Volume 6: Steam Next Fest October 2025

I tried something a little different this month. I mean, it’s only the sixth one of these, so “different” doesn’t mean all that much, but that’s how it feels to me. I have a few games lined up for our dungeon-delving adventures, but I pushed those back a bit in favor of Steam Next Fest. A few times a year, a bunch of small developers and publishers run limited-time demos on Steam, which highlights them all as much as a few thousand demos can be highlighted. After digging through hundreds of card-based roguelikes and Vampire Survivors knockoffs, I managed to find a few blobbers. The pickings were slim, and there’s a severe red flag in one case, but here’s what I discovered:

Obelus Manor by WretchedLink

This spooky DRPG combines survival horror with first-person exploration and turn-based combat. There’s a lot of hand-drawn art and stress-inducing mechanics, such as needing resources to keep the lights on around you. The demo is pretty short, but after fighting ghosts and bloody wall-hands to find mysterious artifacts, only to be interrupted by a gnarly cliffhanger, I’m on board to follow up with this one when the time comes. I hope it gets full controller support though!

Dungeon Trail by My Brother And I Make Games

I wasn’t sure about this one at first, since it’s more roguelikey than dungeon-crawly, but the vibes are crazy. It starts with a digitized voice saying “you love gambling, don’t you?” in a way that feels like being taunted by a dominatrix or something. The whole premise is based on rolling dice and paying to get around bad situations, using gold to re-roll and storing “tricks” for when you really need to move the dice in your favor. It’s super difficult and full of music that feels like the composer knows you’re getting your ass kicked, so I’m intrigued to see how it all comes together. 

Legends of Amberland 3: The Crimson Tower by Silver Lemur Games

I didn’t really like this one, but it seems like a good game at the same time for folks who might like this specific kind of old school dungeon crawler. The UI is very busy and there are a lot of menus to mess around with, but it’s a little too “old PC game” for my tastes. My eyes had to move around too much to make decisions during combat, and the controller mapping was struggling to keep up with a mouse-oriented interface. It has some charm, but it’s a brand of nostalgia that doesn’t apply to me at all. Still, this being the third one, I imagine there’s good stuff for more patient dungeon-crawler enthusiasts out there. Nerds.

The Depths of Duskraven Manor by Apoptosis Games (losers, or just one loser, idk)

It’s time for a lesson, folks. At first, it seemed like there was a chance Duskraven Manor would be my favorite of the bunch. It’s got a sort of Shin Megami Tensei meets paperback American horror lit kind of vibe, with a bunch of weird and unpleasant characters getting involved with a super rich, super connected, and super nasty family to help them fix a world-threatening mess they made. The combat is simple but tough, the setting is distinct, yadda yadda. But something seemed weird about the visuals, especially the character portraits and enemies. Sure enough, I double-checked the store page on Steam and there’s a disclaimer about generative AI use. 

Normally I would’ve just said “fuck this game” and not included it in the piece, but I think this situation serves as a warning to be vigilant, and check on those things before opening your wallet or offering your time. Next Fest is supposed to be an opportunity for small creators to get noticed in a video game environment in which discovery is nearly impossible, and having people who can’t be assed to do their own work or hire people who can do it cluttering up the space is insulting. Especially when you’re in a niche genre like DRPGs, where so many games fully made by creative people, and not corner-cutters, already struggle to get noticed. We can do and be better than this. Don’t step up to the plate if you aren’t willing to swing your own bat.

Anyway, check out our AI Could Never series, which includes a great example of a horror-themed DRPG that wasn’t made with a water-evaporating slop machine that inherently disrespects art and artists.

Until next time, dungeon-delvers!