Demo Impressions Part 22

Featuring: Backslap, Infiniclick, Omelet You Cook, Pre-Odyssey: Love at First Quack, and SPiNG

Oh boy, I have so many demo impressions I’m getting behind. So behind they’re coming out before I get them posted! But, I’m going to try and reorganize them so I can hopefully catch up. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but I’m also planning on releasing these monthly! I’ll get these out slowly but surely.

If any of these still have demos when I post this, they’ll have a (*) as always.

Backslap*

Out Now

I had no idea this was one of those idle, bottom of the screen (but for this one not really), games until I opened it up. Yeah I only watched the trailer that shows when you hover over the listing and downloaded it without reading the description.

Backslap, which gets its namesake from the first theme you’ll have, is an idle game. However, instead of it being like a second taskbar that sits on the bottom of the desktop, it’s a little rectangle that you can put anywhere and resize so it’s bigger or smaller. This is also a bit more involved as instead of having a mix of idle and interaction; this is all interaction. All you have to do, is click your mouse or tap any keys on your keyboard and you’ll get EXP for it. It just depends on which theme you have, but the first theme is a cat giving a slapping massage to a fish with the second theme being a panda singing karaoke. Each click/tap will have them do the basic animation, but they do have an idle animation as well like showing them breathing or blinking. If you wanted something more out of it than just getting EXP with each click/tap, there actually is! This has a rhythm minigame built in for whenever you’re in the mood for something different. You do need to buy the tracks with the currency you get (which I think you only get through leveling up, but I’m not too sure about that since I you only see your wallet when you’re going into the song list). There are easy and hard versions of the songs (which you need to buy separately) and after you buy it, you’ll get into rhythm game mode. The rhythm minigame is set like a vertical taskbar, but a rhythm track, and the notes will fall down. All you have to do is hit the notes. There are different notes, but they just change the animation that the characters do (like a big massage slap) and there are even animations for when you hit a note too late or early. Hard mode for the songs of course adds more notes but also add in hold notes. In addition, each theme has their own songlist, which is pretty cool. At least for the songs I played, the notes matched up well to the songs.

Oh, and did I mention that while this game is set to be on the top layer, you can set a key so you can hide it. It does also act more as an idle game if you’re listening to music as it will act like you’re clicking/tapping as it’s following the beat of the music. It does seem like it has to peak a bar a certain height as it won’t do it if you’re just listening to a regular video. Oh and last thing for real, you unlock more themes by leveling up. After certain level milestones you’ll get a new theme.

I was a bit unsure when I first opened up Backslap, but I ended up liking it a lot. The rhythm minigame was nice and well done, I loved the themes and the little animations, and I liked how this was a spin on the idle games that seem to have burst into dozens of games since Rusty’s Retirement. I’m definitely going to get this once the full release comes around and have it running while I’m writing.

Infiniclick*

Coming June 20, 2025

Oh my gosh. I ended up loving this way more than I thought I would. I actually saw this before it was showcased in a Summer games showcase while browsing the new demos (at the time) and I actually went right over it. I’m not a fan of clicker games after all. However, when I saw the trailer of it in the showcase it was featured it, it actually won me over enough for me to at least give it a try. And man, I’m glad I did.

In Infinitclick, you owe a bunch of money to a corporation known as Fun Corp. While you don’t know how you gained that big debt, Fun Corp has taken upon themselves to help you. What, lower your debt? HA. No silly, they’re going to give you software so you can be able to earn currency (which I honestly don’t know how to make the symbol) so you can then pay the easy installments Fun Corp set up for you. With a new added bonus of them not having any deadline! Fun Corp provides you with the first program for free, which involves you clicking a button that is said to complete a CAPTCHA remotely (not at all suspicious). They also give you a digital store where you’ll be buying the programs (you think you’ll get them for free? lol). Luckily, you get an email from an anonymous source that’s actually helping you. They send you a totally legal shop where you can buy a program to automate things so you don’t have to click so much and later a way so you can have more programs running at once.

