Tails by the Foxfire

As you might have heard if you come here often or if you’ve stood in my general vicinity lately, I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the Emberville prologue back in September, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. 

You might have heard Emberville likened to ‘Diablo meets Stardew Valley’ which looks to be eventually true once you get to base restoration and whatnot, but for the prologue Emberville definitely leans a lot more Diablo-esque: you awaken in the mysterious Vitromotus with no memories, no equipment, just the clothes on your back and whatever gear you can scavenge from the bodies of your enemies. Combat is quite briskly paced and action-oriented, but intuitive, with skills assigned to your number pad and special class-based combos performed by clicking your mouse buttons in sequence. You’ll die a lot to start with, but you’ll come back each time near wherever you were beaten to a pulp without having to do a lot of backtracking. Over time you’ll earn points you can invest in your magic, armour, and more, and you’ll come across books and other written lore that will fill in the history of this magical prison and others who have been trapped inside of it. Emberville’s voice acting cast is completely star-studded as well, with heavy-hitters like Matt Mercer, Ben Starr, Jennifer English, Doug Cockle, and more lending their voices to its diverse cast.

I’ve been pretty homesick for England lately, what with the… everything… happening in the world as we live through a whole GCSE history textbook, and Mr. Records felt like sitting down with my 70-year-old dad and chatting about his vinyls or catching an episode from Top of the Pops from the 80’s, back when those used to air at like 1 in the morning (but at least there’s still re-runs of Bullseye). I expected a vibrant rhythm game and a fun, colourful art style, but I had no idea George, Buzz, and their record shop would be so completely charming and have me impatiently queuing for the day the doors open in earnest.

In the demo for Mr Records, you play a few days in George’s new life as a record shop owner and help your customers find the records they’re looking for based on their descriptions. You also stock the shop of course, but it’s not just a matter of buying vinyls: you have to experience them to truly know them, and George has a very immersive way of listening that puts him right in the action of each track he hears. Jump over potholes, slide-kick monsters, and slide up and down oil slicks to the rhythm of unvanquishable earworms like The Sausage Blues. Each song has a regular level with a star rating, and a hard mode that will unlock the album’s special edition for you to sell in the store. Mr Records has fantastic replay value and is sure to give you a smile when you need it.

And, yes, you can pet the dog. Do so, please. He’s a good lad.

I used to be a big fan of The Sandman, until the horrors. Since then, I’ve been looking for a story that can fill the void of its complex mythology and moody, gothic art, and I believe I’ve finally found it in STARCULT.Night: Twisted Age, which is a visual novel that takes choice-based storytelling to the next level by adding in the complex human element of how emotion can skew conversations and impact how others perceive us and interact with us. 

The story follows the noblewoman and artist Silviya, whose husband is brutally murdered shortly after their wedding day. His last gift to her was a mysterious servant with the stars on his skin, who claims to know Silviya… and plenty about her powers of emotional manipulation. Using the emotions she carries from prior events and conversations, Silviya can colour each dialogue option you select with an emotion of your choosing, depending on which feelings you have access to in her emotion palette. This adds a dual layer to each choice you make: the consequences of the things you say, and the consequences of how you say them.

Bottled by Bears is an absolutely darling idle game where you run a chill little honey farm operated by (you guessed it) an adorable family of bears. Operations start relatively modestly with just one hive and a honey stand, but over time, you’ll accumulate more bees, generate and sell more honey, fill your farm with different flowers, and expand its borders to discover new hives to revive and upgrade. Just remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Bottled by Bears is an ideal game to check in on while taking it easy after work, as progress starts briskly but becomes slow and steady, allowing you to really appreciate the progress you make with each new upgrade. I’m generally pretty mentally exhausted by the time I clock out of my 9-5, so Bottled by Bears is the ideal game for those ‘I don’t want to think, I want to make a nice hot cup of tea, boot up a cozy game, and wrap up in blankets’ days.

Bottled by Bears doesn’t just scratch the cozy management itch either: rather than just giving you new bees with each hive upgrade or having you attract them, it has you fill your hives by ripping open card booster packs bought with the in-game currency you earn by selling your bottled honey. These booster packs can be upgraded with in-game currency as well, so the profits from your honey sales feed directly back into upgrading your cards, hives, sales stand, and the levels of the bees themselves. On top of that, Bottled by Bears is a completionist’s dream, as there are many bee, bottle, and flower types to discover and collect in your journal, and lots of woodsy decorations to be unlocked to customize your farm with. 

