Fellow Traveller’s LudoNarracon is live on Steam until Monday, May 5th. Erik has already written about his favourite demos from the narrative game festival yesterday, while Jason has made a great video showing off his highlights of this year’s edition. Now it’s my turn to showcase three demos for games that have me massively excited about the future of narrative games.
Usual June
I’ve been infatuated with the premise of Usual June ever since I first heard about the game. Exploring your town’s darkest secrets with your besties during spring break sounds like an absolute blast. Playing the Next Fest demo for the game a while back hooked me in even more: the art style is glorious, the writing feels fun, the otherworldly settings you get involved with are intriguing, and combat was decent enough. Also, the game comes to us from Finji, a publisher of some mighty fine indie games like Night in the Woods and Tunic, now developing a game themselves.
That early Next Fest demo did not put us at the start of the game but had June and her friend Sunny investigate an abandoned building, trying to figure out more of a centuries-old mystery. Here June meets Teddy, a ghost or spirit that only she can see, and she follows him through a portal into his homeworld. This place has been taken over by an evil man who wants to tear apart the worlds. In this beautifully alien world, you battle monsters in an attempt to make it to this mystery man.
All of these aspects were really well done, even though I do worry a little bit that the Simlish-esque style of dialogue might get a little annoying after a while. But still, there is one hell of a game in here, and with the devs releasing another demo for LudoNarracon, I got all excited once again. Except for that, it’s the same demo. So, long story short, if you hadn’t played the demo before, do so now, as you will have a blast if you’re into adventure games of any kind. If you did play the demo before, only pick this one up again if you just want another taste of the same thing. Admittedly, it’s a damn good thing to take another bite out of!
Building Relationships
Another game with a demo that has been available before is Building Relationships, the game made entirely of dating houses and puns. Despite having played it before, I still want to talk about this game, as, well, I don’t shut up about it when it comes to upcoming games.
In case you’re wondering what I meant with dating houses: you are an actual house on a refreshing holiday on this beautiful island, trying to meet the love of your life/have fun dates/make new friends. You get to choose, basically. That premise probably sounds absurd, but it’s far from the most absurd thing you’ll encounter playing this PS1-style game.
Every bachelorpad you meet has a silly wordplay name, like Millie the windmill. You traverse the island by just rolling and jumping as you go, which seems to be beneath most of the other buildings as they elect to teleport instead. You can fish, but the fish are a different kind of vehicle. You get to prepare food for a cute picnic, but that consists of assembling furniture.
It should be clear: this isn’t going to be a game for everyone. If you’re not a fan of random humour, then maybe give this one a pass. But if you do have a taste for the absurd, they don’t come much more absurd AND fun than Building Relationships.
Building Relationships on Steam
Psychotic Bathtub
After the fun of the previous two demos, I decided to give something a little more harrowing a try. And boy, did Psychotic Bathtub deliver. I should preface this part of the article by adding some warnings, as this game tackles some incredibly heavy subject matter. The demo itself has a strong content warning, urging you not to play if your mental health isn’t up to it, and I can confirm that it’s a necessary thing to consider.
As someone who struggles with mental health issues myself, I recognised a lot of elements that Psychotic Bathtub brings to the table. Basically, you are a 27-year-old woman hiding from the worst of it in your bathtub with some music, a glass of wine, and a trusted rubber ducky. All of this demo, with its five different endings, is about what can happen in your mind when your mental health takes a nosedive.
There’s this sense of dread that you just cannot escape during the game. There’s a lot of history here—with your dad having died, your mom not dealing with it well, and talk of previous psychotic episodes—and the future just looks incredibly bleak. Hell, the present day isn’t that much better. The warm water can offer some comfort, as can your soft towel, but is it enough? Are you bending under all the pressure, or will you finally break?
This is going to be a phenomenal game to open up the discussion on mental health issues, and one you’ll have to play over and over again to find out all of the different nuances that it has to offer. With gameplay boiling down to dialogue options and full playthroughs only a matter of about ten minutes, this is one I’ll definitely take another look at when the full game arrives.
Find out more about LuddoNarraCon on the official website
Check out the exclusive LudoNarraCon Story Rich Mega Bundle on Steam
The bundle and demos are available until the 8th of May, 2025.
