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Thinky Third Thursday
June 2026 (Next Fest highlights)

Welcome to the June 2026 edition of Thinky Third Thursday - a roundup of games that the puzzle experts from Draknek & Friends think are worth your time.

This edition is focused on upcoming games with demos taking part in Steam Next Fest (with a notable exception that we won't be covering).

From the Draknek & Friends Official Podcast

Highlights from Steam Next Fest

Over the past few days, we've been looking through the many participating puzzle games from Steam Next Fest to find these recommendations. All of these games have demos you can play right now, and I think there's something here for everyone!


Object Impermanence, by Slugware
Object Impermanence crash lands your science vessel on a decaying alien planet where certain things only exist when observed. Flowers, creatures, doors, elevators and other obstacles - all vanish the moment you turn away. Existence is a matter of observation. The updated demo hides some new secrets, and sets up the mechanics for particularly mind boggling puzzles in the full game. This one is worth keeping your eye on (literally).


Tape Man, by Tear Bird
Move over Spiderman, there's a new super hero in town, and his ability is "he has a long tape measure!". Jokes aside, Tape Man is a charming puzzle platformer rendered on scraps of paper and blocks of wood, and it's all about measuring specific distances to activate parts of the level. A novel idea, that promises to measure up!


Green Mist over Portland, by Bushmonkey Games and Surefire.Games
Close on the tail of the (free) release of The Red Pearls of Borneo, developer Bushmonkey's new standalone sequel trades Borneo for Berlin following a vanished MI6 officer through cipher puzzles, timeline reconstruction, and of course logical deduction. The demo is a little janky in parts but overall Green Mist Over Portland has a whole lot of heart. In particular the puzzles are satisfying and we can't wait to play the full game on release.


Chomp Garden, by PawPaw Games
Play as a tiny glowing lamp in a simple sokoban world where all the plants are aggressively trying to chomp you. Your four beams of light will attract plants every move, and the goal of each puzzle is to tie them into tricky shapes to navigate your way through. The demo has twelve levels to solve, and there are a number of sneaky worms hidden for extra eagle eyed puzzlers. This developer's name may be familiar to you because their last game, Kiko's Apple Adventure, was a Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant recipient!


WOIM, by Dogspawn
Would you still love me if I were a worm?! Yesss, even though you are in fact a WOIM. And also even if I have to cut your wriggly little body in half with a pair of scissors to solve these sokoban puzzles. WOIM has buckets of charm, lovely artwork, and really solid puzzles. And if you can't get enough of the "long creature cuts up its body to solve puzzles" mechanic (or "would you love me if..." puns for that matter), Would You Love Me If I Was a Snake is also taking part in this Next Fest! Is there something wriggly in the water?


Shape Sender Deluxe, by Dead Teapot and Dear Villagers
Another Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant recipient is Shape Sender Deluxe! A game with all the charm and humour of early 2000s Clippy, you'll meet "Sendy", the helpful guide and new best friend. To solve puzzles, move the shapes from A to B. Simple? Yet the demo offers some satisfying thinky moments and hints at how the full game scales in complexity. You'll also notice there's a level builder, so I suspect we'll see some really interesting custom levels, as soon as the puzzle sickos get their hands on it.


AntiMatcher, by GigoMakes, Dito Seregin
AntiMatcher is a particle physics-inspired puzzler that's wonderfully weird. The challenge is to build bubble structures that perfectly match their antimatter counterparts, discovering the rules as you go through increasingly complex configurations. The demo is short and sweet and the full game claims to clock in at around 2 hours, making it potentially a nice palette cleanser game.


Colorbound, by Panpipe Studio and Whitethorn Games
A gorgeous looking puzzler about picking up a brush and painting the world around you, that teases a greater thinkiness than may first appear. In Colorbound, the approachable levels ease you into painting various objects in order to make them vanish and reappear against different colour palettes. Clear a path, or build a new one, but different colours will have different effects. It's a promising demo, making the full game well worth looking out for.


Demon Bluff, by UmiArt and offbrand games
If you've ever wanted to play Blood on the Clocktower but can't get a group of twenty or so friends in the same room together at once, then Demon Bluff is a great single player alternative. It's thinkiness comes from the "if this is true, then that, but this person might be lying" genre of social deduction - every character has clues about what it may or may not be, and who they're adjacent to. But thankfully, every table is perfectly solvable given the information presented.

Thinky releases from the past month

Free games:

Paid games:

New demos:

Other upcoming games to watch for

Whilst they're not taking part in this Steam Next Fest, here's a reminder that we're publishing two upcoming puzzle games. Check their demos out on Steam:


DITTORI, by Blookerstein Games and Draknek & Friends
The Dittori demo has been out for a few weeks and so far folks have been particularly taken by just how many hidden secrets there in it. This demo goes deeper (literally) than you might expect. Master the ancient power of DITTORI and use it to bend reality to your will.


He Who Watches, by Danga Games and Draknek & Friends
Who needs gravity anyway? He Who Watches imagines a puzzly dungeon crawler game in full 3D, where you can walk on the walls and ceilings and grab blocks from every direction - left, right, up, down, and back to front. The demo covers the first few areas of the game, but quickly goes to some seriously puzzly places. Delve deep into this labyrinth of intricate conundrums.

That's it!

Did you play any great demos from Steam Next Fest? Please get in touch with your recommendations!

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