Send the little ones to fight beforehand and they’ll get killed (though you can easily revive them nearby by spending specific materials). A horned insect had to be blown over by the Gustbuster before the Spritelings could attack. What I liked as I got further into the demo is how enemies eventually became more dangerous. The Spritelings are your mode of attack, knocking back enemies and poisonous mushrooms. The Spritelings are your Pikmin, and in this demo, you come across your base variety and a firebrand style. Soon you meet Grey Coat, a wizened Gandalf-looking fella who warns you of the perils of the woods and also encourages you to interact with the Spritelings to progress through the woods. You pick up a Gustbuster (read: your Poltergust and/or vacuum backpack) and immediately use the suction functionality to solve some puzzles and collect some in-game currency. He ran away from home and winds up in The Deep Woods. While the marketing promises two precocious kids, you only control one in this demo, a kid named Wake. All of this is promising, and that's before we get to the distinctive art style and animation and the fantastic soundtrack. It’s an electric fusion that makes for an enjoyable adventure.

This game from Moonlight Kids features heavy inspiration from Pikmin with a little bit of 2D Luigi’s Mansion vacuuming and environmental puzzles. Currently, it's just set for a PC and Xbox One release sometime in 2021, but being as it seems like all indie games seem to come to Switch eventually and the fact this game specifically scratched Nintendo-like itches, here's my not-officially-a-preview hands-on of The Wild at Heart.Īs I worked my way through the demo, it struck me why I was enjoying it so much.

After looking into the game a little more, I noticed that I missed something important: the game isn't actually confirmed for Nintendo Switch. I've been playing through the cavalcade of demos in the Steam Games Festival and after wrapping the demo of The Wild at Heart, I rushed to jot my thoughts down.

The wild at heart game switch