Demo Impressions Part 16

Featuring: Cato, Dungeon Clawler, Mech Builder, ONE BTN BOSSES, and Sacrifice for Sale

The curse of playing so many demos, not wanting to put everything in one long post, and also having reviews to post means sometimes I don’t get around posting my demo impressions until the games are released. Well, these are demos that I played back when they weren’t released yet, but now are. Also, can I just mention it’s feels so freeing not having to make up an unique title for my demo impressions posts? Well, let’s get into the demos! Any games that still have demos at time of publishing will have a (*)

Cato: Buttered Cat*

Out Now

A lot of the demos I wanted to play during Steam Next Fest were ones that I only saw the trailer of with the small popup that pops up when you’re hovering over the game. When I saw Cato I just saw a puzzle platformer where you play as a cute cat. I did not notice the toast and oh man I loved it. Cato is basically a collection of levels where you control both a cat and a piece of toast. The cat can’t jump, but can walk on fuzzy wall decor and can turn into liquid to move through pips. The toast can jump. And together, they’re the ultimate match as cat + toast = unlimited jumping! Of course, the game does throw curve balls at you. There are clouds that will block you if the cat and toast are together and when there’s not, there’s usually moving platforms in the way that you can manipulate with pressure plates (for the cat or toast) and a toaster switch. There’s even ice which stops the toast from jumping. Each level basically has you try to open the portal at the end of the level as cat+toast. The demo was pretty good and had a lot more levels that I’d suspect.

Dungeon Clawler

Out Now in Early Access

When I saw this game being showcased it intrigued me right away. After all, having a claw machine be integral to your dungeon crawling game is interesting. Though, I wanted to check it out to see how it played. Basically, it’s how you’d expect.

There are a handful of characters you can play as, with their own advantage and starting deck, but for the demo I played as Felina (because she’s cute) and Sir Bunalot (since he’s featured in the trailer) in that order. Similar to other games, there is a map that you’ll be on in-between battles, denoting when there’s a battle or a place to rest, upgrade your items, get a perk, delete an item, or a mystery. The first Floor is just a hallway, but after that you’ll be able to choose which way to go. When you’re in battles, you won’t be choosing your moves. Instead, there is a claw machine filled with your item pool and each turn will let you do two claw grabs. The claw is pretty easy to control, the only thing you have to get used to is not getting too close to the corners, and a plus is that you can grab multiple items per pull. You do get a chance to add another item after every battle (or not) and they do have different effects that, for example, can effect the type of weapon (denoted by what it’s made from), more effective if it’s the only one grabbed, and increasing/decreasing attack power after every pull. Though, it looks like there is an item limit as I did find items that I wanted not drop down to refill the machine.

Anyway, you do get to know what the enemy will do as well, with you specifically knowing how much damage they’ll deal. So, if they’re going to deal a lot of damage you can focus on getting shields. They can buff, heal, and shield themselves, but they can also mess with your machine such as putting in more fluff, messing with the items (I’ve seen increasing the size and making them bounce around) and even put items that’ll hurt you if you pull them (which is so annoying). Due to this, the game can be quite hard. Especially since there’s enemies that mess with it every other turn. Other than that, when you’re going to pick a perk it’s like a capsule machine that spins around and the first two perks that fall through the opening will be what you can pick from. And when you’re resting, it’s the same claw machine mechanic, but filled with items that will heal or give you money. Pretty interesting.

So far, I do like Dungeon Clawlers. It’s an interesting idea that I do think works. It brings along it’s own advantages and disadvantages and the enemies even play with it. Though, it is a pretty hard game due to the claw machine. I’ll definitely keep an eye on this one.

