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I have always loved inviting friends over to play silly platformer games like N++, Rayman Legends, Super Mario Bros. games, and the like. Of course, I also have played my fair share of mobile phone games. So a game like “Crossy Road Castle”, developed by Hipster Whale, piqued my interest quickly when I saw it was coming to consoles. I was able to get my hooves on a review copy, and I’ve spent quite a few hours exploring the procedurally-generated floors of the various castles with my wife in local couch co-op, and I’m relieved to say it didn’t let me (or her!) down!

Another GIANT list of games we have this season for the Fall 2024 Steam Next Fest! We're looking forward to a ton of these games and have compiled as many as we could find with animals and/or anthropomorphic characters featured in them! Be sure to let us know of any others you find by commenting below!

We'll be playing some of these demos this week and next, and hopefully providing some previews and progress updates throughout development! Additionally, we have an actively updated Furry & Animal Games List over at @GamingFurever that you can follow and get constant updates for lots of indie titles with TONS of lovely furry characters! If you're a developer of any of these games, feel free to hit us up on email over on our Contact Us page!

Here's your October 2024 Steam Next Fest list:

Ever dreamed of being an alchemist in a fantasy town full of anthropomorphic villagers, slightly dangerous monsters, and a wealth of ingredients for your potion-crafting needs? Alchemist: The Potion Monger is all of those things and more, and provides a heaping dose of things to do in a casual setting that allows for you to grow your knowledge and skills at your own speed. Even after spending numerous hours with the game, there’s still more for me to find and do. Though it takes some time to craft the more funny potions in the game, the journey to get there can be a rewarding one, even if it takes a little longer to get there than I expected.

The concept for Copycat is rife with opportunity. Lovingly and fully voice acted by a cast of Australian locals, Copycat is driven by the concept of a nature documentary narrator following your cat, Dawn’s, adventures through adoption and rehoming. Your new life is upended when a “Copycat” tries to take your newly found place in the family with an elderly lady named Olive. Olive and her daughter also have a lot of real life issues that they’re having to handle, and you get caught up in the effects of all of them, while also battling with the implied trauma from your last family. People tell me I’m an emotional guy, and this game does nothing to prove them wrong. Throughout the game I was on a rollercoaster of emotions, all of them culminating in an incredibly fulfilling ending that was worth the price of admission.

Sunderfolk, the first game developed by Secret Door., has been announced! Published by Dreamhaven, Sunderfolk is designed for players who love tabletop, board, and video games, and will be available on Steam, PlayStation^®5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch^™. 

Sunderfolk is a tactical couch co-op RPG created with the purpose of bringing new and veteran players together in a shared tale of tactics, survival, and triumph. You and three of your friends can pick one of six available heroes—the Arcanist, Bard, Berserker, Pyromancer, Ranger, and Rogue—and begin a one-of-a-kind experience told through both the “main screen” (the shared TV or monitor) and your phone or tablet, which acts as your controller for the adventure.

What do you get when you mix Animal Crossing at its best with a cozy town building, crafting, life sim game set on a post-apocalyptic archipelago paradise? Why, you get Critter Cove! Though it's premiering in early access on Steam, it is well into the “worth it” category already upon initial launch. I’ve spent a good 15 hours in the world of Critter Cove and it has flown by. There’s a wonderfully pleasant and interesting gameplay loop that involves exploring the world bit by bit, picking up important resources along the way, and finding new villagers and questlines as you go. You can find furniture for your house, improvements for your town, or new tools to create lots of usable or displayable objects. I was impressed by how much I kept discovering new areas to explore, each holding a new trinket to collect for my museum, or rare items to dismantle and eventually build in my house. There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s get started!

The island your ship landed on is sinking for mysterious reasons! Explore, make new friends, and face deadly foes in this action RPG! Maple Forest just launched their Kickstarter, and it's already fully funded!

Maple Forest is an action RPG inspired by a bunch of 90s classics. In it, you'll adventure across an island that's begun to sink for mysterious reasons. The residents of the island's main village tell you that their legends say the power of the god of the island is what keeps the island afloat. The god of the island lives in a shrine at the top of the mountain, but that shrine has been sealed off by a huge stone door for longer than anyone in the village can remember. If there was a way to open that door and speak with the island's guardian, the island might be saved, but noone on the island has been strong or courageous enough to brave the island's wilderness in search of a way to unseal the door...until now!

Developer Motion Twin has posted a new gameplay video for the in-development game "Windblown" and it is looking GOOD! From the developers of Dead Cells, Windblown is a 1-3 player online co-op action Roguelite with lightning-fast action and developed for co-op from the ground up. Check out the video below for a sizeable first look, and read up on more details about the game on their recent blog post.

Forced to go on a quest to retrieve a legendary bow to save his home woodland, Bernard grabs his trusty bow and helpful sidekick owl Blue and embarks on an epic platforming, card grabbing, arrow shooting adventure. There’s a refinement of the gameplay formula that the game crafts that allows for a real honing of strategies and possibilities as you proceed through Bearnard’s many levels. I found myself thinking two steps ahead and contemplating the possibilities of combat and exploration more and more with every obstacle I faced and overcame. Whilst doing that, the player is treated to some unique witty writing for the characters’ dialogue and notes found around the world, which added to the charm of it all. Bearnard was enjoyable to pick up and easy to come back to over and over as I progressed.

Platformers are almost as popular as roguelikes these days. There are so many examples of ones that are pretty good, using the same tried and true formula for the genre, not innovating way too much and providing a decent amount of content. There are far fewer examples of games like Kitsune Tails, which manages to surprise you over and over again with its nonstop parade of new level ideas, wonderful costume & ability changes, and a wealth of content to perfect. Rarely does something come along that is truly a wondrous addition to the plethora of platforming options like Kitune Tails. It has its faults, but they are so easily looked beyond in favor of appreciating what was so lovingly crafted here.