Steam’s Next Fests, where developers share hundreds of demos, tend to get most of the focus allotted to playable pre-release morsels of various games each year, but it’s definitely worth noticing that Microsoft frequently does the same over on Xbox. The ID@Xbox Indie Selections Demo Fest (catchy) has been running on and off for a few years, offering a few dozen trials across a limited time, often featuring some stunning games. The latest features 36 free demos to check out until the end of December, mostly for Xbox consoles, and has some bangers. But that’s a lot of games to sort through, so we’ve picked out nine of the most interesting you might want to check out.
ID@Xbox’s continual promotion and support of indie games is very welcome, especially given how easily they can be lost on the Xbox Series’ clumsy store pages, usually only picked up by the casual shopper if they show up on Game Pass. So all power to efforts like this, giving a push to small teams in an overwhelming marketplace. You can browse the full selection over on Xbox Wire, or of course you can look through them on your Xbox console… No, extraordinarily, there’s no presence for the Fest on the console UI anywhere I can find, not even in the heavily buried “Demos” section. This seems like something of an oversight. Instead, to find any of the listed games, you need to search for them individually on the store, where their demos will then appear. Here are a few worth grabbing first:
Just the title alone tells you everything you need to know about this demo. Yes, it’s absolutely a spoof of post-PowerWash Simulator cleaning games, and yes, it really is about laundering money. But even better, it conflates the two into a game about literally washing money in the name of crime. Cash Cleaner Simulator came out on Steam earlier this year, and has been met with a jubilant reaction.
Another game that came out on Steam earlier this year, Deck of Haunts combines deckbuilding roguelite gameplay with literally being a haunted house. It’s all about being truly dreadful, luring humans into your creepy rooms and then exploiting their fears to drain them of their essence! Despite proving popular on PC, it’s gone under-noticed by the press—hopefully an Xbox release will see that put right.
The second game from Canadian team Thousand Stars, Aikyam is a Bollywood-inspired third-person RPG, where characters Vishva, Ramli, and Guruji battle demonic attacks in a game about the rippling effects of kindness! There’s a whole Diwali-looking vibe to the art, and the combat is presented like bombastic Bollywood fight scenes, and seriously, how are you not already downloading this demo?
Ice Pick Lodge’s Pathologic was one of the most extraordinary indie games ever made, with its dream-like delivery of a plague doctor simulator, translations so poor as to become genuinely poetic, and gameplay broken to the point of barely being held together all adding to the experience. Its sequel was similarly broken, but didn’t possess the same magic, but hopefully the series can rebound for this third entry. The trailers certainly suggest something utterly bemusing and hauntingly alluring.
I’m pleased to report that there is no sign of any shortage in fresh ideas when it comes to puzzle RPGs, and Cassette Boy looks to be further proof. This is a game in which anything you’re not looking at ceases to exist. Despite looking like a 2D game, it is in fact 3D in a way that’s somewhat reminiscent of Fez, but where rotating the isometric 2D world causes everything that becomes hidden to literally no longer be there. Still confused? Just play the demo!
Side-scrolling platformer Knuckle Jet looks like a combination of old-school acrobatic jumping and punching, combined with a stunning stop-motion-esque aesthetic, and perhaps even a little bit of bullet-hell. I especially love that it describes itself as featuring “scientifically inaccurate flight action.” This is from Rain Games, who previously gave us the splendid Teslagrad series, so there’s good reason to be very hopeful.
2018’s Semblence was an inspired and ingenious puzzle platformer, but after its release developer Nyamakop went very quiet. Now they’re finally back,with Relooted, a game about repatriating African artifacts from Western museums. A group of thieves from a number of different African countries team up to commit cunning heists to recover items museums have hidden in their vaults. It looks like it’s lifted all the right ideas from Gunpoint, with a mixture of pre-planning and improvised escapes, with a bunch of parkour movement thrown in for good measure.
The reason modern robots are all so rubbish is because everyone’s forgotten to make them out of cardboard boxes. Clearly that’s the only sensible medium from which to build, as proven by local co-op party game Limbot. Up to four players can take control of one limb each of this person wearing a robo-guy costume, and attempt to work together to control it as it stomps through a very easily broken cardboard world. You can have a go at this extreme silliness right away, which the makers boast is the “ultimate physics-based city stomping experience.”
Worshippers of Cthulhu came out earlier this year on PC, and despite proving very popular with those who played it, went completely under the radar. So let’s hope this Lovecraftian colony sim has a second chance at success with its Xbox outing. It’s all about leading a cult hell-bent on raising Cthulhu and bringing about the cosmic obliteration of the current order, so y’know, normal Wednesday. Very much inspired by the Anno series, but with a somewhat more malevolent approach.
