June 2025 Next Fest Demo Impressions [Part 1]: Danchi Days, Cast N Chill, Downhill, Dispatch, Thysiastery, & Bloodthief

June's 2025 Steam Next Fest event might be behind us, but that doesn't mean there isn't a smattering of demos I want to discuss on the site. As has been a bit of a tradition here, I'll be looking at a dozen Next Fest game demos I sunk my teeth into across two blogs. Below are the games I will cover in this entry and the subsequent one. If there are any demos not represented, or if you have rebuttals or disagreements with my assessment of the ones I played, feel free to share them in the comments.

Part 1 [THIS BLOG]:

• Danchi Days
• Cast n Chill
• Downhill
• Dispatch
• Thysiastery
• Bloodthief

Part 2:

• Super 10 Pin
• Rogue Point
• Mio Memories in Orbit
• Rue Valley
• Azaran: Islands of the Jinn
• Mina The Hollower

Danchi Days

What is it?

Danchi Days is a puzzle exploration adventure game where you control a young girl hoping to revive a summer festival that has not been celebrated or hosted for some time. She is a resident in a "danchi" dwelling, a form of government-subsidized housing in Japan that had its heyday during the post-World War II economic boom but is now commonly associated with poverty and Japan's aging population. Your female protagonist, named Hoshino, possesses a unique skill for detecting and perceiving things around her, a talent her grandmother taught her when she was young. Your task at hand is to host a large and fantastic summer festival in honor of the danchi she calls home. To get people on board, she must perform tasks that involve locating and delivering lost trinkets and repairing parts of the long-derelict apartment complex. You perceive items in the world by clicking and holding a button and waiting for the highlight tool to move onto an object or piece of scenery. Hoshino will then either collect it or make an observation about it, which may connect with completing a task for a different NPC. The NPCs you are trying to convince to attend the festival are scattered across a dozen or so screens that you can enter on a whim, much like Zelda. To help her on her journey, Hoshino enlists the aid of the "god of the danchi," who happens to be a mythical kappa.

What's in the demo?

The demo features a brief prologue involving Hoshino, her grandmother, and a childhood friend as they are taught how to observe the world around them, as well as the game's subsequent first in-game day. The tutorial mission involves you clicking the button to trigger Hoshino's special ability and waiting for the cursor to move onto the objects the tutorial needs you to collect, which in this case involves repairing a recently destroyed map. Personally, I dislike how this mechanic relies on a cursor that moves on its own and would have greatly preferred it if the cursor could be freely moved after triggering Hoshino's special ability, perhaps with a timer if the game's developer felt that would ruin its balance. Despite the weightiness of the narrative, which we will discuss momentarily, the game is a "cozy game" with the primary objective centered on your character's attempt to resolve issues and bring joy to those around them non-violently. Having the core mechanic control similarly to how Yoshi's egg-throwing arc moves in Yoshi's Island feels, to a degree, in contrast with that. Likewise, there are also minigames when you get close to resolving the issues of NPCs before they fully agree to RSVP to the festival, and most of these are benign. Still, there are a few, even in the demo, that are punishingly difficult and are in dire need of a balance re-work. Nonetheless, these are minor quibbles, as the game presents a relaxing and introspective tour through a side of Japan we rarely see through the lens of a child: the life of the working-class poor. As you perform deliveries and attempt to leave no stone unturned, the game's charming visuals and reflective mechanics give way to a rather heartbreaking story.

Following the game's prologue, we learn that Hoshino's grandmother has developed dementia, and the danchi she knows and loves is no longer what it once was. As she tries to revive the complex's yearly summer festival, she is beset by online harassment, frequent naysayers, and her family's struggles with her grandmother's deterioration. The mystical companion that accompanies her, the building's "god," gives way to the backstory of the game, which you get hints of in the demo. You discover that Hoshino's grandmother has known of the building's kappa protector but is powerless to prevent people from moving out of the building and address Japan's declining population, and she feels that she can no longer fulfill her part in protecting her home. In many ways, Danchi Days reminds me of Rakuen. This game conveys an equally fantastical journey set against the backdrop of nostalgic artwork while still maintaining a story with plenty of heart and weight. The kappa provides a fantasy component, making this a uniquely Japanese adventure, but their ulterior purpose is obvious. The kappa functions as a metaphor for Hoshino's grandmother's memory loss and the eventual need for her to come to terms with its permanency.

