Xbox’s Winter Game Fest Ends Next Week, Don’t Miss These Demos

Loot River takes genre-blending to new heights. The game plays like a mix of Bloodborne and Tetris. This puzzle-meets-atmospheric-roguelike game first popped up in March of last year, and its concept grabbed our attention. This demo is just as simple as we expected. It takes place along several waterways, where you can travel forward to engage enemies and move platforms across the map. Death will be a constant companion, but it’s not the end. In the demo, dying sends your character back to a hub world complete with NPCs that hint at the game’s dark story. Loot River is coming sometime in 2022, though we don’t know the exact date.

One of the event’s headliners, Nobody Saves the World is an irreverent trip through a fantasy realm. Your character, Nobody, wakes in an unfamiliar dwelling – without any pants – and promptly sets off to figure out what’s going on. In pursuit of this goal, Nobody ends up picking up an enchanted wand with the ability to change his appearance into other creatures. One of the new forms is a rats, which eats enemies and crawls in tight places. As you win more foes, experience points are earned and your physiques expand. The combat is fun, the game is inventive, and you shouldn’t miss out on the chance to play.

Lonesome Village, with its 2-D art style and humanoid animal protagonist caught our attention from the very first moment. As an adventure coyote you travel to a small town and discover that all the villager have mysteriously disappeared. Quickly following the cozy-looking world’s version of Thanos’ snap, a suspicious tower rises out of the ground to loom over the desolate town. In the demo, it’s your job to make your way up the tower by solving interesting puzzles and save the townsfolk. Recovered villagers can return to their everyday lives as bankers and librarians. This opens up new opportunities or financial options. Lonesome Village draws inspiration from Zelda, Animal Crossing and other series. Check out the demo.

Overpass: Rhythm Roadtrip, a futuristic driving rhythm game was a surprise to us that we had not expected. The game’s demo is short and only shows off a couple of tracks – which take you through the ruins of an ancient culture, giving off a cool sense of old-world colliding with high-tech – but it’s enough to give us an idea of the gameplay. As you drive an unstoppable vehicle around the surroundings, try to find the prompts and hit them in the right time. Getting the fast-paced beats just right draws you into the game’s hypnotic vibe.

Death Trash’s title isn’t just for show. There’s a lot of death, a lot of trash, and a lot of fun to be had in this demo. It’s undeniable that Fallout is in Death Trash’s DNA. An unspecified process takes place underground in a bunker. For some reason, you’re booted from the safe, subterranean community and must try to survive in the harsh world above. It’s difficult to fight, the supplies are scarce, and there is a large, flat-topped, chunk of meat who wants only friendship. You might find it worthwhile to play the demo multiple times in order to learn how different options affect the experience. You can still play the demo and get more Death Trash. The game is in Early Access.

Have you ever played Valheim? Do you wish that there were a separate game that was focused on honey-producing bees only? You would prefer a sim beekeeping game that is easy to use and has low stress. You can then make sure your bees happy with Apico. Although the tutorial is a bit overwhelming, the lure of building an implement which allows you access to another resource and unlocks new building recipes will keep you hooked for longer than you thought. As an early look at the game, it’s hard to tell how expansive your beehive empire can grow, but this first section sees you craft tools – first from wood, then from stronger materials – harvest honey, explore the spacious world, and more. Apico will release in early 2019 so now is the time to take a look at it before its launch.

In What Lies in The Multiverse, explore space and time as you ponder all the possibilities of each timeline. As a young boy, you begin to explore the world of reality with Erwin his cat. This demo showcases lands that look like paradise, with monks living there or peaceful woodlands. However, with his ability to swap dimensions, the protagonist transports between these idyllic scenes and a grim alternate reality where the forest lives under constant gloom and the paradise has long since crumbled. The ability to switch between two different realms allows you to solve puzzles, reach hidden areas and access other resources. The truth-altering technique is employed cleverly in the demo. It’s humorous, which helps to balance out some of the darker aspects.

The Game Awards revealed the Tunic demo’s release date. You should add it to your To-Do list. Although the demo does not give any hands-on access to some new enemies and items, it shows how challenging and fluid the game will be when launched. You should not have jumped in to the demos of the previous game. The game is quite brutal and while it may seem like an idyllic walk through the woods, the combat can be very difficult. Even those who have already played Tunic’s 2021 demo might consider hopping back in, either to ensure you’ve found every secret hidden in its brief gameplay or just to get excited about its upcoming release on March 16.