Next up is Zombie Police: Midsummer Unhappy New Year by Lobstudio in Kyoto, which follows zombie detective Akemi Kabane and her junior partner Yasu Tamura, who idolizes a cool TV detective. In this 10-20 minute demo, you’re thrown into a muder mystery that showcases the game’s case-solving mechanics. Pay close attention to the visual novel sections, as you might hear some important details that you’ll need for when it’s time to fill out your notebook and solve the case! 

My two favourite things about Zombie Police: Midsummer Unhappy New Year are the art style and the humour. I also appreciate that photographs are used for the environments, as it adds a ‘real life’ element to the game that aids the immersion. Overall, it’s bright, peppy fun like you’d expect from a detective anime, and I’m very interested in the next mystery that’s teased at the end of the demo (and that, according to the game’s summary on Steam, serves as the game’s main story): a return to Tamura’s hometown.

Lenin Street Geek Shop goes further than being an enjoyable shop simulator, if you’ve got a twisted sense of humour like I do at times. Beyond the satisfaction of ordering your products and stocking the shelves, it’s got unhinged interactions with your customers that make you feel like you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next. There’s your standard first-person shop-running gameplay sections like you see in Maid Cafe Simulator or Supermarket Simulator or whatever, but once you step outside the shop for a break, you find yourself in a 2D pixel environment that feels like a breath of fresh air. You can customize the outside of the shop too to a certain extent, and even more interactions are waiting out there, from kids fighting over a scarce candy to legally distinct Jay and Silent Bob offering you beatbox lessons. 

There are a couple more notable features about the game while you’re behind the counter that I’d like to mention briefly too: first, the way each customer is rendered fondly reminds me of the PS2 in terms of looks and their sometimes humorously abusive and sometimes 3rd-wall-breaking dialogue. Second, the rumour system’s impact on your business makes the shop feel interestingly immersive and keeps you totally locked in. Third, and maybe most valuably, Lenin Street Geek Shop gives mathematically dyslexic gamers like me a break from the stress of trying to figure out change by having an auto-change option, so you can click a single button and carry on with your day. I really appreciate the inclusiveness. The customers take no prisoners with how they judge your customer service, but at least they don’t make me count. I couldn’t ask for more.

I was genuinely sad when the demo ended, and  hustle of Lenin Street Geek Shop’s ingame calls to action to make you watch the trailer and wishlist (I did it, Gabed Bag, I swear!). What a fantastic game. I can’t wait for early access.

Book Nook reminds me a lot of Woodo by Tiny Monks Tales and everything I liked about that: it’s nostalgia, it’s tactile, it’s slow-burn and reminds you to take a breath as you assemble dioramas piece by piece. Not a single word is said in Book Nook’s demo, but the visuals tell a wonderful story. An old man notices the empty, dusty spaces on his bookshelf and decides to fill them with precious memories, starting with a flower shop that played a role in his life. 

Each diorama is stored in a pretty box and has its pieces neatly organized by sections. You’ll start by building small items like a chair or a dresser, and then build up to assembling the shop’s exterior, complete with welcome map and flowerpots displayed outside. Once your diorama is put together, the magic happens and it comes to life with the old man’s memories, showing you the role that shop played in his life. These are more than pretty ornaments: they are unforgettable moments, frozen in time so he can revisit them any time. Complete with a gently soothing soundtrack, Book Nook is sure to touch your heart and will probably inspire you to buy a diorama kit in real life.

If, like me, you’re prone to days where even someone breathing the wrong way in your direction puts you on the verge of ‘screaming real loud’, Tidus style, then you might find Pastry Pile-Up is the antidote to those urges. Though the gameplay loop is a simple ‘Tetris with pastries’ style thing with the occasional switch up to customizing your bakery or serving one of the pastries you’ve merged to whatever adorable cosplaying cat offers gold for it, Pastry Pile-Up is a thing of zen with gentle music playing in the background while you stack pastries inside of a jar. Match two pastries of the same type and it’ll become a different, bigger kind of pastry. Keep this up for as long as you can until the jar is full. It’s simple, it’s got cats, it’s easy to get hooked on, and it might get you thinking more about the delicious things you want to bake than whatever got you agitated in the first place. Win, win, win.