Will I buy the full game when it's released?

Maybe. These games are tricky to assess. Control issue quibbles aside, though I do hope those minigames get less annoying, Danchi Days is an honorable indie effort I will at least follow. You have to be in the right mood and mindset to play these sorts of emotion-driven cozy games, and even then, you might only play them in short bursts in between other games. That might be me, but cozy games with "heart" tend to be things I find impossible to play for more than two hours as I struggle to process the full breadth of emotions they try to elicit. Everything Danchi Days does and attempts to do is admirable, and its nostalgic art style perfectly fits its undertones and narrative goal of conveying the life of a young girl clinging to hope that she can temporarily revive or relive a sliver of the magic of her childhood. Vinny Caravella coined the term "fuzzy mittens" in a review to describe indie games of this sort that feature cheery visuals but are more about eliciting emotions through their stories. That's an almost perfect label for Danchi Days. The vibes are nice, and so are the summer-ish jams, but be warned that there's a lot more to this journey than vibes, and that may be the key as to whether or not the game is your cup of tea.

Cast n Chill

What is it?

Cast n Chill is a pixel-based fishing game. When you start the game, your nameless protagonist already occupies a boat, has a fishing pole with bait, and can explore one lake by moving from left to right. The further right you get on the lake, the more difficult the fish get to catch, with many of the more sizable fish requiring upgrades to your bait or lures as well as heavier fishing poles that will not snap or lose fish as you are attempting to reel them in. After you fill your boat up with fish, you can cash them in for income that you then spend on upgrades, which, again, tie into different species and weight classes of fish, though the enhancements will lock you out of other fish as well. For example, your starting loadout is incredibly effective at catching small bass but completely inert at catching anything else. However, when you move from live bait to spinning lures, the smaller, easier-to-catch fish will no longer be interested, and you will need to focus on one or two different species of fish in an alternate location. As this is a cozy game, there's no way to soft-lock yourself out of progress, and you don't need to worry about re-upping your bait or fuel. You can also hot-swap your gear on the fly without needing to return to the tackle shop, and when you do lose a fish, there's no monetary penalty.

What's in the demo?

The demo features a single lake, though the full game will have more locations and a wider variety of upgrades for your boat, ice chest (which determines how many fish you are allowed to catch before needing to return to the dock to sell them), rod, and lures. The smallest class of fish requires very little finessing, and it seems that every location in the game has at least one "easy out" for you to grind on to get easy money to gain further upgrades. However, the reeling mechanic is mostly time-based, with you needing to reel the fish in when there's no indicator to let up before the fish breaks away or spits out your hook. Likewise, most fish require a specific type of lure before they will even bite, and many more will only become more practical until you unlock other complimentary upgrades, like rods that can handle heavier fish. Whenever you move from one area in a lake or river to the next, there's prep work involved. While I found that to be relaxing and one of the more rewarding aspects of the game, it is also unnecessarily obtuse due to the game's belligerent minimalism. When you try out a new loadout, there's nothing in the game that tells you if you have locked yourself out of catching the fish you're trying to bring ashore or if you have made things unintentionally harder than they need to be.

