"Let's Play Some Demos!" Video Series YouTube Playlist

Welcome to Part 10 of the Let's Play Some Demos! | LPSD series!
For those who are new, I aim to introduce gamers to, usually, Indie games and to provide commentary and feedback on the games for educational purposes!
For this episode, I went to Steam's Demos Category to find they had events going on: Cooking Fest and Cozy Quest! I grabbed the demos they had available. And one was introduced to me via email because I had another game by the developer on my wishlist.

Today, I, attempted, to play 4 demos for your enjoyment:

1. Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory – Available
   A contraption building game. Design and build your own machines to combine ingredients to make chocolates. Automate production using simple components to create ingenious contraptions, which are as satisfying to watch as they are to optimise.
2. Maid Café on Electric Street – Available
   Maid Cafe on Electric Street is a leisurely maid cafe adventure set in the otaku haven of Nipponbashi, Osaka. You, the protagonist, quit your job at an extremely toxic workplace and find yourself at a run-down maid cafe, where a cute maid named Shiro works. Maid Cafe on Electric Street is a story-focused adventure game where you enjoy daily life at Fuwa Fuwa Cafe.
3. Neon Noodles – Available
   In a future where food is the ultimate symbol of status, you are a recipe programming technician for a ruthless aristocracy. Create, test and optimize your culinary machines in this deliciously dark zach-like!
4. Tiny Glade – Available
   Tiny Glade is a small diorama builder where you doodle whimsical castles, cozy cottages & romantic ruins. Explore gridless building chemistry as the game adorns your glades with procedural detail. No management, combat or goals: just kick back and turn forgotten meadows into lovable dioramas.

All links above are to the games' Steam pages.
The Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory and Neon Noodles are available on itch.io!

Why was it an "attempt" to play? Because one of the demos pissed me off, so I cut it short and skipped to the next one. However, I will still be able to render a verdict.

Neon Noodles was the demo that pissed me off and it was uninstalled when I started writing this. I also uninstalled Tiny Glade. It was cute, but playing it gave me a headache. Maid Cafe on Electric Street was, quickly, moved to my WANT collection, as was Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory. The weirdness of Captain made it endearing.

I was having fun with Neon Noodles until they introduced "programming the bots", which, a) I don't understand why we need it and b) the instructions for programming them weren't clear. And that's why I rage quit. Backing up a bit, Neon Noodles is set in a dystopia where being able to have actual food, instead of a paste, is a status symbol. So, it's our job to prepare food for the aristocracy via the Neon Noodles app. They were showing the controls for both the mouse and the controller, which was great, but with both sets of controls, I didn't understand what I was supposed to press/click to make the bot do what I wanted it to do. The only things I didn't understand were how to make it pick things up and put things down. It wasn't clear, so I got frustrated and moved on to Tiny Glade. Also, again, why did we need the bots? We had the conveyor belts to get the food from point A to point B. To end on a positive note, the design was great! The color palettes were futuristic and easy on the eyes. Well done, there! But we need clearer instructions.

Since I already mentioned Tiny Glade, we'll go on to my 3rd favorite game of the bunch. I loved the idea of having a space to just build to your heart's content, but the lack of guidance, while interesting at first, caused me to get bored quickly. There was everything and nothing to do. Also, spinning the camera around started giving me a headache. The art style tap danced on the edge of stylized and realism, which had me grinning, but they locked a lot of stuff for the demo. And made the space to build in tiny. Either I'm not as creative as I thought I was, or the developers didn't do their game justice with the demo. And, since I couldn't play it for long, I don't think I did the game justice, either.

Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory was endearingly weird! And it engaged my love of playing around to figure things out, which Neon Noodles could learn from. The game has us in a chocolate factory, duh, where, like Neon Noodles, we have to come up with ways to get food from point A to point B, but Chocolate Factory made the puzzling more fun! Their conveyor belts were a bit more annoying, though, because I would click to try and move it and it would rotate instead, but it was my only frustration. My confusion was with the mini-lift, which I forgot the name of. It was supposed to move things without getting in the way of the conveyor belts.

I'm getting ahead of myself. In Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory we are filling orders in our chocolate factory. To do this? Design systems on how to get things items from point A to point B. This game made me think and I loved it! THEY HAD MINI CANNONS! Who uses mini cannons to get orders created? This gal! It's not a game I would make part of WGS, but I will be going back to it. It's wacky and funny! And full of fun colors!