I really thought I’d just play an hour or so of Gacha Shop Simulator, since it’s not my usual story-based fare, but suddenly it was two hours later and I was still itching to keep going one more day. Be warned: it’s catchy!

In Gacha Shop Simulator, you open a shop that initially just sells blind boxes and the figures inside. As your shop serves more customers and gains more levels, your available stock will expand with it. Within the demo, you’ll eventually gain access to more blind box types, action figures, and manga too! My favourite part is unboxing some of the gacha figures to sell alongside the blind boxes, as these can go for a very pretty penny if you unbox something rare or legendary. As well, you’ll expand your personal collection as you do this, which is really satisfying and will keep you on the hunt for that one elusive figure for a while.

During play, you can name your shop, expand it, select which items you’ll sell, order new stock as soon as you need it to replenish what sells out, and also purchase tables that gacha fans can rent to sell their duplicate figures. Compared to other games I’ve tried in the genre, Gacha Shop Simulator feels a lot more in-line with my personal interests, and it’s always exciting to see what you’ll unlock or unbox next! Definitely worth a look if you’re a fan of blind boxes, manga, and general nerd culture!

I’ve been ‘I’ll get to it someday’ing The Wolf Among Us since I first bought it back in 2015, because when you have ADHD, one day turns into the next and the next, and suddenly you’re finishing Final Fantasy X for like the 5th time and you’re in your mid-thirties. It’s a sin, I know, but one I’ve finally absolved myself of with Telltale Games’ surprise addition of The Wolf Among Us Remastered to Next Fest’s October lineup.

The Wolf Among Us is, in a word, intense. In multiple words, it’s completely fantastic and a welcome addition to the Fables graphic novel universe. In this gritty noir point and click thriller, you play as Bigby Wolf: the Big Bad Wolf of fairytale fame now a Sheriff in Fabletown. When a young woman turns up dead, it’s up to you to track down the killer, and each choice you make may mean life or death with the murderer still on the loose.

The Wolf Among Us Remastered is visually striking with the sharp graphic novel style I love so much, the writing sizzles, the stakes tower higher than the apartment blocks, and action feels fast-paced with split-second quick-time events either giving you the upper hand, or a nasty knock. I was gripped from start to finish, and I’m eager for the game’s full release so I can find out what happens next.

I guess I’ve been on a bit of a shop simulator kick this Next Fest, but Yokai Mart has a little something different up its sleeve that taps into my love of Japanese culture and folklore. The gentle music and daily ritual of performing your job while existing alongside spirits and townsfolk reminds me of all I love about Spirittea by Cheesemaster Studios, so I’m very glad to have found another game in that niche.

In this top-down shop simulator, you play as Aoi, who takes over her grandmother’s konbini and gets thrown in at the deep end with keeping the shelves stocked with the local favourites. Occasionally you’ll be able to talk to your customers and get to know them, and at night your shop might be visited by a Yokai. Though I don’t think the demo really got into the benefits of this feature (the demo is only about 5 in-game days long, which is the perfect amount of time to get to grips with the mechanics of shelf-stocking, product-ordering, and paying your weekly rent), it’s a special thing to experience and I’m eager to learn more about it in the full release.

We need more silly mythology games, I’ve decided. Whether it’s the soft kind of silly or bittersweet and snarky, I crave a return to my days of growing up with Zeus: Master of Olympus and Pharaoh. Oh Apollo! is another excellent installment in that vein.

In Oh Apollo!, you serve as Apollo’s mouthpiece and interpret his prophecies for the good of the people, or for the temple’s financial gain in this light-hearted multiple-choice RPG from Blue Backpack: creators of The Berlin Apartment, which I have praised previously for its characterful writing and ambitious scope.

