Demo Impressions Part 27

Featuring: Identifile, Keys of Fury, Trimjob, Tingus Goose, and Umami

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

Identifile*

Out Now in Early Access

I was pretty neutral on this one. Identifile gave me Pokemon Ranger vibes (I actually wouldn’t be surprised if that was one of the inspirations) and I always wished the Pokemon Ranger spin off series had a third entry. Anyway, Identifile is a roguelike, but instead of going into a traditional dungeon fighting enemies; you’re going into the folders and files of a mock desktop where a lot of the folders are infected with viruses. Folders with viruses are clearly marked and going into one will start a battle with the viruses there. I’m not sure if it’s random or it depends on how far in you are, but there are different viruses you can encounter and all have their own attacks. Like sending swords or activating a laser as they spin. They all give you a heads up before they send the attack your way and you just have to dodge it. If it hits your cursor, however, you’ll take a half heart of damage.

So how do you fight back? Well, when you hold down the left mouse button you’ll create a line when you move the cursor. It’s not infinite, but if you loop it to a circle and a virus is in the middle, it’ll deal damage. You can also encircle multiple viruses if they’re close enough to damage multiple enemies, but you do have to be careful as I did find dodging attacks was more important than dealing damage. Especially since you rarely get a chance to heal (and when you do, it’s not by much). Also, if an enemy or enemy attack collides with the line, it’ll break and disappear. Once you defeat all the viruses, that folder will be infected free. In folders that were unaffected by a virus or ones you just cleaned out, you will then be able to click the files in it to get a chance at getting a coin. You’ll also run into shops so you can buy items with the coins you gathered, treasure folders that can give you EXEs (aka reusable items that have a combat cooldown) and mods (which the one I got gave me a bit more extra health and increased my draw length), challenge minigames, ads where you can exchange something for something else through a deal, keys to unlock locked folders, and just items laying out in a folder if you’re lucky.

In addition, before starting a run, you’ll get to pick the cursor you want (which aren’t just a cosmetic change as each has their own stats), set your difficulty, give yourself a starting item, add a modifier to tweak the game a bit, and change the seed. You can also tell when you already went into a folder by whether it’s open or not, which can save you from thinking you already looked everywhere if you find the boss first. Oh man, I didn’t mention the boss. Yep, there’s a boss here and it’s a pretty tough fight. The demo ends after you defeat the first boss (you can still replay it to unlock the other cursors or just because) and I’m assuming it’ll just send you deeper in the computer. The fill game will also have secrets and a database so you can look back at the viruses you defeated (or identified as it’s called here).

So yeah, I’m pretty neutral on Identifile. I played it a couple times and I pretty much evenly came away each time liking it and not liking it.

Keys of Fury*

Out Now

I originally was going to pass this one up since I’m not someone that plays beat ‘em ups, but then I noticed that this is also a typing game so I just had to try it out. A typing beat-em up? I’ve never seen one before and I was craving a little typing gameplay action. In Keys of Fury, you play as a martial artist who has found herself fighting against waves of enemies at various locations. Each location consists of three waves, which a wave might have multiple groups of enemies that’ll come out after defeating the current group. At the end of each wave, you’ll be able to pick an upgrade and after you defeat all enemy waves you’ll go up against a boss. So, you do you defeat enemies here? Well, all you have to do is type out the letters, words, or phrases that come up before the timer ends. Projectiles are the ones that just call for letters and you don’t have to worry about doing them in order as time goes into slow-mo and your character will swipe them out of the way. The actual enemies will call for a word, words, or a phrase depending on who you’re going up against. You don’t have to worry about capitalization or spaces here and if you type out the whole word before the timer for it depletes (btw the timer for what you need to type out is under it so you’ll know how long you have as long as you’re looking at it). The word(s) basically act as the enemy’s health bar as each letter you correctly type is one hit that you do to that character and they’ll be defeated once you complete the word(s). However, if you make a mistake that means the enemy gets a hit on you. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like you need to worry about timing as you auto-block if they attack when you didn’t make a mistake and there’s also a Fury mechanic. What’s Fury you ask? Well, every time you complete a word, the Fury meter fills up. Once it’s filled you’ll be able to go into Fury Mode, whether it’s you activating it or the game automatically activating it when you make a mistake, which will complete the word(s) for you really quick. It can be a bit annoying when this fills at the end of a wave, but it’s pretty helpful.

