What's the best way to deal with an army of the dead? Send some Cajun toads after them, of course

Steam Next Fest is over, but a bunch of demos are still hanging around for one last round in the spotlight. If deckbuilding, tactical close combat and whimsical Cajun toads fighting an army of the dead are your thing, then you should probably carve out some time for Toads of the Bayou.

Leaning into an increasingly popular format, this one's a turn-based squad tactics game with a growing deck of cards determining your options each turn. Do missions battling Baron Samedi's creepy-crawlies, spend your earnings on consumable items, cards and squad members, then try to hang on as long as you can, roguelike style. It's all a bit Into The Breach, mashed up with a dash of Fights In Tight Spaces.

Most missions have you defending one or more points as waves of enemies stream in. They're not particularly aggressive, and they're largely predictable, but unless you make use of wall-bouncing attacks for extra damage and call in a replenishing stock of barricades to block off enemy movement, it's very easy to get overwhelmed. The demo ends just as it feels like your squad is starting to find its webbed feet, and develop a build and a strategy, but it feels like there's potential here for some nicely varied playstyles.

One area of the game that's just hitting all the high notes already is the aesthetics. Most games struggle to nail one good art style; this one has three. Bouncy, characterful pixel art on the overgrown and swampy battle maps, clean-lined cartoon character portraits in the shop hub between missions, and some absolutely gorgeous semi-realistic art for the cards themselves. Each one depicts an assortment of charmingly sassy looking cartoon toad-folk engaging in all manner of violent shenanigans, and it's all parallaxed too, with background layers shifting subtly as you tilt the virtual card.

The music is every bit as lovely. Lots of whimsical Louisiana vibes in the string-heavy arrangements, but with the occasional bit of more gamey synths in there, making for an interestingly distinct sound. A fresh look and sound can carry a perhaps overly-familiar framework, given the chance.

My time with the Toads wasn't free of warts, sadly. While snappy and responsive, the UI feels like it's lacking some basic guard-rails, with nothing stopping you from accidentally clicking your precious barricades into the discard pile, or even removing a freshly recruited toad from your posse without so much as a 'Are you sure you want to do this?' pop-up. Plus, the gorgeously chunky card art can easily overlap with the play-field unless you manually zoom out and pan the camera around a little, sometimes making it tricky to target abilities. Neither are gamebreakers, but things I'd hope to see smoothed over by launch.

There's not long until we all croak, either. If you hop to it, you can try the Toads of the Bayou demo on Steam, ahead of its release on November 19th.