10 incremental demos to make numbers go brrr during Steam Next Fest, October 2026

I love incrementals. My wishlist is at least 50% games from the genre, and I’m always on the lookout for new ones to add to the list, so Next Fest events are always really exciting for me. There are always new demos to try during the events, and my wishlist always grows with incremental games waiting to suck up hours of my time. 

If you love that “numbers go brrr” experience and want some new incrementals to sink your teeth into, this Next Fest is an absolute treasure trove of games from the genre. Weirdly, many of them seem to be releasing their full versions in November; apparently, it’s going to be the month of incrementals.

Here are 10 epic indie incremental game demos to try this Next Fest. How many will be added to your wishlist? 

Kick the Pinata

Kick the Pinata is an incremental roguelike that gets progressively more unhinged and chaotic as you play. Starting from humble beginnings with a single pinata and a basic bat, you gradually purchase a linear set of upgrades that increase your power and the value of the candy inside the poor bear, plus a whole host of other insane yet incredibly useful boosts and assists. 

Once you reach the point at which your progress slows down, you can choose to “Rebirth”, which essentially allows you to spend Hammers on upgrades that benefit you on subsequent runs. Once you’ve unlocked a few of these, by clicking on furniture in a delightful pixel art house, your pinata bashing is taken to whole new levels of chaotic nonsense.

Kick the Pinata is being developed by Eduardo Scarpato and is set to release on November 12, 2026, and the demo is available to play right now. I highly recommend this one; it feels strangely therapeutic to play, especially if you’re in a bit of a sour mood. 

A Dark Cave

A Dark Cave is different from anything else on this list because it is entirely text-based, relying on your imagination to picture everything you unlock and how it changes the landscape of the game. It’s also an exploration game, sending you into caves and forests to gather resources that can then be used to upgrade the abandoned village, bringing people back to it. 

Despite being text-based, it’s not difficult to picture everything that happens as the village grows in A Dark Cave; the story is fascinating, with weirdness in the caves below and a slight hint of horror to proceedings. Villagers arrive as you build new things, but so do creatures from within the depths of the cave, and you need to survive while incrementally improving. 

A Dark Cave is being developed by Julian Bauer, and if you want an incremental that’s just a little bit different from any of the others listed here, this is the one you should try. The demo is available now on Steam. 

Fireworks Incremental

Fireworks Incremental is the most gorgeous pixel firework display that gradually builds as you unlock new buildings and purchase more upgrades, and it is the type of incremental that makes time meaningless. You’re trapped inside a dome created by an evil wizard, and your only hope to get out of it is to gradually expand using fireworks to cause damage to the magical forcefield. 

You have a choice when it comes to how you’ll do the damage, though; you can hire wizards to fight using magical fireworks, focus on the sheer power of artillery, or progress using science and knowledge. Unlocking new buildings by expanding the dome brings new types of little people to fight through the dome, each with their own behaviours and things to upgrade. 

Fireworks Incremental is being developed by Frajda Games and will be released on November 25, 2026. The demo is available now, though, and it’s a super fun and pretty experience.  

Feed Me More Brains

Feed Me More Brains is a gory, occultish incremental that asks nothing more from you than to feed a blob of flesh with a mouth that’s attached itself to the wall of what I can only assume is a cathedral, or at the very least, a rather large church. But, as the title suggests, this gaping hole does not want just anything to eat; no, this flesh pile wants to feast on human brains. 

Fortunately, there is a demonic portal that appears from on high, spewing out brains for you to feed it. Feed as many brains to the blob as you can within the time limit, gradually adding things to help in this quest, like occultists to keep the portal open and bouncy flesh pads to automate the brain-feeding. It’s all very squelchy, but somehow I don’t mind when it comes to this gem of a game. 

Feed Me More Brains is being developed by Sheraf Games and is set to release on November 5, 2026. The demo is available to play now, and it takes around two hours to complete, so there’s plenty to keep you occupied. 

Trust the System

There’s something oddly appealing about a dystopian office-based game, and Trust the System by Tabouret is an excellent example of this strange little niche genre done perfectly right. You stamp papers, earn money, buy steps, and explore an apparently near-abandoned office building to figure out why you’re there and what the “system” actually is. 