In Oh Apollo!, you play as the Pythia (high priestess of the temple of Apollo) in charge of maintaining Apollo’s run-down temple, maintaining a positive relationship with him and the people, and dispensing prophecies to those who ask for them. When faced with the various interpretations you can make of Apollo’s various prophecies, you can protect his reputation, offer the advice you think is best for the petitioner, or sit somewhere in the middle and hope for a balanced answer. At the end of your week, you can set out decorations to brighten up the place, and explore the agora to meet new townsfolk or shop. In addition to the soft, bright art that reminds me very fondly of classic Nickelodeon shows, the interactions you have with Apollo are delightful too: a few actually caught me off guard with a well-placed jab or pop culture reference.

I actually played this one twice because I wasn’t ready for the demo to end yet. Magical Girl ER by noranuco is a horror medical simulator where you’re left in charge of an emergency hospital dedicated to the treatment of magical girls who have been injured in combat. Each day, the phone will ring with a new magical girl in need of treatment, and it’s up to you whether to review their file and admit them based on their fame and odds of survival. You’re advised not to try and admit everyone, as you only have 4 beds and limited energy to examine each girl and administer treatment. As well, it’ll look really bad for the establishment if you’re forced to turn away a famous magical girl, or if one dies while undergoing treatment.

You only have 3 actions each day to talk to your patients, examine their abdomen, arm, and neck, and you can only administer one treatment per girl per day, so manage your resources wisely. If you do your job well, then you’ll see in the news the next day that the girl’s condition is improving, or that she’s fully recovered. Miss vital signs or administer the wrong treatment too often though, and she may die overnight.

Full disclosure re: how scary the Magical Girl ER demo is: I’m not a big horror/jump-scare fan, in fact I’m kind of a coward. However, I found Magical Girl ER to be mostly an atmospheric horror, with a few jumpscares thrown in effectively in the same way as titles like Doki Doki Literature Club. It keeps me unsettled enough to feel eerie and engaging, but it doesn’t wig me out so much that I can’t enjoy it. A very good balance, in my opinion.

I’ve been seeing Mermaids are Seafood by Lyyycaena pop up quite a bit on my socials lately, so I was excited to see it was part of October’s Next Fest lineup, as it’s the perfect vibe for Halloween. In this horror visual novel, you play as a new hire at an oceanic conservation company, and you’ve just undergone elective surgery that adds your save/load/settings HUD to your vision (a clever way to make the usual visual novel controls part of the world), but that has removed many of your memories. You wake up knowing only your name and are thrown into the deep end of company culture, which disorients the player and establishes the unsettling feel of the story. Everyone around you seems to be in on the company’s workings and secrets, and it’s up to you to decide who you’re going to trust as everyone is out for themselves. To complicate matters further, the person who referred you for hire has a reputation for being dangerous, but she shows a sweeter side to you, and quickly positions herself as perhaps the only person you can rely on.

I’m not going to spoil the key themes or twists here, but I will say that the game is visually gorgeous and includes cooking sections that have you listening to customers and constructing your dishes in line with their tastes. There’s also what looks to be a sanity-managing element where you must keep your Frenzy below a certain threshold in order to proceed.

If you’re a fan of visual novel games like The Nonary Games series and Ever17 that dealt heavily with mortality, philosophy, mystery, and conspiracy, then you definitely need to give Mermaids are Seafood a try.

In Beastfolk Barber, your shop will be visited by beasts of all types, and it’s up to you to listen to their requests and style them accordingly. You will be allowed 3 previews before you settle on a style, so make them count and pay attention to your clients’ reactions to ensure they’re happy with the final result!

When I booted up Beastfolk Barber, I had a feeling I was in for more than just a cute hairstyling game, as the pixel art style and vibe reminded me a lot of Kemono Teatime, which is also far deeper than its sugary sweet cafe aesthetic would have you believe at first glance. Beyond its gently colourful and soft style, Beastfolk Barber also surprises from time to time, with clients bringing conversations to your chair covering topics like politics, class, rights, and beauty standards, depending on what issues they value in their day to day. This variety of conversation lets you get to know each of your regulars-to-be while also offering you an insight into the world that feels organic and natural, which I appreciate very much for how immersive it makes the game feel.

