Steam Next Fest 2026: The Demos We Played (and Whether We’d Buy Them)

Steam’s 2026 Next Fest just wrapped up, bringing hundreds of demos to try. It’s a guilt-free way to test different genres and discover indie games you might otherwise miss. Plus, it highlights indie games really well.

With hundreds of demos available, it was a bit overwhelming and I ended up not playing as much as I would have liked. But we did test out a few that caught our eye. Here’s what we played and what we thought!

Cursed Words

There were a lot of roguelikes this year that had us saying “It’s Balatro but with…”, but my favourite was Cursed Words. It’s a word-making game where you have to beat the score within five encounter grids to get to the next level. In between these encounters there’s a shop where you purchase stickers and stamps to improve your run and score even higher. You face bosses after a few regular rounds who put a negative spin on your battle like making the grid smaller or eating it tile by tile. Sounds pretty simple, but you soon realise it’s anything but.

It starts off like Boggle and Scrabble (word board games that I love), but as you progress, things get kinda crazy and you find yourself spelling words with numbers, fractions, and chess pieces. The game hints at how to use these strange tiles on your grid, but for the most part you have to use logic and figure it out on your own. I found this totally confusing at the start, but after some trial and error, it became a really rewarding mechanic that kept me coming back.

Would I buy?

Absolutely. I can’t wait for the full game to come out. It’s hard to imagine how it could get even more cursed, but I’m super excited to find out.

Ultrapool

Ultrapool is another roguelike deckbuilder where your deck is a rack of snooker balls. This one had us reminiscing about playing those pool flash games on Miniclip or 8Ball on your phone.

It’s the same concept that these games have: build your deck, score a certain amount of points in a certain amount of turns, face higher score requirements as you progress, etc. But Ultrapool manages to stand out.

It’s very simple when you start, in look and gameplay, but gets deceptively more complex the further you progress. The deckbuilding element has a unique twist where you merge balls to ramp up their scoring power, and there are loads of balls with bonuses and fun designs. Different snooker sets (that you unlock after completing a run with a previous set) stand out and are honestly really cool to look at.

Would I buy?

Yeah, this one was a lot of fun. The demo only features three snooker sets to play, but the pictures and videos on the store page showcase what to expect from the full release. Definitely one to watch.

Hozy

Stepping away from the roguelikes, I decided to give this cozy one a try. Hozy has you cleaning up homes and redecorating them however you see fit. Pick up trash, mop the floors, paint the walls, thenpen furniture boxes and create a cute space.

I’d never really gotten into games like this before, but the visuals were so nice I thought I’d give it a go. The gameplay is relaxing and satisfying, but I often found myself wanting to skip the cleaning part and get straight into decorating (my favourite bit in games and real life).

I really liked the variety of objects and their level of detail, and it’s easy to rotate items. But I’m the kind of person who likes to unpack everything first so I can see the bigger design picture, and Hozy doesn’t really give you the space to do that. There is a spare box you can drag items into if you’re not ready for them, but it fills up quickly so you’re just left with clutter.

I also ran into some bugs when placing objects. Sometimes they would become tilted and not sit right on the ground. It’s a demo so I’m not expecting full polish - I think it just irritated the perfectionist in me.

Would I buy?

I’m not sure if this one is for me. Like I said, I’ve never really been into this type of game, and unfortunately Hozy didn’t convert me. It’s cute and looks great, but I think I’ll stick to decorating in The Sims.

Phonopolis

I was really excited for this one after seeing the teaser on how it was made. They literally created everything out of cardboard and hand-painted it! Phonopolis is a narrative puzzle adventure that follows Felix in a dystopian, oppressive city.

I was a bit sad to see that the demo starts after the beginning of the story, so you don’t get that crucial context of what’s going on. It shows couple of title screens summing up the previous events, but then you’re just plopped into the gameplay. I didn’t know what I had to do or why I was doing anything.

But, obviously, it looks amazing and the puzzle I did get to play was fun.

Would I buy?

I really love the art style and the work that went into crafting it, and I’m a sucker for a puzzle. I’ll be waiting for the full release and hoping it’s longer than the 25 minutes of demo gameplay!

Don’t Panic! It is Just Turbulence

This co-op sounded like a laugh. One person plays the pilot, the other as air traffic control. Errors show up on the pilot’s dashboard and it’s up to air traffic control to navigate the database and communicate how to solve them before the time runs out. If you succeed, you land the plane safely. If you fail…kaboom.

This game did turn out to be a laugh, but probably for the wrong reasons. It was janky and difficult to fully grasp which buttons to press (or if they could be pressed at all). You get strikes for mistakes, but a lot of the time we were accidentally messing up because it wasn’t clear what we were supposed to do.

You get access to different aircraft as you complete levels, but we got so annoyed with the game, we gave up. No way we were going to succeed with a Boeing if we struggled with the glider as much as we did.

Would I buy?

Maybe we suck at the game, maybe it was supposed to annoy us. I don’t know. I do know we probably won’t be itching to buy it when it drops.

Although Steam’s Next Fest has come to a close, a lot of demos are still available so there’s plenty of time to try out some games, genres, and discover something new and exciting. Or quit a game after 10 minutes because you weren’t feeling it. The Steam store is yours to explore!