You upgrade your stamp and paper to earn more money, your computer to automate at least some of the stamping, and your health to survive encounters with security when trying to ascend the floors using the elevators. There’s no shortage of weirdness in Trust the System, and your progress is entirely driven by your need to explore and unearth the truth. 

Trust the System doesn’t have a release day just yet, but the demo is well worth playing if you like having a mystery to ponder, and it’s available on Steam right now. 

Mr. Mageboy

Mr. Mageboy is a magical pixel incremental by Mrdboy (the same developed who previously made another of my favorite incrementals, Mr. Farmboy) that sends you into the forest with gradually improving magical skills. You go through a portal, collect resources using either harvesting or combat magic, and then head back through the portal to sell your haul and buy upgrades.

Things start out at a slow, even bordering on relaxing pace, with very few enemies to worry about and only a small number of resources to spend your mana on. However, after purchasing a few upgrades and moving on to higher difficulty locations, you quickly start to feel the pinch. Enemies suddenly start attacking with spikes, and you might even encounter a wandering warlock or two.

Mr. Mageboy is set to release on November 18, 2026, and the demo is available to try right now.

Cheese, Please!

The cats have taken control of the cheese in space, and now you need to infiltrate the empire to get it back; that’s the story of Cheese, Please!. You’re a tiny mouse in a little ship, shooting down cheese asteroids in the vacuum of space, fighting the cats when they try to stop you, and apparently enlisting the help of bats and chickens to get the job done. 

The cheese you gain each round can be used to unlock new abilities and upgrades that make your next run just a little bit easier or longer, helping you to get more cheese. Of course, as all incrementals do, this one starts out slow and steady, with multiple runs needed to unlock just one upgrade. But things pick up speed very quickly if you pick the right upgrades, allowing you to take home massive hauls of cheddar. 

Cheese, Please! is being developed by Diggy Ducks and Molter Games and doesn’t have a release date yet, although it’s due for release at some point in Q1 2027. The demo is available on Steam, and on top of being really fun and addictive, it’s also really cute. 

Pidgeon Pocket

In Pidgeon Pocket by Javier Lianes García, you’re a little bird with big aspirations, a penchant for thievery, and a roost overlooking a packed city park filled with unsuspecting tourists. The aim of the game is to fly out, grab as much money as you can from their pockets, and safely make it back to your tower before someone captures you and confiscates all your money. 

And yes, this is an incremental. You can use the money you half-inch from the poor, tortured park visitors to unlock faster flight, deeper pockets, more time to perform your crime spree, and a bunch of other upgrades. My favorite thing about Pidgeon Pocket, though, is the fact that the park changes every time you play. One run could be Halloween-themed, while the next is a glorious pixel snowscape. 

If you want to go on a winged crime spree, you can go and play the demo of Pidgeon Pocket now on Steam. The full game is coming on November 9, 2026, so we don’t have long to wait before this criminal bird can have full freedom over the park. 

LumberBoy

LumberBoy is an incremental game all about chopping down trees, turning the logs into usable lumber, and upgrading your chopping skills to get more wood. It's an incremental that forces you to slow down, because treating the wood and getting paid takes time, but on the plus side, it does give you an adorable little island to wander around while you wait.

Every run to the forest is different, though one thing remains consistent: you should always stay close to the truck, because if you don't make it back before the run ends, you lose any wood you may have collected but not stored in the designated box. With golden trees to unlock and powers that make you the king of deforestation, there's something really addictive about LumberBoy.

It's currently being developed by HiddenStageGames and is due to be released in January 2027. The demo is available right now as part of Next Fest, though, and if you enjoy incrementals I would highly recommend giving this one a try!

Grazed

Grazed is an incremental game that is far harder than it looks, or at least it is for me, because you can only hit targets with your little glowy wings, and if you hit them with your body, it’s game over. You automatically move up and down, bouncing off the top and bottom of the screen, so your only control is over the left and right movement of what I like to call the techno bat. 

I’ll admit there’s nothing more satisfying than getting an unexpectedly good run and racking up a ton of points, but that doesn’t happen often for me, although I suspect it would, given a few hours to practise and overcome the initial frustration. On the plus side, you do get some consolation points for simply bouncing from the top or bottom, so you could just play the pure avoidance game if you wanted to!

Grazed is being developed by Luciano Bercini and will be released on November 10, 2026. If you want to try to do better than me, and the bar is really low there, you can go and play the demo right now.