Hello! Over the next few days we hope to be bringing you impressions of a few of the demos in the Steam Next Fest. You can view them all in our 2022 Next Fest archive.
Oh, to economise. This is all I’ve done so far in Ixion, one of several gems in the Steam Next Fest.
Ixion
- Publisher: Kasedo Games
- Developer: Bulwark
- Platform: Played on PC
- Availability: Out 2022 on PC, demo out now as part of Steam Next Fest.
Ixion is a game about managing a big, circular – almost tubular – space station. You’ve been put there by some corporation or another, DOLOS, and your goal is, effectively, to push pencils.
There’s a bit more to it than that – your effective pencil-pushing is technically in service of the wider goal of space exploration, the search for a new home for humanity. But really it’s all for the love of the bureaucracy. This is Civil Service in Space.
You’ll start by being talked to, at length, by a robo-P.A. Soon after you’ll be talked to at length by some Chief Administrative Health Associate Engineer Technician, or the Communications and Data Specialist, or whoever else from fourth-fifths of the way up the corporate ladder. They’ll pop up now and then to give you a new objective or waffle in great detail about the Marduk council and related affiliations and organisational interests and on and on.