Speaking of immersion, Beastfolk Barber makes the process of styling your clients’ hair feel real enough without overdoing it, breaking up the action with little single click or drag minigames like snipping hair to an even length or shaving to put the finishing touches on a tidy cut. It’s these little details that really help the game come to life, and that set Beastfolk Barber apart from the usual VN experience for players who aren’t about clicking through a static story.

Moomin: Midsummer Madness by Crossbridge Game Studios is a point-and-click adventure that takes place one summer, and starts with Little My causing trouble for her older sister. In the brief 20 minute Next Fest demo for Moomin: Midsummer Madness, Moomintroll and Little My are tasked with outfitting Snork Maiden as a princess for their pretend pirate game, and trouble is seen on the horizon when a storm starts raging towards the valley at the demo’s end. Gameplay is point-and-click, and the visuals are very reminiscent of the original Moomin artworks, so you can expect an appropriately charming experience if you’re a fan of the series or a newcomer interacting with it for the very first time.

VERISMO is a visual novel/rpg by stellanise that tells the tale of Vittoria, a young woman in 1920’s Sicily, who introduces us at the very beginning to the story of her death. Vittoria’s story starts 10 years prior in her family’s orange orchard, when she witnesses the murder of her father at the hands of one of his workers. A decade later, a traumatised Vittoria has spent the years jumping at every shadow, seeing the blue eyes of her father’s killer everywhere. On the anniversary of her father’s murder, a carnival visits the town and with it, the man Vittoria has spent her life afraid of. 

VERISMO classes itself as a visual novel on the Steam page, but I would go further and liken it more to an RPG, as the ‘visual novel’ tag had me expecting the regular static screen-and-textbox format. What you get instead are these wonderfully illustrated environments where you can move freely and interact with key objects, which adds a level of dread to tense moments where Vittoria is triggered by something she has seen or heard nearby. It feels less ‘safe’ than the general visual novel format, which lets you share in Vittoria’s uncertainty and vulnerability at key moments when those blue eyes haunt her again.

VERISMO appealed to the goth opera fan in me: the fan of Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Phantom of the Opera who loves the dark glamour of carnivals and theatre. If you’re a fan of books, you may also enjoy VERISMO if you’ve tried and liked Caraval by Stephanie Garber or The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

My very first Next Fest back in 2025 introduced me to Kemono Teatime by FURYU CORPORATION, who make a return to my event rundown with one of their latest games, CRYMELIGHT: a visual novel/roguelike title. In CRYMELIGHT, you play as Alice: a young woman who has lost her memories and woken up in Wonderland, where she is thrown into the ‘Killing Games’ alongside March, Mad, and Cheshire: a contest for one among them to win freedom by being the one to kill the Red Queen.

CRYMELIGHT reminded me of Hades for its roguelike mechanics, Nights of Azure for its gothic vibes and cyclical nights, and Rozen Maiden for the lolita outfits and deadly Alice in Wonderland themes. While on paper this sounds like a crazy cocktail of comps, CRYMELIGHT makes it work with smooth combat that feels smooth and intuitive. With every death, you’ll have the option to return to base and buff your stats, fine-tune your gear, and run the stage again and again until you clear it by beating the boss. The downside is, I sometimes feel the game takes the idea that time rewinds when Alice dies a little too literally, as it’s a bit annoying to skip the cutscenes along the way each time. However, since skipping cutscenes is as simple as hitting a button (the game also helpfully gives you a rundown of what happens in the scene so you can check quickly if you’ve seen it before), I might just be nitpicking.

Buckle up for intense, fast-paced combat and tearjerking truths as you slowly learn more and more about Alice and her companions, and grow strong enough to push onward and find out what brought each of them to be stuck in Wonderland!

Video Game Reviews, Deep Dives, Previews, and Guides at Tails by the Foxfire

If you enjoyed this rundown of my top 18 games from this Next Fest, make sure you subscribe down below (for free!) to get alerted anytime we upload new video game reviews, indie spotlights, previews of upcoming titles, guides, or deep dives! You can also follow me on Bluesky and Twitter to see what I’m playing right now, and follow on Instagram, Tiktok, and Youtube for regular shorts and reels! I’m actually trying to get as many eyes on the YouTube channel as possible before partner requirements go up next year, so it’d be a great help if you could check out a few of the videos on there, like, share, and subscribe (also totally free)!

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