2026.10.19

Found at Next Fest

When I decided to put Found’s demo into Steam’s Next Fest, I was hoping for the kind of visibility that Blue Prince and Dredge found. My ruthless optimism and I hadn’t realized just how much the number of demos had multiplied over the past few years.

In the weeks after signing up for Next Fest, I started to understand the magnitude of the event. There are thousands of demos, with each Fest growing substantially in the number of entrants. People speed run demos, which isn’t ideal for a story-rich game with relatively unique mechanics. It’s not a Roguelike. It’s not a cozy game. It’s not something I’ve really figured out how to describe.

So what am I hoping for? I’m going into this as a solo developer without a lot of marketing. My wishlists are small, and my genre isn’t easy. I haven’t really found my audience yet, and so that has become the new goal. I want to find the people who like wandering strange landscapes to be rewarded with a story and I want them to play Found. Then, I want to listen to their feedback.

While I’ve continued to improve the game (and the demo), I’ve also been working on how I explain the game. I’ve created a press kit, played with the store tags, and made a new trailer around Found’s most unique mechanic: a large explorable world that the player puts together. You see Em discover a fragment, pick it up, choose a place on the map, and watch it settle into view, ready to walk onto. Explore, discover, place, explore some more. With over two hundred pieces, the landscapes you create are unique to your play. I can’t show the full extent (and wonder) of that in an hour-long demo, but I can at least familiarize potential players with the loop.

Once someone decides that this game is for them, I want to learn from their experience. What’s motivating? What’s confusing? What makes them curious or anxious or bored? What parts of the story make them feel something… or nothing at all?

Putting Found in front of strangers is terrifying, but that’s part of being a designer. Feedback is easy. Making something is hard. Making something that people care about is even harder.

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If you find yourself playing the demo and wanting to share, there are lots of ways to provide feedback. Found has a dedicated Discord, and I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, even TikTok. During the festival I’ll post and ask questions, but mostly, I’ll be focused on listening.