During Steam NextFest 2025, I shared 18 demos during three live streams, and played some additional games off stream. I’ll share my first impressions of the demos I explored. This post covers the games I played during my Thursday night stream:
Piece by Piece
In Piece by Piece, you play a young fox taking over a repair shop from your Grandfather. Customers bring in items that have broken into pieces, and you work your magic by rotating the parts and whole to find how the broken bits fit back together. The art style is colorful and cute, and the game’s pace is relaxing.
I preferred using my controller for the repair puzzles, even though I generally prefer keyboard and mouse for game controls. The relaxed feel of the game made me feel comfortable assembling the broken pieces at a pace my hands could manage, without feeling rushed. I look forward to revisiting this game and exploring more activities available for the little fox around the shop.
Visit Piece by Piece on Steam.
Is This Seat Taken?
Is This Seat Taken? is a casual puzzle game that lets your logic skills shine. In the demo, I followed a taxi from stop to stop. Each stop, new customers with different seating preferences appeared, and my job was to place them in the taxi seats, accommodating all of their requests.
The simple graphics and soundtrack were a pleasant backdrop to the puzzle solving. The UI is simple, easy to use and very intuitive. This game was easy to jump into and enjoy. I plan to return and look forward to working up to more complicated logic puzzles.
Visit Is This Seat Taken? on Steam.
Tailside: Cozy Cafe Sim
I’ve been following Tailside: Cozy Cafe Sim for a while now. A coffee-themed cafe management sim is pretty much my jam. Tailside features pixel art in a palette of browns and creams, filling your screen with comfy coffee vibes. I enjoy the game concept, and its gameplay and UI continue to show improvement.
The opening gameplay feels a little grindy (literally grindy) as you end up making several beverages, start to finish, from grinding the coffee beans to creating latte art despite not having customer orders for them.
At this time, I’d recommend this game as one to watch. I have the game wishlisted and I’m following it on Steam to be alerted to news updates from the developer.
Visit Tailside: Cozy Cafe Sim on Steam.
Locomoto
A cozy life-sim adventure, Locomoto sets you as a conductor on a small, countryside train. You guide the train from stop to stop, carrying customers and cargo and completing tasks including clean-up and crafting.
The cozy vibes and art style in this game are amazing. I had a couple of hiccups in figuring out how to use some parts of the interface. I tried switching to a controller, as I felt the controls on the keyboard felt ‘swimmy’…but it turned out my limited controller skills didn’t help with making it better.
If I were playing the game for a full session, I think I’d find the groove of the character movements and the UI more easily. Since I was hopping from game to game in this play session, I didn’t have a chance to give that a fair shake. I look forward to playing this game again in an extended session, and exploring the countryside via train.
Visit Locomoto on Steam.
Solarpunk
Solarpunk has been on my radar for quite a while. I was thrilled to see a demo available as part of NextFest this year. This demo did not disappoint. It was my favorite demo of the stream. I was having so much fun that I played it for two hours (going past my normal stop time by an hour.) My little air island felt small and cozy but also large enough to have room to explore, build, farm, craft, and decorate.
Waking up on a floating island, players must collect food, water, and materials to create tools. The interface is comfortable and intuitive. Once I had my basic tools, I worked towards shelter and eventually building an airship. Within the demo UI, players got to peek at additional craftable items, technology, and skills coming in the full release. I can’t wait to play this game and explore all the other islands.
Visit Solarpunk on Steam.
Watch the stream VOD of Steam NextFest game demos, part 1:
Read all of Ravvy’s Steam NextFest 2025 Game Demos posts:
0 Comments