We’re near the end of NextFest once again, and if there’s one thing on Earth I’m satisfied with, it’s the quality of the demos I’ve seen there. There are still a few I’ve downloaded that I mean to check out like Denshattack! (soundtrack by Sonic Mania composer Tee Lopes, who did a bang-up job on that one) but for the time being, and since I’m drowning in work, I’ll just be covering two more here before going back to hell for a while.

Break Shoot

First up, one more roguelite demo, this time based on pool. Or billiards, as the game calls this. I know there’s a difference, but does billiards not involve pockets? And what about snooker? I’ve only ever played real-life pool a few times, every time in a nosy college town bar and once when the time was half-stained with beer (not by me.)

So it’s nice to play pool or billiards or whatever in digital form sometimes. Break Shoot requires you to try to hit the other balls on the table, using any ball you want, and each hit increasing your score. Standard for these sorts of games, you can also accumulate money and spend it in the store between each round, allowing for a mix of strategies and hopefully exponential score growth.

Anything to make the number go up

And while I’m again not going to commit to buying the full version, I had a good time with the Break Shoot demo. There’s something viscerally satisfying about hitting billiard balls together, hearing them clack together as they fly around the star-shaped table while exploding. Or at least they will if you manage to build up enough gold and get the right upgrades. Because yeah, this is yet another game that owes a lot to Balatro. That localthunk guy is like the Beatles of indie game developers with all the inspiration he’s produced, I guess next to Toby Fox and the developers of Coco Nutshake! (NSFW by the way.)

I also appreciated the style, or the vibes as people say now I guess. It has that neon look that lasted into the 90s, and that takes me back to the time when life wasn’t a waking nightmare in slow motion. The music is especially late 90s, when Latin and Caribbean themes first got big over here and we got “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy. Sadly, not all the songs were that good.

You can set up one of these yourself using a round end table and some extra wood and felt

I clearly don’t have anything else to say about Break Shoot. Feels like it should be titled Break Shot instead but what do I know. My only serious criticism of this demo is better expressed by a certain Steam user with an unprintable name in the Discussions section, in which he requests more of the tutorial lady because she’s hot. Who am I to argue with that? Even so, this game might be worth a buy.

The Last Gas Station

And finally, to link these three parts together, we’re concluding with another furry game. This time, you play as blank slate protagonist who inherits an old gas station, apparently the last one ever with the advent of clean efficient energy. Not sure why people are still driving cars with combustion engines at this point anyway, but we’re dying on the hill of polluting that fucking environment, the asshole.

I’m old enough to remember payphones and a time before the consumer internet existed, but I’ve never pumped gas with one of these.

So you have to spend each day running around with your red panda tail on fire, cleaning the store, pumping gas for customers, selling them soda and gum and buying more gas with your profits. Upgrades help you expand the station’s size, capacity, and profitability. Nothing crazy there; this is a standard flow for the “Bullshit Job Simulator” genre.

Those games don’t look interesting to me at all, but thankfully this time we also get an actual sort of story, at least one suggested by the demo. Panda (if they have a name, I don’t remember it) is getting a good start on the job, but they start to run into disturbances around the station and rumors that the last owner was murdered.

All worth it for access to the energy drink stock. That stuff is truly addictive — thankful my time with it was short.

As far as the cosmetic aspects go, Last Gas Station is polished and very much on the cute side. These kinds of nice comfortable games maintain their popularity, and I can see why. The idea of running a shop in a scenic place like this is nice to a white-collar worker and city dweller like me, though I’m sure this life has its own shit to deal with, like the possibility of getting murdered.

But most of the issues you face here are more mundane. Your days and evenings will be mostly spent running between the gas pump and the shop. Weird to have to pump gas for other people — if you’re not in/from the US, last I remember in 49 out of 50 states you pump your own gas, the last one being New Jersey, and this looks more like Washington state.

Finally the place is clean, but it took a lot of sweeping up after my asshole customers, who can and will just drop shit on the floor and run off with their extra change if you give a penny too much. What a bunch of pricks.

I can see the appeal of this sort of game, even if it’s not necessarily a must play for me. I work enough at my actual job to enjoy running around on the job all that much, though if I had the choice, I would take running a modestly successful small business over being a corporate serf. If The Last Gas Station had a little less of a blank slate for a main character, I might be more interested.

Either way, the art and music are great and the atmosphere the game creates is pleasant, with day-night cycles and crickets in the background. I come from the West, and though I haven’t been back in decades, I think about returning sometime far from now, assuming it isn’t all a desert by then. Just being out there alone.

Maybe one day.

Anyway, maybe check this demo out. Good NextFest this time — I have a couple more games I’m looking forward to now, and I’ll be looking forward to the next at-home demo show.