Steam currently has an event covering the Game Devs of Color expo, until September 24th 2024. GDoCExpo is a great event, and in my case, a good excuse to get more of my unwritten reviews out of my backlog. Hopefully it’ll encourage someone to give one of these games a look and help support these devs.
First up is RP7, a strategic roguelike dungeon crawler, where you’re frantically moving across a small platform back and forth, and you’re able to alter the slots with your keypresses as you move at a set pace back and forth. Working to provide yourself with benefits or at least less harmful events. It tells a bit of a story as you venture back and forth. It’s really interesting mechanically, and hard to describe. It’s got a demo that is well worth trying out and is currently on sale for 11.99 (14.99 reg price) having just released about a week ago.
Gourdlets is a cozy city-builder game. It’s a sandbox with fairly few restrictions, the demo had some unlockables as part of progression, as your silly lil guys level up/mature in a way. Aside from the flowers you harvest from mature Gourdlets, I don’t recall any other limits on your creativity. They’ll walk around and interact with what you set up, fishing off docs, watering vegetable crops, hanging out with each other. Also, it’s only 4.99, a bargain for anyone who just wants to build without worrying about coins and currency. Just good times with silly lil guys.
Venba! An absolute joy of a game. Live life through the eyes of a young southeast asian immigrant in Canada (very southern Ontario feel). It’s largely told through small cutscenes, slices of life over time, growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, with each story section ending in making some traditional food. It deals with a lot of the challenges of the time that I’m sure others who have lived similar lives have experienced. Growing up in the area, at the time, even being white as a ghost, I saw some of this happen to others, especially with similarly aged immigrant friends. Some of it just hit me emotionally having just been someone who had moved from rural Canada to the city. Which is not to make it about me, but, to try and speak to how AUTHENTIC the entire game feels. Regularly priced at 14.99, it’s on sale for 8.99 currently and is well worth that, even with a playtime of only a few hours. Just a wholly amazing story and well deserving of the awards it’s won.
I’ve already covered the delightful hidden object game, Hidden in my Paradise. Thankfully one game I got done from the recent Next Fest.
Die in the Dungeon is using the classic play on words with dice. It’s a strategic deckbuilder(dicebuilder?) where you place the dice you pull on a grid to attack/defend or boost the effects of other dice. Often there are going to be complications from the enemies you face, sometimes forcing you to adapt your die placement to what they’ve done to the board. You’ve got a route through the dungeon, ala the same model a lot of games use, similar to Slay the Spire. I also can’t forget to mention that you play as a cute little frog guy, because who doesn’t love lil guys. This game is set for a Q1 2025 release, and you can still grab the demo on it’s Steam page.
One management game I tried out with the Next Fest was This Grand Life 2. The demo focuses on setting up and mostly automating the life of a single person, while the full game promises that you’ll be managing more people and have more options. While the demo plays out mostly the same, your city and starting character will always have it’s differences. It’s still available, and the game itself is 16.99, down to 14.44 with the sale. I’ve got this one wishlisted for when I’ve got some more stable income. Part of my chill vibes sometimes is a game with low interaction required once I’m set up a bit. Something I’ll do with the Sims or Rimworld.
As for other games I need to play or buy, there are a handful in here. Affogato which describes itself as a reverse Tower Defense set in a cafe, where you’re playing in the minds of your customers to help them defeat their inner demons. It’s got great vibes. Love, Ghostie is in the same boat as a visual novel where you’re a ghost helping play matchmaker. That’s it, that’s the pitch. Amarantus is a fairly heavy and dark visual novel about travelling as part of a revolution and the story on getting there. It was rec’d by my friend Jeff Hamilton, and he rarely misses. I’m actually picking this one up with the current sale, maybe I’ll cover it later, even if it’s not really a Next Fest demo.
Honestly, there are so many games featured, and these are just the ones I’ve had at least a bit of a touch on. The expo is a wonderful time to help support these devs and I encourage people to take a look and maybe buy something. At least try some demos and wishlist what appeals to you.