How To Download Demos On Steam
Rubie Mccloughan
The rise of virtual festivals has incentivized indies to create free totally public demos. Overall these online festivals are super effective and yield waaay more wishlists than the old in-person ones.
Artur was browsing the official Discord server of popular variety streamer SplatterCatGaming when a random splattercat fan posted a link to Jupiter Moons suggesting Splattercat play it on Stream. Artur, wisely, leapt into action thanking them for the link and answered some of their basic questions. Here is a screenshot of the exchange.
Victor Burgos is the developer behind the cat-based 2D/3D platformer Neko Ghost, Jump! Victor has been very diligent about getting his game into festivals such as Pax South and the Tiny Teams Festival. Through many years of trial and error, Victor has also ended up with the opinion of keeping his game up indefinitely.
Imagine you are fishing (in this metaphor your demo is the hook at the end of the line). You need to keep your hook in the water as long as you can to maximize the chances that a fish will find it and bite. Posting then removing your demo is like dipping your hook in the water then yanking it out before the fish even have time to swim over to it. If anything, all the splashing about will just scare them away. You are basically hoping your hook miraculously lands in a fishes mouth.
For FPS lovers like myself, it's a great time this week to be a PC gamer. That's because the Steam FPS Fest, an event that looks to promote great shooters with free demos and discounts, is taking place.
From exceptional AAA experiences to interesting new boomer shooters, and onto FPS hybrid experiences that introduce roguelike, RPG or immersive SIM elements, there are loads of incredible FPS games playable right now.
And, what's even better is that, if you play the free demo of a game and really like it, then you can pick up the full game during the Steam FPS Fest with a sizeable discount. Here are 10 free playable FPS demos I think it's worth checking out right now.
There are plenty more demos to experience in the 2024 Steam FPS Fest. So if you like the look of some of these games then I'd advise heading on over to Steam sometime this week (the Steam FPS Fest runs until April 22), and scoping out what's on offer.
Rob is editor of PC Gamer magazine and has been PC gaming since the early 1990s, an experience that has left him with a life-long passion for first person shooters, isometric RPGs and point and click adventures. Professionally Rob has written about games, gaming hardware and consumer technology for almost twenty years, and before joining the PC Gamer team was deputy editor of T3.com, where he oversaw the website's gaming and tech content as well its news and ecommerce teams. You can also find Rob's words in a series of other gaming magazines and books such as Future Publishing's own Retro Gamer magazine and numerous titles from Bitmap Books. In addition, he is the author of Super Red Green Blue, a semi-autobiographical novel about games and gaming culture. Recreationally, Rob loves motorbikes, skiing and snowboarding, as well as team sports such as football and cricket.
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I'm ending a week packed with Steam Next Fest demos on a high note with Gatekeeper, a top-down bullet hell roguelike clearly inspired by Risk of Rain. Pick a character, drop into a medley of environments, and shoot dudes while hoovering up items until the number stops getting bigger. It's a familiar formula with a new perspective, and while there are some mechanical and artistic similarities to Risk of Rain and its sequel, Gatekeeper feels like it's found its own identity.
I went with the default character for the demo, partly because they have a built-in second life (which I haven't lost yet, thank you very much), and partly because the vanilla character is always the best way to gauge a new roguelike. My kit also includes a standard aim-and-shoot full auto gun, a fireball AoE, a ricochet shot, and a basic teleport-style dodge. Imagine if Risk of Rain's Commando and Huntress trained up a bullet hell protagonist and you're most of the way there.
There's enough bullet magnetism to make abilities intuitive to land, but not so much that you can blindly chuck attacks into the crowd. Enemies range from slow-moving golems and sentient obelisks to homing droids, and kiting enemies around while picking off priority targets is key. I'll gun down stragglers while saving my big abilities for juicy crowds, triggering all the items I've amassed as I go. My favorites so far mirror some of my favorites in Risk of Rain: enemies dropping explosives on death, seeker projectiles triggered by attacking, applying burn to enemies, and so on.
One thing I appreciate in Gatekeeper is that leveling up by collecting XP is also a really big deal. There's a bit of Vampire Survivors in the way you draft boosts to your HP, damage, regen, movement speed, and cooldown reduction, and these stats can in turn affect what items you prefer. You also upgrade your abilities as you go, increasing their AoE, adding effects like burn damage, and so on. You really get a sense that your whole kit is evolving outside the items you're stacking on. I've been dumping everything into my fireball so far and have zero regrets.
Perhaps most importantly, Gatekeeper has a rather lovely soundtrack. I don't think anyone can match composer Chris Christodoulou's synth-heavy lullabies, but there's a nice set of of drum 'n bass thumping in my ears even as I write this with the demo paused in the background, waiting for me to dip back in and inevitably die. Gatekeeper isn't the most original roguelike I've ever played, but it's handling a fun combination of cool ideas pretty darn well. It's definitely earned a spot on my wishlist ahead of its Q1 2024 launch. (You can also try the free prologue version, which has nearly 3,800 "very positive" reviews on Steam and seems to be the same experience.)
Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible."}), " -0-7/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Austin WoodSocial Links NavigationAustin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.
'demos in my Steam wishlist' is activated every time you access a wishlist page at 'demos in my Steam wishlist' is the only extension to:- Add a filter option to only display games with demos.- Add a tag next to each item that has a demo available.Both the filter and the tagging systems distinguish demos by platform (i.e. Windows, Mac, or Linux/Steam Deck), which not always are the same platforms supported by the full game.No login required.We don't access your personal data.We only use publicly available data provided by Steam itself.--Changelog1.0.4. - Fixed bugs- Added a link to the wishlist page in the extension's popup tab--Notice: If the filter misbehaves in any way, open your wishlist in a new tab (instead of simply refreshing the page), and everything should be fine again.
To celebrate this season of Steam-y goodness, I decided to try out ten Steam Next Fest demos of upcoming VR games to see what the future holds for PC VR. I was fairly random with my picks but I tried to include a few different genres in there so it wasn't all zombie shooting - but did I find anything worth getting majorly excited about?
Find out in this week's VR Corner (below) where you can watch me dip my toes into a gaggle of games that range from kayaking through some stunning scenery to cacking yourself in a pitch black living room!
As a quick aside, all the demos I picked were for today's video were from offical VR games but, thanks to Praydog's recent UEVR mod, there's a fair few flat Unreal Engine demos out now that can also be played in VR. A great example of this is the demo for Pacific Drive, which I tested out in VR during a recent Eurogamer live stream.
Sushi Ben has a beautifully simple Manga inspired art style that works really well with the premise - you're a visitor to a small seaside town in Japan who needs to help the local Sushi bar owner, Ben, sort out his business. By doing lots of weird stuff...
Unfortunately I only really got to experience a bit of the fishing mini-game as a real-life bug got me stuck in the scenery and limited time meant that I had to move on to the next demo. Still, Sushi Ben shows promise, it has a lot of personality and comfort wise it seems like a game that would be great for all experience levels.
The tiny sandbox that you're given to explore is more of tech demo than anything, intended to show off the visuals and gameplay mechanics rather than to showcase a slice of the actual finished game, but it does show a lot of promise.
There's a heavy S.T.A.L.K.E.R. vibe here and this should appeal to those of you who enjoy survival games that focus on ammo conservation and stealth over chopping down trees and crafting axes out of sticks and stones.
The guns are nice to fire, the scenery looks properly realistic at times despite a weird grittiness to the graphics but, to be fair, this is probably intentional as it does add to the creepy, radioactive wasteland vibe.
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