What if you could stab your allies in the back while pretending to save them? Friend and Foe, a sci-fi hex-based deckbuilder, now has a playable demo available during Steam Next Fest, and it’s built around the premise that cooperation and sabotage can coexist in the same run.
The game positions itself as a Slay the Spire variant played across a 9×5 hex grid, where up to eight players fight shared enemies while maintaining individual score tallies. Alongside traditional team cards that shield allies, every deck can carry sabotage cards that drain teammates’ action points, steal their stats, and crater their turns. Certain events skip subtlety entirely. Standoffs, bounty hunts, and mutinies force the group into live PvP duels mid-run, fragmenting cooperation into direct conflict the moment someone gets ahead.
Mechanically, the game unifies action points for drawing and playing cards, eliminating dead hand management. Combat becomes a positioning puzzle with tactical card play. Distance requirements vary by card, forcing you to position strategically on the grid while managing shared fuel that depletes with every step. The game includes 300 collectible cards across class pools, 60+ enemy types, 10 bosses, and 10 ascension difficulty levels. Solo players can fill lobbies with bots, and an auto-play mode handles combat for those focused on deck building and exploration.
The demo runs through Steam Next Fest, giving players a chance to test whether friendship survives a shared run for the high score.