DEMO DIVE #2 - June 2026

Summer scorching heat and sun’s deadly lasers are in full swing. My poor AC is barely chugging along, trying its best to protect me from the worst of the deadly heat. It is hard to scrounge up energy for writing, not gonna lie. But I must! For there are plenty of great games coming, deluge of fantastic demos to nibble on, and I would feel bad not sharing my little finds here with anyone who might stumble here in search of new games to try. An eclectic mix of genres today - let us see what’s on the menu.

DICEVADERS

From the brilliant minds that brough us STARVADERS – one of the finest roguelikes of 2025 – cometh another title set in the same universe! This alone was enough to get me excited to give the demo a go. See, the OG deck builder was brilliantly fun. A turn-based tactics game with a well-developed deck management system. Full of content, unlocks, combos, challenges… Great game. So, the expectations for the follow up were high from the get-go.

And I am happy to report that DICEVADERS is excellent. Of course, we only have the demo now, but the demo is a hefty slice of the game potential. It’s a different beast now, more BALATRO-flavored. Instead of building a deck, this time we are rolling dice to activate columns of our minions. We are the ‘bad guys’ now, the alien invaders attacking Earth. And so, we must overcome defenses of the solar system by accruing enough attack score via a formula we all know by now – points times multiplier.

And so, the game is all about finding and enabling synergies. Get powerful artifacts, plan your stacks of minions well, pair them properly… There’s a lot of tactical acumen needed here, plenty of ways to overcome the challenge with a great variety of options on how to get there. And the challenge itself is hardly trivial – you need to be very capable in spotting out proper interactions, locking them down on your grid, pray for the dice to roll your way… and work with what the game gives you. In short, it’s great.

IRON NEST

First day on the job. The interior of the massive war engine is hissing with steam, clinking with working metal. It’s empty, otherwise. I have lots of knobs to turn, buttons to press, switches to flip and levers to pull. Fortunately, each station comes with handy instructions, and it’s not that demanding, really! An order comes in. A test shot from one of the IRON NEST cannons. I do everything right, I swear – carefully measure the distance on the war map, note down my bearing, measure proper gun elevation. Check the primer for the giant shell, double check the numbers. I don’t want to fumble it, you see, it’s an important position to operate such a mighty weapon while we are at this cursed war… Assured of my rightness, I pull the firing lever and let loose my titanic armament.

Minutes pass. And finally, a message. Oh dang, I hit a hospital. OUR Hospital. Why did the High Command pick a target surrounded by friendlies!? I did everything right, damn it… It’s okay. Propaganda machine is already covering up my blunder; the deadly explosion is pinned onto the enemies of the state. And the test is deemed a success. Damn. Well, I hope I can get it right next time. The war is hardly done, and the might of this war engine is needed – I am sure I can learn how to operate this lumbering behemoth under duress, under stress and under enemy fire, too! Glory be to Castille!

MEANINGLESS RANDOM NUMBERS

Now this is what I can safely call an experimental game. In its core, it is a simple incremental fair – you slowly accrue new powers, new upgrades, reset via a prestige system to get more options down the line and just constantly grow to be able to see the finish line. Randomness is a brutal mistress, but that is what the game happily tells you from the get-go – dice have no soul to feel any empathy, after all.

What makes this game stand out is its rather irreverent presentation. It’s wild. It’s punk. It’s Persona…? Nikko Nikko – the lil studio behind this project – clearly understood that this genre has no framing. Anything can be an incremental, anything can be a numbers-go-up game. So why stick to something boring and mundane? You can go whack. Go crazy. Go insane!  God is watching. Murder gives you score multiplier. Equip guns to commit crimes. Be careful of the watchful fish.

You never know what kind of nonsense is going to come your way next – each stage, each progression achieved unlock new weirdness behind the horizon. Introducing new things to overcome. It’s stylish, it’s impactful, it has that high energy with no brakes to press.  I had fun with the demo, a lot of it. It might be a simple game in its core, but it never feels boring, never tedious – the steady sense of progression is so well decorated with the dark humor and cheap horror.