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The best free demos from the Steam Autumn FestivalBest of fest! Forget the rest!

Best of fest! Forget the rest!

A screenshot from Mind Scanners showing one of the treatment machines in use. A hand is inside a box on screen and is hooked up to several wires.

A screenshot of a dogfight in Fabular: Once Upon A Spacetime. A small spaceship that looks a bit like a beetle is attacking a mine with a pair of axes. Around it, small circular planetoids covered in mushrooms are floating about.

A screenshot of a business negotiation happening in Coffee Noir. A young woman stands in front of shelves of cakes. She is saying ‘Hello. Thanks, the décor was my father’s work. He was very careful to create a friendly atmosphere. Please, don’t call me miss…'

Steam returns with actual hundreds of free demos for its Autumn Festival. I am but one woman, so I could never get through them all, but I have played what I would characterise asa lotover the past two days. My own personal labour of Hercules was undertaken so that I could bring you, the reader, a list of my favourite demos to provide, if not an exhaustive list, then at least a jumping off point.

I’ve got something for all of yez, gentle pals. Puzzle games? RPGs? Action? Strategy? Why yes, even that. I’ve got an EDM murder rave, dressing up in pre-revolutionary Paris, ripping up legal documents as a cute turnip, and rodents you should live in fear of. So many games! Your favourite is sure to be among them.

I’ve prioritised games that aren’t out on PC yet and that I haven’t demoed before, so we’re keeping hot n’ fresh. As such, this doesn’t include demos for games I am already looking forwards to or already know I like, includingRing Of Pain,Haven,Gamedec,Manifold Garden, andKine. All of these have demos in the Fest, and all are worth your time (the latter two being already out via the Epic Games Store). It also doesn’t includeCats Organized Neatly, cos Nat got to it before me. But it would have been on this list otherwise, so I’m saying it also counts as a best of fest.

A screenshot of the office in Coffee Noir, featuring a desk with neo-retro computer filing cabinets for staff management, a display of timecards for shift management, and a big notice board for your not-so-secret investigation

Coffee Noir

Get the free Coffee Noir demo here.

A screenshot of a dress shop in Ambition: A Minuet In Power. The player character is trying on a ‘racy common outfit’, which is actually a large yellow-green gown with a full skirt, purple bows and a cape.

Ambition: A Minuet In Power

You have a level of Peril and Credibility to keep an eye on, which I suspect will have an effect on the ending you might get, but in the demo there are some conversational gambits that require, for example, you be a certain amount of credible. It’s also fun seeing what the outcomes are: a man was a dickhead to me at a party, so I insulted him back. It added to my Peril, but the people at the party enjoyed it.

Best ‘til last, though: what you wear is hugely important. Different social circles approve of different types of dress, and if you wear the same gown twice in a row you’ll suffer for it. There’s a whole dressing up game to be played in tandem with your careful social navigating.

Get the free Ambition: A Minuet In Power demo here.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Cover image for YouTube video

Raji: An Ancient Epic

Raji is already out on Switch, but it has a little more to go before PC launch. Being chosen as the saviour of mankind is a lot of pressure for a young woman, but Raji seems up to the task. Demons are invading the human realm, and after her brother Golu is kidnapped, Raji sets off to get him back and defeat the demon lord Mahabalasura. Because Raji was a gifted acrobat before she was a hero, the combat in this is correspondingly quick and high-flying. Raji spins, jumps, flips and impales with admirable grace. The isometric 3D viewpoint can be a little awkward in a punch up, but otherwise it’s a grand old time to run up a wall and smash yer spear down on a demon’s head.

The setting is also very lovely, and the cutscenes, which are styled like paper shadow puppets, are beautiful. Plus, I learned a bunch of cool Hindu mythology in just the short space of the demo. I came across a series of murals depicting a specific myth, and narrators Vishnu and Durga (two important gods in the pantheon) told the story as I climbed around them. It’s refreshing during a period where we seem very keen on retreading Greek/Roman/Viking myths.

Get the free Raji: An Ancient Epic demo here.

A screenshot from Strobophagia showing the player character looking at their phone. There is a text that reads ‘welcome all, to headless where love and wine flows free. however partake at your own peril as all attending this evening will certainly perish’. In the background, attendees of the rave are visible dancing in body suits covered with neon paint, some with creepy smiling faces painted over their own.

Strobophagia: Rave Horror

As a concept, ‘going to an EDM rave in some isolated woods’ is already my idea of actual horror, so best foot forwards fromStrobophagia. As you may imagine, while the party is pretty good vibes and chill when you turn up, albeit everyone is in a disturbing neon bodysuit, things swiftly get creepy. There are separate ritual areas where you complete unsettling puzzles and hear horrible noises. People keep telling you to stay in the light. Oh good.