Yes, it's a chill game, but it has almost all the faults I often perceive in cozy games. The process of reeling in fish deliberately has very few visual and audio aids to inform you how close you are to pulling a fish into your boat or how close you are to losing them. There are white motion lines that will appear, which are your sign to let up from reeling. They're not enough, and other minimalistic stylings are equally frustrating. Because the game employs a pixel-based art style, it can sometimes be challenging to distinguish between the different species of fish in the bodies of water where they reside. Suppose you approach the game from a meditative perspective or even an income-oriented maximalist viewpoint. In that case, that isn't a big deal, but the game does give you an encyclopedia to populate with pages for all of the possible fish you can catch. With the fish not having outlines or markers to indicate which ones are and aren't ones that you have caught before, it is frustrating to cast out and aim for a fish you think is something new, and after working to reel them in, you discover it is a duplicate. The good news is that the encyclopedia does provide guidance on which lures and rods to use to get new or uncaught fish, but there's still an annoying amount of luck involved.

Will I buy the full game when it's released?

Probably not. I fish in real life, and while I understand why the makers of Cast n Chill made the creative choices they did, I still find them a major impediment to enjoying the game's vibes and meditative qualities. While I enjoyed the immediacy of being able to swap different rods, lures, and bits and pieces before every cast, the frequency with which I discovered a new setup as unusable or impractical through trial-end-error, with little guidance or signposting from the game, was off-putting. You sure say, "That didn't work! Let's try something different," or "Well, what's left?" a lot, and that rubbed me the wrong way. Mind you, it's virtually impossible to end up not being able to deliver something to replenish your coffers, but some of the upgrade paths feel way too slow, and judging from how much the latter lakes and river licenses cost, you might be stuck toiling away on the starting few levels longer than you'd like. You can still get a relaxing experience out of Cast n Chill, but you have to work the game way more than you should to get its intended effects and experience.

Downhill

What is it?

Now it is time for an indie action RPG with a horror twist! Downhill sees you controlling Fade, a citizen at a coven or nunnery, where other residents in her village are attempting to perform a magical ritual to ward off a malignant force known as the "Gloom." As this is a video game, that evil force wins, and Fade needs to break out while fending off an almost endless onslaught of dark spawn. The core gameplay revolves around five key mechanics or abilities: Fade's blood saber, nightwalking, blinking, spells, and rites. The blood saber does most of the heavy lifting, with you mashing away on the attack button to clear out enemies, and spells are a fairly straightforward compliment to this. Where things get interesting is with nightwalking and blinking. The former allows you to phase into a different realm where enemies cannot hurt you, and if you attack them while in this dimension, you make dozens of attacks within seconds, though the amount of time you can use this ability is highly restricted until you get some leveling done. Blinking allows you to do a quick dash, and it's similar in execution to the dash and roll moves in SuperGiant titles. Blinking can be done however often you want and is the key to defeating bosses and enemies without taking damage. Rites offer your expected risk-reward mechanic wherein whenever you find a large crystal, you can use it to burn resources or in-game currency to gain something that is usually permanent in return.

What's in the demo?

Downhill's demo is around 45 to 50 minutes of gameplay and showcases what I can only assume is the game's opening act. This act includes a nice prologue sequence that introduces the game's setting, recurring characters, and themes, featuring talking spirits and beast folk who are also trying to survive the onslaught of dark beings flooding the village. At the start, the combat is very mash-focused, with you only needing to dash to avoid damage and wailing away on basic sword swings to kill enemies. Larger and faster targets eventually require you to phase into the "safe" dark realm to deal lethal blows and inflict damage, but it's still rather basic, and I found the overall movements in the game to be stiff. The game generally looks good, especially during its pixelated cutscenes, but there are times when the hitboxes feel off or your character gets stuck when trying to dash across or next to objects or pieces of furniture. In the demo, there's an infuriating switch puzzle where the timing is way too unforgiving, and Fade's dash not allowing her to phase through the switches to shave off a few seconds feels bizarre. Likewise, there are times when you need to use the night walk mechanic to traverse past barriers and obstacles, and these sequences require more signposting and better lighting than as they stand presently. It's not always clear when something is just a dead end, or the game expects you to phase-shift, and even when you do, the dark vignetting effect often makes it difficult to distinguish where entrances and exits are.

