SteamNext Fest came back again in 2025 and ran through the end of February. Even if you’re arriving to it late, there’s always a massive stockpile of high-quality demos from up-and-coming games that deserve a spotlight.
As someone who’s solo-developed a game and then submitted it to Next Fest only to see it be sent to the back of the line of recommendations behind AI-generated and unsavory titles, I resonate with the developers who feel slighted by the event.
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The Steam Deck is an absolute beast of a handheld, able to run just about any indie game you could want, and these are the best.
To highlight what you may have missed, this list will be chock-full of awesome titles that feel unique and special from anything else I’ve played, from the up-and-comers to the heavy hitters. However, out of all the games I tried out, I’ll be focusing on the smaller titles that do something cool rather than the huge (but still great) games.
That said, I am only human, and I can’t play every single game Next Fest has to offer, so if I didn’t get to try a demo you thought was a standout, feel free to tell me why it should be on this list of the coolest demos from this event.
11Honorable Mentions
These games barely slipped out of the top ten, but each showcases a unique idea that’s very innovative for the genre. Or they’re just good, fun times that feel great to play.
10Collapsed Horizon
Planetary Destruction Imminent
Collapsed Horizonfeels more like a tech demo than a real video game, but it’s a damn good tech demo. Most of it starts incredibly sluggishly and has you struggle with being terrible at mining, then breaking ores and upgrading until you’re capable of burning the entire planet down.
Each upgrade feels genuinely significant, and it gave me the same feeling thatSpore’s space stage did — getting to mess with and destroy an ecosystem however you see fit, using your massive death ray laser to obliterate mountains and carve them into valleys.
Every ore you mine is accompanied by an appropriately chunky sound effect, and the way the polygonal terrain gets destroyed and crumpled smoothly is pretty reminiscent ofNo Man’s Sky, but with far less effort required to destroy huge procedural planets.
I like it a lot, and it’s incredibly enjoyable, but I don’t see it as a game, since it’s got very little progression and will likely only be entertaining if you enjoy tearing down forests for a chunk of money to make your huge laser even stronger before jetpacking into oblivion.
Glumhas one single gimmick; it’s a dungeon crawler with action combat where you kick things for every single action. You kick to open buttons, kick to wall jump, kick to kill enemies, and kick to launch things in whatever direction you want, and it’s incredibly silly.
I adore the goofiness of the writing since it just adds to the ridiculous scenario you find yourself in, plowing through dungeons and kicking down every door to make your way through, all while dealing with every enemy that dares approach you exactly how you’d imagine.
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The bigger the audience, the better.
I don’t know how long this bit could go on for before feeling exhausted, but the game certainly keeps things interesting, constantly giving you more upgrades. This goes from launching your boot like a missile to using it to grapple enemies. Each addition just gets sillier.
Glum is an undoubtedly charming and funny game, and I especially love the addition of tossing things up to kick them at high velocities, letting you hit far-away targets before going back to kicking a dude in the chest and watching him hilariously bounce around every wall.
8Dice ‘n Goblins
Crawling Out
Dice ‘n Goblinshas quite a unique style, with the characters, enemies, and interactables drawn in a colored pencil style while you walk around the 3D cel-shaded dungeon-crawling segments that are very reminiscent of classic games with an RPG twist.
You can run into any enemy you see and start aPaper Mario-esque fight with them, using pretty unique dice mechanics that might feel too random at first, but give you several ways to increase your damage and control the tide of the battle.
In a similar way toSlay the Spire, though your numbers may be randomized, you can always build to get some defense or change up the build to try and take down enemies in one super-convoluted, powerful move. It makes your decisions feel like they matter a lot, and it’s awesome.
The dungeon crawling feels pretty standard, and it’s a little bit janky, but the interesting meshing of the two styles in a super unique art style makes this one stand out to me. With cute characters and a simplistic story, it’s very approachable, and nowhere near as oppressive as a standard dungeon crawler.
7Haste: Broken Worlds
Broken Barriers
If you’re a fan of rolling around at the speed of sound, thenHaste: Broken Worldswill feel like an absolute dopamine rush, throwing you into a level and asking you to instantly start running, dodging objects, and adjusting your angle to stick the perfect landing every time.
It’s immensely satisfying to gain speed, perfect a landing, and go even faster by using your abilities, with each randomized level feeling uniquely challenging and a joy to overcome, on top of the roguelike map and items system tying everything together.
Each item you get requires you to be good at the game to purchase and gives you simple boosts like extra health for perfect landings, or turning bad ratings into better ones. Each one slightly changes your strategy, having you rethink what you’re doing while dodging death.
