Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. I've reluctantly paused Ball x Pit for long enough to share some neat new releases and more details on upcoming games — some of which are arriving very soon. We've got a notable update for a classic as well.
Steam Next Fest is taking place at the minute, and you still have until Monday to join in by checking out some of the many, many demos that have gone live for the event. Thanks partially (okay, almost entirely) to being unable to escape Ball x Pit, I've only tried a fewm Next Fest demos so far.
I'm a fan of Aerial_Knight's Never Yield and after last year's sequel, it's cool to see solo developer Neil Jones (aka Aerial_Knight) trying something totally different. Aerial_Knight’s DropShot is a skydiving first-person shooter with finger guns and dragons. It’s a single-player game in which the aim is to take out your opponents and reach the ground first. Like Jones' previous games, it's stylish and fast-paced. I'm planning to check out the full game when it arrives down the line.
It certainly helps to be a fast, accurate typer when you put words together for a living, but I wasn't quick or precise enough to win any rounds in the Final Sentence demo. This is a battle royale for up to 100 players in which you're at a typewriter and have to bash out sentences (or other strings of letters, numbers and symbols) in a race to the finish. If you run out of time, make too many mistakes or don't win, it's lights out, courtesy of the masked figure with a revolver who’s standing in front of you.
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There are some nice touches here. Having to type out the rules in the first few rounds is a clever idea on the part of developer Button Mash. I haven't won a round myself yet (I finished in second place a couple of times), but watched some streamers play. It's very funny when the winning player flips the bird at the guy holding a revolver in front of them.
Final Sentence is coming to Steam later this year. Maybe I'll have learned how to spell "sphinx" by then.
There are a few other Next Fest demos I'd like to try this weekend, namely:
I've been looking forward to Skate Story for forever, but I think I'm going to skip that demo. I'm already sold and I'm fine with waiting a couple more months before playing the whole thing.
There are a couple of showcases coming up next week that might be worth keeping an eye on. The third annual edition of DreadXP's indie horror showcase is set for 1PM ET on October 23. You can catch that on the publisher's YouTube channel.
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