The creators of the minimalist and excellent Race the Sun (opens in new tab) have once again tasked us with pushing the fast ship to its limits: Survivor (opens in new tab). It's not a race against time, it's a shooter with neon corridors filled with obstacles and laser-shooting enemies, and you can play it right now by downloading the Steam Next Fest demo.

Whisker Squadron: Survivor is a roguelike game where you choose your feline pilot, ship, weapons, and perks, head into increasingly deadly corridors, and level up through a series of random upgrades using scrap recovered from fallen enemies. If you fail, you start over from the beginning, but thanks to points earned from previous plays, you can purchase new ships and perks and unlock different pilots.

Plain and simple and reasonable, this is simply an appetizer for a more serious game called Whisker Squadron (opens in new tab). This game is also a rogue light shooter, but it has not only the deadly corridors found in Survivor, but also exploration zones where you can move freely and have the opportunity to hunt for "loot and opportunity" while dodging lasers and blowing up bosses. No demos are available yet, but both games are expected to be released later this year.

My love for Star Fox was rekindled when I picked up a Mini SNES a few years ago: while WhiskerSquadron:Survivor's demo hardly boasts the same personality and does its own thing with a rogue-lite structure, the atmosphere is still comparable, and the passage Boosting along was a nice way to spend the morning.

One word of advice: you'll be tempted to use a controller, but stick to the mouse and keyboard; when I used the Xbox One's pad, shooting was a bit awkward as the reticle snapped back to center, but that doesn't happen when you aim with the mouse.

It looks like it's going to be another great Next Fest, and we're already excited about the procedural detective sandbox "Shadows of Doubt" (open in new tab), but everyone's attention is focused on the FPS dungeon exploration game "Dark and Darker" (open in new tab), a FPS dungeon exploration game I had never heard of before yesterday. At its peak yesterday, the game had over 100,000 simultaneous players. The next Fest runs through Monday, so there is still plenty of time to sort through the huge selection of demos (opens in new tab).