Where Downhill makes up for some of its annoyances, which are a reflection of the game still being a work in progress, that much, I admit, comes in how you level up Fade. The game immediately breaks the fourth wall, as advertised on its store page, and allows you, the player, to openly possess Fade and interact with her through the game's morality system. These interactions directly impact the abilities Fade gains access to within the game. At first, the dialogue you have with Fade is relatively straightforward, with you either edging her to be more aggressive or defensive in how she fights the Gloom, and those comments either make her blade or dashing abilities stronger, respectively. However, even in the demo, the nuances kick in, forcing you to assess whether you want a specialized character or one that is more well-rounded, thus prompting you to consider your responses and interactions with Fade throughout the game. It's an interesting mechanic and progression system, but the game still lacks combos or more mechanical depth. You can certainly unlock some cool-looking spells with scary area-of-effect impacts, but you honestly are wailing away on the same basic attack more often than not.

Will I buy the full game when it's released?

Maybe. Downhill shows a lot of promise, but it is also rough in many spots. The combat is teetering towards a logical capstone or endpoint but doesn't quite have the hook it needs to keep everything together. Other issues, such as wonky hitboxes and puzzles with unforgiving time limits, are telltale signs that this is not entirely ready for prime time. To Downhill's defense, even its developer, who got this project off the runway using Kickstarter, has stated that they have plenty of patches and balance fixes in store for the game, thanks to the input they got during Next Fest. With Downhill not aiming for a nearby or tangible release date and the developer using Next Fest for its intended purpose (i.e., free public playtesting and PR), they should take as much time as needed. The game has established its tone, setting, and core ideas, and all of these represent something incredibly compelling. In the future, I do want to explore the various ways you can approach Fade using the game's morality system and how in-game branching points impact your experience. Through it all, the game's demo is still completely worth a shot.

Dispatch

What is it?

Dispatch is a game that has drawn equal parts praise and skepticism from fans and the press, as its advertising campaign has relied heavily on associations, and the game itself often falls to the wayside, so let's start with the basics. First, it is a choice-driven adventure-strategy game where you control Robert Robertson, a superhero who has recently lost their ability to serve as a hero following the destruction of their robot suit. Now that they are essentially depowered, they work as a dispatcher at an office that assigns heroes to pressing or ongoing disasters or crimes. Second, Dispatch comes from some of the people who worked on The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and Tales from the Borderlands and features a star-studded cast with Aaron Paul voicing the protagonist with Laura Bailey, Erin Yvette, Matthew Mercer, and a whole bunch of YouTubers and Twitch streamers also taking up voice acting roles. To be clear, the game itself presents a series of scenarios in which you assemble teams of heroes with you needing to assess whose abilities would be best suited to meet the challenges of any given mission, all while characters bark at you. As missions progress, the game requires you to select a prompt when a new scenario presents itself within a limited amount of time at your disposal, and when outside of these missions, your interactions with other characters function similarly. Finally, a lot of Dispatch works within the wheelhouse of the games its creators have claimed as progeny. Still, the strategy component is what slightly sets it apart, with missions that have alternate solutions that each connect to divergent narrative branching points. Obviously, how much of that is true remains to be seen and will not be known until we get our hands on the whole game.

What's in the demo?

The demo serves as an introduction to the game, featuring a starting mission I can only assume is the game's tutorial mission. Even if you mull over your options, things cap off at around fifty minutes, though my run only took thirty-ish minutes and change. It's hard to judge how honest developer AdHoc Studio is when they say "choices matter" because if they want to say this game comes proudly from the people that gave you The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and Tales from the Borderlands, then we know it's not a matter of every or no choices matter, but, instead, a matter of some choices mattering more than others. Over time, I have come to appreciate the latter games that emerged from Telltale Games. I still consider The Walking Dead to be overrated and do not respect the smoke and mirror act Telltale Games led you through; that game is blatant chicanery, and I still can't stop myself from rolling my eyes whenever I think of how many GOTY awards it netted. Nonetheless, by the time the later seasons of The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands came out, a nice balance between ancillary and narrative choices was struck with Telltale Games' template. So, I played Dispatch's demo a second time to test out what impacts the choices really had and found that the game, in its opening act, sticks with the "you're too early in the story for anything significant, so these choices are about if you want to be nice or an asshole to the people around you" phase. It's a real Telltale Games "classic," if you get my drift.

