The Indieventure crew are back and, once again, everyone's a little bit fried. But like, really out of it this time. The vibes reach a new level of unhinged as we attempt to corral ourselves into a semi-sensible discussion of just a few of the many, many lovely indie games demoed at this month's Steam Next Fest: the thrice-annual celebration of mostly-indie games that aren't quite out yet, but are ready for you to take a good look at.

After a quick detour to reminisce about our recent group foray into multiplayer sci-fi horror game Lethal Company, we go in-depth on some of the best things we've played this Next Fest, including Devolver Digital's newly-announced Children of the Sun, as well as Echo Point Nova, Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure, Dead Pets Unleashed, Harold Halibut, Balatro, Roman Sands RE:Build, and Touchstarved. (Rebecca also cheats and wedges in extra shout-outs to Summerhouse and Copycat because she really shouldn't have been handed the keys for this episode.)

This week in hyperfixations, Rebecca wants to put in a good word for gay foodie love story Omurice Next Time, recently released on Steam, itch.io, and GOG. Liam tries to starve the oxygen from his twin obsessions with Stardew Valley and Palworld by listening to the latest album by experimental pop duo Let's Eat Grandma and reading independent gaming blog Aftermath. And Rachel has been watching drag queen and Sims YouTuber Juno Birch revisit the best game in the franchise (The Sims 2, don't @ us) to creatively torture some Sims.

Finally, we also just want to say a big thank-you to everyone who's rated and reviewed our podcast so far! The amount of support and positivity we've received has been super heartwarming and we're very grateful to all of our lovely listeners. For next time, if you have any questions you'd like us to answer, please do drop us an email or a message on socials, as we're planning a listener mailbag episode in the not-too-distant future.