So yeah. When you first start out, you’ll purely be in clicker mode as you and your automatic clickers click the CAPTCHA. After you make your first installment payment, Fun Corp does send you more programs. Which seems to be a mix of programs that require more involvement for you and ones that are more akin to an idle game. Just…don’t buy The Happy Carrot before the Farm cause you need the veggies from the Farm to sell salads in the Happy Carrot. In addition to that, you can upgrade the various aspects in the programs so you can be more efficient. Like increasing how much you get paid, how fast the workers are in the Farm and Shop idle games, adding more automatic cursors and how fast they click, and adding more traffic violations you can flag people for in the Traffic Fines program. Money is slow starting out, but man the programs become serious money makers once you get them upgraded (well aside from the CAPTCHA clicker).

Like I said in the beginning, I loved Infiniclick. So much that I maxed out everything that I could. The demo does stop after you make the second payment (minus getting the option to buy the new apps) and you can only have a max of 1,000 currency. I got so addicted to the demo and I can’t wait until the first game.

Oh my gosh…I just saw this is releasing June 20. I’m definitely getting it once the stressful month that is June passes.

Omelet You Cook

Out Now in Early Access

I saw a possible cooking game (that isn’t that copy and paste sim game) and put it on my list. Here, you’re not so much cooking omelets, but topping them with various ingredients. Taking an arcade game and a roguelike approach, each round has you top an omelet for the customer and scoring enough points. Of course, you just don’t get dumped a bunch of ingredients. You start with two different ingredients and a handful of each (so you can have duplicates). When you’re topping an omelet, three ingredients will be randomly selected to appear on the conveyor belt and you can only choose one. Then the next random set of ingredients will come in. It continues until the round decides that’s it. Weirdly enough, you don’t know how many ingredients you’re allowed to pick before the round goes to grading. So, how do you score? Well, each ingredient will tell you how much they’ll score or how to score with them. Like some ingredients require them to be touching other ingredients (or ingredient types), others will take away points if they tough specific ingredients, or they’ll help boost other ingredients if they’re on the omelet. Luckily, placing down an ingredient doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to move them around. You do even get some time to move ingredients around before you serve it and thus have your points tallied up. I also did find out that if you have an ingredient off the omelet, it’ll seemingly disappear (which is helpful as there’s a chance you’ll get a wrench through the conveyor belt). In addition, the customer will also have their preferences that you can get for some extra cash. The basic is usually getting so many points over the goal, but some customers will ask for none of an ingredient, asking for a variety of ingredients, or ask for a specific amount of an ingredient.

After each round, you’ll be taken to a shop where you can buy items with the money you just earned. You can buy new ingredients through boxes, which can specify the type, and you’ll be able to choose between three different ingredients to add to your ingredient stock. You can also buy relics to help you too, like increasing a scoring multiplier or enlarging omelets. If you lose a round, or win the whole run, you’ll see where the roguelike aspect comes in. The game keeps count of how many times you score with each ingredient and if you score with them enough, it’ll unlock a new ingredient. There are also different starting ingredient duos and you can choose them once you unlock all the ingredients needed. Which the ingredients you start with does actually change how you build your omelets. If you start with the Veggie Lover duo (broccoli and tomatoes), it’ll be quite hard to add in meat since you’re penalized for having meat touching broccoli. There are also different modes, symbolized by the apron you wear, that you can play on. Though, you need to finish the previous to unlock the next.

I liked Omelet You Cook. It’s simple, but challenging.

Pre-Odyssey: Love at First Quack*

Out Now

I actually know this developer from their previous games! Granted I haven’t played Trapped With Jester yet and Thorn for the Villain is just a demo, but that still counts. And since I’m following the creator, I actually got a notification about this one when the itchio page was launched. And since I was already playing a bunch of visual novel demos I thought I should put this one on the list too (even though it wasn’t participating in the Otome Games Celebration event).