What is going to make or break Dispatch is the strategy missions where you assign heroes and deal with scenarios as they emerge. The lone mission in the demo is clearly just a tutorial mission. I get that you don't want to spill all of the beans with a game like this during Next Fest, but it almost would have done them more favors to at least include one more mission that was more involved and/or had greater consequences for making poor choices or selections. Given that the demo is more like the game's tutorial than an honest vertical slice, most of the in-mission scenarios feel like layups with obvious correct answers, and the mission itself is essentially the same. There are characters the game tells you are ideally suited for the mission, so you'd be a moron not to go with those suggestions. It might sound mean, but for a game that lays its laurels on impactful choices, it is shocking how much of its demo comes across as performative. It's challenging to judge Dispatch from my perspective as a skeptic of Telltale Games. This team has demonstrated its ability to weave character-building moments into a choice-driven narrative. It can be done, and it definitely can be with these people at the helm. Unfortunately, we haven't seen proof of that yet with Dispatch. I didn't find this demo to be the slam dunk that some people have made it out to be. It's an interesting proof of concept and not disqualified from hype. Still, it has yet to convince me that it won't fall prey to the well-known shortcomings of Telltale Games' previous works, regardless of this being from a separate studio.

Will I buy the full game when it's released?

It depends. I don't want to come across as someone who hates the works of Telltale Games. However, in playing a majority of their games, I know there are limits to all of their promises of making choice-driven narratives where every interaction is claimed to play into an algorithm or map that funnels you down one of many possible endings. Sure, the team behind Dispatch is NOT Telltale Games, but with much of the advertising flaunting the game featuring the figureheads behind many of Telltale Games' "classic" works, we have to recognize they have primed what type of game this is. Additionally, I'm not entirely convinced that the strategy aspect of this game serves as an effective lynchpin for the story. I understand the characters you use will have their moments to shine in the story in due time, but the mission in the demo felt like a distraction from the character-driven moments. I'm not advocating that these missions be removed because they can't; they're what keeps the whole game together. However, this demo doesn't make the strong first impression its developers intended. Likewise, I need more documentation or proof that these missions don't all have perfect "solutions" by subbing in one ideal party composition after another. The only "grit" and pushback you get in the demo are from a few characters that seem to be judgemental about Robert because he has no powers himself and instead had to rely on a robot suit to carry out his superhero-ing escapades. I'll keep an open mind about the game's full scope and sequence as we draw closer to its release, but until then, I'll likely only have this game in my periphery.

Thysiastery

What is it?

Thysiastery is an RPG dungeon crawler blobber. The game is played entirely from a first-person perspective, and you navigate a randomly generated dungeon with procedurally generated characters, traversing its many levels through grid-based turn-based movement. When you encounter an enemy, you trigger combat by clicking an attack or phasing into a combat screen by selecting an input to do so. Combat is turn-based as well, with the turn order being determined by your character's and enemey's stats, though the game presents this information through a single first-person flat shot. If you have played a dungeon crawler CRPG before, whether it's a classic Wizardry game or perhaps Grimrock or its many imitators, you know how Thysiastery plays and works. However, unlike classic games of this type, Thysiastery does not allow you to quick save or quick load as the game is also a roguelike. While it is a toggle you can disable in the full retail release, the demo enforces perma-death whenever a character perishes in combat. Transitioning from one level in the game to the next reveals exquisite monochromatic environments with new sets of enemies and encounters with merchants and NPCs strewn about. The full version of the game will have modifiers, which can either make the game easier or more challenging, and the demo doesn't allow you to create custom characters and instead forces you to rely entirely on RNG parties.

