Location being: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4395870/Magical_Girl_ER/
I’ve been going through the Next Fest demos thus far, and I feel this one is actually good. So good in fact, I wanted to draw attention to it specifically.
The premise is this: You are a higher-up working at a healthcare firm. There are a bunch of monsters causing mayhem outside, and magical girls are being sent out to stop them. Naturally, the magical girls will get hurt in the line of duty, which brings them to your firm. Your boss is taking a vacation soon, so you need to handle patient admissions and their care while he’s away.
Unfortunately, these magical girls live in dire times. You get to choose which patients you admit, and your firm’s reputation goes down if a patient dies in your care. Your boss also makes sure to tell you that you should prioritize admitting the more famous magical girls, since turning them away would also hurt reputation.
And then there’s the treatment itself. You can check heart rate and temperature, which are free to use. However, other actions like asking the magical girl about her health or examining body parts consumes stamina, and you only have 3 stamina to work with per day. You get a booklet that tells you what the health condition could be depending on the symptoms you find, but the booklet rarely tells you one specific answer. Usually, you have to guess between several options.
And guessing has huge stakes. If you do nothing, the magical girl could recover on her own, or get worse. If you choose the wrong treatment, her condition will worsen greatly, but choosing right could get her discharged the next day. However, even if you choose correctly, the magical girl could develop other issues, which you will also have to treat.
To give an example: I was caring for one girl, Nail, who developed more issues after I cured her first affliction. The symptoms narrowed things down to fractures, which need a bandage, or internal injuries, which need a surgical kit. The last symptom I found was bruising, and the magical girl said she’s feeling okay, so I went with the bandage. I wasn’t exactly eager to cut her open instead. But it turns out that I really did need to use the surgical kit, because she died that night.
The soundtrack is great too. Love it.
It’s a lot of fun, honestly. And the full game comes out on the 27th, so that’s good too.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3893550/Geodyssey_Demo/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3992630/There_Are_No_Ghosts_at_the_Grand_Demo/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3304670/Acts_of_Blood_Demo/
three i had wishlisted got demos. gonna mess with them tomorrow
Geodyssey seems fishy to me. Most of the scenes in the trailer and in their Steam page are very clearly inspired by games like Superliminal and Antichamber, but ok, nothing wrong with that. Then that red barn appears out of nowhere with a completely different artstyle from the other scenes and come on, that goes beyond inspiration, it’s a perfect copy of a level in Hyperbolica. I don’t know if this is the case but a page like that is what I’d expect to see if I asked ChatGPT to make me a mindbreaking first-person puzzle game, just a shameless mix of popular games with no rhyme or reason.
Nice I’ll have to check those out.
Wow, geodyssey looks awesome
That almost sounds like a medical version of Papers Please which is a really cool idea that I’m surprised hasn’t been explored before.
Lol, never thought “Loli Triage” would end up on my wishlist :D
I’ve downloaded a bunch of demos, hopefully it won’t take over a month to play them like the last time
My rule for demos is that I jump ship if I’m not hooked in the first 10 minutes. Saves a bunch of time. Only time I break this is if I’m in a bad mood and want to talk shit about a crappy demo in a Steam review.
Similar here, 20 minutes top to see if the game will go to the wishlist or trash bin. Sometimes it is kinda sad because you find a game you can clearly see they poured their love into it but either the gameplay or some design choices just don’t make the cut.