Mech Builder*

Out Now

I swear I played the demo for Mech Builder before, but it didn’t pop up in the licenses and key activations so I guess not. It must have been a different game. Anyway, I’m glad I decided to try it out as I did end up liking it. The only thing you do is just build mech models. The demo includes 5 builds and they do increase in difficulty as you go down, as well as introducing a new tool or a feature you may not know about. Oh, when I say difficulty I mean the amount of pieces you have. After clipping all the individual pieces out from their containment, you’ll be able to clip them together with a piece that fits. To help you out, you do have a manual to show you what the finished product should look like. As the builds get more complex, each big piece (like the arms) get their own separate page and tells you which set of pieces those pieces are. If a piece overlaps a piece that it correctly attaches to, it’ll automatically attach (which I really like) with a satisfying click. Some builds will also have decal stickers that you can stick on and you can paint the pieces. I’m pretty sure the last pages in the manual are supposed to be how the “company” wants you to paint it, but you can paint it however you want, baby.

Overall, I loved the demo. It is pretty relaxing and I loved the satisfying click that happens when you connect two pieces. I also really liked how you can put the model pieces over the manual to help you work out what pieces you need. The only time I had trouble was with the really small pieces (like the back claw in Build 4) or the pieces that are meant to go over another piece that would give it more dimension. Also, I like how you can put the unclipped piece trays to the side, letting only the letter visible, as it really does help give you more space and it really cut down on my temptation to cut all the pieces out. I’ll definitely be looking forward to this one.

ONE BTN BOSSES

Out Now

This is one that I knew would be an easy like and I was right. One Btn Bosses is framed as you fighting everyone in a company office. But that’s not important as the gameplay is the star here. Gameplay is pretty easy to get the hang of. Each boss has a track, which usually are around them, that denotes the orbit you’ll automatically move on. There are various styles, like a circle or a square, that a boss can have. You will also automatically attack and after a while, you’ll speed up and shoot a slightly more powerful attack more often. However, the bosses also attacks. You’ll get a heads up first and you’ll have to dodge out of the way before being hit. There are bosses that are pretty easy, but there are some that are difficult due to their orbit or attack patterns. This demo includes a couple handcrafted levels and a floor of the roguelike mode “Rifts and Discovers”. There’s even going to be different weapons and movement in the full game. I did unlock a different movement option, a dash, and it does effect how you go about dodging and did take a bit of time to figure out how to use it effectively.

All in all, this demo was pretty good.

Sacrifice for Sale*

Out Now

I actually came to know about Sacrifice for Sale through a webcomic I was reading (Scaredy Kat, btw). I didn’t know it was a collab episode at first, since I was on mobile, and I was curious when I saw that the two characters that were in that episode were characters in a video game. I was curious enough to look it up, added it to my wishlist when I saw it was a visual novel and I liked the art style, and then downloaded the demo when I saw there was one available.

Sacrifice for Sale is a quick little demo where you’ll be able to go through the game’s prologue and get seven endings. You play as a salesman who is selling vacuums. You just want to sell just one more vacuum and you come across an eerily quiet and empty neighborhood. Throwing away your gut feeling, you walk up to a house with a nice birdhouse out front. Luckily, or unluckily, a woman answers when you knock on the door and now it’s time to find a way to sell your vacuum. Will you be able to convince her (or Vinny, as you’ll learn in one route) to buy a vacuum or were you fated for a worse outcome?

It’s not surprising that visual novels will have you pick choices every so often, but what’s interesting about Sacrifice for Sale is how it handles choices. Rather than the usual showing all the choices in selectable boxes, you’ll instead notice words highlighted with a color. Taking a more subtle approach, these highlighted words indicate it’s time for a choice. When you hover over the word, a pop-up box will appear with a choice or two for what you can say or do. Or, you can click the arrow to progress to indicate that you want to do or say nothing. You’ll have to decide when it’s best to say/do nothing or when it’s best to say something (and which choice to pick if there’s multiple). It’s a pretty interesting twist on the mechanic. It looks like it allows endings to have different variations, but it does also seem like it’s hard to really pinpoint what you need to do to get each different numbered endings.

I liked Sacrifice for Sale. Not having a ending walkthrough scares me a bit, but I do want to pick up the full game and see what the rest of the game has in store.