Steam Just Released Sci-Fi RPGs and Chill Puzzles in These 10 Must-Play Free Demos

There’s a good chance you’re buried in as a kid, but I love typing games. There’s just something satisfying, not to mention extremely funny, about typing the word “Ducks” and seeing a zombie’s head explode in a game like Typing of the Dead. Touch Type Tale blends that simple fun with real-time strategy, where you type to hire workers, grow crops, or send soldiers into battle. Keeping track of it all while maintaining your ability to spell might turn your brain to mush, but I think it’s worth it.

Keep Driving

Keep Driving is one of the most popular Next Fest demos this time around, and for good reason. This road trip sim has you picking up hitchhikers, living on gas station snacks, and dodging roadkill in card-based events. Driving and maintaining your car feel chill and tense in equal measure, and the demo also features a pitch-perfect road trip soundtrack.

StarVaders

The best way I can describe StarVaders is if Space Invaders was a strategy game. Waves of alien enemies move down the screen each turn as you fight them off with modifiable card-based abilities. You need to choose your moves with utmost care to survive, making battles tough but rewarding.

Scarlet Deer Inn

Scarlet Deer Inn is a narrative platformer with a darker story than its cheery art might suggest — which is fitting given its developer lists Studio Ghibli as an inspiration. What really makes Scarlet Deer Inn stand out is its art (every animation frame is actually a piece of real-world embroidery) and its music, performed on traditional instruments from the Middle Ages.

Proverbs

Proverbs’ developer compares it to both Minesweeper and “digital cross-stitch.” Before you is a massive grid, with numbers scattered around telling you how many light-colored tiles are touching each one. All you need to do is turn every one of the grid’s 54,000 squares light or dark based on that information. Simple! As you do, you’ll uncover a recreation of the 1559 painting Netherlandish Proverbs by Peter Bruegel the Elder. Of course, you’ll only complete a fraction of it in the demo, but I still spent over an hour getting sucked into its captivating puzzle and came away feeling genuinely more at ease than when I began.