Demo Perfection

Content Warning: This article contains screenshots depicting gore and extreme violence.

We’ve all been there. After excitedly downloading a new demo for an upcoming game, you boot it up and prepare to enjoy a taste of what is to come. You enter the experience with a positive outlook, hoping to be sold on committing to the final product. But then the tragic happens, and the demo then proceeds to be… a whole lot of nothing.

Maybe it it 90% cutscene with only a smattering of gameplay, or perhaps it is so short as to be an interactive teaser as opposed to a demo. It can be a huge letdown, perhaps enough to dissuade you from wish-listing the game!

I can’t count the number of times I have finished a demo during Steam Next Fest, only to stare at my screen and think… “I still have no idea what this game is supposed to be like.” I’m not sure if this stems from developers (particularly on the indie side) not understanding how to present a proper vertical slice, or hesitancy to give too much away ahead of time. Either way, it is poor optics.

It often leaves me feeling like I would have preferred a more comprehensive trailer, and no demo at all!

Half Sword, developed by the aptly named Half Sword Games and published by Game Seer Publishing, does not have this problem. It is the standard to which other demos, particularly in the indie realm, should strive towards. The platonic ideal of what a demo should be.

Half Sword is a physics-based medieval combat game. Based on 15th-century arms and armour, the player can slaughter their way through a tournament using HEMA-based, mouse-controlled melee combat. A broad move of the mouse will swing your weapon, and the angle of your mouse determines the angle of your swing. Keyboard controls allow for individual limb control, and the ability to toggle between swings and thrusts.

It is hard to learn and even harder to master, but as with any physics-based game, the learning IS the fun. Accentuating the experience is the viscerality of the violence, which can be extreme to the point of comedy. I won’t soon forget lopping off a foe’s leg only for them to hobble after me on one leg. It is a bloody good time.

Half Sword currently only exists as a demo with the full game due to arrive some time in 2025, but the demo is so perfect and comprehensive that I have been neglecting playthroughs of other fully released titles in dedication to Half Sword.

The demo is open-ended and gameplay focused with no story, but it does have a progression mode, the Gauntlet. It is a series of battles against opponents that increase in social ranking, and have comparably improved weapons. The lowly peasants will fight with fists, while farmers wield scythes and pitchforks, commoners have basic swords, and knights have plated armour. It is a satisfying upward technological progression from fists to longswords.

There are nine social classes that make up the corresponding nine tiers of the gauntlet. Winning a handful of matches allows you to challenge that tier’s champion, and winning ascends you to the next tier, complete with access to better equipment. The flipside is that if you die, you lose your rank entirely, and become a commoner once again…

…That is, unless you can survive the Abyss, an afterlife where you face a relentless onslaught of enemies, with no break between opponents. Succeed, and you will emerge from the Abyss at the exact same rank you left off. It is an addictive cycle, the perfect “just one more run” type of game.

It is also a perfect demo. There is no doubt what Half Sword is about. The demo gives you a narrow slice to play in, the Gauntlet, but it is such a comprehensive and well-structured slice that it feels like a game unto itself. When your time with Half Sword’s demo is up, you know exactly how the game plays, and what the core experience feels like. You will have strong opinions about weapons you like and dislike, and have some idea of tactics and strategy. These will all carry into the full release, and instead of leaving Half Sword’s demo pondering what the game may actually be like, you are instead left simply wanting more, and anxious for the full release.

I understand the push that many demos have to focus on a narrative hook over a satisfying representation of gameplay, but Half Sword proves that a hearty look at the core experience is the best way to get players excited. Half Sword is far from the first game to understand that a comprehensive demo can be an asset, I often think of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and the chunky multi-hour Tanker demo for example.

However Half Sword does prove that, especially in the modern day when discoverability is so difficult for newly released games, a thorough and well-thought-out demo can be the difference between your game becoming a viral sensation, or getting lost in page 50 of Steam’s daily releases. 

Featured Image Credit: Half Sword Games

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