Get the free Strobophagia: Rave Horror demo here.

A screenshot from Nuts showing a CRT monitor playing back recorded footage of two squirrels crossing a river.

Nuts

Whenever my mother and I saw a squirrel when I was little, she would comment with a curious zealotry that grey squirrels are an invasive species that have almost wiped out our native reds, the little bastards. In Nuts, however, it is most definitely the red squirrels wot are up to no good.

The squirrels show up starkly against the mostly teal backdrop of the forest, but it’s still a fun puzzle to track where they go - a process that can take several nights of fine tuning. And it certainly ends on a strange, perhaps even sinister enough note that you’ll want to keep playing past the bounds of the demo.

Get the free Nuts demo here.

A screenshot from Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart Of The Forest showing, on the right side, a large blood moon rising behind the silhouettes of trees that seem to have impaled bodies on them. Beneath the moon is the figure of a woman, whose hair has grown to resemble the branches of a tree. On the left side of the screenshot, text descrbies a dream from protagonist Maia’s point of view, in which piles of mutilated corpses become trees and treetrunks.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart Of The Forest

I know everyone’s mileage varies with text adventures, but Heart OfThe Foresthere is a great example of the genre done very well. You play asMaia, who has come to her estranged father’s home town in Poland to try and uncover the secrets of her heritage there. Player knowledge vs. character knowledge means that we already have a pretty good idea of what that heritage is, but that doesn’t make it less fun to sort of wryly navigate Maia through it.

A key factor is Maia’s rage, as well as her willpower. You can earn and spend both as you explore the town and surrounding area - the old abandoned wolf den in the forest, for example. Do you feel more for the abandoned mother, or her stolen pups that died in captivity? Rage and willpower change what sort of options you have, dialogue and otherwise, but the choices also affect the sort of person your specific version of Maia is.

Get the free Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart Of The Forest demo here.

A screenshot from Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown showing a small bedroom with a desk and computer. Overlaid on that is a card battle; the audience has just played a Weak Comeback card. The player’s hand of potential moves includes cards called Self Deprecation, Pocket Healer, That’s What She Said and Dad Joke

Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown

You may find the name and concept off putting, but this was one of my favourites of my favourites. You play as an aspiring streamer, and part of the game is balancing that with, you know, life. You have to pay rent, so early on, when your stream isn’t making money, you’ll probably have to go to work a ‘real’ job. These can be a drain on your mental health, which functions as your starting HP for a battle, so you have to take time to rest too.

Ah yes, the battles. When you stream, your audience is your opponent - the HP meter you’re trying to drain is their demand for you to do interesting stuff, and the attacks you weather are trolls being mean. Your action points to play your own moves are represented as toxicity - so if you play a devastating triple kill feat, it will do more damage at the same time as raising the toxicity of your stream. But the more toxic your stream is, the less ad friendly it might be. Think of your affiliate programme! Perhaps better to play a simple Dad Joke instead…

I’m not usually a fan of a card battle, but the way this one integrates real life vs. job life vs. dreams is really interesting, and I really want to play more.

Get the free Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown demo here.

A screenshot of combat on a mission in Stirring Abyss. Two divers are standing at either side of the sea floor. There are bits of seaweed dotted around, and three jellyfish sparking electricity between them. A grid of green squares shows the potential movement area of one of the divers.

In this case, a navy research sub has encountered something unspecified and horrible, so you have to repair and improve it while going on missions to discover what the hap is heckening. These involve your squad, clad in big old-timey diver suits, moving and double moving across the grid that is the ocean floor, and dispatching squiggly enemies of a jellyfish nature. You have all the hits: reloading your spear gun taking a whole action, melee range, chance to hit. But there’s fun new stuff to take into account, like your oxygen levels.

A screenshot showing a patient file in Mind Scanners. Rutger Hoof is a 53 year old who believes he is an oak tree.

Mind Scanners

Could go either way, this one, eh? It is, of course, set in a retro-dystopian megacity called The Structure. The Structure seems to be both a place and an oppressive system of government, since it has your daughter hostage and is making you do all this mind scanning business. Much like Papers, Please, you have bills to pay and quotas to meet, plus the choice of earning the trust of The Structure or helping a mysterious rebel organisation.

You get money for every so called “anomaly citizen” you diagnose, but you get much less for finding someone sane than for finding them insane and treating them. Treatment comes in the form of excising the insanity with a series of arcadey machines, like one that sort of sucks the mental illness out of your patients mouth. The trouble is that extensive treatment also removes a big dose of someone’s personality. It’s a good demo - the medical machines in particular are weird and have all sorts of wires and suckers and close ups of eyes. But I couldn’t entirely tell from the demo whether Mind Scanners actually has anything to say about mental health or medication.

