bit Xcom as I repeatedly had 60-70% chances lose out to the lowest percentage more often than not. I often lost unplayed games where I had a 60% chance to win and they only had 20%. I would prefer to have the option to play every game rather than delegate four out of the five games. The players being in a sticker album as in the football sticker books that are available is a nice touch. There are plenty of nods to football adjacent things. The pictures of your various scouts, trainers and other backroom staff are very Jones in the Fast Lane style and I find them a humorous touch. Overall a very good game and I can see myself playing this more especially if they sort their RNG out.

The Ratline: A murdered priest. A secret list. Hunt Nazi fugitives across the globe in this gritty 1971 detective thriller. Analyze evidence, follow leads, and make sharp deductions before the trail goes cold. From the creators of Family, Rivals, Conspiracy, Echo Beach and Riley & Rochelle.

I enjoy these sorts of puzzle games. Different from Blue Prince style games and more in the vein of The Roottress are dead. Decipher information from breadcrumb clues and work towards identifying people from limited information. Unlike the Roottrees game there is no internet but a limited information portal and a rolodex of telephone numbers. The game is very tactile as you need to actually use the phone and drag information you have figured out to the board as well as clicking to add the evidence to the board. As long as the game continues to get more difficult but not suffer from any moon logic it will be a good game. The demo is longer than I thought and I never finished it. 

Darkhaven: Darkhaven is a next-generation ARPG brought to you by many of the original creators of Diablo and Diablo II. Explore a procedurally generated and fully dynamic open world unlike any other in this solo or multiplayer adventure.

This is Diablo 2 but modernised. There is jumping, dodging, moving around with the ASWD keys, slotted items, multiple loot, 3 weapon sets that you can switch on the fly with V and terrain destruction. The controls feel a little clunky and the attacks are not as precise as more modern ARPGs like Diablo IV or Grinding Gear Games’ Path of Exile. The UI and menus are serviceable but need cleaning up.

The basic gist is it is the game has potential but needs work. This seems to be the consensus in the Steam reviews of the demo.