{"id":233,"date":"2024-05-13T01:56:10","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T01:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postmode.org\/?p=233"},"modified":"2024-05-27T11:48:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T11:48:47","slug":"clubbing-to-the-rhythm-in-the-ballad-of-bonky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postmode.org\/clubbing-to-the-rhythm-in-the-ballad-of-bonky\/","title":{"rendered":"Clubbing to the rhythm in The Ballad of Bonky"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I love game demos. I love how Steam Next Fest, among other initiatives, has brought them back from the void. Before the indie game boom, Xbox 360-era game demos led to some serious palate development for me. I would never have played Dead Rising (one of my favourite games of all time) if it wasn\u2019t for that substantial slice of Willamette that Capcom dropped in the blade dungeon. Remember the John Woo Presents Stranglehold demo? Crackdown? Kane and Lynch? Iconic. Demos for AAA games are making a comeback nowadays, but it still feels like it\u2019s kind of by design – in some cases – that you don\u2019t get to try before you buy. Hype is a pernicious, profitable beast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next Fest ends today, but Steam is a veritable hotbed of indie game demos all year round, to be honest, so you should always keep your ear to the ground. I was rewarded for doing so earlier this year when I played the demo for The Ballad of Bonky, a \u201cbouncy arcade adventure\u201d where you enter a burger factory and unravel an alien conspiracy. Along the way, you\u2019ll biff, bap and boot all manner of claymation animals, creating a collision course of pure chaos. The maximalist SFX and humour brought me all the way back to playing Saturday Morning Cartoon-style games like Earthworm Jim 3D as a kid. The soundtrack is full of these Rayman-esque mouth sounds, telephone sounds, and catchy house beats too. It rocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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