What's in the demo?

The demo offers a couple of environments within the game's expansive dungeons. These settings have a predetermined number of levels before transitioning to a new location. The size of these levels is dependent on RNG, but I can assure you they were never "small," and many ended up being fairly involved efforts. Sometimes, you'll locate the stairs to an upper level almost immediately, and other times, you will struggle to find them after twenty minutes of searching; that's the nature of the beast, as they say. The UI/UX when you are in combat is a bit busy, but displaying the turn order on a timeline is greatly appreciated, and I'm a sucker for any game that displays a classic text log showing all of the actions you have been subjected to or engaged in. The RNG is generous enough always to include a handful of treasure chests, traveling merchants, and shrines, the latter of which provide permanent buffs and spells for individuals in your party. However, clearing an entire level in a dungeon is an often daunting task, and much like other roguelikes or dungeon crawlers, there's a "push-your-luck" element that guides most of your actions. You will need to explore dungeons, though, as the game only starts you with two characters, with future party members trapped in prison cells you need to find.

This game is another vibe piece. While there is lore and context with the dungeon and why your characters are there, there's no noticeable effort to convey a narrative in Thysiastery, and that is to be expected considering the game's roguelike nature. I did butt up against some repeating dialogue and lore between multiple playthroughs, which I can only hope will become less frequent with more development time. Visually, the game is stunning, particularly in how it limits your field of view, which is a praiseworthy way the game builds upon its creepy atmosphere. It also revels in its vignetting effect, but the outlines for the enemies are bright and colorful enough that you can still properly prepare yourself for upcoming confrontations. Nonetheless, RNG can be a fickle mistress, and that's certainly the case in Thysiastery. In one playthrough, I had three thief-like characters and no magic casters, and the game kept giving me DPS characters, and I could not find the shrines that teach magic to save my life. Speaking of those shrines, the game provides only the most vague hints on what they will do, and more often than not, you'll find yourself granting a spell or ability to someone that would have been better suited for someone else. Luckily, you can mitigate that by having characters teach each other abilities, but the cooldown on that is massive. Finally, Thysiastery will kick your teeth in. Much like the classic blobbers it pays homage to, you have to go into and accept that sometimes you're going to get wrecked at the drop of a hat. As someone just coming off from sinking in twenty-five hours into Wizardry VII, I'm okay with that, but given the roguelike nature of Thysiastery, losing everything in what you think is going to be "the run" can be demotivating.

Will I buy the full game when it's released?

Absolutely! It's been a long time since I played a first-person dungeon crawler that hooked me the way Thysiastery did, but I'm in. I don't feel as if I have sold the game's visuals and atmosphere enough, as Thysiastery bleeds style with every movement you take. The visuals are both nostalgic and unique while also utilizing a limited color palette that enhances the game's readability. The game's lack of a narrative and punishing difficulty mean that it isn't for everyone, but for sickos like myself that put Skald on their 2024 GOTY list, this game has a ton of potential. Experiencing the transitions from one environment to the next felt special, and parts of Thysiastery reminded me of Made in Abyss. You keep going further into the game because you know you have to and are enamored by everything new you see, even if most of what you observe can kill you. It remains to be seen if the modifiability of the game, which the developers have promised for the full release, will allow for a more welcoming on-ramp for newcomers. In its current form, I recommend Thysiastery only to those with some prior blobber experience. But to those of you who have been itching for a proper follow-up to Grimrock with stunning production values? This game is right up your alley.

Bloodthief

What is it?

