Would you look at that? February 2022’s edition of Steam Next Fest has hit the Steam front page and you can bet your sweet rear ends I’m going to have a look through the oodles and oodles of offerings available!
Since I ended the last roundup with some crass entertainment, let’s start off this entry in the same vein. I present to you fine folks Sluggerfly Entertainment’s Hell Pie.
While the first entry in my previous roundup (which can be found here) was as cute as this I assure you Hell Pie is in as poor taste as you could desire. We play Nate, the Demon of Bad Taste, and his (un)willing angelic companion, Nugget, whose rather dishonorable task is to gather the foulest, grossest, most disgusting ingredients to make a birthday pie for Satan.
Yes, you read that right.
As you may have gathered Nate’s divine wee pal who is being dragged along for the ride is chained to Nate and is there to offer some angelic insight, and more importantly, be used as a grappling hook or swung around to bash some baddies as required. It’s a deliciously dark take on a mascot platformer, riddled with dark, dark humor, obscenities galore, and things that will make you heave. It’s brilliant. Think Happy Tree Friends and you’re on the right path.
Requiring a whopping six hundred and sixty-six megabytes of RAM according to the system requirements (I see what you did there!) Hell Pie is slated to release sometime this year.
From the foul and fun to the adorable and addicting and keeping up the cute start this article is off to, we turn an eye to Feed All Monsters by DU&I.
If you’re familiar with delightful titles such as Dogs Organized Neatly, Cats Organized Neatly and Virtual Cottage you’ll know exactly what sort of adorable treat you’re in for. The aim of the game? Well, deliver some munchies to some monsters. Feed All Monsters is a cozy little Line Puzzler in which you must find the best path for each worker to get the tantalizing, tasty treats to ensure the little terror’s tummies are full.
The complication is that each of your delivery folks (Melonica, Mun-Chu and Umarius) have different distances they can travel and offer different amounts of food every time they are close enough to serve up some scran to the cute creatures and it makes for an adorable adventure through the levels. Scheduled for a release date of Quarter 2 of 2022, it’s absolutely worth keeping an eye out for.
If you’re looking to go fast, then we’ll swiftly move on to Angel Matrix’ Neon White. A mix of gunplay, parkour, and more.
In Neon White you play as, well, titular character Neon White. An assassin who has been dragged to heaven to compete with other assassins to clean up heaven’s demon problem in a bid to earn one thing: Redemption.
Only the fastest and highest-ranking Neons get the chance to be redeemed. You don’t pick up guns, you pick up ‘Soul Cards’ which can either be used as guns in the traditional FPS sense or you can discard them as you run for more movement-based mechanics: double jumping, forward dashing, bombs to place to deal with walls and use as a method of gaining some more air are but a few examples.
All while this goes on, you have the opportunity to get to know your fellow assassins and characters in heaven.
The clean, pristine presentation of Mirror’s Edge collides with the stylish, sharp, and stark design of Persona making for a game that’s definitely worth picking up if you are a fan of either when it releases in Early 2022.
Right, you scheming gitz! It’s time to make WAAAAAAGH!! in Rogueside’s gloriously daft Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef.
There’s no such thing as having too much dakka! In a game that fellow TBG member =RaggA= informed me that Games Workshop missed a trick by not calling it “Metal Slugga”, Shootas, Blood & Teef is just gloriously good fun. A nod to titles like Metal Slug or the flash-based, sidescrolling shooting games we used to play while bunking off in class Shootas, Blood & Teef offers hand-drawn environments to wreak havoc in, four characters with their own flair and equipment to bring to the world, online and local co-op, and if the demo is anything to go by, some hilarious one-liners!
Get your boyz out and gather the green skins, Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef will launch sometime in 2022. WAAAAAAGH!!
Now for something a little more sombre. Spiral Circus’ atmospheric, 2D puzzle horror Silt.
If you’re a fan of Limbo, Silt will be right up your alley. You fit the diving suit of a lone diver, lost in the deep, dark sea with the odd ability to possess the creatures swimming around you. It is with this power that you solve puzzles around you, It’s quiet, unsettlingly so and the only sound you will hear is the sound of the sea stirring around you. It’s a fantastic experience and I highly recommend giving the demo a download. Releasing in Spring 2022, this is worth keeping track of.
Finally, we will end on A Little to the Left. A cozy wee puzzler by Max Inferno that’s sure to be a hit with folk who are organization daft!
I must admit, I do enjoy organizing things and puzzle games, I was in love with Unpacking (which I highly, highly recommend!) and A Little to the Left is a fantastic little title. It’s intuitive, it’s easy to play, its simplistic art style is charming and there’s also a cat who might swipe at your meticulously arranged dinner setting and knock things around just to be a pain. Typical cat behavior! All you need is a mouse. A Little to the Left is a title you can just pick up and indulge in. If you’re looking to scratch that organizational itch, A Little to the Left will release in August 2022.
That concludes my Steam Next Fest February 2022 highlights! Thank you for spending your time with me. You’d be doing yourself a disservice by not perusing the plethora of titles that are available. Now’s an excellent time to download a demo or two and discover something new. In keeping with the mood created by A Little to the Left all I can say is this: Cheerio!
Terror-Byte Gaming 