Tag: LudoNarraCon2026

Indie Showcase – LudoNarraCon 2026

Here you can find all of my coverage of the LudoNarraCon 2026 Official Selection games.

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I played the demo of Cairn!

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There Are No Ghosts at the Grand – Demo Impressions

An absolute fever dream.

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand

Developer: Friday Sundae

Release Date: Q4 2026

Inherit a crumbling English hotel and restore it by day—while battling ghosts by night. With a sardonic cat, a talking power tool, and a twisting supernatural plot, this is a musical mystery unlike any other. Will you be able to hold it together while everything around you falls apart?

I often like to start these posts by explaining a little bit about what the game is that I am writing about. What actually is There Are No Ghosts at the Grand…? It is a British renovation, mystery, drama, comedy, light acid trip of a musical, where you have inherited a hotel in a dying town where there are definitely no ghosts. I don’t know how else to describe it really…

During my time with the demo, it didn’t take long for the dialogue to endear me as our trusty tool gun won me over, guiding us through the quick tutorial of renovating one of the rooms of The Grand. As you are getting close being done, you are whisked away into other segments of gameplay, meeting characters, driving around a strikingly British town, a musical number and an amusing situation, all the while getting to use your renovation tools in so many pleasing and unexpected ways. Some segments gave the cadence of a puzzle game but every solution was very clearly signposted, making the experience feel more akin to a walking sim to me than anything else.

The demo is very on the rails and while there is a whirlwind of mechanics during the short runtime, and I am unsure whether the game will ever open up to give the players more freedom, or whether it is a strictly linear experience. Either way, there are ways to make your own mark on the game, decisions to make and I feel like there is no way you won’t have some amount of fun with it. My PC did struggle a little with running the game smoothly but I am reluctant to talk too much about performance as my set up is ageing and due for some upgrades.

Ultimately, the whole package made me smile throughout, sometimes through the humour and sometimes through the potential of the rest of the game to come. I have no idea whether we will be renovating the whole hotel, the whole town, the proportion of mystery solving to other tasks, the freedom we may or may not be awarded or the impact of our decisions, but I am keen enough to find out. I can’t say I have played another demo like it, fearless in its design and unapologetic about what it is.

Demo Length – <60 mins
At a glance
+ A unique experience
+ The humour hit for me
+ Creative use of tools
+ The town was so distinctly British just from a quick drive through
+ Quirky characters
+/- On the rails
+/- It remains to be seen whether the variety adds or detracts from the experience
– Puzzle solutions were quest markers with objective telling you exactly what to do

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Am I Nima – Demo Impressions

A unique form of narrative puzzle in an uneasy package.

Am I Nima

Developer: HO! Games

Release Date: 8 October 2026

Am I Nima is a psychological-horror game where you must convince your mom that you really are her daughter. Combine words together in your brain and use them to talk. Get her to trust you.

In the Am I Nima demo, you wake up tied to a chair with a stranger looming over you and no idea what is going on. The lingering discomfort of the unknown and well executed creepiness of the environment and interactions keep you consistantly uneasy through the entire duration, with the mystery unravelling – or deepening? – as you discover new thoughts.

This game feels like a fantastic innovation of Doodle God/Alchemy style games, where you combine elements to create new elements, and combine those with the new and old elements to create more. While those games are all about finding the next thing for discoveries sake, Am I Nima has a narrative reason for doing so. The screen is split and the top right corner is dedicated to Nimas brain. In there, you will receive words. These are thoughts based on the conversation taking place, or findings as you explore the room. Within the brain, you can combine words to create different words. This, in my opinion, is such cool way of delivering a story.

The words that you combine are telling, when you take the time remember that they are thoughts. Combining Nima and Dad results in grief, which must be the feeling that Nima gets when she thinks about her dad. Due to this, I know something happened. I have contextless pieces of information that allow my imagination to fill in the gaps, and the curiosity to fuel my incessant pairing of words. I can continue combining to find more contextless clues, knowing that at least some of the context will be revealed by the rest of the game as we go. It feels like the equivalent of environmental storytelling but baked directly into the gameplay and mechanics. I feel rewarded for being observant, even though it hasn’t really got me anywhere yet.

Then there is the other half of the game. You are conversing with a woman who appears to be your Mom. As she talks, asks you questions and allows you to ask questions, you can reply using the words that you have stored in your brain by dragging them down to the active conversation. I am unsure how far you can go with using any word at any time (I did unlock a lot of words but I only played the demo once so I only got to see what I chose in the first instance), but it certainly feels like you need to be careful with your choices, to get the information that you need without putting yourself in danger.

The demo allowed for a lot of word gathering but I don’t feel like I have a good grasp on how the rest of the game will go/present itself, and how I will get to use the words that I have conjured. But it did feel like a promise of an interesting experience that I would be keen to continue, especially given the intrigue of story hook we are left on.

Demo Length – 40 mins
At a glance
+ Uneasy vibes are on point
+ Freedom to experiment
+ Intriguing mystery off the bat
+ I feel rewarded for finding new words because not only do they present the opportunity to find more words, but they have narrative relevance.
+/- I have no idea how linear the game actually is or really the gameplay loop beyond the conversations in the demo.

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Desktop Explorer – Demo Impressions

Step aside logic puzzles, there is a new contender in town.

Desktop Explorer

Developer: Recurring Dream

Release Date: 17 Jul 2026

Rummage through the abandoned profiles of an old PC to unravel an inherited mystery. What secrets hide in this eerie adventure of cryptic games and outdated software? Who was using this computer? And what happened to them?

Desktop Explorer is what I want to call an OS exploration game, but not like any other I have played. The entire premise of the demo revolves around solving the puzzles on the system, incrementally unlocking new folders and using the files within to solve the next puzzle. They are presented to you through a light horror adventure, laterally unravelling the presumably real life mystery of your uncles amnesia/history/life.

The immersive nature of the OS threw me at first, as puzzle solutions can and will be found throughout the functions of the programmes themselves. Every solution had me feeling like a tech genius, despite – or should I say, especially because of – the brain scratching moments that had me starting at the screen, browsing back and forth wondering what on earth I was supposed to do. The information is there for those lightbulb moments and I feel that is all that you should know going into this game.

After seeking out logic puzzles for the last while, Desktop Explorer is an absolute breath of fresh air and I can’t say I have played anything else like it. I was thoroughly invested in this demo both mechanically and narratively and I highly recommend checking it out for yourself.

Demo Length – ~1 hour
At a glance
+ Excellent puzzles
+ Diagetic puzzles
+ Diagetic hints
+ Immersive
+ Engaging story
+/- Doesn’t feel hand holdy
+/- Disturbing enough. Not too scary (yet)

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