I ran 45 idle game demos from Steam Next Fest all at once for a desktop companion battle royale

Steam Next Fest is back and bigger than ever, but I'm not so sure that's a good thing as I struggle to sift through its thousands of demos in search of my next second-screen idler. If anything, I kind of hate the current structure: we've gone from browsing a bespoke, quality selection of gems to navigating the world's busiest Costco where every aisle has a dozen free samples to shove in your mouth.

The free food is nice, but sometimes I take a bite and instantly regret it. Sifting through today's Steam Next Fest feels a lot like that, and with nearly 500 idlers in the showcase, filters aren't that helpful either. I don't have time to even read that many store descriptions, let alone play them, so I did what any sane, totally normal person in this situation would do:

I downloaded 45 demos, launched them all at once, and started narrowing my selection down by closing the ones that didn't entertain me for more than a few seconds.

Well, I say all at once, but what I really did was flood my second screen with as many idlers as I could fit before culling them to just my favorites. The results were a hellish mixture of lo-fi beats to get overstimulated to, cats meowing, and every farm noise imaginable. It took about two or three rounds to go through them all, but the strategy worked, and I have a nice little list of desktop idle games to wishlist.

Coincidentally, I also have the worst video I've ever recorded.

As you can imagine, my PC wasn't particularly thrilled to have a billion chirping idle games all sounding off at the same time, but ol' faithful handled it like a champ. And out of the 45 idlers I downloaded, I only have 11 desktop distractions to recommend.

The surviving Steam Next Fest idler demos

• Black Cat Book Club - Improve feline literacy, decorate a magical tower
• Cozy Mining - Dig a hole, find treasures in the hole, then keep digging
• DeskFarm - Manage a teensy tiny farm grid
• Duelist: Idle Expedition - A surprisingly robust auto battler
• Grandpa's Bee Haven - Bee-keeping sim, kind of like Rusty's Retirement
• Idle Bookstore - Decorate and manage a little bookstore
• Idyll Isle - Adorable, pastel farming sim
• LootBorne - Simple auto-battler with PvP
• PawMart Tiny Market - Manage and restock an animal-run grocery store
• Succulent Break - Make cute and simple succulent arrangements
• Tiny Farmie - Another farm sim with a cute art style

I've got the attention span of an overcaffeinated toddler, so I love the brief yet satisfying distraction found in a good idler. I don't need something that takes me away for long, so I go for the desktop companion-style games that fit nicely in the corner of my screen. They give me something to do for a minute or two before it's back to work, and I like seeing my finished collections or completely decorated spaces when I'm done with them.

My Steam Next Fest list is a mixed bundle of idle farm sims and passive shop management, but I tossed a couple of auto-battlers in there for fun. I'm not interested in AI slop or idlers filled with microtransactions either, so you (hopefully) won't find any of that included. It's all just games made by people. People who understand that some of us just need to pause for a little brain treat sometimes, and that we're only going to finish a big task if we have several smaller tasks to serve a bit of serotonin on the side. Just don't open them all at once—it has the opposite effect.

If you want to see the full list of idlers featured in Steam Next Fest, you can check out the filtered results from now until Monday, June 22. And if you find any idler gems I missed, let me know.