The demo had three different modes: the demo that goes up to the first boss, a Next Fest challenge mode which basically challenges you to get the highest score you can without the use of Fury and upgrades, and a Dino Run where you’re racing against a bunch of dinosaurs in a race. It also looks like the full game will also get some modes as well based on the

This one turned out to be pretty fun. I really liked how the game looked and the animations here; I noticed that the words you’ll be typing depends on the enemy and the location (which I found to be a cool detail); it does look like there will be gameplay shake-ups to keep it interesting (based on there being projectiles and enemies where their words fade in and out); and most importantly I had fun. We already know this is going to be a short game, with a price that’s going to reflect that, and I honestly will most likely pick it up.

Trimjob

Out Now

This one was just a gift that kept on giving. This is a game that I just happened to not see the screenshots that showed what this game truly was and ignored the blurb about the game. I thought it was just an arcade game with retro 8-bit aesthetics, especially since this also happened to be around some other games that leaned into retro 8-bit art styles as well. I don’t know, I guess I was like “haha a game where you’re a pair of hedge trimmers”. Little did I know that this is basically if golf was you trimming your garden.

So, yeah, Trimjob is an arcade game that combines trimming weeds and golf. Instead of a golf ball, you have the hedge trimmers, and instead of a hole, you have the weeds. Your goal is not to put the ball in the hole in the least amount of strokes, but trim all the weeds in the least amount of strokes (or whatever you’ll call it for hedge trimmers. There are four gardens, each with different weeds and an additional mechanic, each with 18 levels. Each level has a different layout, both with how the level is shaped and where the weeds are located at, and par is either two or three strokes. You just have to aim, which you get a handy dotted line (though, you won’t see a preview of the angle it’ll bounce at), click to send the trimmers, and hope it cuts the weeds. You only propel the trimmers so far, but don’t worry as the trimmers actually gain speed whenever they trim a weed. There are also an additional mechanic for each garden as well. Like there’s a pepper that will increase the trimmers’ speed and bananas that will split and turn into two banana trimmers.

Your goal is to basically get the best score you can for each garden. There are also three different modes you can play, a casual mode that lets you retry levels, a real-play where you play a garden start to finish without retries, and a third mysterious mode.

The demo lets you play the first garden in full and the second garden halfway. So far, I really like it. In a way, going in without knowing this was an arcade style golf game ended up endearing me to this game more than maybe it would have if I knew. It goes so much into that theming that it even has that narrator and it’s so funny when you almost got all of the weeds or when you get a trim-in-one. I also really like how each level you can get a trim-in-one, it’s just that some levels are trickier than most, and the difficulty curve here was done really well. It also does a good job introducing what each new item does by putting it in the way of your trimmers rather than telling you. I’m definitely going to get this one when it releases *looks at release date* oh my gosh October 24? That’s so soon and maybe I can tell myself this is a little birthday gift to myself.

Tingus Goose

Coming December 1, 2025

I…have no words for this one. This is another demo that I past up every day and then on the final day, finally decided “ah what the heck” and downloaded it. After all, I play a lot more demos than I write about and having another one that I didn’t like and uninstalled wouldn’t make a difference on that pile. I usually don’t play incremental, idle clicker games too, which is the reason why I kept passing this one up. Well, this one turned out to be way weirder than I thought. It’s so absurdly weird, with each new chapter showing you something new to go “whaaaaat”, but it’s the type where you can’t look away. The gameplay itself is also pretty weird and it works so well.

