Steam’s “Next Fest 2023” is a celebration of upcoming games. You get the chance to play free demos, watch developer livestreams and then Wishlist your favorites to get notified when they release.
One of the games this year is by solo indie developer New Horizon Games called “Under A New Sun”.
The store page said “While searching for a new home, an unexpected failure in your ship has left you stranded on a planet surprisingly similar to Earth. Discover a vast open world, hunt for food, develop technologies, and build yourself a new home to survive!” Sounding and looking similar to Stranded Deep (which was one of the first survival games I ever played) this one caught my eye so I decided to give the demo a go.
I enjoyed the demo. I found the UI quite clunky and it needs quite a bit more work. There was an inconsistency in so far as some trees were highlighted upon mouse over to show that you could harvest them, whereas other harvistable/interactive items weren’t. I had one glitch where I shot down a coconut from the tree but it disappeared on the way down to the ground and I lost both it and my arrow.
As a demo for a yet unreleased game (due out 13th November 2023) I would expect there to be such issues but hopefully the first early access release will have addressed them.
It remains to be seen how this may – or may not – differ from Stranded Deep but I shall follow the game and watch with interest to see where it goes.
Check out my video and let me know what you think if you’ve tried it yourself.