Get the free Mind Scanners demo here.

A screenshot showing the top down view of a mission in Kosmokrats. a little round drone is amongst six different bits of space station, made of squares and triangles, that it has to jigsaw together into one connected piece.

Kosmokrats

They have different coloured connector panels that will snap together once they’re close enough, and other objectives for each level (don’t squish any cosmonauts, don’t damage the potato storage, save as many pods full of new recruits as possible, etc and so on). Learning the turning tolerance of your drone, and where to push or pull on the bits of space station, gives you a real sense of accomplishment. I’m the best drone pilot ever, dammit. I can see it staying fun for a lot longer than the length of the demo.

Get the free Kosmokrats demo here.

A screenshot of Turnip Boy having a conversation with Old Man Lemon, who is a lemon. He is saying ‘That watering can means so much to me… I really hope no one stole it it’s the only thing I have left from the ol’ lady…’. Turnip Boy has just taken the watering can in question.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

Get the free Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion demo here.

A screenshot from Fabular: Once Upon A Spacetime showing an encounter with a friendly knight. He is illustrated standing on the right side of the screen, holding a sword about as tall as he is. His armour and helmet make him look like a church spire. He is describing how he was marooned on a small rock by marauders.

Fabular: Once Upon A Spacetime

This is when it switches to top down combat, usually against the backdrop of an asteroid field. Fabular succeeds at feeling distinctly medieval, so the dogfights seem more like jousts. Your starting spaceship is equipped with two massive swords, and the ranged attack only has a few shots in it (though you can use money you find to upgrade and improve things). I was very bad at the combat, and couldn’t figure out how I could repair or resupply between fights, but Fabular is also a roguelike. You know what they say: if at first you don’t succeed, return to your ailing and unhappy father’s court and try again.

Get the free Fabular: Once Upon A Spacetime demo here.

A screenshot from Whateverland showing protagonist Vincent (a young-ish white man dressed all in black, with black hair and smudged black makeup around his eyes) having just released another man from a wardrobe. This second man looks vaguely Elizabethan, and is floating in mid air. They appear to be in a rubbish tip. On the other side of the screen, a third man who has the wild grey hair and flying goggles of an eccentric scientist stereotype, is standing next to a ramshackle house looking a bit folorn.

Whateverland

I think it’s in my contract that I get to write about at least one point and click puzzle adventure per round up. There are a few knocking around the Autumn fest, but Whateverland, for whateverreason, is the one that spoke to me the most. Protagonist Vincent is a cat burglar who robs what he thinks is a lonely old lady, only to discover it is actually a powerful witch who banishes him to a kind of neverland but for people and things she doesn’t like. Everyone cast that gradually changes to a form representing their true nature, which is why you end up talking to a giant Raven and pick up a sidekick with ghost legs but a normal torso.

I really enjoyed the self-aware tone, and the whimsy in the art and puzzles that never quite got into annoying Noel Fielding territory. The puzzles themselves, quite crucial in a point and click, usually have two solutions: a nice one, where you help people out and do favours, or a naughty one, where you, for example pick a lock for a shortcut. But at what karmic cost!

Get the free Whateverland demo here.

A screenshot of Undungeon showing the protagonist, Void, standing in a desert in front of what looks like some kind of portal; it is a green semi-circle of metal, with a blue green field of light inside it. Opposite Void is a shorter figure wrapped in red robes.

Undungeon

I also found your character, who self-christens as Void, very very endearing. They are a child, essentially, who knows nothing, and despite looking terrifying, like a python ate a crocodile and a deer and sicked up the bones into something new, Void is very open and curious. I hope there is the possibility for a happy ending.

Get the free Undungeon demo here.

A screenshot showing the street in Mesmer, in 3D and third person. The camera is behind the protagonist who is a woman in blue shorts and a white shirt with a brown bob of hair. She runs down a very colourful street, the floor scattered with pink and yellow petals, the houses each a different colour, their rooftops strung with bunting. She is off to convince three cannery workers to join the union strike.

Mesmer

How you deliver can vary. I was given some blackmail on an important merchant to try and squeeze him for a donation for the striking cannery workers. In the end that still wasn’t enough to convince him (it being partly up to chance, with a kind of Wheel Of Fortune mechanic) so I had to do a favour for him, which involved getting some hired muscle, but then the muscle also wanted a favour which turned into asking a bunch of different merchants to rescind a complaint about him, who all had their own potential favours to ask.

In the end, I missed the deadline for getting the donation to the works. Woah oh. Good stuff.

Get the free Mesmer demo here.