It has that “don’t stop, just go” attitude of most endless runner games, but feels infinitely more substantial and free than any of those games did, each mechanic adding to the rush you get by running through fields and weaving through obstacles, not splatting into any walls.
Stylish Substance
If you’re a big fan of character action games that have flashy attacks, style rankings, form changes, and great animation, thenGenoKidsis probably going to appeal to you quite a bit, being a rather open-ended take on the genre with heavyKingdom Hearts2 andDevil May Cryinfluences.
It’s very heavy on the somewhat cheesy anime dub voice acting, complemented by the great cel-shaded art style, and further exaggerated with the super-flashy animations that make me feel like making up power levels and form names that go on for several sentences.
The combat is a great balance between in-depth and easy-to-understand, with you dashing around enemies, slashing at them with your basic attack or launcher, then holding down the trigger to pull out some cool special moves that take a while to charge up.
Both characters get unique attacks, and both of them get a powered-up form that makes these moves turn into a power fantasy that shreds through enemy health bars with ease. That is, at least until the form runs out, and you go back to getting combo’d back and forth between two enemies.
5Swing Swamp
Eight Handfuls of Tasks
Swing Swamphas you playing as a spider being carried by another spider, trying to get your webbing ability back, and eventually going on an adventure where you getweb-slinging and swinging actionon top of getting a gun. Because why wouldn’t you get a gun?
It’s a combination of 3D platformer and shooter that makes for some incredibly hectic gameplay, tossing you into situations where you need to consider your swinging trajectory, pop your gun on any enemy in sight, and try your best to not get hit by a mass of mold.
After every major roadblock you overcome, you get another ridiculous move to add to your already kitted-out bag of tricks, and I especially love the machine gun. It takes a while to charge, but then you get to rapid-fire decimate everything around you like an absolute menace.
It’s incredibly goofy, with immaculate vibes and rather banging music, which ties it all together as an experience worth playing if you’re willing to put 100% of your brain towards multitasking on what feels like several different games all playing at the same time.
4Nautical Survival
Watertight Strategy
Nautical Survivalis partVampire Survivorsbullet-heaven, part boating experience, and part panic attack as you sort out a bunch of separate islands to upgrade weapons and income to fend off the growing massive wave of sea life that is out for blood on the waters.
Your arsenal of offensive options stems from a simple shotgun to a massive anchor that you can slowly throw at enemies to do a hefty blow of damage. Given the massive crowds you attract, it’s incredibly satisfying to land huge hits like that.
While theauto-attacking in this genre still feels strangeto me, it feels necessary in this game, with the large amount of multitasking required from controlling a ship with no power-steering and weaving through fish on your way to getting +0.15 coins per second.
After a few rounds of the routine expanding and acquiring land, you’ll face a huge boss, which makes you focus on fending off this massive foe while also dodging well-designed bullet patterns. This all feels immensely satisfying to pull off with the boat’s movement.
3Paper Animal Adventure
Trotting Up And Out
Paper Animal Adventureis an incredibly creative take on Action RPGs, throwing you into randomly generated levels and giving you attacks that feel turn-based, which only get improved the further you go on, given it’s also a roguelike with tons of options along the way.
It has a handful of unique characters that add some extra options to shake up each run, and the generation usually creates some interesting floors that feel fun to rush through, kill everything in sight, and swap characters to dispatch foes even faster.
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Why isn’t there a “Bullet Heaven” tag on Steam yet?
There are about a dozen things you get to upgrade with each character, but which stat you get to upgrade is randomized whenever you hit up a camp. This means you might have a tank with a slow attack rate, or a high damager with no defense, giving each character more purpose.
It’s wild to see it be this committed to roguelike gameplay while also having a story setup similar to Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, making you dive through a few different areas to grab a bunch of MacGuffins, and trying not to walk into random enemy attacks every loop.
2Advent NEON
An Electric Adventure
One of the most action-packed, dynamic, and fluid platformer beat-em-up combos I’ve ever seen isAdvent NEON. I’ve played it previously, but it’s featured in this Next Fest, and it feels even better than my previous experience with the title. It provides an excellent flow state feeling once you’re in the groove.
From bashing enemies’ heads in to running at mach ten and letting your massive fist attacks plow through enemies like it’s nothing, this game just feels incredibly good. Trying to parry attacks or dash into them for a bit of big punch bullet time is immaculate.
The style meter is off the charts, the music is popping, and replaying it over and over is further incentivized with optional level goals that are genuinely challenging and require you to steep in the mechanics and come out fully knowledgeable.
As a massive Sonic fan, it hits a ton of the right notes while also offering a new spin on things compared to the average Sonic-inspired game, with combat that brings your speed to a halt yet feels incredibly energetic and fluid due to the simply electric moveset.