Pre-Odyssey follows Penelope as she meets, hangs out with, and falls in love with Odysseus. And, as the game’s title suggests, it takes place before the Odyssey. This one is a weird one as it does take a third person narration throughout, but there are choices that pop up every so often for Penelope. Anyway, let’s get into the story. We come in during the time when her cousin Helen is supposed to choose a suitor and a lot of princes and kings are visiting to hopefully win her hand in marriage. Penelope and her immediate family came to help elevate Helen’s mood, but she just keeps to herself. When we come in, Penelope is actually with a bunch of her ducks (who she can actually understand!) hanging out outside as she’s lamenting about the situation, how shabby she is compared to Helen, and if she’ll ever find someone for her. We also learn that she is considered pretty weird, her only friends are the ducks, and she is pretty shy. But everything changes as Odysseus happens to be walking by and sees Penelope surrounded by ducks and conversing. Penelope is pretty embarrassed when she notices him watching, but it caught Odysseus’ attention enough to want to talk to her. Which starts their friendship and soon romance. The demo is about one hour of the game and you get to see them bond until Penelope’s father catches them and tells her to stay away. Of course, she’s not going to listen considering nothing about Odysseus is telling her that he’s a bad man.

This one was pretty good. I liked the art, Penelope is cute and her shyness is well written, and she and Odysseus have good chemistry. The writing style was also good and I enjoyed the jokes (which also go into the visual). The ducks were also a cute addition and I did find that it doesn’t use the duck quack sound effect too much. Odysseus is also partially voiced and while I think the voice actor did a good job, I do recommend turning down the voice sound in the settings as it doesn’t sound too good on max. I was also so surprised that there were early ends (there are two that you can get in the demo). I did also like how this uses the Greek mythology to build this “before Odyssey” scenario, uses real world history to build slang that would make sense for the time period, and even incorporates art styles that were used in Greek art. Not to mention that there is a lore glossary so you can read up on facts and why something was chosen for the game. This one is actually coming out really soon (June 17, with me writing this on May 24) but it most likely will be out by the time this demo impression is released.

SPiNG*

Coming June 19, 2025

I wanted to try this one since it looked interesting and man, it definitely lived up to the trailers. In SPiNG you play as this little object (I don’t know how else to really describe it) and all you need to do is collect the jewels placed in each level. To do that, you need to use the anchor points that are also strategically placed around each level and use them to swing and spin around and find the flow of the level as timing is important here as well. SPiNG is an easy to learn, but difficult to master type of game. Each level starts as you enter the level through a portal. Once you’re close enough to an anchor, you can grab onto it and hold so you can swing or spin around it. However, the length of your rope is also dependent on how far away you were. Which is important as you have to be close enough to collect the jewels. Plus, you may also find yourself hitting the other elements of the level and you do have to use momentum from your spin/swing to throw yourself to the next anchor or jewels. Optimistically, you’ll collect all the jewels in the level and go to the exit portal (which is pretty generous as you just have to be around it to be pulled in). You’ll be granted stars based on how many jewels you collected, which will then accumulate so you can unlock other things like customize options (changing your little playable icon and music, which seem to be grouped up by themes), other modes, and other levels.

SPiNG does a good job at also easing you into it. The first couple levels are pretty easy and the difficulty slowly increases as they add in more tricky placements and add elements to the levels such as spike hazards and springs to throw you straight up (or straight in the direction it’s facing).

The demo here is big and includes 54 levels. I only played through the first 18 levels (making up Chapter 1 in the Classic Mode set of levels) and you can actually see that there will be three different dailies and 11 different level sets. With the Steam page for the game boasting 1,000+ levels between all 11 sets. So far, I enjoyed the game and I’m going to keep my eye on it as it does seem like it’ll be a good game to play a little bit every day.