Speaking of fun colors, how many times did I freak out at Maid Cafe on Electric Street design? I LOVE pixel art games! And how many times did I laugh while playing? I'm almost tempted to count. And it will DEFINITELY be getting its own "Let's finish the demo!" video! Out of the 4 demos, I was the saddest when I stopped playing this one. The story, you quit your toxic, and I mean toxic, they had you play it, job and the next day you become the manager of a maid cafe, hence the name. Unfortunately, there's only one person left, the owner is I forgot where, and if the place doesn't reopen soon, it'll close. The owner told the last employee, Shiro, if she's able to find a manager for the place, it can stay open. You take the job out of desperation because your last job provided you dorms, and they gave you 3 days to leave. Like I said, toxic. You take the job because you get to live in the apartment above the cafe.

If I ever have a toxic job, I wanna quit it the way I did in the game. It was SO satisfying and everyone cheering as I did so was hilarious! I already mentioned the art style was pixel art, but I haven't mentioned the animations and lighting. It's the little things; while I was moving from the balcony of the apartment to back inside, the lighting actually adjusted when I was in a shadow. Again, the little things. The wind animations in the trees were legit. And it combined 2D and 3D in an entertaining and surprising way while in the cafe. The characters were 2D, but the rest of the space was 3D, or 3Desk, and it didn't feel out of place. The size of your character even increased and decreased in size as you moved forwards and backwards! Again, it's the little things!

And it was also the only game that had voice acting, which was on par. And had me laughing. I think... I was laughing so much, I don't even remember at which parts anymore.

I'm gonna stop now before I end up posting this at the end of the week...

And that's it for Part 10! Thank you for reading!
If this series of videos is something you're interested in, the videos are available on YouTube, The Titans' Discord, Steam, Rumble, Odysee, and Ko-fi!
Don't forget to hit the Subscribe and/or Follow buttons to know when there's more!

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The Monday, November 25th, and 649th, Artist Shout-Out goes to Amaia Blesa!
Check them out here!

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Welcome Gamers!
1:54 - Artist Shout-Out
4:07 - Demos' Intro
7:22 - Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory
43:00 - Maid Cafe on Electric Street
2:22:25 - Neon Noodles
2:32:22 - Tiny Glade
2:45:02 - Demos' List Again
2:45:24 - Artist Shout-Out
2:46:46 - Thank You/Links
2:49:08 - Rendezvous Point Bookshop Plug
2:50:55 - Farewell

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• Pilot: CrossCode, Dumpy & Bumpy, Ynglet, Zero Ranger
• Part 2: A Dance of Fire and Ice, 2064: Read Only Memories, Death and Taxes, Underhero
• Part 3: TEKKEN 8, Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition, Secrets of Grindea, Forspoken
• Part 4: Death's Hangover, Fae Farm, Fate/Samurai Remnant, Mini Settlers
• Part 5: All-Star Fruit Racing, Indivisible, SaGa Emerald Beyond, Visions of Mana
• Part 6: Glorious Companions, Tales of Arise, Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge, Cozy Island
• Part 7: The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, Cursebane, Dex, The Lady Puppet
• Part 8: Detroit: Become Human, Little Goody Two Shoes, Luma Island, Tinkerlands
• Part 9: Backpack Battles, Glaciered, Ratopia, Slime Rancher
• Part 11: Critter Café, Grimoire Groves, Pixel Cafe, Wizdom Academy
• Part 12: AdventureBarStory, Bone's Cafe, DELTARUNE, Mudborne
• Part 13: Food Truck Simulator, Magical Bakery, Magical Delicacy, Seaside Cafe Rush Hour
• Part 14: Chef's Tail, Espresso Tycoon, Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo, Tavern Talk
• Part 15: Chicken Journey, FANTASIAN Neo Dimension, Terra Memoria, Until Then
• Part 16: Cornucopia®, Hipster Café, Let's Café, Spells & Secrets
• Part 17: Doloc Town, Feed the Cups, Manitas Kitchen, Mushroom Picnic Party, Rift of the NecroDancer
• Part 18: Meadgard: Beer and Plunder, BOKURA: planet, Teeny Tiny Town, Tower of Babel: Survivors of Chaos
• Part 19: Dungeons of Hinterberg, The Mildew Children, Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island, Yaoling: Mythical Journey
• Part 20: AI LIMIT, Harmony's Odyssey, Last Time I Saw You, Whiskers & Wizardry
  
• Part 21: Constance, Dragoon Ascension, Kara Fantasy, Welcome to Elderfield
• Part 22: Crowncity, Dungeon Alchemist, Parliament of Hell 1796, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars
  
• Part 23: Tuesday, March 11th
  
• Part 24: Tuesday, March 18th
• Part 25: Tuesday, March 25th

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MORE INFO & TO SUPPORT

- About MonriaTitans | WGS
- Rendezvous Point Bookshop
- Artist Shout-Outs Criteria
- The Titans' Discord
- Throne Wishlist
- #SubOffTwitch
- YouTube
- Rumble
- Odysee
- Twitch
- Steam

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Originally published to https://opinionsandtruth.wordpress.com on Tuesday, November 26, 2024.