It's time for another Steam Next Fest folks! A bumper crop of free demos have taken over Valve's storefront this week (starting Monday, October 14 and ending Monday, October 21st) which makes it the perfect opportunity to play a whole bunch of thinky games.
Team thinky haven't had a chance to play every single demo since there are hundreds BUT we've chosen a handful of puzzle-centric demos we liked - and hopefully, you'll like them too!
Below you'll find our picks and links to each game's Steam page. Played something that's not listed below? Join our Thinky Games Discord and let us know! There are lots of Steam Next Fest talk this week in the community so you'll almost definitely find something you'll love. But for now, here are our picks!
Observe
Observe is a familiar concept - record your actions and then play them back, interacting with your past self - but with a unique twist. Over the course of a level, you'll be interacting with many copies of yourself, shining light into each other's space to activate switches. Of course, you'll later realise that an earlier recording needs adjusting to help with the timing elsewhere, creating a tangled knot of time-loop puzzling chaos! — Joe
Wilmot Works It Out
As someone who loved Wilmot's Warehouse but can only take so much organisational anxiety, Wilmot Works It Out is a much more relaxing game. Playing once again as Wilmot, you'll be putting jigsaw pieces together to create pretty artwork, and when you're done you can hang that artwork on the walls of your home. Puzzle boxes delivered to your front door include a mix of multiple pieces from different pictures, so you'll need to sort through each delivery, placing pieces together as you go. With a soothing soundtrack and zero time pressure, this is a lovely laid-back demo to get cosy with. You can read our more in-depth impressions here. — Rachel
PLUG IT IN
"I saw PLUG IT IN (I'm not shouting at you, that's how it's spelled on the store) and thought it was your usual puzzle where you try to find the right slot for each piece to fill a grid. And while I can't deny it is the kind of game we've seen quite a few times, it's just very enjoyable and it made me smile. The description said "a juicy puzzle game" and I totally underestimated that, it's so playful and tactile. It's a simple yet very well-crafted game that is just perfect to wind down and relax." — Luis
Valley of Shadow
Valley of Shadow is another a game about casting light (and shadow!) to activate switches, but this time in first-person environments. However, Valley of Shadow also explores a deeply personal true story of grief, featuring real photos and videos from the developer's life. — Joe
Nurikabe World
We always love attempts to make paper logic puzzles more approachable and delightful, and Nurikabe World does just that! For those who don't know Nurikabe, it's a logic puzzle where you have to shade in cells to create regions containing numbers that match their size. In Nurikabe World, rather than just shading an abstract grid, you're creating rivers in very pretty and relaxing environments - a delight! — Joe
Glitch Dungeon Crystal
Any game where I get to be a cute grandma I will play it, so Glitch Dungeon Crystal was at the top of my list for Next Fest. Not only do you get to play a sweet little old lady but you get to solve some interesting mind-bending puzzles too. Using the granny's different abilities, you need to traverse a dusty dungeon using your different powers to access seemingly impossible platforms and rooms and swat away dust clouds with your broom. We've seen this concept before, but Glitch Dungeon Crystal does it incredibly well and in a way which feels oh-so-satisfying. Granny is old and so can only remember two powers at a time, so deciding what power to use and where becomes part of the puzzle. — Rachel
Stig
Stig is a tricky little game about moving through colors in a particular order. In each level, you're given a different sequence of colors, and must figure out the correct path through the maze-like puzzle. Later, you'll be sliding little blobs of paint around, recoloring the floor and really stepping up the challenge a notch! Check out our video playthrough of Stig here. — Joe
Bonus pick: Squid Grid trailer song
We didn't get around to playing the demo for Squid Grid BUT you gotta watch the trailer on the game's Steam page for the best song you've heard all week. We just wanted to give it a lil shout-out.
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