What if Ghostrunner started a relationship with the first Thief game, and they had a child? If that happened, the spawn from that love tryst would be Bloodthief. The game is a fast-paced, run-based game with a greater emphasis on melee combat and level design that evokes medieval and classic Thief-based settings. You control a single vampire character who needs to navigate a series of rooftops, corridors, dungeons, and more as they murder guards and suck their blood as they reach the exits of levels. Much like Ghostrunner, the game is billed as being "ultra-fast" where you need to maintain your momentum by pulling off a variety of parkour moves and combat techniques while keeping your blood levels high. As you take damage, your character's blood level dwindles, and if it reaches zero upon taking a hit, you die, and either have to start from the beginning of the level or load from a checkpoint. To make your life easier, you can dash-cancel, slide, wall jump, and kill most enemies in a single hit. Using attacks that lock in on enemies allows you to leap onto them, which proves crucial in solving platforming-based sequences that involve large chasms or pits of lava.

What's in the demo?

First, the dash slide in this game is the same one you see in the Ghostrunner series. Bloodthief is shameless in how and where it lifts its many disparate parts. The lock-on and slash move, used to navigate tall pillars and rooftops, is a feature that also originated with Ghostrunner but was most fully realized in Neon White. Bloodthief isn't a game that can claim to be entirely original, and its patchwork of ideas being pulled from other games is something you may or may not agree with morally. Obviously, no one can stake a claim or copyright on a gameplay mechanic like dash sliding, but the one here feels so profoundly connected to another game's version of that mechanic that I can't help but point that out. The missions themselves are more on par with Ghostrunner's length. Some are longer than others, and the first handful focuses on using mechanics or tools in your toolbox to complete specific types of barriers or obstacles. The combat itself is relatively basic and doesn't have the flashy kill animations that other games of this type rely on, but the bodies do burst into early 2000s gibs, which is a nice touch. The game's speed can feel overwhelming at times, and there's a FOV blurring effect that occurs when you reach the maximum speed. As is the case with Ghostrunner, when I reached that point in Bloodthief, I just blindly slammed on the lock-on attack in hopes I could string a series of kills to move forward. This game could benefit from a slowdown ability or some further tools you could use to make the game's speed more manageable without jeopardizing your command of the action on your screen.

While the game does utilize checkpoints, Bloodthief ultimately repeats the same annoying problem that Ghostrunner and Neon White had regarding checkpointing in a run-based game. Like those games, Bloodthief limits you to a single checkpoint to autoload after dying; however, upon loading that checkpoint, your character always starts stationary and has zero momentum to use after reloading an auto-save. Just like a lot of games of this type, there are times when loading from the checkpoint feels like a fool's errand, as you have dozens of enemies to fight or platforms to leap on. The best way to accomplish those tasks is to load from the start of the level and hope that this time you can get through everything while maintaining your speed leading up to your last checkpoint. I don't know of a single game of this type that has entirely "solved" this issue, but it's always a bummer when it happens. However, the demo's six levels lay Bloodthief's cards out fairly plainly. Your first attempt with each level is bound to fail, and every subsequent effort is meant to develop your ability to register what the most efficient path to take is, with that often resulting in you quick loading from a checkpoint dozens of times before you reach the end, and that either rocks your boat or it doesn't.

Will I buy the full game when it's released?

Probably not. While I had a blast with the game, I came to the same realization with this demo that I did when I let the hype behind Ghostrunner and Neon White get me: I suck at these games. I've tried adjusting the settings and experimenting with the sliders, but in the end, I'm just not good at Bloodthief. I understand that run-based games like this can still be enjoyable puzzles to solve when you disregard the leaderboard component and treat each level as its own microcosm; that's how I played Neon White and still had a good time. Nonetheless, these games pose dexterity challenges for me, and my reflex-based gaming skills are no longer what they once were. The streaming and speedrunning communities are sure to have a blast with Bloodthief, and I thoroughly enjoyed its throwback visuals and sensibilities. There was a sequence wherein you need to quickly lock into dashing into enemies to kill them to hop around a half dozen pillars that stand in a pit of lava, and it immediately reminded me of some of the zanier levels in Unreal Tournament or Quake. It might not be for me, but there's no denying that there's an audience for this game, and I respect how unapologetic it is in terms of who it aims to attract as prospective players.