The many demos of Summer Game Fest 2024
Aloft
Aloft is another sandbox survival co-op game where you punch trees to gather resources to build the axe to get the wood to build the cabin. This one takes place on some kind of sky island that I think you end up turning into some kind of skyship to fly around. The concept interests me, but the demo lost me pretty hard with how plain it felt. Perhaps it will grab me again down the road, and perhaps it is something I ought to try in my free time, but as a ME problem, I think I am officially fatigued on this genre of game. I would recommend checking out the demo to anyone who has an interest in this genre, though!
Tactical Breach Wizards
I honestly went into Tactical Breach Wizards thinking that it was a different game altogether, and what I came out with was a surprisingly fun game that exceeded my expectations. I’m not good at X-COM style combat, at all, and I often don’t enjoy playing too many games of that genre. However, the humor and story of Tactical Breach Wizards, mixed with how the levels played out in an almost aracadey/puzzle hybrid, made it pretty fun and surprising as a title. Definitely worth checking out for fans of turn-based RPGs.
Dreamcore
I played a demo fairly similar to this recently, and actually picked up the full game based on it, called POOLS. Where I think POOLS and Dreamcore may differ is that POOLS had a level editor and user-submitted levels, if I recall correctly, and Dreamcore seems like more of a strictly linear experience that contains a narrative surrounding the liminal space phenomenon, which has been pretty overdone but still holds some interest for me depending on the presentation. I didn’t go too far into Dreamcore’s demo because I was certain that not only did I know what to expect, but that I would end up playing this when it came out.
Moon Mystery
Moon Mystery was very pretty to look at, and very ambitious for what it was trying to accomplish, which I think was a blend of genres like puzzle-solving, exploration, ship combat and FPS combat, into one sci-fi epic that tells the story of… the moon being haunted? Unfortunately, the game fell a bit short of the expectations its description laid out for me, and I felt it was trying to do too much instead of focusing down on one thing it wanted to accomplish, and doing it well. Ultimately I was hoping for something a little more focused, like Deliver Us Mars, and perhaps the demo – which presented mere slices of the game and examples of gameplay vs any part of the story – wasn’t a good representation of what the final product will be. I hope not! I don’t think it’s a bad game, and I definitely give it props for what it had to offer, I just think that for me it was a little too basic.