Tingus Goose is a very weird idle clicker game revolving around geese and how they basically find themselves morphing with a human. How they morph depends on the goose and how they came across the human but, huh, let me just tell you it is crazy. Like, what the heck is happening crazy. To get them to pop up and grow, you’ll be watering them like a plant. Which, well, is apt considering that the game refers to them as a goose tree and even have roots…which is even weirder than you think. Anyway, your goal is to grow the goose to reach the mating partner at the top of the screen so they can mate (which, trust me, you will NOT expect what this means). However, it’s not as easy as you’d think. Each use of the watering can costs money, and increases with each use. You do have some starting money to grow it a bit, but you’ll run out of money quick here. So, how do you get money here? The goose also doubles as a money maker as it’ll spit out things called Tingi, which look like baby humans. These Tingis can then be clicked to get money, but if you click them too much they’ll fall apart into baby geese. Don’t worry, though, remember this isn’t just a clicker game but an idle game. There is a piggy bank at the bottom of the field the goose is on and if the Tingis gets there, it’ll also earn you money more than you would by clicking them. The goose will also start to get sprouts on its neck as it gets longer. Each sprout has a timer and once it’s done, you’ll click it to get it to Blossom. Blossoms are basically geese parts that will help you earn money as every bounce a Tingis is subjected to also awards you with money. And this has no limit. The Blossom you get is randomized, but there are a lot of different types you can get. Like ones that Tingis will just bounce them or ones that will eat them and then, well, pop out two Tingis. You can move Blossoms to any part of the goose neck, as long as it’s not overlapping with other Blossoms or other things, and the challenge here is to arrange them in a way that you optimize how much money you can earn. Optimistically, you’ll be able to use all the Blossoms.

As you progress, the game also introduces new things to you, from new Blossoms to new mechanics. Like, the roots that I mentioned before. Each successful mating will give you Calcium based on how tall it is. You will then use this Calcium to buy permanent upgrades and spread the tree’s roots. There’s also a shop called the Medical Center where you’ll be able to buy Blossoms you can plant and instantly have or temporary upgrades called DNA. This does call for a new currency, gems, for you to buy them from the doctor (aka shopkeeper), which it seems you’ll only have a limited amount of for each chapter. There are certain height milestones that will reward you with gems and random events. The DNA upgrades, which is visualized as a medicine in an IV bag, will give you several different upgrades to various stats like how many clicks the Tingis can endear. Not to mention that each mating partner has a gimmick with its level, like how the hotdog goose has mustard and ketchup bottles on the sides of the screen, which you’ll be confused about until you get a random event that will see your Tingis bouncing on them. Oh, and the random events! Every so often you’ll get Gooseling News about something coming. This can get in your way or help you out. Like it can be a meteor coming straight for your goose that will delete a Blossom if it collides with one or a cloud that will block a part of the goose’s neck. Or it can be something helpful like giving you gems.

I didn’t expect to like Tingus Goose, but I did. It’s so weird and honestly, I really want to see what the other chapters will show us. This demo lets you play through the first three chapters and they were all pretty good and definitely has that effect where it convinces you to keep playing and grow your goose whenever you think about stopping. I did also like how each chapter has a new animation showing you how that goose came to be, how the game progressively introduces new things to you, and the new gimmicks that come along with each mating partner. I also liked the gameplay here and how it’s kind of like a puzzle where you have to figure out how to make things work with the Blossoms that you get. And man, does it feel so good when you find that sweet spot. I’ll be looking forward to this one for sure.

Umami*

Out Now

This was a demo I was waiting to release ever since I saw this announced on social media. This being themed around food definitely caught my attention as well as this being a puzzle game that you don’t see much.

Umami is a 3D block puzzle game with each puzzle. It’s basically like those 3D Jigsaw puzzles you can find online, but instead of it being jigsaw puzzle pieces these are block pieces. The level select is a recipe book which shows you which animal chef made it, a little description on it, and of course the name of the dish. Yep, you’ll be building food! Each puzzle starts out with you facing a naked block tower and all of the block puzzle pieces scattered around on the table. All you have to do is figure out where each piece goes. Which is easier said than done. This is surprisingly hard actually, even when you can look at how the finish product is supposed to look from the front and back since you have to build a 3D version of it. Though I did find that I did have an easier time once I got the hang of it in the first puzzle. Each spot a block can go looks like it has a little magnet and you can rotate each piece as they won’t be the right orientation all the time. If it’s in the right spot, it’ll do a sound effect and snap in. Making sure you know it’s in the right spot and you can’t move it. In addition, the various decorations on the table are clickable, it seems some elements of the food are interactable, and there are cards hidden in each level.

This demo has the first two levels and so far I liked it. To be honest, I was very unsure about it when I first started and was going to just close it and unwishlist it; but I gave it another chance. It is hard and there is a steep learning curve right out the gate, but it does get easier once you get used to how the game plays and the 3D nature of these puzzles. Maybe having an easy tutorial puzzle level could have helped elevate this? Other than that, I was a bit annoyed at how I couldn’t move the camera while holding a piece. I did really love the artwork here though. The food looks absolutely delicious and the 2D artwork does translate really well into 3D.