11 Demos From Steam Next Fest: February 2026
It’s that time of year again: Steam Next Fest! Where I cram as many demos as possible into my chaotic life and scream and enjoy seeing what games are coming out either this year or farther in the future.
Some of these I didn’t get around to recording, but this year a big percent of them I did—largely because I played less demos this time overall. Forgive me, I am juggling too many life things right now to try to play 40-50 demos. The best I could manage was about 7.
As per usual this list represents my own preference for cozy or silly and low stress games, as well as narratively intriguing stories or unique mechanics. Well fine, by “unique” I often mean “turn based” but also I do love to be surprised. I don’t tend to be interested in platformers, shooters, or anything very high intensity with my chronically ill and easily fatigued life. If this alignment of gaming interests sounds like yours, check out these demos!
Streamed or Recorded Demos
Dosa Divas | My Demo Let’s Play
Turn based game about returning home and fighting capitalism and eating dosas. I have no further comments, it was a fun little demo. I love love love turn based games, so this one scratched that itch. Fun cooking mini-games, RPG feels, level grinding, and a chill fishing mini-game. What more could you ask for? This one comes out soon—April 14!
This little slice of life game is about grief and mourning. Alo navigates the loss of her grandmother as the pandemic lockdown starts, and an old fishbowl toy comes to life and helps her process her grief. It’s endearing but heavy, so please keep the content in mind! This one is also coming out in April!
Greenhearth Necromancer | My VOD
Enjoy tending your grandmother’s plants—but also some of them are dead and you’re a necromancer, so enjoy tending your grandmother’s now undead plants, too! The protagonist of this one has deeply relatable levels of social anxiety.
Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts | My VOD
Have you ever yearned to make silly illuminated manuscript pages? Put butts on strange little guys? Trumpets everywhere—trumpets with butts? This one is for you.
Titanium Court | My Demo Let’s Play
I don’t really know how to explain Titanium Court and I appreciate that the marketing around it leans into the absurdity and surrealism of the game’s tone and form. It’s got match-3 elements, some fabulism featuring a magical Court of faeries over which you are the queen—and also, not a fairy! I’m definitely curious how the full game plays out.
The Witch’s Bakery | My Demo Let’s Play
Pitched as Kiki’s Delivery Service meets the Persona series, the art alone is so cute and whimsical that The Witch’s Bakery was on my must-play demo list. A friend kindly pointed me towards their demo call for creators to check it out slightly early, and I enjoyed the baking game mechanics and mini-game to navigate a puzzle to change a person’s heart—which aren’t quite as elaborate as the palaces in, say, Persona 5 when it comes to changing hearts but that’s totally okay.
Vampire Crawlers | My Demo Let’s Play
From the folks that brought you Vampire Survivors, now have another time sink! This time in the form of a, well, dungeon crawler. It uses a lot of same sounds, enemies, vibes, etc., from Vampire Survivors and I can’t wait to see how ridiculous the abilities wind up being. This one is slightly more strategic, and turn based, so it yet again scratches my turn based loving itchy spots. Hmm. That doesn’t sound ideal; listen, I have a lot of allergies. It's fine.
Honorable Mentions
Okay, I somewhat lied, have a surprise 4 more demos. Because life has been so hectic, I couldn’t stream or record all the Next Fest demos I wanted to, but I did manage to play a few more. These are the demos I enjoyed but had no energy left to do anything other than simply play in the dark, too sleepy to do more than add them to this list.
Card battles in a unique web of argument format! Prove the river, recently acknowledged as a legal person, was murdered when an oil spill set it on fire. Really interested in this one overall, though the card battle system is a bit confusing at first.
MULTITRACK TRAIN DRIFTING!!! I literally do not need to say more, I don’t think, but basically it’s what if skating but as a train and across multiple tracks and you did sick flips with your train through ridiculous courses? Again. Completely sold.
Turn based rhythm game, you say? These are how you summon me to play your game. The normal difficulty was a little rough for me, but that is why I love story modes. This one has fun music elements, do more damage based on the current genre of song (rock, pop, etc.). This one also comes out in April—April 7, to be precise. That’s 3/11 games on this list coming out in April, please look forward to it.
I love soothing diorama creation games. This one is cute and atmospheric, though it needs a bit of working on glitchiness and not making my computer go to space. When it fully comes out, I’ll sink so much time into this to make moss-covered scenes of ruins. I’m a sucker for overgrown ruins aesthetically.
And that’s it for this year’s Steam Next Fest! It’s not a lot, but they were all delightfully good demos in quality and vibes. Every Next Fest or big indie game demo event I always walk away with a happy sigh at indie games and how creative and unique they are. This year is no exception, despite the ever-growing amount of infuriating genAI slop making it difficult to wade through and find anything. Seriously fuck AI.
Curious about previous Next Fests? Check out: 2025, 2024.
If you like any of my demos, you can watch more on my YouTube channel!
Feel free to tell me some of your favorite demos over on the Patreon post (which is public and free, I just do this as a moderation tool because public comments give me stress hives conceptually).
If you like this and want to support more posts like it, feel free to throw a $1 or more at me on either Patreon or Ko-fi!
